h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Prate on, we pray, young Ganymede,
Across yon misty bog;
Your readers huddle in a hush,
With bated breath, agog.

The gog got up and left the scene
A little stiff and sore
To get a cup of coffee
From the local handy store

Alas, on entering the store
it was oh so crowded
No empty corner did he spot
and his vision clouded.

He lost his cool and tossed a stool;
Aloud he cursed and swore--
He'd had enough, he called their bluff,
He'd visit here no more.

He turned and fled head over heels,
and said "To hell with tea!
I'd rather starve than stay in here."
Then hummed 'Oh Gra mo chree.'

back to Forrée Artistque

So having left the wretched place,
And fled for calmer climes,
Let us return to Grimly’s hunt,
And think of better times.

Let us return to Lady Ann,
And her artistic clique,
As they sought to watch the muggle hunt,
And offer their critique.

Enraptured by the romance,
Of such coarse exotic sport,
They thought they should record it,
For posterity and thought …..

That if the Burdock Media,
Had nothing else to do,
They’d paint a record of the day,
And make some money to.

Ann T-P was well laden,
With canvas paints and pens,
And her teasle headed speckling brush,
That she used for painting hens.

She also had her painting chair,
Made from hessian, wood and string,
Like a cross between a hammock and,
An eighteenth century swing.

To carry this equipment,
She’d a mule with gangling gait,
Recalcitrant and flatulent,
Well past its sell-by date.

But Lewellyn stode before them,
With a strange determined air,
To be down wind of TP’s beast,
He didn’t really care.

He’d several reams of parchment,
And his calligraphic quills,
In a leather covered escritoire,
Which he’d bought in Tunbridge Wells.

He planned an epic poem,
A stupendous work of art,
But he wished Ann’e wretched mule,
Could do something else but fart.

Old Arri seemed oblivious,
As he dogged the Peagill mule
Collecting up it’s acrid dung,
Which he dried and used as fuel

He pushed his wheelbarrow,
Oblivious to the smell,
On the scent of fresh ripe mule turds,
One really shouldn’t dwell.

They stood and viewed the epic scene,
From the top of Scragworts Tor,
Of Grimley’s population, as they
Charged across the Moer.

Thus Lady Ann sketched furiously,
Her muggle hunt designs,
While foppish Lau mused wistfully,
And penned his first few lines.

It didn't take them all that long

To run out of ideas.

The sketching would have been okay,

The writing drove to tears.

I'm with you, Recumbantman, splendid piece of writing there from PBS.
Wish I could do that.

Old Arri watched in silence,
As it wandered through his mind,
That two such blith’ring idiots,
T’would be very hard to find.

Lewellyn strode around the tor,
Searching for the words,
While Arri stood behind the mule,
Collecting up the turds.

The Lady Ann fought valiantly,
And sketched with fine tipped pen,
But every bloody thing she drew,
Looked like a speckled hen.

Sorry - I forgot to say "thank you'.

Lewellyn swallowed his comment

On seeing scribbled hens

But then he thought: by Jove, that's it!

And re-sharpened his pen.


You're welcome.

The idea of a hunting scene,
Rendered like a chicken,
Fired his sensibilities,
And made his heartbeat quicken.

So quick his pulse he could indeed

Feel blood rush through his veins.

'Oh, wow', he thought, 'this is my chance!'

And then he lost his brains.

For up had walked a gallant lass
Who found the sketch enchanting
And seeing Lewellin's ardent pass
And the sad old donkey farting

Did what she must to save Anne's honour
and laid poor Lew to waste
Anne laid horror'd eyes upon her
And cried out 'gainst her haste

Then seeing that the rampant maid,
Was none but Lily Loofah,
She thwacked her with a stronckling thong,
And kicked her ample doofah.

But Lily was quite tough and so

withstood the vile attack.

She swayed, and, to poor Ann's surpise,

Gave her a hearty smack.

The sight of these two Grimly maids,
Atop of Scragworts Tor,
Made a sight well worthy of,
Eyes that were too sore.

Engaged in mortal combat,
They fought on round by round,
As the victim of their lust and ire,
Lay comatose on the ground

Old Arri thought, ‘Well sod it’
As he viewed the Scragwort sconce,
‘How could anyone be jealous of
A dim poetic ponce’.

He loaded up his barrow,
With the latest mule turd,
And headed off to where he thought,
The hunters could be heard.

But lacking normal senses,
Such as hearing sight and scent,
He wandered off t’wards Shipling Greep,
A precarious descent.

His barrow – fully loaded,
With the mule’s excrement,
Was quite unwieldy at best,
As its downhill course it went.

The path was badly rutted,
At times it got quite narrow,
Not quite the place to try and wheel,
A mule-dung laden barrow.

As Arri tried to keep control,
With all his gardener’s art,
He tripped and tumbled headlong,
Into the shit filled cart.

From underneath the mire,
He panicked in despair,
But his desperate cries wer muffled,
As his legs kicked in the air.

And there he might well have remained,
Like some strange exotic species,
A four-branched human cactus,
In a barrowful of faeces.

But Sergeant Pluvvet hearing,
The commotion on the tor,
Came plodding up the Shipling path,
Th’ embodiment of law.

The Moon fell foul oer Grimley Moer
On Grimley's dark church yard,
And on the ancient mouldy stones
And on the Grimley bard.

From far beneath that blasted heath
Where tangled ivy grew,
The aged bard sucked on his quill
And pondered what to do.

He dusted of his withered brain
Shook dust from out his eye,
And ballad metre oiled the cogs
Of parts that long were dry.

"Dear gods," he thought,"who calls me back
From deep and dreamless slumbers?"
He gazed upon the steeple bare
That giltlessness encumbers.

"Dear gods," he thought,"that line was crap,
My balladeering's rusty!
Gone are the days in a crumbly haze
My life and lines were lusty."

But from the Grimley quaggy swamps
Faint gurgelings were heard,
As gaseous memories emerged
And silent stories stirred,
Dim memories took solid shape --
A Dandy and his bird,
Who think again of beetle pies
Bedecked with lemon curd,
And shake themselves in shock, awake,
To swim in the absurd.

"Oh Grimley, Grimley, go to sleep,
And let your stirrings cease,
The hunt for gold for Grimley kirk's
A tale best left in peace.
This nonsense epic, old and fat,
Like some sick Golden Fleece,
If fed with further fancies
It can only grow obese."

The Grimley bard, his fate ill-starred,
Scratches his fat behind,
And wonders would he rather lose
His his thread, or just his mind.

The Moon gazed down on Grimley Moer,
And to the Grimley bard,
"It's good to exercise your brain,"
She said, "and lose some lard."
"Oh no," he groaned aloud in pain,
"Don't deal me such a card.
I really was quite fast asleep,
You caught me off my guard."

But Grimley Moer has deep dark roots
Like tentacles entwined,
And once they take their toxic hold,
They never leave your mind.