The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It has been built on the fragmented remains of … it will be built on the fragmented … that is to say it will have been built by this time, and indeed has been -

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveller’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.

It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is (wioll haven be) enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the Universe.

This is, many would say, impossible.

In it, guests take (willan on-take) their places at table and eat (willan on-eat) sumptuous meals whilst watching (willing watchen) the whole of creation explode around them.

This is, many would say, equally impossible.

You can arrive (mayan arivan on-when) for any sitting you like without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you can book retrospectively, as it were when you return to your own time. (you can have on-book haventa forewhen presooning returningwenta retrohome.)

This is, many would now insist, absolutely impossible.

At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with (mayan meetan con with dinan on when) a fascinating cross-section of the entire population of space and time.

This, it can be explained patiently, is also impossible.

You can visit it as many times as you like (mayan on-visit re- onvisiting … and so on - for further tense-corrections consult Dr Streetmentioner’s book) and be sure of never meeting yourself, because of the embarrassment this usually causes.

This, even if the rest were true, which it isn’t, is patently impossible, say the doubters.

All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for. This, many claim, is not merely impossible but clearly insane, which is why the advertising executives of the star system of Bastablon came up with this slogan: “If you’ve done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?”

A sudden commotion destroyed the moment: the door flew open and two angry men wearing the coarse faded blue robes and belts of Cruxwan University burst into the room, thrusting aside the ineffectual flunkie who tried to bar their way.

“We demand admission!” shouted the younger of the two men, elbowing a pretty young secretary in the throat.

“Come on,” shouted the other one, “you can’t keep us out!” He pushed a junior programmer back through the door.

“We demand that you can’t keep us out!” bawled the younger one, though he was now firmly inside the room and no further attempts were being made to stop him.

“Who are you?” said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. “What do you want?”

“I am Majikthise!” announced the older one.

“And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!” shouted the younger one.

Majikthise turned to Vroomfondel. “It’s all right,” he explained angrily, “you don’t need to demand that.”

“All right!” bawled Vroomfondel, banging on a nearby desk. “I am Vroomfondel, and that is NOT a demand, that is a solid FACT! What we demand is solid FACTS!”

“No, no we don’t!” exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. “That is precisely what we don’t demand!”

Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, “We DON’T demand solid facts! What we demand is the total ABSENCE of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!”

“But who the devil are you?” exclaimed an outraged Fook.

“We,” said Majikthise, “are Philosophers.”

“Though we may not be,” said Vroomfondel, waving a warning finger at the programmers.

Ok, I finally got around to start reading HHGTTG. In english. Which roughly means it will take me a decade or two, to get through. But so far its great fun, and I’ve decided to share a quote with you every now and then, when I stumble upon something extrordinary good. Like this.

“Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it. Ah …
! What’s happening?
It thought. Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here?
What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now …
Oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it?
It’s a sort of …
Yawning, tingling sensation in my …
My … well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach. Good.
Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong.
And hey, what’s about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head?
Perhaps I can call that …
Wind! Is that a good name?
It’ll do … perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for.
It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it.
Hey! What’s this thing?
This … let’s call it a tail - yeah, tail.
Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can’t I?
Wow! Wow! That feels great!
Doesn’t seem to achieve very much but I’ll probably find out what it’s for later on.
Now - have I built up any coherent picture of things yet? No. Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation … Or is it the wind? There really is a lot of that now isn’t it? And wow!
Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast?
Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like …
Ow … ound … round …
Ground! That’s it!
That’s a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me? And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence. Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again.
Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.”