# Digest whorl.v008.n042 *The Whorl list — 4 messages, 4 voices, 15 May 1998* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Alice Turner *15 May 1998, 08:37* > Oh my. "Two-headed **pho*"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront > Wolfe with that one. Huh? Can one of you explain? -out-of-it alga- --- ### Michael Straight *15 May 1998, 08:53 · follows Alice Turner* >> On Fri, 15 May 1998, Alice Turner wrote: >> Oh my. "Two-headed **pho*"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront >> Wolfe with that one. > Huh? Can one of you explain? Two-headed Zaphod (Beeblebrox), President of the entire Galaxy (Universe?), but really just figure-heads for the dark and mysterious actual rulers (is Typhon really a pawn of the Undines?). From Douglas Adams' _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ books. And...in a spoiler for HHGTG... Zaphod discovers that someone has messed with his brain to make him do stuff he normally wouldn't and later discovers that someone was himself, rewiring his own brains so he could become President without his real motives being discovered. It's not quite one head betraying the other, but... -Rostrum --- ### Peter Westlake *15 May 1998, 11:57 · follows Michael Straight* > At 08:37 1998-05-15 -0400, Alice Turner wrote: >> Oh my. "Two-headed **pho*"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront >> Wolfe with that one. > Huh? Can one of you explain? > > -out-of-it alga- Ty-pho-n or Za-pho-d Beeblebrox. Zaphod's starship "Heart of Gold" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a ship's computer called Eddy. Of course, Typhon didn't start out in a starship in tBotNS, and I don't know whether tBotNS or HHGG was published first. The _Whorl_ is long after Eddy the computer, of course. -- Spectacled bear. Peter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG. --- ### Kieran Mullen *15 May 1998, 14:03 · follows Peter Westlake* > From: Peter Westlake > Subject: Name of the _Whorl_ > Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 12:26:17 +0100 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Is there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name? > It doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out > asteroid. I thought there were at least two reasons: (1) The resonance with the word "world". Wolfe likes wordplay. (2) If you are living on the surface of a cylinder and look down it, far away it will look like a whirlpool (I think). Does anyone know what the aspect ratio of the Whorl is? Kieran Mullen ---