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

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to work through some more of the L section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Lazlar Lyricon

Lazlar Lyricon is a customiser of space craft to the staggeringly wealthy. He customised the Disaster Area’s limo, and is said, by Ford Prefect, to have “no shame”.

Lazlar Lyricon also leant its name to a convention of Hitchhiker’s fans. The first was in our home city of Birmingham, and there’s a link in the show notes to an episode of Saturday Review, which scratches the surface of Adams’ move into the world of interactive fiction.

Leda and the Octopus

Leda and the Octopus is something of which a statue was made. It used to sit in the office of the Guide’s editor in chief, but now doesn’t. Of course, we all know that this is a play on the artworks based on the Greek myth of Leda, who comes across Zeus disguised as a swan.

Leovinus

Leovinus is the designer of the Starship Titanic, who fell in love with the computer inside. In the game, you have to assemble all the various parts of the ship that were scattered around it, and build a giant metal woman, at which point you’re given a video message from Leovinus, as played by Douglas Adams, in which he gifts you the ship.

Life Begins at Five Hundred and Fifty

Life Begins at 550 is a book, less popular than the Guide.

LifeSupport-o-System

The LifeSupport-o-System. It supports life on the Grebulon ship, and it’s perhaps the laziest name anyone has ever come up with for a piece of sci-fi.

Lintilla

Lintilla is an archaeologist with millions of clones. She, and all her clones, were played by Rula Lenska, who later went on to voice the Guide in its bird form. She has millions of clones because of a malfunction which meant the cloning machine got halfway through making one clone before starting the next, so it was impossible to stop it without committing murder. Eventually, the manufacturers concocted a plan to marry all the clones off to some hastily-made male clones, adding a line to the contract that meant they were aggreeing to “cease to be”.

Links

Mark and Danny Smith are joined by Jon Hickman to finish up the K section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and tackle a couple of important Ls.

Krikkit

Of all the races on the Galaxy, only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific wars ever to sunder the Universe and transform it into what is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game.

L Prosser

Mr L Prosser is 40, fat and shabby. He works for the local council, and is distantly related to Genghis Khan.

Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton

Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton is the woman who christens the new Cottington Bypass by breaking a bottle of “very splendid and worthwhile” champagne over the “noble prow” of a “very splendid and worthwhile yellow bulldozer”. She was played by the comedic actor Jo Kendal, and was completely annoying.

Lallafa

Lallafa wrote what are widely regarded throughout the Galaxy as being the finest poems in existence, the Songs of the Long Land.

Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over, and shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words on that effect. He never got around to writing the poems, so the correcting fluid people got him to copy them out of a book they’d taken from the version of the past where he did write the poems.

Lamuella

Lamuella is a planet, not unlike Earth, but where the days are 25 hours long, which plays havoc with a mechanical watch. According to Old Thrashbarg, the planet had been found fully-formed in the navel of a giant earwig at 4:30 one Vroonday afternoon.

In Mostly Harmless, Arthur becomes the Sandwich Maker and makes Lamuella his home, and sandwiches (that sentence makes sense… read that back and you’ll get it).

Links

Mark and Jon Bounds are joined by Danny Smith to continue pawing through the J section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Juju-flop

When in a national speech, the financial minister of the Royal World Estate of Qualvista said that the economy had now arrived at “one whole juju-flop situation”, everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it, that they quite failed to notice that their five-thousand-year-old civilisation had just collapsed overnight.

Jynnan tonnyx

It is a curious fact that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx. The drinks themselves are not the same and in fact the one common factor between all of them is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.

Kakrafoon

Kakrafoon is a desert world above which the stars are very visible, and where Disaster Area had a good gig, upon returning from Milliways.

The Kakrafoonians were highly enlightened, accomplished and quiet, and so as punishment for this, they were given telepathy, and were subjected to shouting inane small-talk to prevent broadcasting their thoughts to anyone within a five-mile radius.

Kill-o-Zap

The Kill-o-Zap pistol is a gun of some sort. Actually it’s an energy bolt gun, on which the designer had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with.

Kirp

Kirp is a Lamuellan who once caught a fish with a head at both ends. So, well done to Kirp. And now…

Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog

Know-Nothing-Bozo the Non-Wonder-Dog belonged to Will Smithers, an Earth advertising friend of Arthur’s. The dog was named because the way its hair stood up on its head reminded people of the President of the United States.

Links

In lieu of a full episode this week, here’s volume one of our collection of outtakes and bits that were too rude - or nonsensical - even for this show.

Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to continue pawing through the J section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Jaglan Beta

Jaglan Beta is second out from the star Jaglan, near the Axle Nebula (and no, Jon, this isn’t a real place). We know three things about it: it has cold moons so it’s useful to wrap a towel around you to keep you warm, Ford once saw a star buggy smash into its third moon, and there’s a song called “I Left My Leg in Jaglan Beta”.

Janx Spirit

“Oh don’t give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit No, don’t you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”

John Lloyd

Jon Lloyd co-wrote episodes 5 and 6 of the first radio series, and worked with Adams on the Meaning of Liff among other projects.

Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses

The Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses are specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.

Journalism

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a powerful organ. Indeed, its influence is so prodigious that strict rules have had to be drawn up by its editorial staff to prevent its misuse. So none of its field researchers are allowed to accept any kind of services, discounts or preferential treatment of any kind in return for editorial favours unless:

a) they have made a bona fide attempt to pay for a service in the normal way; b) their lives would be otherwise in danger; c) they really want to.

Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag, LIVR (the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed)

Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag, the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed is the galactic warcrimes judge who sentenced the people of Krikkit to life in a slow-time envelope.

Links