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Here's something I'm working on now. Not entirely sure about it yet, though...
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The Authentic Life of Lancelot Snurdley
‘The landscape of history has always continued to produce great men,’ said I, Sir Lancelot Snurdley, in my lecture at Oxford's Balliol College the other evening, ‘but is it history that produces them, or is it they who produce history?’ I have always favored the latter approach to understanding our past myself. I believe that great men shape the world’s fortunes, and in this vein history itself. I also believe that great men carry a heavy burden, one of responsibility, to see the world’s great future ensured. Otherwise, we should all be smelly, furry cannibals living in caves like dogs, and instead of writing these maxims down in my memoirs for you to read, I should be sitting in my cave and eating you. – Sir Lancelot Snurdley, Memoirs, Preface
1916, The Western Front
“It’s the Ottomans, again, sir! FIX BAYONETS!” shouted Sergeant-Major ‘Pudgy’ Bowles-Sappington, his voice booming through the whole of the trenches, his call (and vile breath) cutting through the thick fog of the battlefield, causing every infantryman for 100 yards around to plug his ears in a wild rage.
“Bugger the Ottomans!” returned the equally vociferous voice of Major General Sir Lancelot Snurdley, from under his HQ flap as he hurriedly loaded his giant revolver, beaming insanely, and twirling his immense gray mustachios around for effect.
“Sir! It’s the Krauts! READY YOUR RIFLES!” shouted Sergeant-Major Bowles-Sappington again, in his desperate bid to look over the trench to the enemy advancing with his tin foil “periscope” while wearing his lungs out simultaneously.
“Bugger the Krauts!” came the reply of the Major General, reaching for the dress sword he had stashed away under his bunk near the tin of biscuits and the pickled eggs jar.
“Oi! General, sir! It’s the bloody Mongols! STEADY, BOYS!” shouted Sergeant-Major Bowles-Sappington, grabbing for his wife’s photograph and his bucket of ice water.
“Bugger the Mongols!” cried the Major General, removing the dress sword, discarding the scabbard, and watching the gleam of the exploding shells reflecting on its hilt.
“Errr…ummm…General, old chap! It’s the dratted Aztecs! READY YOUR RIFLES!” shouted the Sergeant-Major, preparing to pour the cold contents of the bucket down his gullet to relieve his throbbing gullet.
“Bugger the Aztecs!” said the Major General in a loud voice, coming his hair briefly before his small, cracked, portable mirror.
“Yes, well…It’s the bloody Vikings! TAKE YOUR AIM! Gurgle!” shouted the Sergeant-Major, downing the water in a long, satisfied gulp.
“Bugger the Vikings!” continued the Major General, reaching into his pocket for his trusty whistle, guaranteed to attract the attention and total hatred of anyone in earshot.
“Quite…quite…Sir! It’s the cream-faced Arabs! FIRE!” shouted the Sergeant-Major, who’s voice, loud as it was, was shortly drowned out by the roar of the volley his men released into the enemy, approaching from behind barbed wire, cutting through the swirling mists, and activating the landmines with their poor choice of footing.
“Bugger the Arabs!” came the roar of the Major General, Sir Lancelot Snurdley. He then lifted his whistle to his lips, and blew tremendously. All along the line, the troops stopped the firing, only the machine gunners and artillerymen continuing to kill hundreds of the advancing, yet steadily weakening enemy.
“OVER THE TOP!” he shouted. Then, he sprang forward; his whistle clenched between his pearly white buck-teeth, obscured by those giant mustachios; a pistol was clutched in one of his gloved hands, and his sword in the other. With him, and with a tremendous, terrible roar, the men went and followed him over the top of the lines, and into the swirling mists of battle, right into the enemy.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lancelot Snurdley’s military and political career had actually started in the early 1840s, when the young man, a struggling artist in suburban Bolton, making his money on errands and midget tossing contest bets, was found sewing in his attic by his Aunt, Jemima Felicity Quap, a well respected member of the Free for All Women’s Liberties Guilds of Upper Bolton. Mrs. Quap, Lancelot’s surrogate mother, was positively delighted by the sight, and wholeheartedly supported the bold move to sew his trouser leg. She then asked him if this meant he wanted to be a clothes designer. He said no, so she sent him away to the Crimea.
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1844, The Crimea
“Aha!” said the Quartermaster General, Sir Laundsley Duck-Slappingfish, on the arrival of Mr. Snurdley in the Crimea as a new assistant Quartermaster for the army out there to expand the empire by wiping out Russians, Ottomans, and Mongols alike, “So, you are Snurdley, eh? I thought so…the idiotic expression on your face, the sloppily tied shoes, the stiff upper lip, the neatly clipped mustache, the plastic pencil holder, the smell of alcohol bedecking your oversized, purple-gray lips, the Quartermaster’s insignia…these things all suggested to my tremendously powerful mind that you were a Quartermaster. Am I right?” Unfortunately, the Quartermaster’s insignia had been misidentified, and that of higher command never quite registered in the General’s beady little lobes.
“No,” replied the General-in-Chief, slapping Sir Laundsley hard in the face with his glove, “I’m actually the General-in-Chief, this lad behind me is the new Quartermaster. And you are a stupid officious ape.” The General stormed away without a further word.
Looking rather sheepish, the Quartermaster General strode forward, grabbing Snurdley’s hand, and shaking it violently. “Ah, well, welcome to Glory Hole, old chap. This is the center of operations for supplying our boys in the front, who are gallantly taking on the barbarous foe. You see, I’m the brains of operations,” he said, tipping over a vial of ink, stepping on his cat’s tail, and leaning on his bicycle horn, while knocking the coat rack over and onto the box marked ‘EXTREMELY DANGEROUS---DO NOT JAR’. “They don’t call me ‘Brains of Steel’ for nothing, you know. Always good to see a new face to liven things up here. The Mongols are ugly chaps, you won’t like them. Learn to make due, and you’ll be extremely happy here. Despite the shells, and the guns, and the bombs, and the continuous bombardment, the screams of the men writhing in agony, the smells of death, the…”
“Yes, jolly nice place, I’m sure. Thank you for allowing me up here at 4th Corps Quartermaster Post.”
“That’s all right. Just a few things to note…we run things very tightly here, very tightly indeed. No accidents…nothing goes wrong…everything is on schedule…everything is done right…nothing wrong ever happens…”
The door burst open, and a breathless courier shouted, “Quartermaster General! The entire supply train that you sent over to 5th Corps followed your directions entirely, but they took them into the enemy rear! They have no way out, and want to know if…”
The smile Sir Laundsley wore suddenly took on a carnival air, and looked distinctly wooden, ”Oh…ummm…that…uhhh…Look, Quartermaster, have to go now. Lovely chat we had here. Leaving you in charge of this post. With any luck, we’ll be home by Christmas, what what?”
With that, Sir Laundsley Duck-Slappingfish went out the door, and into the adjoining wall with a slight thud as his nose connected with the woodwork.
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Dear Aunt Jemima,
This is your nephew, Lancelot, writing you, in case the return address hadn’t made the connection in your mind already. It’s been a week now out here on the Crimea, and I’m feeling quite at home, though I have the distinct feeling that my superior, Sir Laundsley, is a total idiot.
How’s Cindy? And Phyllis? And Roger? And Arnold? And Peccary? And Fatling? I must admit that I feel somewhat home sick, though I’m getting quite used to my surroundings up here. I am stationed at 4th Corps Quartermaster’s HQ, near Smerdlikosvk, a suburb of the tiny village of Muskovitivostokovitchikov. The conversation with the locals isn’t very interesting, mostly because they can’t speak English, and in this part of the world no one has discovered the secrets of joke telling. Also uninteresting is their cooking, but that’s something which has ever bothered me, home or abroad.
Haven’t yet seen very much action, but have heard it. The fact that the main Russian army was surrounded on the beaches and forced to surrender certainly is a moral raiser if there ever was one, despite the fact that we have no yet actually encountered anyone else in armed combat since our arrival. The Russians may sue for peace, but the others, it seems, won’t be so quick to do so. The Ottomans are very intent on mercilessly and barbarously killing every one of us, for what cause I cannot tell. I hear that the Sultan Osman is found mostly in deep contemplation, and in thinking too much a few days ago strained a muscle in his brain, which has unfortunately put that organ temporarily out of service. Whether that is a good thing or not, I cannot tell, though I have noted a goofy grin smeared all over his usually tepid mug as of late.
The French, as always, are right behind us wherever we go, shouting us on and encouraging us all the way, especially when we are in battle. They frequently call out to us in the din of battle from the rearguard that “You’re doing swell” and “Go get ‘em!” which greatly cheers the men. As I said, the French are behind us all the way. However, last night I did see a briefly cavalry conflict between a French hussar brigade and a squadron of sipahi. Four minutes after the initial charge, we watched as Ottoman horses ran back, riderless, while French riders ran back, horseless. The bravery of the French is, as you can see, incredible, if I may use the word freely.
Please do tell me what’s going on in the Guild. I understand that despite the attempts to blow up Ascot, set the Lord Chancellor aflame, burn the home secretary’s house down, and raid Lloyd’s, your case is still being heard. I’m glad to hear it, and I hope further well-calculated plans are set into motion by the incredible brains behinds the suffragetters. (By the way, have you ever thought that ‘suffragettes’ might actually sound a bit more feminine, and therefore a bit more welcoming, if you will? Think Rockettes, for example…oh, all right, scratch that one.)
Your Nephew,
Lancelot Snurdley
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The Authentic Life of Lancelot Snurdley
‘The landscape of history has always continued to produce great men,’ said I, Sir Lancelot Snurdley, in my lecture at Oxford's Balliol College the other evening, ‘but is it history that produces them, or is it they who produce history?’ I have always favored the latter approach to understanding our past myself. I believe that great men shape the world’s fortunes, and in this vein history itself. I also believe that great men carry a heavy burden, one of responsibility, to see the world’s great future ensured. Otherwise, we should all be smelly, furry cannibals living in caves like dogs, and instead of writing these maxims down in my memoirs for you to read, I should be sitting in my cave and eating you. – Sir Lancelot Snurdley, Memoirs, Preface
1916, The Western Front
“It’s the Ottomans, again, sir! FIX BAYONETS!” shouted Sergeant-Major ‘Pudgy’ Bowles-Sappington, his voice booming through the whole of the trenches, his call (and vile breath) cutting through the thick fog of the battlefield, causing every infantryman for 100 yards around to plug his ears in a wild rage.
“Bugger the Ottomans!” returned the equally vociferous voice of Major General Sir Lancelot Snurdley, from under his HQ flap as he hurriedly loaded his giant revolver, beaming insanely, and twirling his immense gray mustachios around for effect.
“Sir! It’s the Krauts! READY YOUR RIFLES!” shouted Sergeant-Major Bowles-Sappington again, in his desperate bid to look over the trench to the enemy advancing with his tin foil “periscope” while wearing his lungs out simultaneously.
“Bugger the Krauts!” came the reply of the Major General, reaching for the dress sword he had stashed away under his bunk near the tin of biscuits and the pickled eggs jar.
“Oi! General, sir! It’s the bloody Mongols! STEADY, BOYS!” shouted Sergeant-Major Bowles-Sappington, grabbing for his wife’s photograph and his bucket of ice water.
“Bugger the Mongols!” cried the Major General, removing the dress sword, discarding the scabbard, and watching the gleam of the exploding shells reflecting on its hilt.
“Errr…ummm…General, old chap! It’s the dratted Aztecs! READY YOUR RIFLES!” shouted the Sergeant-Major, preparing to pour the cold contents of the bucket down his gullet to relieve his throbbing gullet.
“Bugger the Aztecs!” said the Major General in a loud voice, coming his hair briefly before his small, cracked, portable mirror.
“Yes, well…It’s the bloody Vikings! TAKE YOUR AIM! Gurgle!” shouted the Sergeant-Major, downing the water in a long, satisfied gulp.
“Bugger the Vikings!” continued the Major General, reaching into his pocket for his trusty whistle, guaranteed to attract the attention and total hatred of anyone in earshot.
“Quite…quite…Sir! It’s the cream-faced Arabs! FIRE!” shouted the Sergeant-Major, who’s voice, loud as it was, was shortly drowned out by the roar of the volley his men released into the enemy, approaching from behind barbed wire, cutting through the swirling mists, and activating the landmines with their poor choice of footing.
“Bugger the Arabs!” came the roar of the Major General, Sir Lancelot Snurdley. He then lifted his whistle to his lips, and blew tremendously. All along the line, the troops stopped the firing, only the machine gunners and artillerymen continuing to kill hundreds of the advancing, yet steadily weakening enemy.
“OVER THE TOP!” he shouted. Then, he sprang forward; his whistle clenched between his pearly white buck-teeth, obscured by those giant mustachios; a pistol was clutched in one of his gloved hands, and his sword in the other. With him, and with a tremendous, terrible roar, the men went and followed him over the top of the lines, and into the swirling mists of battle, right into the enemy.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lancelot Snurdley’s military and political career had actually started in the early 1840s, when the young man, a struggling artist in suburban Bolton, making his money on errands and midget tossing contest bets, was found sewing in his attic by his Aunt, Jemima Felicity Quap, a well respected member of the Free for All Women’s Liberties Guilds of Upper Bolton. Mrs. Quap, Lancelot’s surrogate mother, was positively delighted by the sight, and wholeheartedly supported the bold move to sew his trouser leg. She then asked him if this meant he wanted to be a clothes designer. He said no, so she sent him away to the Crimea.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1844, The Crimea
“Aha!” said the Quartermaster General, Sir Laundsley Duck-Slappingfish, on the arrival of Mr. Snurdley in the Crimea as a new assistant Quartermaster for the army out there to expand the empire by wiping out Russians, Ottomans, and Mongols alike, “So, you are Snurdley, eh? I thought so…the idiotic expression on your face, the sloppily tied shoes, the stiff upper lip, the neatly clipped mustache, the plastic pencil holder, the smell of alcohol bedecking your oversized, purple-gray lips, the Quartermaster’s insignia…these things all suggested to my tremendously powerful mind that you were a Quartermaster. Am I right?” Unfortunately, the Quartermaster’s insignia had been misidentified, and that of higher command never quite registered in the General’s beady little lobes.
“No,” replied the General-in-Chief, slapping Sir Laundsley hard in the face with his glove, “I’m actually the General-in-Chief, this lad behind me is the new Quartermaster. And you are a stupid officious ape.” The General stormed away without a further word.
Looking rather sheepish, the Quartermaster General strode forward, grabbing Snurdley’s hand, and shaking it violently. “Ah, well, welcome to Glory Hole, old chap. This is the center of operations for supplying our boys in the front, who are gallantly taking on the barbarous foe. You see, I’m the brains of operations,” he said, tipping over a vial of ink, stepping on his cat’s tail, and leaning on his bicycle horn, while knocking the coat rack over and onto the box marked ‘EXTREMELY DANGEROUS---DO NOT JAR’. “They don’t call me ‘Brains of Steel’ for nothing, you know. Always good to see a new face to liven things up here. The Mongols are ugly chaps, you won’t like them. Learn to make due, and you’ll be extremely happy here. Despite the shells, and the guns, and the bombs, and the continuous bombardment, the screams of the men writhing in agony, the smells of death, the…”
“Yes, jolly nice place, I’m sure. Thank you for allowing me up here at 4th Corps Quartermaster Post.”
“That’s all right. Just a few things to note…we run things very tightly here, very tightly indeed. No accidents…nothing goes wrong…everything is on schedule…everything is done right…nothing wrong ever happens…”
The door burst open, and a breathless courier shouted, “Quartermaster General! The entire supply train that you sent over to 5th Corps followed your directions entirely, but they took them into the enemy rear! They have no way out, and want to know if…”
The smile Sir Laundsley wore suddenly took on a carnival air, and looked distinctly wooden, ”Oh…ummm…that…uhhh…Look, Quartermaster, have to go now. Lovely chat we had here. Leaving you in charge of this post. With any luck, we’ll be home by Christmas, what what?”
With that, Sir Laundsley Duck-Slappingfish went out the door, and into the adjoining wall with a slight thud as his nose connected with the woodwork.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Aunt Jemima,
This is your nephew, Lancelot, writing you, in case the return address hadn’t made the connection in your mind already. It’s been a week now out here on the Crimea, and I’m feeling quite at home, though I have the distinct feeling that my superior, Sir Laundsley, is a total idiot.
How’s Cindy? And Phyllis? And Roger? And Arnold? And Peccary? And Fatling? I must admit that I feel somewhat home sick, though I’m getting quite used to my surroundings up here. I am stationed at 4th Corps Quartermaster’s HQ, near Smerdlikosvk, a suburb of the tiny village of Muskovitivostokovitchikov. The conversation with the locals isn’t very interesting, mostly because they can’t speak English, and in this part of the world no one has discovered the secrets of joke telling. Also uninteresting is their cooking, but that’s something which has ever bothered me, home or abroad.
Haven’t yet seen very much action, but have heard it. The fact that the main Russian army was surrounded on the beaches and forced to surrender certainly is a moral raiser if there ever was one, despite the fact that we have no yet actually encountered anyone else in armed combat since our arrival. The Russians may sue for peace, but the others, it seems, won’t be so quick to do so. The Ottomans are very intent on mercilessly and barbarously killing every one of us, for what cause I cannot tell. I hear that the Sultan Osman is found mostly in deep contemplation, and in thinking too much a few days ago strained a muscle in his brain, which has unfortunately put that organ temporarily out of service. Whether that is a good thing or not, I cannot tell, though I have noted a goofy grin smeared all over his usually tepid mug as of late.
The French, as always, are right behind us wherever we go, shouting us on and encouraging us all the way, especially when we are in battle. They frequently call out to us in the din of battle from the rearguard that “You’re doing swell” and “Go get ‘em!” which greatly cheers the men. As I said, the French are behind us all the way. However, last night I did see a briefly cavalry conflict between a French hussar brigade and a squadron of sipahi. Four minutes after the initial charge, we watched as Ottoman horses ran back, riderless, while French riders ran back, horseless. The bravery of the French is, as you can see, incredible, if I may use the word freely.
Please do tell me what’s going on in the Guild. I understand that despite the attempts to blow up Ascot, set the Lord Chancellor aflame, burn the home secretary’s house down, and raid Lloyd’s, your case is still being heard. I’m glad to hear it, and I hope further well-calculated plans are set into motion by the incredible brains behinds the suffragetters. (By the way, have you ever thought that ‘suffragettes’ might actually sound a bit more feminine, and therefore a bit more welcoming, if you will? Think Rockettes, for example…oh, all right, scratch that one.)
Your Nephew,
Lancelot Snurdley
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
very amusing keep it going 
Keep it up. 
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