Day 3 Part 1: the Plan

I'm alive in a little flat in Islington. Quaker oats in England is smooth - much smoother - practically oatless - when compared to the US version. It also recommends that you make it with milk, and has a "fill to here" line right on the packet so that you don't accidentally make your oatmeal with too much or too little milk. Which made me think of Wonko the Sane, and the instructions on boxes of toothpicks, but more about that later.

Tonight, the modern rock star of the literature world, Neil Gaiman, will speak to us about Douglas Adams at a memorial lecture. This holiday trip was originally supposed to take place in a later, warmer time of year; Perhaps May to coincide with Towel Day. Possibly September which I hear is quite beautiful. But then there was this lecture...

So I bought tickets and had a LOT less time than I had hoped for preparation. I bought books and read through them quickly, looking for the places, missing a lot of details. I have struggled to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Douglas Adams, the person, and I've probably failed in a thorough understanding, though I have gained a lot of information.

There will be lots of fans there. Including Neil Gaiman. A fellow fan. Which makes me feel a bit like a poser. I mean, what could an American like me possibly know about the breadth and depth of amazingness that Douglas Adams brought to the world? All I know is that I grew up thinking that what he wrote was fantastic, awesome, funny and mind-blowing...that will have to be enough for a good start. I'm looking forward to learning more tonight. 

And I will be bringing a towel, because we all know what The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has to say on the subject of towels:

"'A towel,' it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble- sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand- to- hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind- bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you— daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough . More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value.'"

Towels are not just the most amazingly useful thing to have when you're traveling the Galaxy, they're also good if you suspect you may need to surreptitiously wipe away a tear. No matter what you're wearing, endangered species...like extinct favorite authors...are no laughing matter.

Hear me dithering about it all here: http://youtu.be/MRl9KxC5ce4