Originally to be called "The Ends of the Earth," each episode would have ended with the planet Earth meeting its demise in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realised that he needed a character who knew what was going to happen to Earth before the other characters. He made this character an alien and, remembering an idea he supposedly had had while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria in 1971, decided that this character would be a "roving reporter" for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a pan-galactic encyclopaedia and travel guide. Recollections by his friends at the time indicate that Adams first spoke of the idea of "hitchhiking around the galaxy" while on holiday in Greece in 1973.