Hikers and Watchers

You know, I’ve got to confess, there was one last pressie I didn’t tell you about, at Christmas.

Bless ’er, Allison managed to pick me up a copy of The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy for Christmas.

Fantastic to re-read it, again …

To the point where I spent a little of the spare cash I had on the immediate follow up, The Restaurant at the End of The Universe.

Now, in case you didn’t know, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy was originally written as a series for BBC Radio 4, broadcast in 1978, and then adapted by script-writer, Douglas Adams, and published in 1979.

Now, I got reading the multimedia hit a while later, after the series had been adapted — again by Douglas Adams — for BBC1.

Which is kind of when I got interested.

After all, this was at a time that — bar the original series of Doctor Who, and endless repeats of the classic series of Star Trek — there wasn’t that much science fiction on TV.

Which made watching something of an event.

And getting hold of the book, back then, kind of an occasion.

•••••

Actually, getting the commemorative edition from Allison was rather good …

•••••

Where was I … ?

Oh, yeah.

Both the TV, book and radio series, though, are all re-tellings of the same basic story: one that sees The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy’s hero — Arthur Dent — extremely upset, one Thursday morning, when his house get’s demolished to make way for a bypass.

It doesn’t get any better …

A few hours later, the Earth — Arthurs home — get demolished to make way for an intergalactic bypass, while his best friend, For Prefect, turns out to be Betelgeuse — and not from Guildford, as he’s hitherto claimed.

And on top of that, there’s a green slimey monster who wants to read some poetry to him.

•••••

Now I don’t know about you, but this shaped the way I read fiction.

Or, at the least, the sort of fiction I like to read.

And, along with Lord of the Rings, Dune, Doctor Who and others, shaped my long term taste for good fantasy and science fiction.

The simple fact that Adams stopped worked on the series, after the fifth book in the series played a part in my picking up the first in what was to become a long running — and very well known — fantasy series.

•••••

Not that I’m Saying Terry Pratchett’s better than Douglas Adams was.

Not by a long shot.

I personally like both of them, equally as much.

But I am very aware that Adams took one basic story-line; took it, and moulded and re-moulded it into to a many-headed, multi-media hydra. And did a lot of the actual writing for these different forms, himself.

While PTerry built — over the past 27 years and 37 or so books — a whole world.

Entirely on paper.

Very different writers, in other words.

•••••

Now, to other things …

One thing I did notice on the news, this morning, were the report’s about Sarah’s Law.

Now I don’t know if you remember the murder of school-girl, Sarah Payne, by Roy Whiting, that I can.

It was …

Hmm …

I don’t quite know how I feel about this, now: apart from sad, still, that a child has/had been killed.

And still do.

But I can remember at the time, the hysteria about her kidnapping, and killing.

And am very aware of her mother’s — Sara Payne — campaign to have a UK version of what, in the States, called Megan’s Law introduce into the UK.

Basically, the idea of the law — piloted in four different counties of England — was to give parents controlled access to the various sex offenders records, in cases where they’re unsure of people who have unsupervised access to their children.

And those pilot schemes have proven to be successful.

Sara Payne herself has called this “… this is the most important development to date.”

But I’m thinking there’s possibly …

Issues …

Possibly …

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think this is basically a good idea.

I’m thinking that parent — friends of mine, included — would feel reassured, knowing they could check out whether a new family member or neighbour could be easily checked on.

But I’m also aware — having seen what something of what misguided or false accusations can do — that this could backfire.

Lead to a lot more malignant accusations?

Possibly.

Certainly the possibility of … let’s call it … back street vigilanteism seems to be one that’s cropped up.

And the possibility that the offenders this is supposed to monitor may well find even more reason to go underground.

Saying that, according to the report, the initial findings suggest otherwise.

But it is still a bit worrying …

A good idea that’s worrying …

Hmmm …

Guess we’re going to have to see what happens, aren’t we?

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