He laughed at himself with equal good humour. At, for example, his epic bouts of writer’s block (“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by”) when, according to legend, his publisher and book agent would lock him in a hotel room, with no telephone and nothing to do but write, releasing him only for supervised walks. If his enthusiasm ran away with him and he advanced a biological theory too eccentric for my professional scepticism to let pass, his mien at my dismissal of it would always be more humorously self-mocking than genuinely crestfallen. And he would have another go.
He laughed at his own jokes, which good comedians are supposed not to, but he did it with such charm that the jokes became even funnier. He was gently able to poke fun without wounding, and it would be aimed not at individuals but at their absurd ideas. To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow preordained for us, because we are so well suited to live in it, he mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle. Or there’s this parable, which he told with huge enjoyment, whose moral leaps out with no further explanation. A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained about high-frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, transmitters and receivers, amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. “But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?”
Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender (he once climbed Kilimanjaro in a rhino suit to raise money to fight the cretinous trade in rhino horn), Apple Computers has lost its most eloquent apologist. And I have lost an irreplaceable intellectual companion and one of the kindest and funniest men I ever met. The day Douglas died, I officially received a happy piece of news, which would have delighted him. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone during the weeks I have secretly known about it, and now that I am allowed to, it is too late.
The sun is shining, life must go on, seize the day and all those clichés.
We shall plant a tree this very day: a Douglas fir, tall, upright, evergreen. It is the wrong time of year, but we’ll give it our best shot.
Off to the arboretum.
Douglas Noel Adams 1952-2001
Schubler Chorales—J. S. Bach
Shepherd’s Farewell, from The Childhood of Christ—Hector Berlioz
Welcome to the Church by Reverend Antony Hurst, on behalf of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
Introduction and opening prayer by Stephen Coles
JONNY BROCK
Three Kings from Persian Lands—Peter Cornelius
ED VICTOR
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord—Traditional American melody & words by Julia Ward Howe
MARK CARWARDINE
Gone Dancing—Robbie Mclntosh
Te Fovemus—The Chameleon Arts Chorus (by P. Wickens)
JAMES THRIFT, SUE ADAMS, JANE GARNIER
Rockstar—Margo Buchanan
Prayers of Thanksgiving by Stephen Coles
Holding On—Gary Brooker
Wish You Were Here—David Gilmour
RICHARD DAWKINS
For the beauty of the earth—Music by Conrad Kocher & words by Folliott S. Pierpoint
ROBBIE STAMP
Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust from Cantata No 170—J. S. Bach
Aria
Contented rest, beloved heart’s desire,
You are not found in the sins of hell,
But only in heavenly concord;
You alone fortify the feeble heart.
Contented rest, beloved heart’s desire,
Therefore none but the gifts of virtue
Shall have their abode in my heart.
SIMON JONES
For all the Saints who from their labours rest—Music by R. Vaughan Williams & words by William W. How
BLESSING BY REVEREND ANTONY HURST
Organ Music by J. S. Bach:
Fantasia in G
Prelude and Fugue in C
Italian Concerto
Editor’s Acknowledgments
To Douglas, without whom all of us would not be sharing the bounteous pleasures of these pages; I miss you;
To Jane Belson, Douglas’s beloved wife; her belief in and support for this book provide the foundation on which it rests;
To Ed Victor, Douglas’s long-time agent and trusted friend, whose commitment to this undertaking cleared away every obstacle;
To Sophie Astin, Douglas’s invaluable assistant, whose intelligence, devotion, and first-hand contribution to these pages proved essential;
To Chris Ogle, Douglas’s close friend, whose computer skills and knowledge of Douglas’s thought processes, passwords, and what could very kindly be called Douglas’s filing system, enabled Chris to assemble a master disk of all Douglas’s work, without which this book would not exist;
To Robbie Stamp, Douglas’s good friend and business colleague, who reminded me that Douglas had already created the structure for this book;