Paul Neil Milne Johnstone

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Paul Neil Milne Johnstone was the person originally credited in the original radio play version of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with being "the very worst" poet in the universe. The name given was that of a real person, who apparently was not amused, and complained. However this was not because he was being credited as the worst poet in the universe (which he merely found amusing) but the use of his address. The original name and address appear in the first printing of the Pan paperback and the first issue of the Original Records recording. The recorded version was changed by cutting up the tape and reassembling it in a different order to produce gobbledegook, whilst for later book printings and subsequent versions of Hitchhiker's, e.g. TV and film, the name was changed to "Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Wasp Villas, Greenbridge, Essex, England".

The poem to which Douglas Adams indirectly referred in the original radio series (and directly referred in the television series) can be viewed [here].

The worst poem in the universe

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.

They lay. They rotted. They turned

Around occasionally.

Bits of flesh dropped off them from

Time to time.

And sank into the pool's mire.

They also smelt a great deal.

According to M.J. Simpson, who wrote a biography of Adams, David Thomas (a mutual friend of Adams and Johnstone) once said "Although Paul was miffed by Douglas' epithet he was also amused. It was the inclusion of his then address (Beehive Court, Redbridge) in the first edition that annoyed him."

Johnstone attended Brentwood School, Essex, with Adams, and the two received awards for English in the same year. Like Adams, Johnstone later won a scholarship to study at Cambridge University. He went on to achieve moderate success in the poetry world as an editor and festival organizer.

Johnstone died in April 2004 of pancreatic failure. He outlived Adams by a little under three years.

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