Viking is another good example of Japanese English. It does not denote a pirate from among the Northmen, who plundered the coasts of Europe in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The term is used for an all-you-can eat buffet (which you can hence plunder at will, so a Viking would probably enjoy it, too)

Breakfast

Three mandarin oranges and a glass of grapefruit juice. A sandwich (just cheese, ham was out, my fault).

Lunch

A lot of food and fruits and juice at the Oslo (1150 yen, 31st floor, great view). The Oslo being a Scandinavian restaurant makes viking a good choice of words, actually.

Afternoon

Two Xylitol, one Werther's Original and a similar Meiji Chocolate candy.

Dinner

Two xiao long bao and eight shaomai (both are kinds of Chinese dumplings, filled with meat, together 840 yen). Two glasses of grapefruit juice.

Dirk Gently, hired by someone he never meets, to do a job that is never specified, starts following people at random. His investigations lead him to Los Angeles, through the nasal membranes of a rhinoceros, to a distant future dominated by estate agents and heavily armed kangaroos. Jokes, lightly poached fish, and the emergent properties of complex systems form the background to Dirk Gently's most baffling and incomprehensible case.

This is what Douglas Adams described the unfinished Salmon of Doubt to his agent at one time. Later, he said he lost touch with the character and is more likely to turn the story into a new Hitchhiker novel. Unfortunately, his untimely death prevented him from doing either.

This book contains material about life, the universe, and everything that was culled posthumously from his fleet of beloved Macintosh computers (the guy had PowerBooks long before they became affordable to ordinary mortals): The unfinished Salmon only makes up less than one third. There are two (previously published) short stories (Young Zaphod Plays It Safe and The Private Life of Genghis Khan), and dozens of articles, interviews, letters, speeches, notes and quotations about science-fiction magazines, Paul McCartney's birthday, school trousers, the alphabet, word games, his nose, The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, dogs, driving in foreign countries, Procul Harum, New Year's Resolutions, drinks, writing new introductions for old books, The Sound of Music, his dream team, inspiration, travelling, scuba diving with manta rays, favourite authors, tea, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume, phonetically close nouns, the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, plug-and-play, web sites, technology, atheism, e-mail, predictions, office chairs, palm top computers, power adaptors, Internet publishing, insurance contracts, science, statistics, an artificial god, and trying to make a movie.

So remember to bring your towel when you go out and buy this book or at least follow these links.