SUMMER SOJOURN IN PENZANCE

Special literary correspondent, R T Farty, writes:  The Roundup is proud to announce that it has secured the exclusive rights to serialise the latest work by celebrated Cornish author, R E Plum (105).

Plum's long-awaited latest work, Summer Sojourn in Penzance, has electrified the critical world, which is falling over itself to find new expressions of praise to heap upon this fabled master of the penned word.

Plum's oeuvre concerns itself with the extraordinary happenings that befell during his recent annual holiday in Penzance.  Part I starts in today's Roundup.

Part I

On a rain-washed Monday morning, my annual train journey down to Penzance to escape the hustle and bustle of Truro working life and to begin my summer holiday in the 'holy head' of Cornwall was rendered all the more pleasant by finding a most fetching young lady seated opposite me in my carriage.

After half an hour of exchanging furtive glances at one another, we fell into conversation and I was able to determine that, despite her pronounced but endearing lisp,this enigmatically perfumed and bewitching young beauty with the chuckling eyes was a Miss  Elspeth Tregonning, 39 years old, unmarried and, by profession, a geriatric colonic irrigator from Grampound Road.

She too was on her way to her holidays in the far West and had secured lodgings in a Board Residence but 10 minutes walk from my own.  I noted that she was staying at Mrs Barret's residence - Bellevue - on the fashionable Regent Terrace. 

We fell silent again after 30 seconds of animated and flustered conversation, but I entertained secret hopes of running into Miss Tregonning in Penzance and fancied that she too would not be displeased were Lady Luck to re-unite us in that most romantic of towns.  With her holiday address firmly fixed in my memory, I had already decided to give Lady Luck every assistance.

On the following Thursday, my day began quite normally.  After a satisfying breakfast of Assam tea and toast, along with three hard boiled eggs, which had been squeezed fresh from the rear of a startled and squawking chicken before my very eyes, I had set off from my lodgings at Bosleven, Mrs Nicholls's Board Residence in Trewithen Road, to make my way along Alverton Road into the town to collect the two books I had ordered from Mr J A D Bridger in Market Jew Street.

I was much looking forward to both rare volumes, since I firmly believed that they were set to enrich my personal life. 

The first, by Pascoe Treloar (the gentleman is pictured left), The Fully Illustrated Guide to Home Treatments for Advanced Syphilis, I would have to keep well hidden, since I had learnt years ago that Mrs Nicholls was much given to prying around in my personal belongings. 

Thinking of Miss Tregonning, I also nurtured fervent hopes that there might be, in this tome, a special section on quick-acting cures.

The second volume was by Nudger Boase (this gentleman is also pictured left).  The title was A Guide to the Use of Fresh Horse Manure in the Cultivation of a Larger and Healthy Male Member. 

This volume I had resolved to leave on open display in my room, since Mrs Nicholls had made disparaging comments about "your little willy", whilst I was proudly showing off the new swimming hose I had lately purchased from Mr Frank Jacobs' sterling, but pleasantly inexpensive, drapery establishment on the Terrace.

As I made my way past J Osborne Cock's (the gentleman is pictured left whilst on a cycling expedition to Lamorna) a fine stationer's in Market Place, I espied Miss Tregonning emerging from A Opie & Co , the Cash Chemist and vendor of patent medicines, toilet requisites and druggist's sundries.

Clutching a mysterious and unusually large parcel, she cast nervous glances all around her as she made off in the direction of Morrab Gardens.

The mere sight of her caused a strong arousal in my curiosity.  She had not noticed me and, anxious to renew our acquaintance, I quickly gave pursuit, but was obliged to moderate my pace for fear that I would disturb the complicated, but sadly very necessary, surgical wrappings around my tortured junior partner.

I was thus some minutes behind Miss Tregonning as I entered the gardens.  My attention was immediately arrested by strange noises emanating from behind tall thickets of bamboo.  My ear could clearly discern the urgent low moans of a gentleman in some considerable distress as well as detect the sound of water being directed under pressure.  I stopped and harked. 

Then I heard the sound of a woman's voice, in loud and commanding tones, yet coloured by a strong and very familiar lisp...

To be continued....

MARGO SPARGO CARGO EMBARGO!!

Trade between the People's Republic of China and Greater Relubbus is worth many hundreds of billions of pounds and is one of the mainstays of the global economic system.

 It is thus with the greatest shock that financial markets around the world have registered the news that China has imposed an embargo on the unloading of the cargo of the 555th ship of the Relubbus Containerships International Corporation (RCIC).

The RCIC ship in question is the Margo Spargo, named after the 12th, now sadly long deceased, wife of the Greater Relubbus Urban Council (GRUC) Leader Billy Spargo.

Mrs Spargo the 12th died 35 years ago in a mysterious nocturnal incident in Prospidnick involving a souped-up Ford Anglia, 52 bottles of Babycham, her pet ferret and a stout granite wall.

Readers with a long memory will recall the allegations of vote-rigging, which attached to Mrs Spargo's receiving the third place prize in the 1963 All-Penzance Miss Toilet Attendant of the Year competition.

The vessel Margo Spargo is the pride of the RCIC fleet, which is owned 25% each by world famous Relubbus business magnates and bitter rivals R.C. Oates and W.G. Trevaskis.

The Margo Spargo contains a cargo of freshly made, but frozen, pasties and oggs puddens destined for distribution across China.  Two ships arrive each week, sailing direct from Hayle to Shanghai, to supply the seemingly inexhaustible hunger for Cornish fare, which is likened by some to a new opium-like addiction.

The reason for this embargo by the Chinese government is believed to stem from the GRUC reluctance to share its advanced space technology with the Chinese.

The Cornish Space Institute, operating out of rooms at the Deep Sea Fishermen's Mission at Newlyn and led by Professor Tommie T. Thomas (pictured here in his favourite cowboy outfit presented to him by President George "Brains" Bush) has developed a new space travel technology, which is set to be the envy of the world.

The product of nearly three weeks of concentrated research by Professor Thomas (49) and his team has been the development and construction of the hitherto supersecret 'Properprober'.

This is a space travel machine which taps into and harnesses reversed black hole force to propel itself at speeds in excess of 106 times the speed of light.  Using this fabulous machine, Relubbus 'Propernauts' have already travelled to the edge of space and even peered over the edge.

Of course, this tremendous invention should still be secret.  However, it has emerged that a key project worker, Dr O.K. Okay, a former car mechanic at a well-known Penzance garage, has been slipping across to the Swordfish Inn, where he has fallen into conversation with the Chinese Ambassador to Relubbus, Mr Y.P. Lychee (52), who 'just happened to be passing'. 

It would appear that, having been plied with one beer too many, Dr Okay has spilled the contents of his mind, as well as of his stomach, into the receptive ear of this wily oriental diplomat.

The Chinese government then approached the GRUC Leader, Mr Billy Spargo (117) to ask if he would be willing to allow them to share in this technology.  Spargo flatly refused with the words "No, I bleddy aren't!"

The Chinese then promptly declared a trade embargo.  Councillor Spargo has summoned Mr Y.P. Lychee, the Chinese Ambassador (pictured) to the High Council Chamber in Boswedden Lane.

Meanwhile, the business world holds its breath and looks on fearfully. 

We will continue to report on developments as they occur.

MOUNTS BAY - SHOULD TOURISTS BE BANNED?

Mounts Bay has been a magnet for tourists right back to distant Phoenician times, when it featured as the most popular destination on Amilcar's slave-driven Bireme Tours in 700 BC (see picture).

Tired of the relentlessly hot and sunny Mediterranean climate, paying guests were only too thrilled to be able to enter the magic world of West Penwith washed, as it all too often is, by sparkling pelting raindrops and super-cooled by many a blasting breeze.

A round trip from Sidon to Marazion could be had for as little as 50 shekels (on a rather slow 4-slave vessel) or as much as 750 shekels for a private outside cabin aboard a fast 150-slave vessel.

Tin and copper trinkets were very popular with the Phoenician tourists and remain so to this day with the likes of Bob and Betty from Berbigum.

For centuries Mounts Bay has been a dear home to local folk.  Fishermen have used it to sail out to fish and, for a long while, farmers have collected its seaweed to enhance the already naturally impressive fertility of the soil (see picture).

In latter years, lovers of natural beauty have flocked to its shores to feast their eyes on its shimmering presence and have vied with one another with varying degrees of success to capture its illusive essence in words and pictures.

Now there is a growingly loud crowd (the accepted definition of which, in some quarters, is three) calling for a total ban on tourism in the Mounts Bay area and in West Penwith as a whole, if not the whole of Cornwall.

We spoke to the people involved.

Mr Jasper Jago (24) is a psychiatric nurse from the teeming hamlet of Bojewyan.  He claims that tourists make him so depresed that lithium "dudden do it fer me no more!"

He is the first depressive to take granite pills, procured from the hardest of hard core sources at Lamorna Cove, where, in Mr Jago's words, "the stuff is jes' lyin' roun' waiting fer tuh be picked up!"

Since he started taking his specially carved 1 oz daily granite pills some fifteen months or so, Mr Jago has put on 2 stones in weight.

Jasper claims that he now feels more upbeat about life, but that the tourists must still go, "Emmets 'ere, emmets there, emmets bleddy evreewhere.  They duh drive me spare, they do - an' me a nurse, I aren't no patient!"

Madron Tregenza is a 36-year-old entrepreneur who has made a modest fortune from his business of selling lightly washed pre-owned underwear door to door.  This local businessman believes that Cornwall's future depends upon the development of new export industries. 

He believes that tourists and "they bleddy secundomers" should be stopped at the border or charged a punitive levy of £55,000 per breath taken of Cornish air.

The type of export industry he favours is "one o' they smuckin' fart ones like a Iphone, wot duh do yer benefits claims automatic.  Nuther one could be a lighter plastic AK 47, wot can shoot deown another planet!"  Mr Tregenza is working on the development of such products at weekends.

The third person in the crowd is herself an American tourist, staying in a luxury caravan with two doors at Sennen Cove - a Ms Sarah Plain.

Ms Plain claims to have been a candidate for the Vice Presidency of the Gotham City Creationists' Tennis Club and insists that she comes from the same land as Superman.  She admits that Catwoman would also lay claim to a similar provenance, but dismisses the latter as a 'bitch'.  She adds "I'm a reeeal intelligent person and I can see Russia from my window, even in my caravan!"

Annoyed by the presence of so many tourists, she believes that, if all the others are got rid of, she will have more space for herself on the beach.  She therefore lends her full support to Jasper and Madron's campaign.

The Roundup would like to know what you think of the proposal that Mounts Bay, and indeed the whole of Cornwall, should be closed off to all tourists and 'sekundomers'.

Let us know and the most impressive answer (to be submitted in not less than 40,000 words of Unified Cornish) will win the author their very own brand new LELANT Lean-To (worth £13,350, shown here with the door left open for ventilation after use).

Help will also be given with the digging of the pit.

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN WEST PENWITH

The Roundup believes that there is a lid for every saucepan - however bent - and we pride ourselves on being able to bring together those made for each other.

Is there a voice calling for me?  Violet Pender, who has shot to fame and the top of the table in the West Cornish Parlour Song charts (according to the latest figures released by Marshall James's Sheet Music and Record Shop) has received distant adoration from many for her haunting baritone rendition of "Somewhere a voice is calling".

However, sadly this paragon of pulchritude is herself still looking for love.  Before she commenced her singing career, she was a fulltime self-employed used coin collector, operating out of pockets all over West Penwith.   At 36 and still unmarried, she is averse to all types of shelving and has developed a full social life with a keen interest in jigsaw and crossword puzzles, sudoku, crotch stitch and patience.

She would like to start a family and is still hoping that the 'right sort of man' will come along.  He will be hygienic, over 5 feet tall, have nearly all his own teeth and an income of well over £100k.  Are you calling for her?  Box 1

Ambrose Angwin (29) is a self-trained dentist from Botallack with ambitions to 'tekk ovver' the dental market in Greater Pendeen.  He has been out with a number of women, but is restricted in his choice in that he will only contemplate a relationship with a woman whose name begins with 'Z'. "Tha'sowheneye duh give she a card err a present, Ikkun say iss from A tuh Z!", insists this hopeless romantic.  He has so far found a Zena and a Zelda.  He likes to think of himself as an easy-going jovial sort of guy - someone it is fun to be around.

With as yet very few patients, he makes up his money by working as a mortician's assistant, as he jokes that this way he gets to see his patients again.  He is an accomplished exponent of what he terms 'the silent violin' - an equivalent of the air guitar.  Are you the one, whose name begins with 'Z"?  Box 2

Trainee Assistant hairdresser at a famous St Just salon, which we must not mention here, Andrea Cargeeg is a 21-year-old lovely, having come thirteenth three times running in the Sancreed Miss Beautiful Bespectacled Amputee contest.

Andrea is of a shy and retiring nature, much preferring to communicate with a nod, a shake of the head or a smile, or indeed any gesture which gets her out of having to talk.

Andrea has not had any boyfriends - or indeed any friends - yet.  She would like to start things off very quietly, perhaps over a coffee in the Wimpy bar, Penzance, although you might find yourself having to do all the talking for the first few months.  So, fancy a chat?  Box 3

Experimental, but incontinent, couple are looking for same in the Goldsithney area, both to explore mutual pleasures as well as to swap stories about the thrills and spills of incontinence.  Roger and Maude are a old-fashioned couple in their late twenties, who live together in Maude's mother's garden shed, which has been kitted out to a high specification, including a new tin roof and an electric light.  So they have plenty of private space in which to entertain, provided that people go in in the right order and do not wish to turn around.

Maude is able to conjure up a real feast on the ring burner or, if they are out of gas, can make a nice fish paste sandwich for all to share.

So if you are a broad-minded couple who have left the teenage pad and want to move into Tena pads, Rog and Maudie would like to hear from you.  Box 4

Come play with me!!  Doris Botheras is a young Entrepreneur of the Year from Botallack.  She set up her own business as a car crusher last year, when she decided to turn her 35 stone into a means of earning hard cash.  "I wuz sittinonna fortune!", she says.

Totally unshy about her weight, which she keeps up on a diet of several lard pasties each meal, she is a self-appointed champion of the obese and vehemently opposes the institutional 'weightism'  of the NHS Nazis, whom she accuses of being blatantly 'fattist'.

Doris believes that fat is a lifestyle choice.  If that is your view too and you would like to get to know Doris and find out how she keeps the lard filling from melting in the pasty, then Box 5 is the one for you!

NEWS IN BRIEF

BBC TO BROADCAST ONLY IN CORNISH!!

Mr O.P. Opie (76) the jovial, but thrusting, Chairman of the Boskednan Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has issued a surprise announcement that all future broadcasts of the BBC will be in Kernowek (Celtic Cornish) only.

This statement has caused concern around the globe, since many of the people who like to tune into the BBC to get an unbiased opinion of the news in and around Boskednan cannot attend Kernowek classes.

Mr Nissim Padha (79) a punkah wallah fom Bangalore is a  typical example of such a listener.

He explains, "This is totally not good for me at all, oh no!

Nearest Kernowek class is at City Lit in London, UK, which is 10 and a half hours on aeroplane. 

I am just punkah wallah and cannot be affording this fare.  This is most bad news. 

I am interested in goings-on in Boskednan, like many another peoples in world.  It helps me to pass time on punkah."

'Gladys', a representative of the Tawali People's Favourite Radio Club said, also spoke up, "There are many people throughout Papua New Guinea whose ears are glued to the radio when the BBC comes on. 

When we are listening, we are all dreaming that we are in Boskednan in glorious Kernow.  However, no one here can speak Kernowek.  We hear that the nearest place where we can learn Kernowek is in the City Lit in London , which is 31 hours from here using the Big Bird, which we cannot afford."

Complaints have also come from nearer to home.   

Mr Detritus Pascoe from Plymouth has also complained.

He says, "Darney, I'm only ovver 'ere in Plymouth, where I duh work on the bins. I kent speak no Cornish, altho I wuz born ovver Noolun.  What the bleddy 'ell they gotta put all they programmes out in Cornish fer?"

Such is the high feeling that some folk have talked of raising a petition to present before the Chairman of the Greater Relubbus Urban Council (GRUC) , Councillor Billy Spargo (113).

However, this avenue for a potential protest gesture has been firmly closed off by Mr Spargo's personal office.

A spokesman for Councillor Spargo has let it be known that Mr Spargo is now off on his summer holidays at Sennen Cove accompanied only by his resident nurse Jenefer Bolitho (23) (pictured left).

He is not to be disturbed at any cost.









RUCTIONS IN RUSSIA?

Firstly a big 'thank you' to a Mr V Putin for the holiday snap. 

Cornwall is the preferred holiday destination for many an international leader, but just what is one to make of the sudden appearance on the Penzance Promenade of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel separated only by the gleamingly smiling Archbishop Vikenty from the adoring presence of the Russian president, Dmitri Myedvyedyev.

According to Mr Putin, Angela and Dmitri are a having a 'Brest-Litovsk moment of Russo-German rapprochement', which Mr Putin, were he president, would not consider.

Mr Putin, who used to spy on people professionally with KGB notebook and pencil, also highly disapproves of the fact that Angela and Dmitri shared a room at the Queen's Hotel and came down to breakfast together.

Mr Putin, who is himself holidaying on the Tolroy Estate in Hayle, would not comment beyond this point.

A spokesperson for the Relubbus Russian Studies Institute at Prospidnick has opined that this string of embarrassing revelations could reflect a desire by Mr Putin to destabilise his successor and help pave the way back for his own return to the presidency.

ACCLAIMED AUTHOR PUBLISHES NEW WORK!!

Mr E.B. Daft (52) the much revered man of letters, who chooses to lead a reclusive life in the leafy confines of his Gwavas Estate home overlooking the stupendous Mounts Bay, has published a new work.

The new book speaks of his love for his most trusty and much treasured canine companion, Walter, and celebrates the animal's astounding gifts for public performance.

The book is suitable for for adults of all ages and, at just £52, is excellent value coming, as it does, with a FREE colouring-in set.

With a print run of just 500,000, Daft devotees are advised to rush to get their copy soon to avoid disappointment. 

Available at Oscar's Station Bookshop, Penzance and at all good book stores.

PASTY DECLARED WORLD HERITAGE FOOD!!

Yann Vari Quigeur (45) is the President of the new UN Commission on Global Gastronomic Culture, which is based in Tregunc, Breizh (Brittany).

Today he has announced that the first food to be declared deserving of World Food Heritage Status is the Cornish Pasty.

The decision was quickly reached after a panel of judges - convened by the President and drawn from the length and breadth of Cornwall and Brittany - sampled  a variety of signature dishes from around the globe.

Given the stiff competition for the prize of being chosen for this signal honour, reaction to this news has been, predictably, varied.

Mr Madron Tregonning (39) of the Relubbus Food Institute has welcomed the news, but said that it came as absolutely no surprise to him that the pasty has come out on top.

As he says, "That Jenny Mary might avva bittova girly nayem, but ee an' is boys 'ave done sum proper job 'ere. I kintellee - people are celebratin' from up St Just way pas' Truru right up tu thu border!"


Meanwhile, the 400-strong Chinese delegation was apoplectic with suffused anger.

Their leader, Mr Lapsang Souchong, declared indignantly, "What mean he, sirry man? Chinee cook tip top and velly qwick too!

"We offer squashed duck foot in 2000 year old monkey brain sauce wiv Shanghai flied lice and we get no look-in!  Issa stitch up!!"

The French delegation, led by Gustave Rambert, departed swiftly, without public word, in a thick cloud of haughty disdain.

In passing, Rambert (shown here in a library photo from happier days) sniffed indignantly, "Ze 'ole worl' know zat ze French cuisine is ze best on ze planet.  Zese Breton cochons, zey 'ave insulté la France viz zis negation of our cuisine.  I am not EPPY!"

Michael Fish, a weatherman from a different age  - said, "I just don't get it. Here I am in 1976 when getting the weather right tomorrow is hard enough.  Now someone is asking me about the fairness of the outcome of a contest of international cuisine in 2010.

"I've heard of long term forecasts, but this is ridiculous.  I'm a meat and two veg man meself!"

The only encouraging words came from the German delegation, Heinz and Magda Pupshose,a young happily-married couple from Furzheim.

Magda said, "Ve know zat we eppsolutely  no chance had, as ve our Wurst presented.  Vun can even say, zat Chermany not a sausage had! Ve too like Kornvall and ze vunderful pasty!"

The Roundup has decided to celebrate this achievement of the pasty by commissioning a special poem on the subject by the renowned and much loved and celebrated Cornish poet, Mr O.P. Opie (29). 


Mr Opie obligingly produced this paean to the pasty from the top of his head (after first removing his cap):


The Pasty

I duh dearly luv a pasty, when the weather's wet and cold,
When the wind is up and angry, jes' like them days of old,
You come back 'ome, yer ears are red, yer trousers bleddy wet
Tha's when a good 'ot pasty is the best thing you can get!

Tha's not tuh say 'ot weather dudden suit a pasty too
I's jes' as good tuh munch'n down onna beach under sky so blue
Youkun 'ear they seagulls callin', youkun ear'n flyin' roun'
But you'll be finishin' that pasty - no point their touchin' down!

Wassa bess, then Cappen? Shop-bought or 'ome-made?
Well, if you gotta assk the question, you ent never seen a table laid -
With maither's 'ome-made pasties - they are glories on a plate!
Delight to see, delight to eat - the bess you ever ate!

If you git up to 'eaven and croust time come aroun'
There'll be sum proper manna when they 'and the pasties down.
They'll be smellin' lovely and crimped by proper Cornish angels too
They're sum full of Cornish goodness and a proper job fer you!!