The 2022 #TowelDay Quiz

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have.

Order of publication:

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979);
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980);
• Life, the Universe and Everything (1982);
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984);
• Mostly Harmless (1992).

It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978.

Last Chance to See, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Young Zaphod Plays It Safe are by Douglas Adams.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is a novel by Terry Pratchett.

People of Earth, your attention, please. This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system. And regrettably, your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.

The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

Editor's note: a "party" is like the Internet, but in real life and with nicer people.

Statistically, you had 25% chance to choose the right answer.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again". Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

42 is the ultimate answer!