Not 1982: Not the Nine O'Clock News rip-off annual

by Douglas Adams

Genres: Humor

732 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1981

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, humourist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.

Reviews

[Amanda Ure · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a calendar. Can you spoil a calendar? I don't know. In 1982, I attempted to read it in order, one date per day, but eventually gave up, partly because it includes two extra days in March, British Night Time (which is on black paper) and a month of Sundays called Thatch which is supposed to sort the economy out. It also has embryonic entries from Adams's 'The Meaning Of Liff', which per se is a classic but the Oxtail English Dictionary is slightly different. All sorts of delights in this, partly based on 'Not The Nine O'Clock News', which it fits better than as a Douglas Adams book. One of them is a do-it-yourself pornography wheel which can be used to write porn, based, rather surprisingly, on a machine invented by the mediaeval Catalan philosopher Ramon Llull, which I rewrote as a computer program.

There is also a sequel, called, not surprisingly, 'Not 1983'. Both are a little like 'Old Moore's Almanac'.

Just in case you think it can only apply to 1982, this is not entirely the case, firstly because it's way more than just a calendar, and secondly because it will also work for 2021 and 2027, and continue to work fine right up until there are 364 days in the year, which will be in the year 26 432 876, so you and your transhuman descendants will get a lot of use out of it and it is worth hanging onto.

[Charles James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this in the loft. Just given it a read . The book on all fairness describes itself as a rip off annual. The book is very much of it's time . The jokes are flogged to death and some of the humour is very dated .Next stop the Charity Shop .