Wednesday 13 December 2006

None At All

The best line in the HitchHikers' Guide (it works much better on radio and tv than in the recent film):

"Mr Dent,"
"Hello,yes?"
"Have you any idea how much damage this bulldozer would suffer, if I were to let it roll right over you?"
"No, how much?"

"None at all."

By a strange co-incidence, "none at all" is also the response to this discussion.

5 comments:

James Higham said...

TD - I love the part in "Restaurant" when Marvin is defending the bridge and the super tank says to get out of the way on the walkway. Marvin asks what "they" left hm with to defend the bridge with. The Supertank has several goes then says, "It must be something pretty damned devastating". After more time, Marvin asks if the ST gives up and then says: "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Bill Haydon said...

Yes, that's excellent. If I recall the radio series correctly, it leads to the invading machine then moaning and whinging about it being "absolutely typical" or something. At the end of the exchange, after Marvin's ridiculously easy destruction of the machine, he says "what a depressingly stupid robot." Go get 'em Marvin!

James Higham said...

Yep, the Supertank blows away the bridge beneath it which was supporting it and plunges to a heap of mangled metal below.

Colin Campbell said...

In another coincidence, this little section was on the radio yesterday in the run up to the news. I had never heard it before and now I have it in print.

Bill Haydon said...

And it's brilliant - it's the way they say it, and the way the sadly not immortal Peter Jones follows it up. Douglas Adams had a rare genius.