> Does anyone want to hazard a guess at Douglas Adams' reply when asked why he chose the number 42?

In the interview that I heard, he said that he'd been trying to think of the ultimate answer to the ultimate question in his book "The hitch-hickers' guide to the galaxy" and thought that 42 was a pleasant sort of number - the sort of number you could take home to meet you parents. So not a bit octal.

Since then I found a Douglas Adams webpage which listed several versions of his answers. I suspect we will never know the real one!