May 25th, and Towel Day is once again upon us. For the unfortunate few who are reading this without knowing what Towel Day commemorates (sorry to single you out again, Laurie), today is dedicated to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its author, Douglas Adams. (Who passed away on May 11, 2001 at the age of 49 - Towel Day comes two weeks later, for no good reason that I'm aware of.) In honour of Mr. Adams and his creations, fans around the world* carry a towel throughout the course of the day.A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.A more intelligent planet would probably declare this a work holiday, but sadly we can't claim to be intelligent, just harmless - sorry, mostly harmless.
- Sid
* Towelday.org, the official web site of Towel Day, says "fans around the universe", but they don't seem to have any posts that originate from off-planet.
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