Douglas Adams
Credit: DNA Press Photos by Jill Furmanovsky
International Towel Day — Celebrating the life & work of Douglas Adams
25 May every year, is Towel Day
‘A towel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 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 (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, & of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.’
‘More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length & breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through & still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.’
‘Hence a phrase which has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in, “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.”’
‘(Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)’
– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
More about Towel Day
http://hhg2tech.blogspot.com/2014/05/international-towel-day-celebrating.html
Towel Day
http://towelday.org/
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day
More about Douglas Adams
http://hhg2tech.blogspot.com/2012/02/7-awesome-things-that-douglas-adams-did.html / Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Towel Day annual celebration 25 25th May tribute late author Douglas Adams 1952-2001 fan fans around universe proudly carry towel his honour I love Douglas Adams get involved help spread the word about Towel Day #towelday tweet blog post in forums share a link in Facebook events event organize Towel Day announce carry a towel where everywhere proudly show world observe observed Towel Day upload picture Facebook Flickr tag ittowelday group video on YouTube Adams author wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul The Meaning of Liff The Deeper Meaning of Liff Last Chance to See stories television series Doctor Who posthumous collection his work unfinished novel published The Salmon of Doubt in 2002 Restaurant at the End of the Universe Douglas Adams Douglas Addams /
