Beware of the Leopard: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy podcast

Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Danny Smith continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Fortillian Bantoburn O’Perfluous

The BarBot of the Starship Titanic, played by Dermot Crowley (from Luther, among other things). In the game, he mixes your character a bizarre cocktail that ends up helping to fix the ship. Here, Danny runs the team through some working class cocktails.

Frastra

Where they say “life begins at 40,000 degrees”. This planet has fire storms, and an equable temperature is between 40,000 and 40,004 degrees. Mark asks the question of the kind of lifeforms one might expect to find on Frastra, bearing in mind that the tardigrade can only hack it up to 148.9℃.

Frogstar

Frogstar World B is quite staggeringly nasty, and is where Zaphod is dragged to before being put in the Total Perspective Vortex (to which we’ll come in a later episode). This planet gives us a bit of a continuity headache, as our characters happen upon it in very different ways, depending on whether you’ve read the book or listened to the second radio series.

Frood

A frood is a really amazingly together guy. And that’s about all the time there is for this segment.

Fuolornis Fire Dragon

The team discusses the sexiness - or complete lack thereof - of flying bescaled fire-breathing lizards. And Dire Straits.

Gag Halfrunt

Gag Halfrunt is Zaphod and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz’s private brain-care specialist, and the man who employed Jeltz to destroy the Earth. He’s played by Stephen Moore in the radio series and is the man who utters the immortal words “ah, Zaphod’s just this guy, y’know?” which is one of very few Hitchhiker’s catchphrases. Danny helps Mark understand how wrong he is to like this character, given that he is quite a bit evil.

Hypothetical Slartibartfast

Vote on your favourite actor to play Slarti in a hypothetical new Netflix series of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Get in touch

Share some of your thoughts on our casting choices or on Gag, by emailing [email protected].

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

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Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Flollop

Flolloping is a way of moving that only a matress can do. In a sort-of Meaning of Liff kind of way, I wondered if you two had any similarly onomatopoeic terms for movement. The panel shares their favourite onomatopoeic words.

Flying

There is an art, the guide says, or rather a knack to flying, which lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Danny discusses whether this activity belongs in legitimate sci-fi.

Folfanga

On the fourth world of the Folfanga system can be found a slug of the genus A Urth Urp-hill Ip-dennoo, which Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolongued made it part of his mission to insult. Wowbagger had planned to call one of the creatures a brainless prat, which is frankly a bit derivative, so Jon is in charge of workshopping new insults for slugs.

Foot Warriors

The foot warriors are robots intent on keeping all bipedal life from the ground. They’re all dressed in expensive shoes that don’t fit them, so they constantly limp or fall over. We meet them in the second radio series, and they’re pretty ineffective, so the panel embarks on a discussion about robots that are actually useful within the H2G2 universe.

Ford Prefect

Ford Prefect is Arthur’s best friend. His original name is only pronounceable in an obscure Betelgeusian dialect, now virtually extinct since the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster which wiped out all the old Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven. He’s loyal to his friends, doesn’t have much of a backbone but does fight to protect the things he loves, and to annoy or destroy the things he doesn’t. Here, the panel share their favourite Ford things.

Get in touch

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ probablydrunk on Twitter.

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Mark Steadman, Jon Hickman and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Fire Mountains of Frazfraga

We don’t know much about the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga, except that it’s not a hospitable location for a Silastic Armorfiend of Striterax. The panel discusses the most inhospitable places they’ve been to.

Five-D

5D TV is, we can only assume, two better than Tri-D, which we’ll no doubt cover when we get to the Ts. For now though, Jon Hickman is in charge of 5DTV sales.

Flaninian Pobble Bead

A Flaninian Pobble Bead is a form of galactic currency. It is only exchangeable with itself, and therefore isn’t really counted as money by the Guide. As Brits we have a peculiar problem accepting certain forms of currency north of the border, despite it being legal tender. Here, Bounder shares his budget for the just-about-managing species.

Flare-riding

Flare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford it are amongst the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous - those who don’t die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club’s Apres-Flare parties. The panel discusses their most hair-raising moments.

Flargathon

Flargathon is a planet with gas swamps so stinky that the Gaseans who make this world their home, hired the Magratheans to build them a better world. Here, the Jons discuss the little bits they’d like to change about their respective locales.

Flex-o-Panel

The Flex-o-Panel is a wrist panel that can show Sub-Etha TV, and probably do other stuff. Here, Jon H tries to convince Steadman he’s wrong to want one of these.

Get in touch

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ bounder and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

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Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Hickman continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Evildrome Boozarama

The Evildrome Boozarama is a bar Ford and Hotblack used to crash, pretending to be health inspectors. Here, Danny and Jon share some stomach-turning foodie tales.

Fallian marsh gas

When mixing a Pangalactic Gargleblaster, one should allow four litres of Falian marsh gas to bubble through, “in memory of all those happy hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia”.

Fanalla

On Fanalla can be found the Bwenelli Atoll, where Ford first started working at the Guide, “before the Riktanarqals and the Danqueds vertled it”. Fanalla also has rum that Ford remembered liking. Danny shares a story of nearly vertling a local publication.

Fenchurch

Fenchurch is the girl who came up with the idea to solve everything, in a cafe in Rickmansworth. She is played by Jane Horrocks in the radio series, but since Jon is on record as fancying Fenchurch, he has first dibs on casting her role in our hypothetical Netflix adaptation.

Fifty-Three More Things to do in Zero Gravity

A book that sold better than the Guide. In celebration, Danny shares numbers 2, 3, 4, 54, 55 and 56.

Finlon

Finlon is a Golgafrinchan documentary film director. He made a film about the indigenous peoples of Earth dying out, and was planning on telling the story of the captain of the B Ark. Jon, as a media studies man, do you have any documentary tips?

Get in touch

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ jonhickman on Twitter.

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In a very sexy episode, Mark Steadman, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds continue their mission to discuss everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon , in alphabetical order.

Enid Kapelsen

Enid is an elderly resident of Boston, MA, who, while on a flight one day, flipped up the shutter to see Arthur and Fenchurch checking in on a one-way trip to bone-town, only several thousand feet in the air.

Envir-o-Form

The Envir-o-Form is a piece of Grebulon technology that we know little about, but can assume makes organic matter. Given we’re now in the age of lab-grown meat and gene-pool spelunking, we examine our potential future on Earth.

Eric Bartlett

Eric Bartlett is Tricia McMillan’s gardner. She being the Tricia who never became the Trillian we know. He’s the kind of person who “doesn’t hold” with things, like, for example, people coming in from New York first thing in the morning.

Escape-o-Buggy

The Escape-o-Buggy is a tiny cigar-shaped escape pod, used by Ford Prefect when leaving the ship orbiting Sesefras Magna.

Evening classes

Evening classes are little pills you can take, to which Lintilla introduces Arthur, in the second radio series. They’re a part of the weird lifestyle of artificial enhancement and disadvantage she’s party to. We’re all familiar with the Matrix “I know kung fu” trope - even Jon, I suspect - but this is the first time I’d ever encountered knowledge in edible form.Electronic thumb

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Guilt, But Were Too Ashamed to Ask

Another work by Oolon Colluphid.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Sex But Have Been Forced to Find Out

Another Colluphid masterwork. It’s twinned with Eccentrica Gallumbits’ big bang book from last week, so to close us out with taste and decency,Book recommendation

Audiobook recommendation

This week we’re recommending The Crow Road, by Ian Banks. Pick it up in audiobook form for free by taking out a free 30 day trial with Audible. Just head to audibletrial.com/leopard to get started.

Fan-fiction

This week we talked about fan-fiction, and Jon wrote us his very own piece.

Get in touch

Share your Beware of the Leopard fan-fiction via [email protected].

Follow @ iamsteadman, @ probablydrunk and @ bounder on Twitter, and check out Jon’s John Lewis Twitter bot.