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It is Douglas Adams' birthday today. He would have been 62 except that he died 13 years ago at an absurdly young 49.  He is still remembered and his words are cherished and repeated by thousands of people because they were clever, insightful and funny. They can also seem, particularly condensed into a list of quotes, tiresomely disengaged and cynical. There are a couple of people who introduce me (this is my char-lady's aunt's cousin) to their friends as the man whose brother collaborated with Adams on a couple of books. This is ever so slightly annoying because my words are clever, insightful and funny in their own right but don't seem to be Going Viral any time soon.  But today, it's not about me, but about DNA.
For your diary, Towel Day is 25th May.  A place for Hitchhiker fans to hang out.  And some words from The Great Man:

• Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars, etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish, and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.
• If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat. 
• It'd be like a bunch of rivers, the Amazon and the Mississippi and the Congo asking how the Atlantic Ocean might affect them… and the answer is, of course, that they won't be rivers anymore, just currents in the ocean.
• All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
• I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
• A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
• There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
• Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly,hugely,mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
• Life, the universe and everything.
• Don't panic.

So long and thanks for all the fish!