Members of the species Hrarf-Hrarf would of course take it in their stride because they live backwards in time anyway, and find that getting the business of sagging bottoms and death out of the way at an early stage prepares the way for an increasingly wonderful time after your mid-life crisis celebrations, finishing in a really quite extraordinarily pleasant birth.
FX: Effects actually recorded in Hrarf-Hrarf birth canal. We leave no effect unauthenticated.
THE VOICE: They are also the only race known actually to enjoy hangovers, because they know it guarantees that a tremendously good evening will ensue. Arthur Dent is not, however, one of their number, and takes it hard. He is also cold and damp and extremely lonely.
FX: Arthur emerges from cave, business, under:
ARTHUR: Looks like it’s you and me again today, Horse Chestnut.
THE VOICE: He hasn’t seen Ford Prefect for four years and life has, as a result, been quieter than an uneventful Tuesday in the petrified dustbowls on the abandoned fourth moon of Narp. In fact, so astoundingly quiet that he hasn’t been blown up, thrown out of spaceships, sucked through space or even just insulted.
Except for once; one evening, just two years earlier.
FX: Arthur plodding about listlessly, under:
ARTHUR: Evening, Sycamore One. Evening, Sycamore Two. Evening, Ash. Evening, Elm. (Pause) Oh, be like that. Bloody elms. You try to be polite and where does it get you? (Thunderous rumble) I don’t know why I . . . What’s that?!
FX: Distant ethereal hum . . . (under following:) Wowbagger ship descends/legs unfold/touchdown. Airlock door opens and a metal ramp extends. A pair of boots descends the ramp, rather pompously . . .
ARTHUR: (cont’d) Good heavens . . . Look! Can you see what I see? All right! I know you’re only a sycamore, you could at least pretend! It’s a spaceship! A beautiful, gleaming, silver spaceship! No, Sycamore One, I’m not imagining it! We can escape!! At least . . . I can escape! I know how that must sound, Sycamore One, but your roots are here! It’s landing right in front of us! I’m saved!
FX: The boots stop a few yards from the foot of the ramp.
WOWBAGGER: . . . Dent?
ARTHUR: (Expectant, desperate) That’s right. I’ll just get my pouch!
WOWBAGGER: (Simply) You’re a jerk.
ARTHUR: What?
WOWBAGGER: Arthur Dent? Arthur Philip Dent?
ARTHUR: What is it?
WOWBAGGER: You’re a jerk. A complete arsehole.
ARTHUR: Er . . . er . . .
WOWBAGGER: (To himself) Hey ho.
ARTHUR: But . . . ! But . . . ! Bu . . .
WOWBAGGER: And stop whining, you snivelling little drip!
FX: He turns and walks away. Smooth, precise sounds of spaceship closing itself up.
ARTHUR: Hey! What is this?
FX: Spaceship starts to rise up into the air.
ARTHUR: (cont’d) Wait a minute! (Screams in frustrated rage) Come back here and say that! Who the hell do you think you are?
FX: Spaceship swooshes away uncaringly.
INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE
THE VOICE: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged thinks he is a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would be the first to admit, but at least it keeps him busy; keeps him on the move. For Wowbagger is one of the universe’s very small number of immortal beings. Those born to immortality instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger’s not one of them. Indeed, he’s come to hate them, and he refers to them succinctly, and often, as ‘the load of serene bastards’.
WOWBAGGER: The load of serene bastards!
THE VOICE: (cont’d) He had his immortality inadvertently thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator –
FX: Particle accelerator short-circuit.
WOWBAGGER: Oh dear.
THE VOICE: (cont’d) – a liquid lunch –
FX: Small glass of cava upset onto a negative-coupling mat.
WOWBAGGER: Whoops . . .
THE VOICE: (cont’d) – and a couple of rubber bands.
FX: Two India-rubber bands accidentally flicked into a neutron oscilloscopy reticule.
WOWBAGGER: (Winces) Oooh.
THE VOICE: (cont’d) The precise details of the accident are unimportant as no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened – though many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead or more usually both, in the attempt. (No Radio 2 sound effects here!) To begin with, it was fun. He had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody.
But even the joys of immortality can’t last forever.
INT. – WOWBAGGER’S SHIP
WOWBAGGER: Computer?
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: (With bleepety accompaniment) Yes?
WOWBAGGER: I’m incredibly fed up.
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: Oh dear.
WOWBAGGER: It’s the eternity of these Sunday afternoons I can’t cope with; that and the terrible listlessness that starts to set in at about 2.55. (Beat) What is the time, by the way?
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: It’s nine thirty. A.m. In the morning.
WOWBAGGER: (Glum) Oh. Well. (Beat) I mean, I’ve had all the baths I can usefully have, haven’t I?
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: You have indeed.
INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE
THE VOICE: . . . and as the afternoon moved relentlessly on to four o’clock, he would enter the long dark tea-time of the soul. And so things began to pall for him. The smug smiles he used to wear at other people’s funerals started to fade. He began to despise the universe in general and everybody in it in particular, and thus he conceived his purpose.
FX: A rather sedate cocktail party at Wowbagger’s condominium. He is rather mean with drinks. Consequently no one is having much fun.
WOWBAGGER: I will insult the universe! I will insult everybody in it!
PERSON 1: Ridiculous!
PERSON 2: Is he all right?!
PERSON 3: Look, it’s utterly impossible! Think of all the beings being born and dying all the time!
WOWBAGGER: I don’t care! I will insult them all. Individually. Personally. One by one. And . . . (A beat)
FX: They’re shocked.
WOWBAGGER: (Triumphant) . . . in alphabetical order!
FX: They’re stunned.
WOWBAGGER: There are cakes over there, if you want them . . . (Fades)
THE VOICE: He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with a computer capable of keeping track of the entire population of the known Universe, plotting the horrifically complicated itineraries involved and joining up the resultant dots in the hope of randomly drawing a rude word.
When people protested further, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say –
INT. – WOWBAGGER’S SHIP
WOWBAGGER: (Thoughtfully) It passes the time. (He sighs) Computer.
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: Still here.
WOWBAGGER: Where next?
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: Computing . . . Folfanga. Fourth world of the Folfanga system. Estimated journey time, three weeks.
WOWBAGGER: Yes, yes . . .
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: There to meet with a small slug of the genus A-Rth-Urp-Hil-Ipdenu . . . I believe that you had decided to call it a brainless prat.
WOWBAGGER: Hmm. What network areas are we going to be passing through in the next few hours?
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box.
WOWBAGGER: Any movies I haven’t seen thirty thousand times already?
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: No.
WOWBAGGER: (Yawns)
FX: Beeps.
COMPUTER: There’s Angst in Space.
WOWBAGGER: I get enough of that at home.
COMPUTER: But you’ve only seen th
at thirty-three thousand five hundred and seventeen times.
WOWBAGGER: Wake me for the second reel.
INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE
THE VOICE: All Arthur Dent found to do to pass the time was to make himself a pouch of rabbit skin, which would be useful to keep things in.
ARTHUR: (Stretches, waking) Flurrbllrrrl . . .
THE VOICE: Then, one day, he woke up in his cave as usual . . .
ARTHUR: (Same blood-curdling scream as before. Echoey, in a cave) Aaaaaargh!!!!!! (Embarrassed as he remembers, yet again) I know . . . (Rising excitement and resolve) I know! I know what I’m going to do!
FX: We hear him scrambling out of the cave. Acoustic crossfades to exterior.
ARTHUR: (cont’d) Listen! Sycamore One? Sycamore Two? Horse Chestnut? Willow One? Willow Two? Oh, don’t stop what you’re doing, it’s just . . . You listening, Elm? Oh, please yourself. It’s just I have an important announcement to make! I have decided . . . I have made a decision. I’ve thought about it seriously and responsibly, and – all things considered – it’s the right thing for me. I feel good about it. And here it is. I will go mad.
FORD PREFECT: (Behind him, calmly sitting on a rock) Good idea.
ARTHUR: (Astounded and terribly embarrassed) What?!
FORD PREFECT: I went mad for a while. Did me no end of good.
ARTHUR: Where did you just come from?
FORD PREFECT: Oh, just sitting on that rock, watching the sun rise. Least, I think it was a sun. Yellow thing. About this big. There it is! Look!
ARTHUR: (Incensed) Where the hell have you been?
FORD PREFECT: Oh, round and about. I just took my mind off the hook for a bit. I reckoned that if the world wanted me it would call back. It did. See? The Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic’s flashing.
FX: Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic wibbling; a bit tentatively.
FORD PREFECT: Oh. At least it was. Probably needs a bit of a shake.
FX: He shakes the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic.
FORD PREFECT: (cont’d) Hmm. If it’s a false alarm I shall go mad. Again.
ARTHUR: Ford, I thought you must be dead.
FORD PREFECT: So did I – which at least proved I wasn’t. Then I decided I was a lemon for a while. I kept myself amused jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.
ARTHUR: Where did you find a gin—
FORD PREFECT: I didn’t. I found a small lake that thought it was a gin and tonic and jumped in and out of that. At least, I think it thought it was a gin and tonic. I could, of course, have been imagining it.
ARTHUR: (Refusing to be drawn) I hope I am.
FORD PREFECT: The point is that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity.
ARTHUR: And this is you sane again, is it? I ask merely for information.
FORD PREFECT: Oh, and I tried to learn to fly. Do you believe me?
ARTHUR: Look, Ford—
FORD PREFECT: Interestingly enough, on the subject of flying, the Guide now says—
ARTHUR: Who?
FORD PREFECT: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Remember? ‘Don’t Panic’ . . . ?
ARTHUR: I remember finding that easier to obey after I’d thrown it in the river.
FORD PREFECT: Ah, but I fished it out. Here.
FX: Ford pulls the Guide out of his satchel.
ARTHUR: You never told me.
FORD PREFECT: I didn’t want you to throw it in again.
FX: Ford shakes the Guide. It sounds like bits are very likely to fall out. This gadget has seen some action.
FORD PREFECT: It’s playing up as it is. I think something’s got into it.
ARTHUR: What, like gin?
FORD PREFECT: No. Like it’s being updated.
FX: Ford switches on the Guide. BZT – then:
THE VOICE: (Distort) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the – BZT! – subject of flying.
There is an art – BZT! – or rather a kn-kn-knack to flying – BZT!
FX: The Guide fizzles out. Ford thumps it a bit.
FORD PREFECT: (Quietly muttering) Oh, Belgium.
FX: He puts the Guide back in his satchel, under:
FORD PREFECT: Hey. Good to see you again, Arthur.
ARTHUR: (Suddenly in a rush) I . . . I . . . I haven’t seen anyone for years! I can hardly even remember how to speak! I keep forgetting . . . erm . . .
FORD PREFECT: Birthdays?
ARTHUR: Words! I practise by talking to . . . What are those things people think you’re mad if you talk to, like George III?
FORD PREFECT: Kings?
ARTHUR: No! No! The things he used to talk to. We’re surrounded by them, for Heaven’s sake. Trees! Trees! I practise by talking to trees! I’ve got names for them! I call them Sycamore One, and Sycamore Two and . . .
FORD PREFECT: Arthur . . .
ARTHUR: What?
FORD PREFECT: Insanity is a gradual process – don’t rush it.
ARTHUR: I’m just telling you their names.
FORD PREFECT: We have something else to do.
ARTHUR: I’m not going to ask, but imagine I have.
FORD PREFECT: (Urgently) I don’t know. But things are going to happen. I have detected disturbances in the wash!
ARTHUR: (Stupidly) Is that why the dye ran in my dressing gown?
FORD PREFECT: The space-time wash!
ARTHUR: Of course, the new Vogon laundromat on the Balls Pond Hyperlink.
FORD PREFECT: Eddies in the space-time continuum!
ARTHUR: Is he, indeed . . .
FORD PREFECT: (Angrily) Listen! (Then very very patiently) There seem to be . . . some pools of instability . . . in the fabric . . . of space-time!
ARTHUR: Not to mention the fabric of my dressing gown.
FORD PREFECT: Arthur!
ARTHUR: The difficulty with this conversation is that it’s very different from the ones I’ve mostly had recently, which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees. They weren’t like this. Except the ones with elms used to get a bit bogged down.
FORD PREFECT: Will you listen!
ARTHUR: I have been, but I don’t think it’s helping.
FORD PREFECT: Oh, dear suffering Zarquon.
ARTHUR: I . . . I—
FX: The Sens-O-Matic pulled suddenly from Ford’s satchel, where it has started wibbling in an altogether more confident manner.
FORD PREFECT: (Sudden urgency) Look! Look! The Sens-O-Matic! It’s flashing! Either it’s a moving disturbance in the fabric of space-time, an eddy, a pool of instability, somewhere in our vicinity—
ARTHUR: Or a flat battery?
FX: Wibbling stronger than ever. This is a big one.
FORD PREFECT: The flashes are getting stronger . . . There!! There!!! – Behind that sofa!
ARTHUR: (Almost frightened by the absurdity of it) Why . . . is there a sofa, in that field?
FORD PREFECT: I told you! Eddies in the space-time continuum!
ARTHUR: Then tell him to come and collect his sofa.
FORD PREFECT: (Bored with this now) Arthur! That sofa is there because of the space-time instability I’ve been trying to get your terminally softened brain to come to grips with. It’s been washed up out of the continuum. It’s cosmic jetsam! It’s our only way out of here! (Runs off) Come on! It’s flying away from us!
ARTHUR: (Suddenly starting to run) Yeeeehaaaaaa!
FORD PREFECT: Towards you! Head it off!
ARTHUR: It’s turning towards the trees!
FORD PREFECT: After it! Watch out for the ditch!
ARTHUR: (Panting as he runs) Ford! This is almost fun – whatever that was.
FORD PREFECT: (Off) What?
ARTHUR: I mean, it’s not often a day goes so perfectly to plan, is it?
FORD PREFECT: (Off) Come on!
ARTHUR: Damn! Missed it! Only a few minutes ago, I decided . . . I . . . would . . . go mad . . . and here I am already . . . chasing a chesterfield sofa across t
he fields of prehistoric Earth – watching out for a non-existent ditch – ahhh—
FX: Splosh, drippy footsteps.
ARTHUR: (cont’d) Ugh . . .
FORD PREFECT: Get round the other side, that’s it. Jump into it! Come on, Arthur!
Juuuuummmmp!!!!!
FORD/ARTHUR: (Disappearing into time) Whooooooaaaaaaaaaaa . . .
FX: The sofa they jump upon is caught in an eddy of the space-time continuum. It is sucked into the future like a soap bubble spinning down a plughole. Twigs, leaves and loose forest debris are dragged with it into the vortex. Then, suddenly, it is gone. Peace returns to prehistoric Islington. A bird twitters uncertainly.
INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE
THE VOICE: Many speak of the legendary and gigantic Starship Titanic, a majestic and luxurious cruise-liner launched from the great shipbuilding asteroids of Artifactovol some hundreds of years ago now, and with good reason.
It was sensationally beautiful, staggeringly huge and more pleasantly equipped than any ship in what now remains of history.
The Starship Titanic’s prototype Improbability Field was meant, supposedly, to ensure that it was Infinitely Improbable that anything would ever go wrong with any part of the ship.
FX: Breathless crowd at starship launch, burst into applause, under:
THE VOICE: Its designers didn’t realize that because of the quasi-reciprocal and circular nature of all Improbability calculations, anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately.
POSH WOMAN: (PA slap) I name this vessel Starship Titanic.
THE VOICE: Thus, when Starship Titanic was launched –
POSH WOMAN: May Providence be with her and all who voyage in her . . .
FX: Sounds of cheering and of bottle smashing.
THE VOICE: – it did not even manage to complete its very first radio message – an SOS –
FX: Furious Morse code tapping, totally useless in a future where Morse code has been long abandoned, but suitably improbable under the circumstances.
THE VOICE: – before undergoing a sudden and gratuitous total existence failure.
FX: The Starship Titanic simply fails to continue to exist on this level of probability. With nothing to support, a few supporting struts crash down. The Improbability converters grind to a halt, under:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Further Radio Scripts Page 3