All Things Considered

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 vapours; you can sleep under

it beneath the stars which shine soredly on the desert world of

Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft 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 to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter

Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you

can’t see it, it can’t see you - daft as a brush, but very ravenous);

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.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some

reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch

hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will

automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush,

face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of

string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc.

Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of

these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally

have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch

the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle

against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is

is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

RIP.