Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was a looming presence, 6ft 5in with a Mr Punch nose and chin, and everything about him was larger than life. His imagination was vast; he was a kind of anti-Oppenheimer, a gleeful creator of (fictional) worlds. He was the biggest-selling author of the 1980s after Sue Townsend, and the youngest million-selling author after Anne Frank. He loved big sounds — he owned 24 left-handed electric guitars and his favourite 42nd birthday gift in 1994 was being invited to play on stage at Earls Court with Pink Floyd.
He was obsessed with hugeness — of space, of scientific possibility, of interplanetary travel, and also of wealth. In the 1990s I was at a
