God is 42

[slimfandango]

why did Douglas Adams think it unreasonable or meaningless to ask questions about 'the higher things'?

[magicdice]

you know, i never interpreted it like that. i always thought he was point out the idiocy in asking for the answer to a great question when you don't even know what the question is.

andy hughes, check out the dirk gently books, they're far better.

[Tim Baxter]

How smug was he?  Not at all unless he was watching people getting worked up by his flights of satirical fantacy.  How clever was he?  Certainly clever enough to write radio scripts and turn them into books which have entertained millions with no thought to why and what were his motives.  He gently pokes fun at all societies' hang-ups, he even managed to poke fun at the Yanks, BBC, Friends of the earth, Paul MacCartney, cricket and the Welsh (Philosophers including 'Magicthighs') who were reminded by Deep Thought that they could 'Ride the gravy train forever' while he pondered the ultimate question to the answer he'd just given.  Even more telling were the philosophers demanding of him, 'rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!!!!'

Who else could come up with charactors like Slartibartfast?  Marvin? Prostetnik Vogon Geltz?  Eddie the shipboard computer?  The babel fish?  Gargova, guardian of the total perspective vortex?  Hotblack Desideratu, OK he knicked the name from a London estate Agent!?  Fenchurch, whose feet were just off the ground?  The rain God, a Scanwegian whose name I can't remember?!

Good stuff Douglas, if anybody demands an explanation they're missing the point of your books.  Perhaps Dirk will come up with the solution to your disappearance and publish it!  I couldn't get on with Dirk gently, however, chaque'n a son gouche, comme ils dit.