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

As those of you who’ve read my posts know, I live near Brighton, England. As I wander round Brighton, I occasionally catch sight of the Royal Pavilion. As I’m something of a poetry enthusiast, the view of the Pavilion always brings to mind the first couple of lines of Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’. You may know them:

‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree.’

‘Kubla Khan’ is an enigmatic poem, full of images of a place which is beautiful and opulent, yet deeply troubled. Coleridge claimed to have written it after falling asleep over a seventeenth century book of travels, Samuel Purchas’s ‘Pilgrimage’. The sleep was induced by opium, which Coleridge started taking as a painkiller. While asleep he composed two or three hundred lines, which he started to write down when he woke. He was disturbed by a ‘person on business from Porlock’ and, afterwards, couldn’t remember any more. Coleridge’s vision of Xanadu was influenced by Purchas’s book, which describes Kubla Khan, a thirteenth century Mongol emperor, who decreed a pleasure dome in a beautiful garden.

Nevertheless, I wondered if Coleridge knew the Royal Pavilion, and checked out the possibility. The answer, to my disappointment, is no. ‘Xanadu’ was probably written in 1797, while the Royal Pavilion, in its present form, was designed by John Nash and not built until 1815. All the same, for me, Xanadu will always resemble the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. If you think that’s an exaggeration and don’t know the building, here’s a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Pavilion#/media/File:Brighton_royal_pavilion_Qmin.jpg.

None of this stops me doing a cheeky pastiche of the beginning of ‘Kubla Khan’:


Xanadu comes to Brighton

On Brighton’s Steine did George the Fourth
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where people come from further north,
to taste the pleasures their money’s worth
Or sit and stare at a silver sea.
On many square miles of fertile land
flats and terraced houses stand.
There are gardens with exotic trees
and plants that toss in every breeze.
Beyond there sweep the ancient Downs,
now threatened by strings of modern towns.
Oh that valley in the chalk that slanted
through the green hills’ grassy cover!
A quiet place, though sometimes haunted
by women cuddling with their lovers.

Wow - that is an incredible feat of architecture! I don't know Brighton, but I do know New Brighton, so when I read "Brighton Pavilion", I think of something quite different (a thousand times more pedestrian)...

Great pastiche!

Hah! Here it is!! The promised X!

(mvp mentioned this in my journal, then said she didn't like it, so I said she'd better print it, or else I might sing to her)

Even though I've read it straight after P for Poetry, and my alphabetical logic is ruined!

Its wonderful! Naturally. Thanks mvp.

Now I want to walk around in the Pavilion Gardens, reciting...

Beyond there sweep the ancient Downs,
now threatened by strings of modern towns.
Oh that valley in the chalk that slanted
through the green hills’ grassy cover!

You think I'm joking? . I'll be the best busking act. It all happens in Xanadu.

Thanks!

CC, perhaps we should go busking in Brigton and frighten the pigeons!

Video for .