The Grey Ghost

Not yet a classic, quite likely never to be revered as one -- and that's fine by me.

TAKEN ON THE EVENING OF FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2004

You may ask, "What's so special about an old grey Toyota that's been sitting for five years?"

Several things:

• inline 6
• rear drive
• not too heavy
• crisp, well-executed body lines
• original alloy wheels, nicely designed
• rare, but not flashy (and in grey, nearly invisible)
• traded for a six-pack of Irish Stout

...but perhaps most importantly, this is the first vehicle in a decade that has my name on the title. I've enjoyed the other cars I've driven in the meantime, but this one is -- and will remain -- MINE.

It was parked because of repeated and seemingly unending starter trouble, becoming an obstacle that had to be removed. My old friend's offer came along just as I was tiring of the seven-liter Cadillac I've been piloting -- a sublime yet ridiculous land yacht whose fuel consumption is merely its most obvious problem. With this Cressida, I expect twice the fuel mileage...

...that is, once it's back on the road. Through the week of Thanksgiving, I must wait patiently as the mechanic I entrusted it to spends his time in the woods with a compound bow, hunting for deer. On the plus side, this gives me plenty of time to work out the legal hassles and seek out the Shakespeare play, Troilus and Cressida...

The title characters were ghosts -- that's all I know so far.

Stay tuned.

- Phil Smith

"Of course, he only had the two arms, and the one head, and called himself Phil..."

Yes, because of that line in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the girlfriend I had in the mid-Eighties called me Zaphod. I, in turn, called her Trillian... But no, I never took to wearing the orange sash of the Galactic Presidency, and I never stole a spaceship. Not one. At least, not yet...

So who am I? Merely the founder of the Unified Settlement, a new nation created for each and every Citizen of Earth. Now, hang on -- that may never be quite as important as it may sound. I'd be quite surprised to find that more than a thousand individuals are aware of the Unified Settlement, and I'm pretty sure only 60 or so understand what it's about.

I'm just a guy in his late thirties, with a small family and a struggling marriage (struggling, that is, to find a way for us to be comfortably divorced), trying (but not hard enough, apparently) to be self-employed -- and planning for the future.

My trouble has always been that I look too far into the future, and that I'm always looking at too big of a picture. Then again, if I hadn't been doing that, I would not have come up with an idea that may, if I can get it across, finally bring World Peace.

The idea is pretty simple. People are people, and if they were allowed to decide for themselves, would not choose to go to war.

The solution, however, is incredibly complex and difficult -- or is it? Sure, governments and corporations, steered by the Machiavellian machinations of secret societies, have a stranglehold on the world -- but they have no power over anyone without consent.

Visit http://www.unifiedsettlement.org/ to find out more. I've got a lot of building to do on that site, so check again, and again and again, over the next few months -- and sign the guestbook if you have something (anything) to say.

If you REALLY want to know more about me, well, there's not much to tell. "Zaphod's just this guy, you know?"

- Phil Smith