Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (c. 1952 -April 2004) was a British poet. He was a schoolmate of science-fiction author Douglas Adams and stuckist artist Charles Thomson. His student writings were described as pretentious by some of his peers, and Adams made him the butt of a joke in the earliest versions of " The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ", in some versions referred to as " Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex ".

Johnstone attended Brentwood School, Essex , with Adams, and the two received awards for English in the same year. Johnstone edited "Broadsheet", "the Artsphere Magazine", which included poetry by Thomson, mock reviews by Adams as well as Johnstone's own poetry. Johnstone later won a scholarship to study at Cambridge University (as did Adams). In 1977 he co-ordinated the Cambridge Poetry Festival

Johnstone went on to achieve moderate success in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser; he died of pancreatic failure, almost three years after Adams' death.

Worst poet

In 1978 " The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ", eventually published in other versions for various media, made its first appearance as an audio play that was broadcast on radio, and then published as a printed script and as phonograph ic recordings. All versions of the story feature a fictional high-technology travel guide whose title (at least in English) is identical to that of the story, and among its subjects are hazards that include having to listen to really bad poetry. Two characters are forced to listen to poetry of the alien Vogon race, and the story cites the guide as authority on the worst forms of poetry in the universe . In that context, the third and second worst are stated as, respectively, those of the Vogons and of the Azgoths of Kria.

As first released, the audio play has the guide say the "worst poetry of all" is that of a poet otherwise indistinguishable from Johnstone. M.J. Simpson, a fan and biographer of Adams, reports at second or third hand that the real Johnstone found citation as the worst poet in the universe primarily "amusing"; in any case, he forcefully insisted that his then current residence address not be used. Fact|date=July 2007 In response, all subsequent pressings have that portion of the recording garbled into nonsense, while subsequent printings of the script and the later-released realisations of the story change the name and address of the worst poet to approximately as follows:

The poem to which Douglas Adams indirectly referred in the original radio series (and directly referred in the television series) is as follows:

:"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 a previous poem, Johnstone had written::"The crippled swan slowly easing his stiffened wings, feebly trying":"To discourage death's stalking shadows with whispered hiss;"(published in "Broadsheet")