Obviously somebody had been appallingly incompetent and he hoped to God it wasn't him. - Douglas Adams

One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so — but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence, the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous.

# Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly?' I asked.
He looked at me as if I were stupid.
'You die, of course. That's what deadly means.