Author Douglas Adams, who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, would have been 64 today. Here are some facts about him you may not have known.
- He was very tall - six feet tall by the age of 12, and reaching an adult height of 6' 5".
- Adams is one of only two people outside of Monty Python to be credited with writing a Python sketch (The other was Neil Innes). The sketch Adams wrote was called "Patient Abuse" and was about paperwork in an emergency. He also appeared in the programme - as a surgeon putting on gloves, and loading a missile onto a cart, dressed as a pepper pot.
- He also wrote three serials for Doctor Who. This was after trying to submit a script for a Doctor Who film called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen. The script wasn't wasted. Adams eventually turned it into his novel Life, the Universe and Everything.
- Adams played the Guitar left-handed and had a collection of twenty-four left-handed guitars.
- He suffered greatly from a lack of confidence when writing work dried up. He said, "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence. I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it".
- The jobs he took during these periods included hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner and bodyguard to a Qatari family.
- The title, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy occurred to him while he was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, looking up at the stars, with a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe by his side. Somebody ought to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he thought.
- He once climbed Mount Kilimanjaro wearing a rhino suit, to raise money for the charity Save the Rhino International.
- He died after a workout at the gym, from a heart attack. His memorial service five months later was the first church service to be broadcast live on the internet by the BBC.
- Two Asteroids have been named in his honour. There is one named after him and another named Arthurdent after a character in Hitchhiker's Guide.
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