Tag: Violet Crepuscular

Ye Olde Fox Hunt (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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From May 22, 2022

A letter from reader Ambrose Twidgeon in Babbo Township, Pellucidar, has served as a timely reminder to the Queen of Suspense, Violet Crepuscular.

“Dear Ms. Crepuscular,” the letter reads, “what ever happened to the traditional olde English fox hunt in Scurveyshire? How can you write about English country life without the fox hunt? I am so upset with you, I had to break my model airplanes!”

Ms. Crepuscular’s reply is found in her introduction to Chapter CDLXXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

“As a matter of fact,” she trombolizes, “I was just about to write about the fox hunt when Mr. Twidgeon’s letter arrived. Really, I do not need any guidance in writing romance novels! Let me offer this friendly reminder to Mr. Twidgeon: Get lost!”

The hereditary master of the Scurveyshire Hunt is Lady Margo Cargo, who inherited it from her father along with a persistent halitosis. She can’t ride a horse, so she leads the hunt in a golf cart driven by a condemned prisoner. No fox has been caught since Lady Margo took over.

(What about the Scurveyshire Fair, Violet? And the vicar’s backyard wading pool?)

“If I get any more friendly reminders from ignoramuses who think they know how I should write my novels, I am very much afraid that I shall lose my temper,” Ms. Crepuscular writes. So vanishes all hope of finding out about the fair and the wading pool. She’s in one of her moods.

The chapter ends without the fox hunt actually starting.

Is ‘The Lying Tart’ Haunted? REPRINT

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From March 1, 2020

Forget Chapter CCCXLVII. I already have.

In Chapter CCCXLVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crespuscular takes us to Scurveyshire’s favorite tavern, The Lying Tart, which is said to have acquired a resident ghost. It has been seen by many patrons while availing themselves of the tavern’s commodious outdoor facilities (“I cannot bring myself to write the word ‘outhouse,'” Ms. Crepuscular confesses).

The apparition takes the form of a headless lady in a flowing white gown , sometimes accompanied by a huge black dog named Chips. She has been seen walking between the tavern and the stables, parading back and forth along the edge of the roof, or skipping directly toward the observer, carrying her head like a basketball. The game of basketball has not yet been invented. She always vanishes just before getting close enough to grab you.

Constable Chumley investigates. His report is grim. “Thy flivven craiths yon cocksie fairn,” he reports grimly. Lord Jeremy Coldsore, justice of the peace, takes notes.

“What’s he sayin’, ol’ hoss?” wonders the American adventurer, Willis Twombley.

“He says she doesn’t have a coccyx,” Jeremy translates. “That’s bad!” mutters Twombley.

Trade at The Lying Tart has begun to fall off, threatening the shire’s economy. It is widely believed that The Lady in White is looking for company. No one wants to be that company.

“This is the work of Black Rodney,” opines Johnno the Merry Minstrel, who is somewhat merrier now that his gizzard has grown back. His opinion is confirmed by the discovery of several cuss-bags in the landlord’s stock of ale. The landlord has tried to cut his losses by offering free beer to the first customer who succeeds in having a conversation with the ghost.

Here Ms. Crepuscular breaks in with a recipe for toothpaste-flavored biscuits. It is clear she doesn’t know what to do about the ghost.

 

Coldsore Hall’s New Roof REPRINT

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Invoking a little-known law enacted in the year 636 by the Saxon warlord Bobby the Nit, Lord Jeremy Coldsore has drafted Professor Saltinus Facehead’s Egyptian diggers to put a new roof on Coldsore Hall. So begins Chapter CCCXLVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

Constable Chumley explains the law to Prof. Facehead.

“In yon fillid wi’ King Bobby,” he says, “we fraith the bowyers aw’ mickle groith.” The professor nods sagely, although the constable’s quaint rural dialect eludes his best efforts to understand what has been said. He replies in archaic Portuguese. It is the constable’s turn to nod sagely.

Although the diggers speak no English, and their Arabic is not that hot, either, they throw themselves enthusiastically into their work and in a mere two days, Coldsore Hall has a new roof. The entire population of Scurveyshire assembles to admire it.

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“It’s a miracle!” gushes Lady Margo Cargo. “I wish they’d do my roof like that!”

But when a moderate breeze springs up, the new roof seems to take wing and fly off toward the sunset. It will take some doing to get it back.

Here Ms. Crepuscular breaks in to report on the status of her Pulitzer Prize nomination, filed by her excitable neighbor, Mr. Pitfall.

“I am afraid Mr. Pitfall made an error and submitted the nomination to something called the Patzer Prize Committee,” she writes. “This group hands out prizes for poorly-played chess games. I cannot explain why they have decided to award a special prize to my epic romance, Oy, Rodney.”

The prize awarded is a rusty wheelbarrow. “I’ll have to find space for it on my mantle, somehow,” Ms. Crepuscular says. “It’s going to change the whole look of my living room. Given Mr. Pitfall’s current state of excitement, I dare do nothing else.”

Here the chapter breaks off for want, she admits, of inspiration.

‘Oy, Rodney: the Do-Over REPRINT

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

 

From August 10, 2025

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.

That Business with the Mob of Peasants (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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From June 2, 2019

 

Introducing Chapter CCXCIV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular confides in her readers, “Let me confide in you, dear readers! I do wish Mr. Duigon had not said I was ‘in jail’! I was merely helping the police with their inquiries. They are trying to discover who, if anyone, poisoned Mr. Pitfall, and they now suspect everyone in the neighborhood–he is that unpopular. I hope they realize now that my toothpaste rolls couldn’t make anybody that sick!” She is a little miffed that none of the police officers was willing to try one himself.

Moving on to the chapter, she describes the grief and horror that overwhelmed all Scurvyshire when Mr. Percy Puce, F.R.S., the shire’s Resident Genius, disappeared below the vicar’s backyard wading pool as the result of a fall from a clandestine sliding board. Don’t ask me if that’s a suitable adjective for a sliding board. I just work here.

Provoked beyond measure, a mob of peasants armed with torches and pitchforks assembles at The Lying Tart. Why they should want torches in broad daylight is mystifying. Maybe it’s just a thing that mobs of peasants do.

“We’ll destroy the vicar’s wading pool if it’s the last thing we do!” vows the mob’s ringleader, button collecter Oswald Backdraft, Official Ringleader of the Peasants Benevolent Association. The mob rushes off to the vicar’s back yard and that’s the last anybody sees of them.

Hours later, word of the incident reaches Lord Jeremy Coldsore at Coldsore Hall, where they have just put the Marquess of Grone to bed.

“We’re going to run out of peasants at this rate!” ejaculates Lord Jeremy. (“It’s a perfectly permissible use of that verb!” insists Ms. Crepuscular. I just work here.) “Constable Chumley, you ought to have prevented this disaster!”

“Huish, M’lord, I deagle fair maundery this fleethin’,” parries the constable. He rushes off to The Lying Tart to see if he can find any clues at the bottom of a tankard of ale.

This still leaves five chapters, I think, to be written before catching up to Chapter CCC, which Ms. Crepuscular has written out of order. “I pledge myself to accomplish this,” she writes in a chapter-ending footnote, “provided I am left in peace!”

‘The Queen Has Noticed!'(Oy, Rodney) REPRINT

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You may remember, if you have nothing better to do, that Scurveyshire has been invaded by singing millipedes. As disconcerting at this is, it’s about to get worse. The Queen of Suspense, Violet Crepuscular, introduces Chapter DCLXXXX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

“What a scandal!” she croons. “Queen Victoria has found out about the trouble in Scurveyshire. Behold! a sample of her dialogue.

“‘Caw blimey!’ says Queen. ”’Ere now, wot’s bloomin ‘appening aout thare? ‘Ay?'” (“That will get you started in understanding the way they talk on PBS,” Ms. Crepuscular confides in the reader.)

The millipedes, meanwhile, have ditched Jimmy Crack Corn and moved on to O, Them Golden Slippers. At night you can hear them slithering down Main Street–millions, nay, billions of them!

“Here is an image of a bunch o’ millipedes,” writes Ms. Crepuscular, “along with a piece of a poem about millipedes by Francois Villon.

Watch Swarms of Millipedes Join Ranks to Survive

“They come in swarms, in hideous forms–

They’re worse than April thunderstorms!”

Now it’s only good suspense writing to hold off till next week, or whenever, the resolution of this problem. What, you don’t think it’s a problem? Wait’ll you’ve got a houseful of millipedes!

Will Queen Victoria send the Royal Millipede Inspector to Scurveyshire?

And will that worthy turn out to be Lady Margo Cargo’s childhood sweetheart?

Only Violet Crepuscular knows! Ask everybody else if they care.

Trouble in Scurveyshire REPRINT

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From February 24, 2018

 

Turn we unto Chapter CXXX of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

All is not well in Scurveyshire. The vicar is laid out with conniptions. Jasper the village idiot is in jail with Princess Didi, who, it turns out, is neither a princess nor any relation at all to Queen Victoria, but only an outcast from the nearby village of Plaguesby. Lady Margo Cargo, claiming a touch of leprosy, has gone into seclusion.

Worst of all, various people of questionable morality are whispering that “Black Rodney” has returned from the dead and is “at it again, puttin’ curses on the shire.” No one dares approach the wading pool in the vicar’s back yard.

Meanwhile, desperately trying to raise money to keep Coldsore Hall, Lord Jeremy Coldsore has opened a lemonade stand at the entrance to his palatial drive, selling it for five guineas a glass. As an economy measure, he has dismissed all his servants except for his footman, Sir Reginald Fumfer, who works for whatever food he can scrounge from the larder. Sir Reginald has descended to this lowly estate as a result of an unnamed spot of trouble out in India. Her Majesty’s Government have forbidden him to speak to anyone. But at least Lord Jeremy has enjoyed a brisk business so far.

“Say, Germy ol’ hoss, jist how much debt have you got?” asks his friend, the American adventurer Willis Twombley.

“Roughly one million pounds, old boy.”

“That’s a lot of lemonade!”

“I do what I can, Sargon.” Twombley still thinks he is Sargon of Akkad.

“Well, so do I, Germy. I jist shot another one of those creditors of yours. I put him in that closet in your billiard room. No one’ll ever find him there, as long as they don’t look in the closet.”

“That’s a great comfort to me,” says Lord Jeremy. He has given up trying to dissuade Twombley from murdering the creditors. It does no good.

Now arriving on the scene is a wandering spider collector, Miss Lizzie Snivel, a character left over from one of Ms. Crepuscular’s unpublished novels. “I could not bear to see her go to waste,” Violet confesses to her readers.

Milestone! The 700th Chapter of ‘Oy Rodney’ REPRINT

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

From March 3, 2024

This here is the 700th chapter of the epic romance, Oy, Rodney, by The Queen of Suspense, Violet Crepuscular.

“They laughed at me when I began to write this novel,” she flosticates. “Well, where’s the laughter now! Eh? Eh? Even War and Whatchamacallit doesn’t have 700 chapters!”

In the last chapter, you will remember (or not), Picts invaded Scurveyshire and made off with the town’s park bench, unaware that the Royal Millipede Inspector was sleeping on it at the time. Imagine their incredulity when they discovered him! Several Picts plotzed!

“Wot’s yer name, blast yer eyes?” demands the Prime Pict. His accent is almost impenetrable. Fortunately they both speak Classical Swahili.

The inspector, however, does not know his name, it’s been so many years since he’s used it. “Call me Ishmael,” he suggests.

Meanwhile, the good folk of Scurveyshire are blaming Lord Jeremy Coldsore, in his incapacity as Justice of the Peace, for letting the Picts invade and make off with so much of their stuff. (They did not get Lady Margo Cargo’s wooden leg. That was a false alarm: it had simply rolled under her couch.)

“What do I have to do to please you?” he ululates.

“And that,” adds Ms. Crepuscular, “is where Suspense demands a chapter break!”

Byron the Quokka to the Rescue!

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Imagine my dismay last night, at precisely 2:17 a.m., when my agents informed me that Violet Crepuscular has been arrested for that business with the toothpaste rolls, and her manuscript of Oy, Rodney been impounded by police. Something had to be done before the cops burned the papers.

Byron the Quokka has been sent to rescue Ms. Crepuscular–he’s sure he can get in and out of the police station, and in and out of the holding cell, without anyone seeing or hearing him–and safely retrieve the manuscript. He promises success. It seems a great-aunt of his once sprang H.G. Wells from jail.

Well, if he’s not back in another two hours, I’ll have to presume they did catch him, after all, and then find someone to rescue him.

Any volunteers?

 

A Romantic Romance–‘Oy Rodney’ REPRINT

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silly romance novels – Lee Duigon

 

 

 

From December 12, 2021

Ah, at long last! Chapter CDLVI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, ‘Oy, Rodney.’

Let’s see, where were we? Um… something about a hydra terrorizing the town of Scurveyshire, and a jackalope eating up the vicar’s kitchen garden…

And yet when we turn the page and finally get to Chapter CDLVI, what do we see, what do we read about, but a whole bunch of… kissing? Smooching? Making whoopee? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Ms. Crepuscular explains. “I have been inundated with tadpoles–or rather, comments by readers–demanding to know when there’s going to be some romance in my romance. I really don’t know why I said ‘tadpoles.’ Do you? So what’s wrong with opening a chapter with Lord Jeremy and Lady Margo kissing as they dance?” She pronounces it “donce.”

Well, the last time we saw them, just a page or two ago, Lady Margo’s wig was on fire and her upholstered wooden leg had fallen off, and Lord Jeremy was trying to tap-dance with his two left feet and making a hash of it; and in the same little room we had a cowboy stretched out on the floor, dead to the world, and the vicar’s conniptions. And now it’s dancing and kissing?

On the High Street of Scurveyshire, Ms. Crepuscular informs us, the hydra is now eating people. Johnno the Merry Minstrel is horse de combat (“That’s Frentch, you peasants!” she interbreeds) after trying to cut off one of the hydra’s nine heads–the wrong one, as luck would have it.

Join us next week for more drivel from the Queen of Suspense!