Literary Drinking Games #1: The Scarlet Pimpernel

1. Acquire copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
2. Write each of the following words on an individual slip of paper: merry, childlike, lazy, inane, cunning, la, odd’s fish, zounds
3. Drop papers into a bowl and mix them up
4. Each player draws one slip of paper from the bowl and arms themself with the drink of their choice
5. Each player then takes it in turn to open the book at a random page. Anyone whose word appears on the page takes a swig of their drink.
6. Repeat step 5 until very drunk and swearing that you will never touch Baroness Orczy again. Shouldn’t take long.

Oh, well, perhaps I am a bit harsh on the old Baroness, but it is thus far that a childhood hero has fallen. I loved the Scarlet Pimpernel when I was a soppy teen. I read and re-read the books in the school library (the same school library that had all the Heyer), and I watched and re-watched the film with Anthony Andrews as Sir Percy and Jane Seymour as Marguerite.

Alas, meeting Blakeney again some *ahem* years later, it was all a bit silly and instead of provoking deep sighs it called forth dramatic eye rolling and mutterings that ‘for someone known as the “cleverest woman in Europe”, Marguerite Blakeney is a bit dim’.

About these ads