HHGTTG certainly has stood the test of time, or why are you even discussing current big budget Hollywood movies of the novel? That comment doesn't make any sense. HHGTTG is, and always will be, a classic series.

Colin, I see your point, but had to speak out in defense of some of the Alien novels. They're actually quite good. That Dean Anderson bloke is a decent writer, and he often adapts screenplays into their novel versions, and the spin offs have been hit and miss but not all bad.

The book I struggled with most recently has been Abarat by Clive Barker. Now, I love Clive Barker, but I'm not at all sure that these stories for children are actually much cop. They seem to follow a rather typical path, and I would have expected something a bit more outre from him. I love his adult stuff, and maybe that's why I find the kid's stuff a bit too diluted for my taste. I'm going to read Perfume next, by that French writer.

JB

The definitive answer on the thread in the lounge about how old an MC should be was 42. Nuff said?

I fear that silly jokes about learned subjects must be my taste - I've just discovered Jasper Fforde.

Emma

Emma, I love silly jokes about learned subjects too. Some of Stephen Fry's early stuff like The Liar nails this brilliantly.

Oh, I don't know what I'm trying to say about HHGTTG. I think that for a show that has such kudos and stature, I'm always thoroughly disappointed at how little I still find funny when I go back to it.

And I'm not sure that because a big-budget movie is made of something it means that the original has stood the test of time. They made a great new version of Battlestar Galactica, after all. Doesn't mean the original isn't horribly dated.

Yes, I don't take someone making a movie as any kind of endorsement of a print project. Maybe if it took that long to get together it should have told the executives something...?

In the dim and distant past when I used to read the New Statesman, they had wonderful weekly competitions which were, exactly, silliness about learned (usually literary) things. A spin-off was the book of the most miraculously brilliant parodies called How to Become Ridiculously Well Read in One Evening. I think good parody (think French and Saunders's film pastiches, the poet Roger Woddis) is a real art form, albeit a minor one.

Emma

I was putting a new stair carpet down yesterday, so to ease the tedium I put on the BBC radio version of HHGG. I got through about four of five episodes. I still found it brilliant.

Mind you, I'm still a big fan of The Young Ones and watch them on DVD, but friends who loved them just as much when they first came out say they've aged and simply aren't funny.

They never say that they have aged, that they've lost part of who they were back then, and maybe that's the reason they don't roll about at the stuff they loved so much at 15.

That's a very good point Colin. (Although I still laugh just as much at Fawlty Towers as I did first time round.) I guess a closely related issue is how well a particular piece stands up to repeated viewings, no matter how far apart. Some things seem designed to be read or viewed once, with no deeper layers to discover on the second, third or fourth go. I'm not sure that The Young Ones cared about that kind of thing - after all it was basically just a recreation of the various performers' existing stand-up shows. (I've just spent a weekend at a comedy writing class taught by a guy who was in the Comedy Store players at exactly that time, and the things he had to say about Ben Elton, well...!)

But you're right about being a different person now. As a youngster I was absolutely desperate to be entertained (let's just say there was very little laughter in my house when I was growing up) and even the slightest hint of tomfoolery would have me goggle-eyed with delight. If something just had the hallmarks of funny, that was good enough for me. If something was actually funny, I was in danger of a nervous breakdown through delight. (If there was a new series of The Goodies about to start my nine-year-old self could barely sleep due to the excitement.)

I must admit that I find much of Monty Python such a period piece that I have to think myself back to my teenaged self to enjoy it. Which is odd, because I never saw it first time around, as we didn't have a TV. And I do find it tiresomely male.

Emma

Nothing dates like comedy. Which is why I have all the more admiration for "vintage" comedy that still makes me laugh. Plenty of old dramas are still absolutely gripping, but if I try to think of the earliest-dated text that still genuinely makes me laugh I don't think I can go much earlier than Oscar Wilde ? (I'm sure the good people of WW will be able to throw some counter-examples my way which I've forgotten.)

I once saw two sets of RSC actors pitched against each other in an "Unfunny Shakespeare" contest, where each group had to go as far as they could through one of the Bard's comic scenes without getting any audience reaction. As soon as someone laughed, the team was buzzed off the stage. You'd be amazed how far they managed to go without raising a single chuckle. I think in the end one of the performers collapsed under the strain and involuntarily did some comedy eye-rolling or suchlike which got a laugh and thus his team lost.

Nothing dates like my mate. She gets two or three in a week, and then caps it off by a spell of speed dating at the weekend.

I asked her recently what on Earth she thinks she is looking for.

'Looking for?' came her reply. 'Why should I be looking for anything?'

Gotta love that girl.

JB