Tag: Oy Rodney

Lord Jeremy Proposes Marriage, Almost

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What with all the computer agita yesterday–and more this morning, on the other machine–I thought I might dip into Oy, Rodney. And this is what I read.

The vicar’s smart-aleck nephew, Desmond Wiggly, goes out to the backyard wading pool and doesn’t return. There are drag marks leading under the pool. Constable Chumly is summoned. He examines the scene and remarks, “I tell ‘ee, them’s a right rawn figgety shawm,” and declines to investigate further. There is serious talk of replacing him with someone who can speak recognizable English.

Lord Jeremy Coldsore, meanwhile, realizes that the only way he can stave off ruin and bankruptcy is to marry Lady Margo Cargo, the richest widow in Scurveyshire. As a pretext for seeing her, he returns her lost glass eye. She invites him into her parlor and serves him extremely unpalatable biscuits baked by her grandmother in Bedlam. His appetite is not improved as she pops the one glass eye out of the socket, wipes off the one he has returned to her, and pops it in.

“Surely, Lord Jeremy, you must have had another reason for coming here to see me,” she coos. Lady Margo is big on cooing.

Jeremy nods: for him, this is the moment of truth. But all he can manage to say is “Abba-dabba-gmmph.”

Meanwhile there is a new mysterious stranger in the neighborhood. This one looks like Ralph Meeker. No one knows what he’s doing there.

‘Oy, Rodney’: Unbearable Suspense

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From 2017

 Chapter XCVIII of Violet Crepuscular’s romance epic, Oy, Rodney, Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s creditors are breathing down his neck–literally; and it’s very uncomfortable. One of them turned up under his bed, checking for woodworm. Unless Lord Jeremy’s plan to marry Lady Margo Cargo, the richest widow in all of Scurvyshire, succeeds, he will lose Coldsore Hall, right down to the concrete flamingos on the front lawn.

The wedding of Lady Margo to the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad, has been delayed, owing to Lady Margo’s cantankerous old butler, who has misplaced her false teeth. Jeremy and Willis have been taking turns courting her, pretending to be the same person. As predicted, Lady Margo has not noticed the difference–except to say, to Lord Jeremy, “I declare, Sargon, sometimes you seem like two different people.” The plan is to carry out the wedding with Jeremy in Twombley’s place.

Meanwhile, everyone has noticed a change in the vicar’s demeanor. He has taken to skipping ungracefully instead of walking. They attribute this to the bout of conniptions he suffered when he peeked under the wading pool in his back yard. Constable Chumly now stands guard by the pool. “T’other dee,” he says, “we lammicked a porty feen, reet o’er yonder skeel.” He looks worried when he says it.

“I’ve noticed a change in the vicar’s demeanor,” Lady Margo confides to Twombly.

“It’s because of his conniptions, l’il gal,” he answers.

As the chapter closes, Lord Jeremy catches another creditor trying to make off with the third baron’s armor that he wore during the Crusades. The baron is still in it, necessitating a change in the Coldsore family chronicles.

‘Take THAT, Ms. Crepuscular!’

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Ha-ha-ha! Poetic justice returns to the Internet. The bad guy gets dunked in dirty water. And Violet Crepuscular gets beaned–all’s right with the world!

You may remember Ms. Crepuscular challenging her readers to provide hints of a massive do-over of her immortal romance, Oy, Rodney. Here are a few examples.

Pooba City, OK: “Aw, shut up already!”

K’smagge, Eurasia: “Do we get a prize for reading this?”

Imago Humana, New Jersey: “There’s a guy in Piscataway who writes better than you do–and he’s locked up!”

Bisstong, Rumania: “I learn English for this?”

Despite her protestations that “most” readers are positively crazy about her work, we’ve got her number. You can run, Violet, but you can’t hide!

INTERRUPTION: What? You wonder what happened to Mr Pinball? No, he has not been dunked in dirty water. To say nothing of Willis Twombley, or Lord Whatsisname (the one with the big house).

You’ve got it bad, kimosabe. Try to find a health hot line.

‘Oy, Rodney: the Do-Over

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

 

The publishing world is agog today over the decision by Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, to re-write, from the beginning, her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

But what about the 500-plus chapters already written? What about the herd of woolly mammoths invading Scurveyshire? And all the other stuff?

“Never mind that!” Ms. Crepuscular says, in an interview by some guy. “Mr. Pitfall has convinced me that there’s nothing like a new beginning, so that’s what we’re going to do. To that end, I am inviting readers–I’ve got a zillion of ’em–to submit ideas for a new Oy, Rodney Chapter One. And then we’ll take it from there.”

Submissions, she adds, must be accompanied by 400 dollars in new Monopoly money.

As Ms. Crepuscular’s long-time editor, I have nothing to say about that.

What Happens If You Land On Go In Monopoly? - Monopoly Land

No, I have nothing to say at all.

‘Oy, Rodney’… Stalls on a Dime

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

For anyone else, it’d be a mere figure of speech. But for celebrated romance writer Violet Crepuscular, it’s an incident of war.

War against her editor… which is me.

“You will never again horn in on my images of woolly mammoths and the June Taylor Dancers,” she writes, in a letter thrust under my car’s windshield wiper. For a moment there I thought it was a ticket.

“I will never forgive you,” she continues, “for arranging for Mr. Pitfall actually to fall into a pit! You’d better watch yourself, crossing your living room: you won’t know what’s under the rug until you find out the hard way.”

The police chief in our town is a huge (6’11”) Violet Crepuscular fan who just laughs when I seek protection. “Afraid of a cuddly little thing like Violet!” he mocks me. “Well, as the Emperor Honorius told the Britons, ‘Look to your own defenses!'” (He’s a big classics buff.)

Well, I guess I’d better get started.

Keeping Up With Violet Crepuscular

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

All right! Who here thinks it’s easy to keep up with Violet Crepuscular and her hysterical romance, Oy, Rodney? Bang your head on the table if it’s you.

She blames it all on me, of course. “You call yourselves an editor? Pfaah!

“Yeah, okay,” she admits: “I’m the one who brought in the June Taylor Dancers and the woolly mammoths. I didn’t know they were going to dry up your brain! Sheesh, I thought you were going to use them! Serves me right for thinking I oughtta has an editor.”

[My reply: “Ah, Violet, Violet! They should’ve named you Venus Flytrap.

3,400+ Venus Flytrap Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free ... ((Picture of Venus Flytrap, with fly.))

“I have raised you from obscurity, and you bite me in the tuchas! Now we have 500-plus chapters of drivel. And it’s not my fault! Again and again you have ignored my editorial suggestions. And this is what happens! Find yourself another editor.”]

She tried to have me arrested, but there is no law in the UK against quitting an impossible editorial job. But I found a note taped to my door.

“Your days they are numbered! Prepare to be Doomed!”

How do you prepare to be doomed?

 

Another Return of ‘Oy, Rodney’

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

I am in hot water with Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense. I lost the last chapter of her immortal romance novel, Oy, Rodney. Being pretty freakin’ sick in the hospital for most of this year so far… “Is the most paltry excuse I ever heard!” she says.

I vaguely remember something about the June Taylor Dancers invading Scurveyshire, with woolly mammoths stepping on things. Sheesh, there were at least 536 chapters of that.

Well, if she thinks I’m going to rack my brain trying to find those chapters, she’s got another think coming. “I’m Spartacus!” Let’s see what she makes of that!

To the swarms of readers out there who’ve been hanging on Ms. Crepuscular’s every word, I can only suggest that maybe someday she’ll get back in form and we can all enjoy more tales of Lord Whatsisname and his American sidekick, Willis Something-or-Other.

The Return of the Return of ‘Oy, Rodney’

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

If you see Violet Crepuscular coming, please let me know so I can try to get away.

The Queen of Suspense naturally blames me for not keeping up with her tempestuous romance novel, Oy, Rodney–like it was my fault she ran off with Mr. Pitfall and didn’t return until he actually fell into a pit! So Violet has 536 chapters written and not much to show for it.

[Violet Crepuscular’s rebuttal]

You landlubbers! You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! I mean, the guy STOPS PUBLISHING my Oy, Rodney chapters and it’s like my fault??? And he won’t get away with hiding in the hospital for five months, either!! I swear, if I have to write my book myself, I’ll ding-dang do it!!! Do you hear me, Mr. Whatsisname? Raise your hand if you didn’t hear me say “Raise your hand!”

[End of rebuttal.]

See what I have to deal with? Note to Ms. Crepuscular: How am I supposed to edit and publish your chapters when you stop writing them? You haven’t submitted a chapter this year! Last we heard, you had the June Taylor Dancers invading Victorian Scurveyshire. Try editing that and see where it gets you!

I will not answer any more of your crude and graceless telegraphs. (Signed) The Editor

(Maybe I’d better take some kung-fu lessons…)

The Departure of the Mammoths (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

The Queen of Suspense has done it again!

Remember, in Chapter DCCCIV of her soul-searing romance, Oy, Rodney, Coldsore Hall being targeted by a herd of woolly mammoths egged on by the June Taylor Dancers?

(What’s that? You don’t remember? Boy, you’re lucky this is not a college course!)

Well, in Chapter DCCCV, romance literature All-Star Violet Crepuscular has sprung her trap! Wow! Blows the reader right out of the water! Who could have possibly seen this coming?

“Lookit that, Germy!” expostulates Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad. He has just shot another dancer off the back of a mammoth. “Them hairy elaphants–they’re retreating! We’ve won!”

“I say, old man, jolly good show!” sputters Lord Jeremy Coldsore. “But what’s that coming up the road?”

Stegosaurus: Bony Plates & Tiny Brain | Live Science

Yes! Constable Chumley’s worst childhood terrors have come true.

Lord Jeremy recognizes the threat. “Blimey! A stegosaurus!” he fanabulates. “I say, the sight of it has rather unmanned poor Chumley.”

“Think I ought to shoot him?” asks Sargon (now he’s got me doing it).

And here, to stack up suspense for the next installment, this chapter endeth.

A Difference of Opinion (‘Oy, Rodney)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

“There I was,” confides Violet Crepuscular to her scads ‘n’ scads of readers, “all set to launch into Chapter DXXXIV of my timeless romance novel, Oy, Rodney, when up to my tastefully parked car strides a tall, gaunt, spidery-looking man who licks my car window until I roll it open.”

“What have you done with Chapter DXXVIII?”he demands, in exactly the kind of voice a big fat spider would have if spiders could talk.

“I didn’t know what he was talking about,” she reports to police. “You should find him easily enough–he has to be eight feet tall!”

“Why don’t you put him in your book?” asks the hard-boiled detective. “He might not be able to find his way out.”

This has never occurred to her before. What if she really could write people into her books? All those politicians and half-baked movie actors, suddenly stranded in Victorian Surveyshire!

“Stay tuned, dear reader!” she garffles.