Beards & the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at 42
Radio 4 Extra ran the entire first series of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on Sunday evening 8th March. It was the 42nd anniversary of the first broadcast and as anyone even vaguely familiar with Douglas Adams book will know, 42 is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
One issue that I don’t think was asked back in 1978 was how beard friendly the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was, and indeed whether Slartibartfast, creator of planets, the most obviously hirsute character, created beard friendly planets. Adams was after all clean shaven.
Zaphod BeebleBrox certainly had what would be called now a hipster style beard on both of his heads and this passage related to Slartibartfast places him firmly in of the most hirsute of 1970s cultures, CAMRA
In Life, the Universe and Everything Slartibartfast has joined the Campaign for Real Time (or “CamTim” as the volunteers casually refer to it, a reference to CAMRA) which tries to preserve events as they happened before time travelling was invented. He picks up Arthur and Ford from Lord’s Cricket Ground with his Starship Bistromath, after which they head out to stop the robots of Krikkit from bringing together the pieces of the Wikkit Gate.
Perhaps the beard friendliness of the Hitchhikers Guide is a matter for Deep Thought
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