Tag: Lady Margo Cargo

The Mystery of the Vicar’s Wading Pool (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

“As any schoolboy might expect,” writes Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, in Chapter DXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “Scurveyshire has its share of cold snaps!” The exclamation point is added to make it more suspenseful. Read all about in in Violet Crepuscular’s manual, How to Write Good ($22.98 plus postage).

Ah! But what no one expects is that during this horribly cold snap, the water in the Vicar’s backyard wading pool has not frozen over! (More suspense.) And late that chilly night, peering out her bedroom window with binoculars to see if anyone is daft enough to be running around with no clothes on, Lady Margo Cargo, sweeping her lenses back and forth over the forbidding arctic landscape, suddenly spots the ungainly monstrous head of a monster popping up from the water in the middle of the pool. But when she sweeps back, the head is gone… with only a few baseball cards left floating on the surface.

If only the telephone had been invented already! She could roust Constable Chumley out of bed to come over and investigate. She could rouse her crusty butler, Crusty, but he has threatened to shoot her if she wakes him. You can only get so much mileage out of being the richest widow in Scurveyshire.

Here the chapter ends abruptly, doubtless to build suspense. Please don’t ask what happened to Chapter DXXVII. There are some things mankind was never meant to know.

Can We Have Our Plot Back? (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Ask Sister Mary Martha

Author Violet Crepuscular has been busy grading the Oy, Rodney Genius Quiz. Actually, not that busy–only four people, world-wide, bothered to take it. And none of them passed.

“This makes me lachrymose,” she complains. “It will be all I can do to introduce Chapter CDLXXXXVIII of my epic romance, Oy, Rodney!”

The reader will remember (or not) that Lord Jeremy, under duress applied by Constable Chumley’s mother, Sir Lanthelot the Lithping Knight–bear in mind that the woman is somewhat tetched–has discovered a landscape riddled with Easter Island heads. Like these. Just like these.

Easter Island statues: One mystery solved by researchers | CNN Travel

You’d think any author would jump right in and set about explaining what those heads were doing there–but not the Queen of Suspense. She introduces Chapter CDLXXXXVIII with a recipe for prawns in toothpaste sauce, followed by this:

“Can Lady Margo Cargo be true to Lord Jeremy Coldsore and still love the American adventurer, Willis Twombley–when she is not aware that they are two different people. Three, if you count Twombley’s conviction that he is Sargon of Akkad. This is phloxidation with a vengeance!” Feel free to skip the rest if you know what that means.

If not, please sign my petition to Ms. Crepuscular demanding an explanation of the Easter Island heads. (Yes, I know she’ll say “My readers are revolting!”) We must take a firm line here, or she’ll end up subjecting us to chess puns (“Prawn to King-4!”).

The Return of Black Rodney (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Mrs. Arthur Bolgani, a reader living in the basement of Bob’s Ping-Pong Emporium in Yuggoth, Kansas, has written to Violet Crepuscular: “What about the medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney? The one who put all those curses on Scurveyshire. You never write about him anymore!”

“Everyone’s a critic,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, introducing Chapter CDLXVI of her immortal romance novel, Oy, Rodney. She’s trying to conceal the fact that she has forgotten all about Rodney. It’s been several hundred pages since his name’s been mentioned.

“What no one in Scurveyshire knows,” she continues flosticating, “is that Mr. Bigcheeks is the direct descendant of Black Rodney, twice removed (once to Czechoslovakia), and his family picnics in the forest are only the first step in a scheme to take over all of Western Europe from Cornwall to the Oder-Niesse Line!”

But does Mr. Bigcheeks know he has this plan? Can’t the poor guy just enjoy a picnic with his family? Indeed, the unexpected discovery of his presence in the woods has saved Lady Margo and Willis Twombley from being hopelessly lost and probably dying of starvation and exposure. From the Bigcheeks’ picnic basket to the edge of the wood is only some 25 feet.

“We’re saved!” exults Lady Margo. She tosses her wig into the air. It gets caught in a tree.

 

A Romantic Interlude (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Crusty's Trombone Lessons ('Oy, Rodney') – Lee Duigon

Introducing Chapter CDXXXV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular chides her readers for demanding more romance.

“You’d think they’d be satisfied,” she writes, “with a cyclops rampaging about the countryside while the town awaits the delivery of sea monkeys–but no, that’s not good enough! They want this to be a kissing book–ugh! Well, if it’s kissing they want, it’s kissing they’ll get!”

Patching up a lover’s quarrel caused by a difference of opinion between their respective invertebrate pets, Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad, embarks on a hot and heavy smooching session with Lady Margo Cargo, Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s financier. (Shouldn’t that be “fiancee”?) Now that she’s fitted herself with a new upholstered wooden leg, Lady Margo is hot to trot (“You have no idea how distasteful it is to me to have to write such tripe,” Violet interjects.) In the course of this athletic love-making, Lady Margo’s wig falls off, her glass eye pops out, and Twombley’s six-gun slips out of the holster and into Oswin the Crayfish’s aquarium.

“It’s not cheating,” explains Ms. Crepuscular, “because Lady Margo is convinced that Mr. Twombley and Lord Jeremy are the same person. All attempts to demonstrate otherwise have failed so far–but at least her conscience is clear.”

Here she terminates the chapter before things get out of hand.

As for the cyclops, “If nobody cares about him tossing people’s cottages around like basketballs,” Violet concludes, “well, isn’t that a sad commentary upon our time?”

She will spend the rest of the day consoling the neglected cyclops.

 

Jailbreak in Scurveyshire (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Tanystropheus - Facts and Pictures

[Editor’s Note: I cannot find the image of a book cover that is usually displayed with an ‘Oy, Rodney’ episode. The closest I could come was this picture of a Tanystropheus–which I admit is not that close, but what can one do?]

Chapter CDXXXII of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, finds Lord Jeremy Coldsore and his fiancee, Lady Margo Cargo, both locked up in gaol, Constable Chumley having arrested them for reasons best known to himself. But behind the scenes, Lady Margo’s crusty old butler, Crusty, is plotting to break his mistress out of gaol.

All he needs is an elephant.

“Only an elephant is big and strong enough to break down the wall of the gaol so Lady Margo can get out,” he confides to Constable Chumley (of all people). Chumley happens to know where he can rent an elephant. There’s a man in Plaguesby who keeps a few in his stables.

Having rented the elephant and fortified her with a swallow of grog from The Lying Tart, Crusty and the constable turn her loose on the wall. Neither of them has remembered to forewarn Lady Margo, who is almost killed when the elephant batters down the wall.

“Hurry up, you lazy old bat!” cries Crusty. “Before the police come!” He then remembers that Constable Chumley is already there. They have to help Lady Margo out of the rubble–she will need a new upholstered wooden leg–and Crusty helps her hop back home.

In the adjacent cell, Lord Jeremy is beside himself.

“You just wait until the next time you ask me for a raise!” he bellows at the constable. “You copepod! You wretch!” Only then does it dawn on Chumley that he may have done something not strictly in accord with normal police procedure. He apologizes with genuine exfoliation (her word, not mine!).

“Ayn yerk nee fluzzin’, M’lord!” he groans.

“Oh, forget it!” growls Lord Jeremy.

Revenge of the Lake Smelts! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Lady Margo Cargo’s upholstered wooden leg seems to have a life of its own! (How’s that for a lead sentence? Nobody does it like Violet Crepuscular.)

In Chapter CDXIV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Ms. Crepuscular returns to the apocalyptic roller derby match pitting the visiting Ulan Bator Lake Smelts vs. the team from neighboring Plaguesby. Just as the game was getting to the point where none of the spectators would admit to ever having been in Plaguesby, or having any family there, or even knowing where it is, Lady Margo Cargo’s upholstered wooden legs goes flying out into the middle of the rink, instantly become a serious and even deadly hazard.

The Lake Smelts’ star jammer, Minnie Chukutai, is injured; well, rather badly injured, actually; in fact, killed outright. This inspires the Plaguesby squad to score a point while Ulan Bator reels in shocked disbelief.

“Please, dear reader,” inserts Ms. Crepuscular, totally destroying the flow of the narrative, “don’t take this to mean the city of Ulan Bator itself, halfway around the world and oblivious to events in Scurveyshire, has reeled in shocked disbelief. It’s only the surviving Lake Smelts. I almost forgot to mention that their Number Two veeble, Penny Subhoshmakov, has also come to an untimely end, having tripped over Lady Margo’s upholstered wooden leg while skating at some 60 mph.”

Meanwhile, to the horror of her crusty old butler, Crusty, Lady Margo has begun to crawl out onto the rink in an attempt to recover her upholstered wooden leg. This is just as the captain of the Lake Smelts, Miss Cindy Spatzinagatai, raises her several brawny arms and vows vengeance on all of Scurveyshire.

With a chill cry reminiscent of the days of Genghis Khan, the enraged Lake Smelts swarm over the rail…

“‘Tis maith yon abblemart fusstick, m’lord,” observes Constable Chumley. One cannot but agree.

‘Roller Derby Apocalypse’ Continued (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Introducing the second half of Chapter CDXIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular picks up where she left off after her neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, went to pieces in her living room.

“Dear reader,” she writes, “I think I’ve picked up all the bits of Mr. Pitfall and joined them back together. He looks a little crooked now, but he’s mostly all there again. And now turn we unto Scurveyshire’s roller derby showdown between the Ulan Bator Lake Smelts and the What’s-their-names from Plaguesby!”

With the entire population of the shire gathered around the roller derby rink, this was Tom the Pict’s chance to drive all the English and all the Scots out of Britain and restore it to the Picts, wherever they are. But alas! Tom the Pict has overslept.

His pet snail, Rupert, gestures with his antennae: “You’ve blown it, old sport–missed your chance. It’s too late now, the match has already started.” We are not at liberty to describe Tom’s reaction to this news.

Back at the rink, the Lake Smelts are making mincemeat of the Plaguesby squad. This does not go down well with the spectators. “I could shoot two or three of those Smelt gals,” offers the American adventurer, Willis Twombley. “No one will notice, with all this noise.” But as justice of the peace, Lord Jeremy Coldsore cannot countenance this tactic.

Lady Margo Cargo, overcome with excitement, removes her upholstered wooden leg to flourish it over her head as an encouragement to the Whatevers. But she loses her grip and her leg goes flying into the middle of the rink, causing a massive pileup of skaters and any number of horrific injuries.

“In the next chapter,” Ms. Crepuscular promises, “we shall see whether Lady Margo can get her leg back. It looks like this match is about to get ugly!

“And there’s Mr. Pitfall’s nose under the TV cabinet! Excuse me while I go and return it to him.”

The Invention of Breakfast Cereal (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Image result for images of silly romance novels

When we last saw Lady Margo Cargo, in Chapter CDIV of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, she was dowsing perilously close to the vicar’s fatal wading pool. Her crusty old butler, Crusty, is obstreporating every time he has to stop to dig a hole. But in Chapter CDV, they turn up a prehistoric treasure!

Just three bone-breaking feet below the surface, they find a metal plate inscribed with mystic runes. It looks sort of like this:

Image result for images of plate with mystic runes

“Oh, Crusty!” Lady Margo evaporates. I am not at all sure about her use of that word, but she’s the author. “This is a runic inscription produced by a shaman of the ancient Celtic tribe, the Iguanodon People, unless I am very much mistaken!” (“You probably are, you daft old bint,” grumbles Crusty.) “It must have been buried here sometime around 537 B.C.”

“It’s junk,” opines Crusty.

“Nonsense!” quips Lady Margo. “Can’t you read it? Didn’t they teach you anything in school?”

Easily translating the mystic runes, Lady Margo discovers that the inscription is a recipe for what we would now, in the 21st century, call Store Brand Corn Flakes. “All we have to do,” she says, “is build a factory and start producing these. They’ll sell like hot cakes! The most feverish imagination will hardly suffice to calculate the profits!”

But this is how they get out of venturing close enough to the wading pool to get sucked under. They rush back to Cargo Hall to clean the plate and summon Lady Margo’s solicitor, a man who was once a trapeze artist but had to quit because he kept falling off the trapeze.

“Little do they know,” Ms. Crepuscular writes, “that Lady Margo has mis-translated what is actually a dreadful curse on anyone who removes this object from its burial place. The Iguanodon People are not extinct for nothing!

“And now I shall break for breakfast! It so happens I have a box of corn flakes, along with plenty of mint-flavored toothpaste with which to sweeten them. An experienced romance writer,” she adds, “is always on the lookout for real-life details to plug into her story!”

That’s just what makes her book so wonderful.

A Lovers’ Quarrel (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Image result for images of lord of the tube socks

Introducing Chapter DCII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular writes, “We are still waiting for the wedding of Lord Jeremy Coldsore to Scurveyshire’s richest widow, Lady Margo Cargo. Because she can’t tell the two of them apart, some of the wooing must be done by Lord Jeremy’s boon companion, Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who think he’s Sargon of Akkad. We join Willis and Lady Margo under a romantic grape arbor full of bees.”

“Once we’re married,” Lady Margo asks, “will I be Queen of Akkad? I mean, I’m still trying to find the place, it’s not on any of my maps.”

“Well, sweetness, there must be somethin’ wrong with them maps,” said Willis. “Heck, it’s right next door to Babylon and then some–it’s kind of an umpire.”

“An umpire? You mean like in a cricket match? Surely you should have said ’empire.'”

This rubs Willis the wrong way. “Umpire, empire, what’s the difference? You ain’t gonna turn into one o’ them know-it-all womenfolks who’s always correctin’ her husband, are you? I won’t stand for that!”

Lady Margo removes her upholstered wooden leg and uses it to knock Willis off his stool. “And I can’t stand an ignorant boor, Jeremy Coldsore!” she expostulates. (“I love that word!” declares Violet.)

“I oughta shoot you right now!” erupts Willis. “Erupts”? We are getting stylish here!

“Oh, go shoot yourself, you swaggering lout!” revolves Lady Margo. (This is getting out of hand.) “And as far as I’m concerned, our marriage is off, off, off! You’ll be smirking out of the other side of your face when you see me marry that nice Mr. Twombley!”

“That’s me, you numbskull! Jeremy’s the other one!” expectorates Mr. Twombley.

And so on. The marriage is now in critical danger. Lord Jeremy is not pleased.

“You had to threaten to shoot her, didn’t you?” growls Jeremy. “You know she hates that!”

“Well, old hoss, she got my dander up!” Mr. Twombley pauses to adjust his monocle (which Ms. Crepuscular has not mentioned up till now).

“And here, dear reader, I will break the chapter to heighten the suspense,” adds Violet. “Besides which, too much passion gives me the vapors. I must have a cup of fish-flavored tea.”

The ‘Oy, Rodney’ Cover

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Ms. Violet Crepuscular has taken time out from grinding out chapters of her epic romance novel, Oy, Rodney, to say a few words about that Lord of the Tube Socks cover that she’s been using for… well, years now.

“I chose it originally, dear reader, because the couple featured on the cover were an exact match for how I imagine my two principal characters, Lord Jeremy Coldsore and Lady Margo Cargo,” Violet writes. “Some readers have complained. Tish-tush to them! There are only a few trifling differences between my characters and the cover picture.

“For one thing, Lord Jeremy now has two left feet. This militates against his agility as a ballroom dancer. Other than that, the picture is an exact duplicate.

“The real Lady Margo, it must be admitted, is some thirty years older than the lass on the book cover–with an upholstered wooden leg, a glass eye, and a wig that sometimes is hard to keep straight. She is also missing the hand that was chewed off by a goat, years ago. But aside from these petty details, the cover character looks just like her, pretty much.”

At this point she is interrupted: Dr. Fantod, the life-coaching jumping spider from Rotnest Island, has absent-mindedly wandered into Oy Rodney, intending to provide good advice to whoever needs it. Violet is terrified of spiders and can’t control herself, and Dr. Fantod is lucky to escape uninjured as she flails at him wildly with a rolled-up newspaper. We are not told which newspaper.

Ms Crepuscular objects. “I will not have spiders creeping into my novel from some wretched little island in Australia!” she writes. But it appears she has altogether lost her train of thought. This is a grievous loss to her readers.