A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Government – Frank McNally on arks, parks, and literary escapism

I was alarmed to read this week, in a leaked document listing Fine Gael's 10 policy priorities for its agreement with Fianna Fáil, that a number of "arks" are currently being developed, "around Dublin and [other] major cities".

This was under the heading of “infrastructural development”, which I suppose would cover ark-building all right. But even in light of the climate and coronavirus emergencies, such a drastic escape plan seemed at odds with the rest of the bland document.

Things may be bad, I thought, but not even Ulster has said “Noah” yet. So I looked again and, on closer inspection, the paragraph in question was discussing nothing more ominous than the growth of suburban commuter belts. The word FG meant, clearly, was “arcs”.

This temporary misunderstanding reminded me, however, of a work of comic science fiction greater than anything a political manifesto could invent. I mean of course Douglas Adams’s A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which, among other thing, may be the second most famous book to have an ark sub-plot.

Shelf Preservation – Frank McNally on a belated golden age for bookshelves

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River Dunce – Frank McNally on fake-bookshelf builders (and other transpontine types)

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The English Malaise – Frank McNally on a mysterious ‘sweating sickness’ that terrorised 16th-century England

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Frank McNally on James Joyce and Ireland’s bubonic plague scare of 1900

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Fans of the original BBC series recently celebrated the 42nd anniversary of its first broadcast. That wouldn’t be a major landmark for any other programme, but 42 is a mystical number in A Hitchhiker’s Guide, where it turns out to be the answer to the ultimate question. Of more immediate relevance in the era of Covid-19, meanwhile, was Adams’s story about the planet Golgafrincham. This had been the home once, he tells us, of a weird poetic sect, whose descendants continued the cult by constantly devising scenarios of the planet’s impending doom. Some warned of a collision with the sun. Others predicted an invasion by 12-foot “piranha bees”. More foresaw Golgafrincham being eaten, imminently, by a giant goat. Eventually the planet’s ruling classes realised they could use this hysteria to rid themselves of one-third of the population – the supposedly useless ones, including management consultants. Thus they proposed to build three arks to evacuate the planet.

Ark A would contain the leaders, scientists, and high achievers. Ark C would be for the people who made and fixed things. But Ark B – the only one that would actually launch – would contain the rest.

That these also included “hairdressers” and “telephone sanitisers” will ring alarm bells for anyone living through the 2020 lockdown. For yes, these essential workers were banished too. Then the rest of Golgafrincham enjoyed increased wealth and happiness for a time, until they were all wiped out by a disease contracted from dirty phones.

That's one moral of the story. The other is that, if anyone on your Whatsapp group tells you there are arks being built around Dublin, you should treat the story with scepticism. And if the arks turn out to be real, don't get on the one that's leaving first.

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We'll come back to Douglas Adams in a moment. Before that, an update on our running theme of the week, which has been the sudden ubiquity in public life of bookshelves, real or otherwise. For having featured yesterday Lawrence Durrell's story about the crass yachtsman who tried to buy "four yards of books" from a London antiquarian, as cover for a cocktail cabinet, I now learn that there is also a false bookshelf somewhere in Farmleigh, the Government's Phoenix Park retreat.

This one was built with more serious intent, it seems. No, it’s not an escape hatch for the Government if the arks aren’t finished on time. It dates from the 1970s when the mansion’s then-owners, the Guinness family, had reason to fear kidnap by ransom-seeking paramilitaries. The bookcase hides a door leading to a basement strongroom. And it can still be opened, I’m told, when you “push the correct volume”. My (impeccable) source assures me that while he didn’t get as far as the strongroom, he did see the secret door.

Farmleigh is far from unique in having such a security device. There are even some examples on YouTube, including one posted by a Sir Robert Bryson Hall, who sounds like a stately home in England but is actually an American rap artist, better known as "Logic".

Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, to give him his full title (it’s all official except the “Sir”) has just such a hidden door in his mansion – not leading to a strong-room, but rather to his secret production suite.

Not that it’s much of a secret now. So relaxed was he about sharing this detail with fans that he even showed how the shelf/door is activated, ie by pulling out his favourite book.  Which, as you’ve surely guessed by now, is A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.