A friend bought me a book to read on my short but bland train journies, a compilation of the literary competitions in the New Statesman magazine from 1968 to 1978. I flipped it open at a section entitled View By Appointment Only, which turned out to be the results of a competition to describe Xanadu, from Kubla Khan, like an estate agent. This friend knows just the kind of stuff I like to read, apparently. So I was reading it, and one of the submissions, by Sebastian Carter, was so good that I have to reproduce it here:

“For sale by Auction at an early date, by Decree of a Gentleman of Substance, the stately architect-designed Residence known as ‘The Pleasure-Dome, Xanadu’, set in hilly country near the seaside. Comprising: amongst many luxury reception and bedrooms, the extremely sunny Dome Room; also Furnishings, including ancestral military Portraits, Service flatlet, with Damsel (musical; terms subject to negotiation). Also interestingly landscaped walled Grounds of about 5,400 acres, with extensive but irregular River Frontage, well-matured trees, some odoriferous, beehives and cowshed for one cow (‘Paradise’, for sale by separate Treaty). Sole agents: Persons, Porlock.”

It took me about 2 or 3 seconds to understand the bit about the cow, Paradise, and when I did I absolutely busted up laughing. People just don't laugh on the train, usually, but I couldn't help it; and of course the more I tried to do a quaint English stifle, the more I chuckled.