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Famous Like Me > Writer > A > Douglas Adams

Profile of Douglas Adams on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Douglas Adams  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 11th March 1952
   
Place of Birth: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Douglas Noël Adams in an undated publicity photograph by Jill Furmanovsky

Douglas Noël Adams (March 11, 1952 – May 11, 2001), also known (to fans) as Bop Ad or Bob (after his illegible signature), or by his initials "DNA", was a British comic radio dramatist and author, most notably of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG or H2G2). At the time of his death, this book series had sold more than fifteen million copies.

Douglas Adams was born to Janet (Donovan) Adams (now Janet Thrift) and Christopher Douglas Adams. His parents had one other child together: Adams's sister Susan, born in March 1955. His parents separated and divorced in 1957, and Douglas, Susan and Janet moved in with Janet's parents, the Donovans, in Brentwood, Essex. Douglas's grandmother kept her house as an official RSPCA refuge for hurt animals, which "exacerbated young Douglas's hayfever and asthma."

Christopher Adams remarried in July 1960, to Mary Judith Stewart (born Judith Robertson). From this marriage, Douglas Adams has a half-sister, Heather. Janet remarried in 1964, to a veterinarian called Ron Thrift, providing two more half-siblings to Douglas: Jane and James Thrift.

Education & early works

Adams was educated at Brentwood School, Essex from 1959 to 1970, where he became friends with Griff Rhys Jones. He was six-feet-tall by the time he was 12, and he stopped growing only at 6'5". On the strength of a bravura essay on religious poetry that mixed the Beatles with William Blake, he was awarded a place at St John's College, Cambridge to read English, entering in 1971. Adams attempted early on to get into the Footlights Dramatic Club, with which several other names in British Comedy had been affiliated. He was, however, turned down, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith, forming a group called "Adams-Smith-Adams." Later, on another attempt to join Footlights, Douglas Adams was encouraged by Simon Jones and Adams found himself working with Rhys Jones, among others. In 1974, Adams received a B.A. (and later, an M.A.) in English literature.

Some of his early work appeared on BBC2 (TV) in 1974, in an edited version of the Footlights Revue from Cambridge, that year. A version of the same revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being "discovered" by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. The two formed a brief writing partnership, and Adams earned a writing credit in one episode (episode 45: "Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party") of Monty Python's Flying Circus. In the sketch, a man who had been stabbed by a nurse arrives at his doctor's office bleeding profusely from the stomach, when the doctor makes him fill out numerous senseless forms before he can administer treatment (a joke he later incorporated into the Vogons' obsession with paperwork). Adams also contributed to a sketch on the Album for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Douglas also has two "blink and you miss them" appearances in the fourth series of Monty Python's Flying Circus. At the beginning of Episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War," Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to the on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another, and never actually gets started. At the beginning of Episode 44, "Mr Neutron," Adams is dressed in a "pepperpot" outfit and loads a missile onto a cart, driven by Terry Jones, who is calling out for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were first broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman also attempted a few non-Python projects, including Out of the Trees.

Some of Adams's early radio work includes sketches for The Burkiss Way in 1977 and the News Huddlines. He also co-wrote, again with Graham Chapman, the 20th February 1977 episode of Doctor on the Go, a sequel to the Doctor in the House television comedy series.

An autobiography from an early edition of one of the HHGG novels provides the following description of his early career:

After graduation he spent several years contributing material to radio and television shows as well as writing, performing, and sometimes directing stage revues in London, Cambridge and at the Edinburgh Fringe. He has also worked at various times as a hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, bodyguard, radio producer and script editor of Doctor Who.

In 1979, Adams and John Lloyd wrote the script for two half-hour episodes of Doctor Snuggles: "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes seven and twelve). John Lloyd was also co-author of two episodes from the original "Hitchhiker" radio series (Fit the Fifth and Fit the Sixth (a.k.a. Episodes Five and Six, see explanation below)), as well as The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff. Lloyd and Adams also collaborated on an SF movie comedy project based on The Guinness Book of World Records which would have starred John Cleese as the UN Secretary General, and had a race of aliens beating humans in athletic competitions, but the humans winning in all of the "absurd" record categories. This latter project never proceeded past a treatment.

After the first radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on Week Ending and a pantomime called Black Cinderella Two Goes East. He left the position after a mere six months to become the script editor for Doctor Who.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

According to Adams, the idea for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria (though he joked that the BBC would instead claim it was Spain because "It was easier to spell"), gazing at the stars. He had been wandering the countryside while carrying a book called the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe when he ran into a town where, as he humorously describes, everyone was either "deaf" and "dumb" or only spoke languages he couldn't. After wandering around and drinking for a while, he went to sleep in the middle of a field and was inspired by his inability to communicate with the townspeople. He later said that due to his constantly retelling this story of inspiration, he no longer had any memory of the moment of inspiration itself, and only remembered his retellings of that moment. A postscript to M. J. Simpson's biography of Adams, Hitchhiker, provides evidence that the story was in fact a fabrication and that Adams had conceived the idea some time after his trip around Europe.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was originally a six-part (each part titled a "Fit" after Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark) radio series broadcast weekly in the UK by BBC Radio 4 in March and April 1978. Following the success of the show, another episode was recorded and broadcast, which was commonly known as the Christmas Episode. This had nothing to do with Christmas except in an early draft (which would have had Marvin the Paranoid Android revealed as the "star" followed by the Three Wise Men); it was called the Christmas Episode because it was first broadcast on December 24, 1978 (Christmas Eve). A second series of five fits was broadcast one per night, during the week of the 21 January 1980. The radio programme served as the basis for the first two novels of what eventually became a "trilogy in five parts". The six episodes comprising the first series were also the basis for a six-part BBC television series in 1981.

Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish was completed. He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

The books formed the basis for other adaptations, such as three-part comic book adaptations for each of the first three books, an interactive text-adventure computer game, and a photo illustrated edition, published in 1994. This latter edition featured a 42 puzzle designed by Adams, which was later incorporated into paperback covers of all five "Hitchhiker's" novels.

Plans to make HHGG into a major motion picture were in the works for more than twenty years, and were finally freed from development hell in late September 2003. Although Austin Powers director Jay Roach was at one time signed on to the project, the Hammer & Tongs duo, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, received the responsibility. Key to the go-ahead was a rewrite of the screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick, who had earlier worked on Chicken Run. Shooting began in spring 2004, with Robbie Stamp, Douglas' friend and business partner, as an executive producer, and Walt Disney Pictures as distributors. Adams once described the Hollywood process as "trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people come into the room and breathe on it."

The BBC has broadcast an adaptation of the final three books in the Hitchhikers series for radio with the surviving members of the original radio cast. The adaptations were done by Dirk Maggs for Above the Title Productions. Maggs had consulted with Adams in 1993 about a third series, which was only realized after Adams's death. The third series, The Tertiary Phase, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and is now available on audio CD. Douglas Adams himself can be heard playing the part of Agrajag. So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish and Mostly Harmless made up the fourth and fifth radio series, respectively (on radio they were titled The Quandary Phase and The Quintessential Phase) and these were broadcast in May and June of 2005, and subsequently released on Audio CD. A new box set of CDs of all five series, with new archival material, also on CD and exclusive to the box set, was released in October 2005. DVD-Audio versions, in 5.1 surround sound, of radio series three, four and five are due to be released by BBC Audio in 2006. The last episode in the last series (with a new, "more upbeat" ending) ended with, "The very final episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is affectionately dedicated to its author."

The filming of the movie finished in August 2004. The film was released on 28 April in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, and on 29 April 2005 in the USA. It was released in other locations in Europe from May through July 2005. The cast includes Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Zooey Deschanel as Trillian, Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android, John Malkovich as Humma Kavula, and Stephen Fry as The Book (i.e. the voice of the Guide).

See: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)

Doctor Who

Douglas sent the script for the HHGG pilot radio programme to the Doctor Who production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write The Pirate Planet (see below). He had also previously attempted to submit a potential movie script, called "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen," which later became his novel Life, the Universe, and Everything (which in turn became the third Hitchhiker's Guide radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its seventeenth season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three Doctor Who serials starring Tom Baker as the Doctor:

  • The Pirate Planet (the second serial in the "Key To Time" Season 16 arc)
  • City of Death (with producer Graham Williams, from an original storyline by writer David Fisher. It was transmitted under the pseudonym "David Agnew")
  • Shada (only partially filmed and not broadcast due to industrial disputes)

Elements of Shada and City of Death were reused in Adams's later novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in particular the character of Professor Chronotis. Shada was eventually remade by Big Finish Productions as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially-animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBCi website in 2003.

Adams is credited with introducing a fan of his, the zoologist Richard Dawkins, to Dawkins' future wife, Lalla Ward, who had played the part of Romana in Doctor Who.

Coincidentally, years before he wrote for Doctor Who, when he was at school, he wrote and performed a play called Doctor Which.

Music

Pink Floyd

Adams's official biography shares its name with the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. Adams was friendly with their guitarist David Gilmour and, as his 42nd birthday gift, was invited to make a guest appearance at one of their 1994 concerts in London, playing rhythm guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Adams chose the name for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks. David also performed at Douglas's Memorial Service.

Pink Floyd, and their reputation for lavish stage shows, were also the inspiration for the Adams-created fictional rock band "Disaster Area", renowned as the loudest band (and, in fact, the loudest noise) in the universe. One element of Disaster Area's stage show was to send a space ship hurtling into a sun, probably inspired by the airplane which would crash into the stage during some of Pink Floyd's live shows, usually at the end of "On The Run". Part of the ideas behind Disaster Area may also have been influenced by the 1968 Pink Floyd song "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun."

Procol Harum

Douglas Adams was good friends with Gary Brooker, the lead singer, pianist and song writer of the progressive rock band Procol Harum. Adams is known to have invited Brooker to one of the many parties that Adams held at his house. On one such occasion Gary Brooker performed the full (4 verse) version of his hit song A Whiter Shade of Pale. Brooker also performed at Adams's Memorial Service.

Douglas Adams also appeared on stage with Brooker to perform In Held Twas in I at Redhill when the band's lyricist Keith Reid was not available. On several other occasions he had been known to introduce Procol Harum at their gigs.

Douglas also let it be known that while writing he would listen to music, and this would occasionally influence his work. On one occasion the title track from the Procol Harum album Grand Hotel was playing when "suddenly in the middle of the song there was this huge orchestral climax that came out of nowhere and didn't seem to be about anything. I kept wondering what was this huge thing happening in the background? And I eventually thought ... it sounds as if there ought to be some sort of floorshow going on. Something huge and extraordinary, like, well, like the end of the universe. And so that was where the idea for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe came from."

Other musical links

Adams made a number of links to music of the time in his books. For example, a mouse proposes that the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is "How many roads must a man walk down?", a line from Bob Dylan's song Blowin' in the Wind.

In So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, Arthur Dent listens to a Dire Straits LP and Adams goes on to pay tribute to their lead guitarist, Mark Knopfler. Adams later revealed that the particular song to which he refers in the book—although never by name—is Tunnel of Love, from the Making Movies album.

Elvis is later discovered playing in a diner attended by Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, where he is simply known as "The King".

Besides modern rock music, Douglas Adams was a great admirer of the work of JS Bach, which provides a minor plot element in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Adams was also a major fan of the Beatles. He makes a reference to Paul McCartney in Life, The Universe, and Everything and quotes lyrics and titles from songs by the Beatles in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Adams also does this at least once in The Salmon of Doubt. In Chapter 3 there is a conversation between Kate and Dirk which includes the following exchange:

"So?"
"I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair."

Taken together, these two lines form a quotation from "Norwegian Wood" on the Rubber Soul album.

Computer games and projects

Douglas Adams created an interactive fiction version of HHGG together with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. In 1986 he participated in a week-long brainstorming session with the Lucasfilm Games team for the game, Labyrinth. Later he was also involved in creating Bureaucracy (also by Infocom, but not based on any book). Adams was also responsible for the computer game Starship Titanic, which was published in 1999 by Simon and Schuster. The accompanying book, entitled Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, was written by Terry Jones, since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the h2g2 collaborative writing project, a forerunner of the wiki medium.

In 1990, Adams wrote and presented a television documentary programme Hyperland also featuring Tom Baker as a "software agent" (similar to the "Assistants" used in several versions of Microsoft Office, derived from their failed "Bob" program), and interviews with Ted Nelson, which was essentially about the use of hypertext. Although Adams didn't invent hypertext, he was an early adopter and advocate of it, and his influence should not be underestimated. This was before Tim Berners-Lee used the idea of hypertext in his HTML. (Internet Movie Database's Hyperland Page).

Religion

Adams was a self-declared "radical atheist", though he used the term for emphasis, so that he would not be asked if he in fact meant agnostic. He stated in an interview with American Atheists that this was easier and conveyed the fact that he really meant it, had thought about it a great deal, and that it was an opinion he held seriously. He was convinced that there is not a god, seeing not a shred of evidence of one's existence, and devoted himself instead to secular causes like Environmentalism.

Environmentalism

Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of a number of endangered species. This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series Last Chance to See, in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the kakapo, and the publication of a tie-in book of the same name. In 1992, this was made into a CD-ROM combination of audio book, eBook and picture slide show a decade before such things became fashionable. His environmental activism is also recounted in the book The Salmon of Doubt in such ways as discussing walking to Mount Kilimanjaro in a rhino suit.

Premature death

Adams died of a heart attack at the age of 49, while working out at his gym in Santa Barbara, California. (He had moved to Santa Barbara in 1999.) He was survived by his wife Jane and daughter Polly. In May 2002, The Salmon of Doubt was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, and eulogies from Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry (in the UK edition), Christopher Cerf (in the US edition), and Terry Jones (in the US paperback edition). It also includes eleven chapters of his long-awaited but unfinished novel, The Salmon of Doubt, which was to be a new Dirk Gently and/or HHGG novel, or neither.

The Salmon of Doubt

In a 1998 interview with Matt Newsome , Adams commented as to whether "The Salmon of Doubt" was going to be a "Dirk Gently" book or a continuation of the "Hitchhiker's Guide" series. Unfortunately, the interview did not clear much up.

Adams: The thing with Dirk was that I felt I had lost contact with that character, I couldn't make that book viable, which is why I said, "Okay, let's go off and do something else." Then looking back at all the ideas that were there in "Salmon of Doubt", I looked at it again about a year later and suddenly realised what it was that I'd been getting wrong, which was that these are essentially much more like Hitch-Hiker ideas and not like Dirk Gently ideas.
So, there will come a point I suspect at some point in the future where I will write a sixth Hitch-Hiker book. But I kind of want to do that in an odd kind of way because people have said, quite rightly, that "Mostly Harmless" is a very bleak book. And it was a bleak book. The reason for that is very simple—I was having a lousy year, for all sorts of personal reasons that I don't want to go into, I just had a thoroughly miserable year, and I was trying to write a book against that background. And, guess what, it was a rather bleak book!
I would love to finish Hitch-Hiker on a slightly more upbeat note, so five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number. I think that a lot of the stuff which was originally in "Salmon of Doubt", was planned into "Salmon Doubt" and really wasn't working, I think could be yanked out and put together some new thoughts.
Newsome: Yes, because certainly some people have heard that, "Salmon of Doubt", was now going to be a new Hitch-Hiker book.
Adams: Well, In a sense, because I shall be salvaging some of the ideas I couldn't make work within a Dirk Gently framework and putting them in a Hitch-Hiker framework, undergoing necessary changes on the way. And, for old time's sake, I may call it, "Salmon of Doubt", I may call it -- well who knows! All I have to say is, bathe the whales!

Biographies

His official biography, Wish You Were Here, by Nick Webb, was published on October 6, 2003 (ISBN 0755311558).

Another recent biography is Hitchhiker: a Biography of Douglas Adams (2003) by M. J. Simpson, with a foreword (in the UK edition) by John Lloyd (ISBN 0340824883). The American edition contains a foreword by Neil Gaiman (ISBN 1932112170).

Upon the mutual discovery that Webb and Simpson were both working on new posthumous biographies, the two authors agreed that the former would focus on Adams's life and personality, and the latter on his work.

The BBC produced a tribute as part of their TV series Omnibus. It was first broadcast on BBC 2 on 4 August 2001, presented by Kirsty Wark. The programme included interviews with Stephen Fry, Clive Anderson, Terry Jones, Griff Rhys Jones, Richard Dawkins and John Lloyd, among others. A copy is included with the Region One DVD release of the Hitchhiker's Guide TV series.

A movie documentary, Life, The Universe and Douglas Adams, was released in 2002, directed and produced by Rick Mueller and Joel Greengrass. Archive footage of Adams is generously included, as well as interviews with Adams's friends, colleagues and family. This documentary was narrated by Neil Gaiman and is available on VHS tape.

Earlier biographies include:

  • Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1988, 1993, 2002), Neil Gaiman et al. Reissued October 2003 (ISBN 1840237422) with new chapters by M. J. Simpson and David K. Dickson.
  • The Unofficial Guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide (2001), M. J. Simpson. Published as The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker's Guide (2001) in the U.K. (ISBN 1903047404)

alt.fan.douglas-adams

Douglas Adams pleased his coterie of fans in the USENET newsgroup alt.fan.douglas-adams by following the group and occasionally posting himself.

In response to a fan's complaint

My apologies if this has been dragged out and beaten mercilessly already, but did everyone else get entirely bored with Mostly Harmless? I knew a couple chapters in that Adams was going to kill everyone off, and from there, it felt like that was the WHOLE purpose of the book.

Adams replied

Well, you were ahead of me then. I didn't know till a couple of chapters before the end.

He disappointed a Canadian fan who asked

Who is your maiden aunt who lives in Winnipeg. the reason I absolutely must know is... yes, you guessed it... I LIVE IN WINNIPEG!!! and that line from the first of the gently books has been driving me insane ever since I read it!! I'd be REALLY, REALLY thrilled if Douglas responded to this himself!

by confessing:

I don't have [a] maiden aunt who lies [sic] in Winnipeg. I was making it up.

In response to a query about a rumour about an upcoming film, he said:

Second. Jim Carrey is not going to play Arthur Dent. Here's a clue as to why not. Arthur Dent is English.

Douglas Adams's works

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on audio and video: The original 12 radio episodes (from 1978 and 1980) are available in CD sets from BBC Audio (as The Primary & Secondary Phases), as well as on a single MP3-CD. The three additional phases adapted from the last three books in the series are available from BBC Audio. The Tertiary Phase was broadcast on BBC Radio 21 September to 26 October 2004, whilst The Quandary Phase was broadcast 3 May to 24 May 2005, and The Quintessential Phase followed immediately afterward, from 31 May through 21 June 2005. A script book for the original 12 episodes has been published, and a new script book for the final 14 episodes was published in July 2005. An Audio DVD for each of the three 2004-2005 series, in 5.1 surround sound, is also planned for release in 2006, per Dirk Maggs. The six episode TV adaptation is also available from the BBC (or its distributors, e.g. Warner Home Video in the USA and Canada) on VHS and DVD.

Novels in the HHGG series

  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)
  • Life, the Universe and Everything (1982)
  • So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish (1984)
  • Mostly Harmless (1992)

All of the above are also available as audio books, read by Adams.

The Dirk Gently series

  • Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
  • The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul (1988)

Audiobook recordings of both novels do exist, but are out of print.

Other works

  • The Meaning of Liff (1983, with John Lloyd)
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts (1985, with Geoffrey Perkins)
  • The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book (1986, edited by Douglas Adams and Peter Fincham), which includes
    • Young Zaphod Plays it Safe (also printed in a slightly reworked version in The Wizards of Odd, The Salmon of Doubt, and some omnibus editions of Hitchhiker)
    • The Private Life of Genghis Khan, also available in the first edition of The Salmon of Doubt, though later removed due to copyright issues
    • A Christmas Fairly Story (sic) by Douglas Adams and Terry Jones
    • A "Supplement to The Meaning of Liff" with John Lloyd and Stephen Fry
  • The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990, with John Lloyd; extended version of The Meaning of Liff)
  • Last Chance to See (1991, with Mark Carwardine, non-fictional account of several trips to see endangered species; according to a piece in The Salmon of Doubt, this book gave Adams the most satisfaction, if not the highest sales)
  • Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic (written by Terry Jones (who insists he wrote the whole thing while in the nude), based on an idea by Douglas Adams; also available as an audiobook, read by Terry Jones)
  • The Salmon of Doubt (2002), unfinished novel manuscript (11 chapters), short stories, essays, and interviews (also available as an audiobook, read by Simon Jones)

In 2004, BBC Audio published a 3-CD set entitled Douglas Adams at the BBC which covers the author's work from 1974 to 2003, including posthumous projects and tributes. The CD is again narrated by Simon Jones.

Tributes and honorifics

  • There is an official appreciation society (fan club) named ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha after the sector of the galaxy that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says the planet Earth is located in.
  • 18610 Arthurdent is a small main belt asteroid. It was discovered by Felix Hormuth on February 7, 1998. It is named after Arthur Dent, the bewildered hero of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The name was officially published and announced by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union on either 9 May or 10 May 2001 (accounts differ).
  • On January 25, 2005, it was announced that asteroid with preliminary designation 2001 DA42 had been named 25924 Douglasadams in his honour. It was chosen because it referenced the year of Adams's death, his initials and the number "42".
  • Every May 25, Towel Day is celebrated in recognition of Adams's genius.
  • Various Douglas Adams Societies exist or have existed.

Notes

  1. ^  Photographer Jill Furmanovsky's official site
  2. ^  Webb, Nick (2005) Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams (first US hardcover edition), Ballantine Books. 0-345-47650-6 Page 32.
  3. ^  May 2004 review of Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman.
  4. ^  Simpson, M. J. (2003) Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams (first US hardcover edition), Justin, Charles and Co.. 1-932112-17-0 Page 236.
  5. ^  Adams, Douglas. As Dramatized and Directed by Dirk Maggs. (2005) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts: The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases, Pan Books. 0-330-43510-8 Page 356.
  6. ^  Text of one of Douglas Adams's introductions of Procol Harum in concert, this one was read on 8 February 1996.
  7. ^  David Silverman's interview with Douglas Adams which first appeared in the American Atheists' Winter 1998-1999 newsletter.
  8. ^  Matt Newsome's 1998 interview with Douglas Adams
  9. ^  Press release announcing Nick Webb's biography of Adams from 2 July 2003.
  10. ^  Press release announcing the Life, the Universe, and Douglas Adams documentary video from 15 April 2002.
  11. ^  alt.fan.douglas-adams access through Google's newsgroup reader.
  12. ^  alt.fan.douglas-adams post by Adams, dated 12 June 1994.
  13. ^  alt.fan.douglas-adams post by Adams, dated 12 October 1993.
  14. ^  MSNBC article about the announcement of an Asteroid named after Adams, dated 25 January 2005.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Douglas Adams