# Refer me to Cecil's column, please.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [December 4, 2001, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788 "2001-12-04T05:13:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![hegel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cab0a1/32.png) [@hegel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hegel)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788/1 "2001-12-04T05:13:36Z")

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I know The Master did a column on this, but I have been unable to find it–what’s the term for an unwelcome visitor, even more specifically, one who interrupts something important? A particular author crafted it after being stopped midway through some epiphany, as I recall.

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788/2 "2001-12-04T05:34:33Z")

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The person from Porlock. Coleridge. The work is Xanadu. The drug was opium. One of those ought to find the column, if he did one. I don’t remember it.

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**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788/3 "2001-12-04T05:42:13Z")

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The poem is titled “Kublai Khan”, the rest of the detail is correct.

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**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788/4 "2001-12-04T06:39:26Z")

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I don’t think this is from a Straight Dope column. It’s possible, but I don’t remember it. Not all the columns are in the archives here, or even in the books.  
Jill

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788/5 "2001-12-04T11:34:30Z")

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Not a column, and not online, but it was in a Straight Dope book: _More of the Straight Dope_, p. 478, in the Quiz Answers section (#44)

> [@](#):
>
> We refer here to one of the most famous legends in literature. . . . Coleridge managed (or so he said) to record just 54 of the two or three hundred lines he had dreamed up before being interrupted by “a person on business from Porlock,” . . . “A person from Porlock” has since become an epithet for any sort of busybody, to the great distress of the Porlock Chamber of Commerce, I should think.

Off to Comments on Cecil’s Columns (even if it wasn’t a column)

bibliophage  
moderator GQ

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/refer-me-to-cecils-column-please/96788/6 "2001-12-04T16:52:57Z")

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Whoops. Kublai Khan. My memory slipped. Sorry.