Whilst surfing the ‘net last night, I came across BBC Radio 4’s website promoting the new episodes of the Hitchhiker “trilogy” which will play on Radio 4 starting in September. They are based on the third, fourth and fifth books of the five part trilogy and are referred to as the Tertiary, Quadrenary and Quintessential Phases (the first two radio series being the Primary and Secondary Phases). Hopefully the BBC has ordered extra bandwidth for the Radio 4 website because it appears the episodes will be available online for a week after the second airing.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, shame on you! This is undoubtly some of the best sci-fi to be written in the 20th century.

It has had a significant impact on our culture, though you may not realize it. A bar in Ottawa known as Zaphod Beeblebrox is named after one of the characters in Douglas Adams’ book. There’s even an extremely popular online community called h2g2 where participants can work on the Earth-edition of the Guide.