11th March: Douglas Adams

Author Douglas Adams, who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, would have been 64 today. Here are some facts about him you may not have known.

1. He was very tall - six feet tall by the age of 12, and reaching an adult height of 6' 5".
2. Adams is one of only two people outside of Monty Python to be credited with writing a Python sketch (The other was Neil Innes). The sketch Adams wrote was called "Patient Abuse" and was about paperwork in an emergency. He also appeared in the programme - as a surgeon putting on gloves, and loading a missile onto a cart, dressed as a pepper pot.
3. He also wrote three serials for Doctor Who. This was after trying to submit a script for a Doctor Who film called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen. The script wasn't wasted. Adams eventually turned it into his novel Life, the Universe and Everything.
4. Adams played the Guitar left-handed and had a collection of twenty-four left-handed guitars.
5. He suffered greatly from a lack of confidence when writing work dried up. He said, "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence. I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it".
6. The jobs he took during these periods included hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner and bodyguard to a Qatari family.
7. The title, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy occurred to him while he was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, looking up at the stars, with a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe by his side. Somebody ought to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he thought.
8. He once climbed Mount Kilimanjaro wearing a rhino suit, to raise money for the charity Save the Rhino International.
9. He died after a workout at the gym, from a heart attack. His memorial service five months later was the first church service to be broadcast live on the internet by the BBC.
10. Two Asteroids have been named in his honour. There is one named after him and another named Arthurdent after a character in Hitchhiker's Guide.