The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer!

Volume II, Chapter 4: Married to a Mermaid at the Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea! 

Since the Feast of Saint Valentine is only five months away, this chapter of "The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer!" is all about love ... McQueen is drawn into a lengthy flashback in which he recalls his love for Minerva Columba, the Sweet Dove, how he met her, fell in love with her, wrote a song for her, was troubled by a rival for her hand, and finally lost her to a monstrous crocodile. Beneath the dark waters of the North Sea, off the coast of Tannochbrae, Dr Thinley has a similar experience with a mermaid, albeit without any crocodile involvement. And in the frozen wastes of the Antarctic, we learn of the peculiar love Captain Scott had for pickled-onion flavour Monster Munch.

Volume II, Chapter 3: It is Always the Professor that trumps! 

Professor McQueen enjoys the latest number of the "Journal of the Bibliographical Society of London" (well, who does not?). It contains a delightful review by Basil T. Brush (not the celebrity fox), and a series of fascinating advertisements for tools and paraphernalia of use to the bibliographer, both professional and amateur. After getting a little too much pleasure from the Journal, McQueen cools off with the next episode of "The Tannochbrae Horror" on the wireless, and the reader learns more than they really want to about the "final problem", that collision of good and evil, dark and light, cheese and onion, when Sherlock Holmes confronted Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.

Written and performed by Paul W. Nash

With special guests

Elizabeth Crowley
William Hale
Rebecca Howard
Lucy Matheson
Georgina Shomroni
Iona Spark
David Stumpp
Stewart Tiley

Volume II, Chapter 2: An Eyeful of Evil from the Devil of St Ivel!

Professor Donald McQueen (the nation’s favourite Bibliographer) sets out from Timor Mortis College, Noxford, to seek his apparently-kidnapped pussy-cat. He is distracted from his course by Oskar the Busker (a lascar), and his dog Tosca, and by a disturbing encounter with Johnny Rotten and The Bibliography Pistols. What does the egregious Cornelius Bunce keep in the dungeon beneath his rooms at St Ivel College? How can Gruberschickle’s tomato ketchup be used to break through a locked iron grille? Was the appalling American (or perhaps Canadian) disc-jockey Paul Cheese strangled by his agent or by his own internal organs? Who is the greatest lyricist the English-speaking world has ever know? The answers to some of these questions will be found in this here thrilling episode of The Adventures of Donald McQueen, Bibliographer!

Written and performed by Paul W. Nash

With special guests

Elizabeth Crowley
William Hale
Rebecca Howard
Lucy Matheson
Georgina Shomroni
Iona Spark
David Stumpp
Stewart Tiley

Volume II, Chapter 1: The Return of the Mack … Queen! 

At last, after many years of toil and appeals from members of the bibliographical community to desist, Professor Donald McQueen of Timor Mortis College, Noxford, has completed the second volume of his infamous Adventures. This first fascicle re-introduces the Professor, his quest for the truth about the Codex Assinorum, his great rivalry with the egregious Cornelius Bunce, his love of Schickelgruber’s tomato ketchup and of a certain BBC radio series concerning haunted Scottish medical folk, and describes the delivery of the world’s smallest ransom note by a trained green woodpecker. Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse sadly fails to put in an appearance – again! – but has promised to dance a gigue and recite a limerick in a future chapter.

Written and performed by Paul W. Nash

With special guests

Elizabeth Crowley
William Hale
Rebecca Howard
Lucy Matheson
Iona Spark
David Stumpp
Stewart Tiley

In this final, bumper, double number of Volume I of Professor McQueen's Adventures, the tragic story of the seven old ladies locked in the laboratory reaches its grisly climax, and the Professor finally remembers to check the smurf trap in the gardens of Timor Mortis College at Noxford. Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse again fails to put in an appearance, but he has supplied the following review of this chapter: "Oh, it's wonderful, hilarious stuff! My sides are still aching! And what a pile of wisdom! That Professor McQueen is every inch the genius he fancies himself to be!"  Thank you, Cherrytop.

Parental advisory: While there is no bad language in this chapter, the story of the seven old ladies will be, like Murdoch's Plutonium Coffee, too strong and dark for some stomachs.

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Professor McQueen returns to Timor Mortis College, Noxford, and muses on the history of that "City of leaning spires and ghostly biscuits", before encountering the strange gods, tragedies and robots of Noxford. Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse again fails to put in an appearance, but Elton John turns up at the last moment ... 

Professor McQueen is missing his cat, so decides to leave the Duodecimo Club (in London's Bibliography Quarter) and return to his lodgings at Timor Mortis College, Noxford. But on the train he meets his nemesis, the worst man in the world, the organizer of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in the city of books, the Napoleon of Bibliographical Crime. There is, however, still no sign of Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse!

In this chapter of his adventures, Professor Donald McQueen wrestles with a great moral and intellectual dilemma – should he use The Ear-Trumpet of Death for entertainment, or reserve it only for academic purposes? A telephone call to his sponsor can help to identify the sauce of all knowledge and wisdom, and the answer to his great question results in McQueen losing himself in the final episode of that flabbergasting science fiction drama The Venus Probe.  For the second time, Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse fails to put in an appearance ...

Who printed the Codex Assinorum of Scrotus? And when? And why? These are the questions which plague Professor Donald McQueen of Timor Mortis College, Noxford. But his concentration is broken by tales of the cruel and mysterious Mr Lavender, and by visions of murderous Scotsmen, elderly lady detectives, Darth Vader and a radio-controlled cat, to say nothing of Cherrytop the Sarcastic Horse (who does not appear in this chapter).

Professor McQueen continues his sojourn at the Duodecimo Club in Pall Mall, where he just misses the opportunity to meet Death in person. Who will be the next President of the Bibliographical Society? How could a Scottish music teacher possibly be misunderstood by the girls of Whittering's School in Hampshire? What is the mysterious accent employed by Dr Chopper Hopper aboard the Starship Venus? Will any of the Club members ever speak to Joanna Lumley again? Enquire within for the answers to some of these questions.