I heard a lot of times about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy though I was confused whether it was a movie or some book or some TV show. Later I came to know that it is everything.  Book.  Movie.  Radio series. I haven’t read the book. I haven’t listened to Radio series. I watched the movie which, I admit, was not that good. It didn’t live up to the hype I myself created in my mind and reviews I have read about movie weren’t kind either. And now I have watched this movie, I kind of lost interest in the book. I mean, if I read the book, the movie would surely be on my mind and I might not be able to appreciate the book especially when I didn’t like the movie that much. Am I right?

Out of curiosity, I search the Internet for movie and realized Douglas Adams is the writer of this book. He also wrote the screenplay for the movie based on his book. But somehow his name ringed a bell. I realized I’ve read this name in some other book but couldn’t remember which book. Some days back, I checked the Wikipedia page on Douglas Adams and realized I read his name in the book God Delusion written by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins referred Adams as his ‘only convert’.  Dawkins is possibly the most noted leader of Atheism movement. 


But this is not all. I learned some very interesting trivia while reading about Adams. Douglas Adams was  die-hard fan of Macintosh computer. There are millions other and nothing special about it. But what is interesting is the fact that Adams was the first buyer of Macintosh in Europe. That was in 1984 when Macintosh first came into market. A fascinating account of Macintosh history by Apple veteran Andy Hertzfeld may be read here. (http://www.folklore.org/)   He used Macintosh until his death in 2001. And yes, the narrator of the movie was Stephen Fry and interestingly, Stephen Fry was the second buyer of Macintosh in Europe. Stephen Fry, like Adams and Dawkins, is also an active atheist. And he was the narrator of the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy. I explored deeper and found out that Steve Jobs had given Stephen Fry an iPad even before it was launched officially. As per Fry’s account, Jobs was aware of the fact that Fry is a die-hard Apple fan and wanted him to write a positive review for Time Magazine. Also, Adams, Dawkins and Fry are all British rather than American as I used to think rather naively. Did I forget to mention that Steve Jobs appointed Adams as ‘Apple Master’, the title given to celebrity spokesperson of Apple? And I am not sure if Jobs made his famous ‘making a dent in the universe’ remark after reading The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. Oh yeah, the name of the lead character of the movie was Arthur Dent. Coincidence?  I’d love to think not.