Making a Vogon Spaceship from Hitch-Hiker's Guide To the Galaxy

[Rick Lowe]

I still think the model builder is someone who really knows where his towel is. 

[zenrat]

I still think the model builder is someone who really knows where his towel is. 

Ah, a hoopy frood.

[Rick Lowe]

I still think the model builder is someone who really knows where his towel is. 

Ah, a hoopy frood.

  

[McColm]

I've met Marvin when I was working at the BBC Outside Broadcasting Unit based at West Acton, he was in the Special Effects Department gathering dust in a corner.

[Rick Lowe]

Did he still have all those pains running down his left side?

[Weaver]

I've met Marvin when I was working at the BBC Outside Broadcasting Unit based at West Acton, he was in the Special Effects Department gathering dust in a corner.

The original Marvin was in the background in some scenes in the HHGTTG movie.

[Joe CalPo]

Are they the ones with the worst poetry in the galaxy?

Second worst.  The worst was by a woman... somewhere in England, the details from the book are hazy.

[Weaver]

Are they the ones with the worst poetry in the galaxy?

Second worst.  The worst was by a woman... somewhere in England, the details from the book are hazy.

Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Redbridge, Essex, England (from memory - I might have read it a few times back in the day...)

The name was obscured on the soundtrack of the radio show after the first airing because it turned out there really was a person of that name living in that area, and she started to get hate mail. I'm not sure if PNMJ is the original name or one adopted (and checked!) later for the book publication.

Also from memory, Vogon poetry:

Oh freddled gruntbuggy!
Thy micturations are to me,
as gabbleblotchits on a lurgid tree.
Groop, I implore thee
my footling turlingdromes
and hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles
Else, I shall rend thee
in the gabbleblotchits
with my blurglecruchion!
See if I don't...

Adams explained that he got these words the same way he concocted Slartibartfast's name: by writing something utterly, unbroadcastably obscene to start with, then swapping syllables around inside and between words until he ended up with something that sounded terrible but didn't actually breach any codes.

[Rick Lowe]

Adams explained that he got these words the same way he concocted Slartibartfast's name: by writing something utterly, unbroadcastably obscene to start with, then swapping syllables around inside and between words until he ended up with something that sounded terrible but didn't actually breach any codes

That works.

Similar to the old radio show Around the Horn, with the character J. Peasemould Gruntfuttock; except his 'Mangel-Wurzelling' ramblings were, IIRC, lots of Olde Englishe local patios and slang.

[Weaver]

Adams explained that he got these words the same way he concocted Slartibartfast's name: by writing something utterly, unbroadcastably obscene to start with, then swapping syllables around inside and between words until he ended up with something that sounded terrible but didn't actually breach any codes

That works.

Similar to the old radio show Around the Horn, with the character J. Peasemould Gruntfuttock; except his 'Mangel-Wurzelling' ramblings were, IIRC, lots of Olde Englishe local patios and slang.

Heh - there was a far worse one on Round the Horn. Julian and Sandy (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams) were two... flamboyant characters who conversed in what 99% of the radio audience took to be made-up nonsense words. But they weren't nonsense at all, they were Polari. Polari was the slang of the London gay underground, rather analogous to the origins of Cockney rhyming slang, in that it was a "secret language" used so that those in the know could talk about things that were still firmly illegal prior to 1967, without a snitch or undercover cop being able to understand them. Julian and Sandy were sometimes talking absolute smut that would never have got on air past the BBC censors if it had been expressed in plain English, and nobody in authority knew or could admit that they knew what they were really saying... 

[Accidental Loggie]

I've met Marvin when I was working at the BBC Outside Broadcasting Unit based at West Acton, he was in the Special Effects Department gathering dust in a corner.

The original Marvin was in the background in some scenes in the HHGTTG movie.

I assume that he was rusting a little at the time...

[Rick Lowe]

Adams explained that he got these words the same way he concocted Slartibartfast's name: by writing something utterly, unbroadcastably obscene to start with, then swapping syllables around inside and between words until he ended up with something that sounded terrible but didn't actually breach any codes

That works.

Similar to the old radio show Around the Horn, with the character J. Peasemould Gruntfuttock; except his 'Mangel-Wurzelling' ramblings were, IIRC, lots of Olde Englishe local patios and slang.

Heh - there was a far worse one on Round the Horn. Julian and Sandy (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams) were two... flamboyant characters who conversed in what 99% of the radio audience took to be made-up nonsense words. But they weren't nonsense at all, they were Polari. Polari was the slang of the London gay underground, rather analogous to the origins of Cockney rhyming slang, in that it was a "secret language" used so that those in the know could talk about things that were still firmly illegal prior to 1967, without a snitch or undercover cop being able to understand them. Julian and Sandy were sometimes talking absolute smut that would never have got on air past the BBC censors if it had been expressed in plain English, and nobody in authority knew or could admit that they knew what they were really saying... 

Yes, I recently found that out... 

[perttime]

Wikipedia:

"Vogon poetry is described as "the third worst poetry in the Universe" (behind that of the Azgoths of Kria and that of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings,( ... ) The story relates that listening to it is an experience similar to torture, as demonstrated when Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are forced to listen to the poetry (and say how much they liked it) prior to being thrown out of an airlock. "

"Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, Essex, was the writer, according to Adams, of the worst poetry in the universe. He appeared under that name in the original radio series and the first printings of the 1979 novelization (Pan Books, paperback, page 53), and his real address was given.

The real Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (1952–2004) attended Brentwood School with Adams, and they jointly received a prize for English. ( ... )

Johnstone achieved moderate prominence in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser ( ... )

After he requested the removal of his name and address, Johnstone was replaced with "Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex" ( ... ) In the film version Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings has moved from Essex to Sussex. In the TV adaptation of the series, a portrait of Jennings was Adams with pigtails. "

[PR19_Kit]

Heh - there was a far worse one on Round the Horn. Julian and Sandy (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams) were two... flamboyant characters who conversed in what 99% of the radio audience took to be made-up nonsense words. But they weren't nonsense at all, they were Polari. Polari was the slang of the London gay underground, rather analogous to the origins of Cockney rhyming slang, in that it was a "secret language" used so that those in the know could talk about things that were still firmly illegal prior to 1967, without a snitch or undercover cop being able to understand them. Julian and Sandy were sometimes talking absolute smut that would never have got on air past the BBC censors if it had been expressed in plain English, and nobody in authority knew or could admit that they knew what they were really saying... 

Oooooh, you ARE awful!   

[Rick Lowe]

"Ooh, isn't he Bold!"