So long, and thanks for all the fish

THE best ideas are often the simplest. Legend has it that the idea for “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” came to Douglas Adams when he was, himself, hitchhiking. He was in a field at night (most versions of the legend place this field in Austria), looking at the stars, when the thought came to him that there might be people hitchhiking between those stars on spaceships. Such people would, of course, need a guide to their travels: a compendium of useful information with that most useful of all injunctions, “Don't Panic”, written on the front cover in large, friendly letters.