Ten years after Douglas Adams

Last week, I noticed that Douglas Adams started trending on Twitter. The reason was the 10th anniversary of his death.

I'm of a generation to completely appreciate what Douglas Adams did, and the importance of his legacy...

At school, I would bring in cassette tapes of the "Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" taped off the radio, and talk about it with school friends. When invigilating exams, I used to wear a large "Don't Panic" badge, which had come from my Hitch Hiker's Guide PC game (see image of the box opposite...)
I still remember the start of the game which said "It is dark", and you couldn't progress until you realised that the reason it was dark was that you hadn't opened your eyes yet...

The relevance of the number 42 and the symbolism of the bypass still remain, and I could probably quote big chunks of the book if required. Dirk Gently, another Douglas Adams creation is currently showing on BBC, and one of the great (geographical) themes of these books were "the interconnectedness of everything..."

The "Towel Day" event continues worldwide every year too.

His work with Mark Carwardine on "Last Chance to See", which was recently re-visited with Stephen Fry, a friend of Douglas Adams, who shared his enthusiasm for new technology, was also excellent.

Also his writings on technology and the benefits that it would bring to society are still relevant, as they show his thinking about the likely future impact, and the role of the internet. He produced some wonderful work on the value of social media, which he would have been a particular advocate of I'm sure...

One of this other projects was a book called "The Meaning of Liff", and there will be a blog post on that theme shortly (I have a backlog to catch up on...)

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