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Raymond, who is teleported somehow into Los Angeles and ends up in a swimming pool.

None of these elements hang together really, or make any kind of sense. But you just know that Adams would have edited them, written the rest of the chapters, added other characters and plot threads, and in some magical sense made it all work out beautifully, albeit in a supremely unpredictable way. The secret of Dirk's mission would have been revealed in all its cleverness, Dave's existence would have fitted in perfectly, and Raymond the rhino's story would have shown us that being teleported into a Los Angeles swimming pool was logically the most likely fate that could have befallen him.

Unfortunately, now we will never know how Douglas Adams would have done it. A few months ago (I'm writing this in early 2009) it was announced that Eoin Colfer (author of the Artemis Fowl stories) has been commissioned to write a sixth Hitch Hiker novel, possibly using some of the material Adams had been working on. It might be that Colfer will also go on to write a third Dirk Gently book, and maybe it will turn out to be very good indeed - in this unpredictable universe of ours, who knows? But it wouldn't be the novel Douglas Adams would have written.

For me, he was one of those people who left the world a better place, because he wrote stories that were funny, intelligent, brimming with ideas and that somehow made you feel happier for having read or listened to them. I have been a fan of Douglas Adams from that day in 1978 when I happened to hear the very first radio broadcast of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy; over thirty years later, reading The Salmon of Doubt made me feel sad, amused, exasperated and delighted all at the same time, a mix of emotions that seems somehow appropriate, given the wonderfully quirky nature of the man and his stories. How typical, really.

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