Where it started

Douglas Adams will forever be remembered as the author of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, a favourite of mine since my youth, and which spawned in me a love of all things Adams.

In July of 2004 I exchanged a couple of emails with MJ Simpson^*, the author of Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, and we got to chatting about Adams' other popular, if less well known, book Last Chance To See. The book (and BBC Radio series) described his travels around the world with naturalist and broadcaster Mark Carwardine and their visits with many endangered animals, such as the Mountain Gorilla, Northern White Rhino, Komodo Dragon, Kakapo Parrot and many more.

So many of the fascinating creatures they had described were teetering on the very brink of extinction back in the late 1980s, one had to wonder how they were doing now, some 15 years later. I thought a blog might be a good way to bring the stories up-to-date, and so Another Chance To See was born.

*Simpson's own site, Planet Magrathea, was a great resource for news about everything Hitchhikers, including the two new radio series and the 2005 Hitchhikers movie. Sadly, the site is now closed - [April 18, 2005]