Steam rises from a bowl of dark soup resting on crumpled cloth.

Original artwork, not a still

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency • 1987

Douglas Adams

"Now, that I didn't know," said Reg. "Your past has murkier things in it than I dreamed possible. A quality, I might add, that it shares with this soup."

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

A dry, absurdist comparison between a mysterious past and a bowl of murky soup. The joke lands through deadpan understatement, treating something ominous as merely unappetizing. It's a playful jab built entirely on that single mismatched comparison.

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