Paul Neil Milne Johnstone

'Paul Neil Milne Johnstone' of Redbridge, Essex, was the writer, according to Douglas Adams, of the worst poetry in the universe. He appeared under that name in the original radio series and the first printings of the 1979 novelization of (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Pan Books, paperback, page 53).

The real Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (1952–2004) attended Brentwood School with Adams, and they jointly received a prize for English. At the school, Johnstone edited Broadsheet, "the Artsphere Magazine" that included mock reviews by Adams as well as Johnstone's own poetry. Johnstone won an exhibition to study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge while Adams won an exhibition to St John's College.

Johnstone achieved moderate prominence in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser, including the 1977 Cambridge Poetry Festival. He died a few years after Adams of pancreatic failure.

After he requested the removal of his name and address, Johnstone was replaced with "Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex" (a garbled form of his name). On the 1979 ORA042 vinyl record release, his name has been made indecipherable by cutting up that part of the mastertape and reassembling it in the wrong order. In the film version Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings has moved from Essex to Sussex. In the TV adaptation of the series, a portrait of Jennings was Adams in drag.

A sample of Johnstone's poetry, taken from the animated readout in the TV series, is:


 * 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. 

In the TV series, Jennings is reported as living at 37 Wasp Villas, Greenbridge, Essex, GB10 1LL which is neither an actual town nor a valid postcode. The real Johnstone lived at Beehive Court in Redbridge.