A towel, it 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 vapours; 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-bogglingly 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, and 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: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, 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 hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Matt Rebeiro? 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.)
My towel day post from last year is really good
please only refer to me as a hoopy frood today, thanks
Lord of the Rings actor Christopher Lee will release a heavy metal album to mark his 91st birthday.
This is somehow real news.
hell fucking yes
fiiiiinally
been waiting AGES
“The first Charlemagne album is metal, of course, but what I sang was more symphonic,” Lee, who is best known for his role as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, told The Guardian. “Now on the second one, The Omens of Death, it is 100 percent heavy metal. I’ve done my bits and pieces, and they are heavy metal. I’m not screaming or anything like that, but it is definitely heavy metal.”
YES
though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light.
i have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.“the old astronomer” - sarah williams
(Source: neutroncream)
someone has waited their entire life to put that title to use and if he is not promoted immediately i am calling the l.a. times and complaining
(Source: tastefullyoffensive)