Episode 2: Introduction and Part One: The Journey. Chapter One: The Notice Board First I talk about my battered old copy of Watership Down from 1978. Childish 11 year old's signature inside the front cover. Cost 90p. Must have got it after seeing the film. No introduction in my copy so I relistened to the audiobook reading of it. The plausibility of the entire book coming from car journeys. Amazing if true. What a memory! Adam's goes through the origins of characters. Many derived from wartime experiences. After the car stories he was urged to write it down by his daughters and went through each section with them. His love of the countryside where the book is set is obvious. The origins of lapine is explained. Needing words for things only rabbits would say. Arabic influence and onomatopoeia. Draft was rejected 7 times. Too babyish but with adult language. Rex Collings was the small publisher who took it on and gave the title in 1972. Were there working titles before then? Was popularised in the UK via America. Deluxe illustrated version appeared in 1976. I've never seen this. I'm curious about it. Thr book has never been out of print since. Adams didn't quite understand the popularity of the book and asserted it was never meant to be an allegory. When looking at such features as Efrafa, I am sceptical. Maybe he just didn't want to get drawn into such discussions? Just said it was a story about rabbits told in a car. Oh to have been able to listen in... On to Chapter One: I recorded this section without notes. Won't be doing that again! The book opens with the beautiful book ending of the primroses being over, which contrasts with its last line. An entirely human description of nature leads us into the Sandleford Warren, where we are then directed to a group of holes where Hazel and Fiver are sitting. They are described. Fover small and nervous. Hazel larger. The episode with the cowslip demonstrates the nature of the Owsla at this warren. A bit authoritarian. Then they come across the notice-board. Fiver realises why he is feeling so nervous. A bad thing is coming to the Warren. In the sunset, the fields seem covered in blood. As human readers we get to know what is on the notice board: houses are going to be built right where the Warren is. For rabbits, that is only going to end one way. Vocab: Hrair: more than four U Hrair: The Thousand Owsla: The elite group of rabbits who help with the running of a Warren. Elil: Enemies. Any animal that hunt or kill rabbits. Hrairoo: Little Thousand. Fiver's name in Lapine.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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