The Hugo Rune Homepage
Hugo Who...?
He had known many previous incarnations. And then
some.
He had walked the Earth as Nostradamus, Uther Pendragon, Count
Cagliostro and Rodrigo Borgia. Although probably not in that order.
He
spoke seventeen languages, played darts with the Dalai Lama and shared his
sleeping bag with Rasputin, Albert Einstein, Lawrence of Arabia and George
Formby.
He was worshipped as a god by an East Acton cargo cult and once
scaled Everest in a smoking jacket and plus-fours to win a bet with Oscar
Wilde.
He travelled to Venus in the company of George Adamsky, reinvented
the ocarina and was burned in effigy by the Chiswick Townswomen’s
Guild.
He was an expert swordsman, a gourmet chef, a world traveller,
poet, painter, stigmatist, guru to gurus and hater of Bud Abbott.
He
could open a tin of sardines with his teeth, strike a Swan Vestas on his chin,
rope steers, drive a steam locomotive and hum all the works of Gilbert and
Sullivan without becoming confused or breaking down into tears.
He won a
first at Oxford, squandered three fortunes, made love to a thousand women,
imbibed strange drugs, sold his soul for Rock ‘n’ Roll, almost pipped Einstein
for the Nobel Prize, was barred from every Chinese noodle parlour in West London
and died penniless, at a Hastings boarding-house in his ninetieth
year.
His name was Hugo Artenis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune.
And he was never bored.
He penned more than eight million words. His
autohagiography, The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, chronicles the life of
an individual who shunned the everyday, scorned the laws of ordinary man,
laughed in the face of convention, reinvented the ocarina and hated Bud
Abbott.
He was a character in an age of characters. An exaggerated shadow
cast in the fashionable places of his day. The confidante of kings and
criminals, popes and prize- fighters, lighthouse keepers and lingerie salesmen,
boffins and bikers.
Strangely enough, hardly anyone remembers him
today.
His greatest work, The Book Of Ultimate Truths, has long
ago vanished from the bookshelves. The British Library denies all knowledge of
it. Smith’s can’t get it in and a recent privately printed edition turned out to
be an elaborate hoax, perpetrated by a certain Sir John Rimmer, a bogus
biographer of Rune, now living as a tax exile in California.
The Book
Of Ultimate Truths was Rune’s magnum opus. An encyclopaedia of his
accumulated wisdom. Within it, the master explains, in terms understandable to
the layman, exactly what life is really all about.
Why there are always
two small screws left over when you reassemble that broken toaster. Where all
the yellow handled screwdrivers go to. Why supermarket trolleys congregate
beneath canal bridges. How the thermos flask knows what to keep hot and what to
keep cold. Why the aspirin is only guessing. Where all the road cones come from
and where they go afterwards and why it’s always right where you’re driving. The
myth of ‘dry’ cleaning. Dog-turd geomancy. How Arran sweaters grow while you
sleep. Why it is impossible to be first in a Post Office queue and much, much
more.
Throughout his colourful life the Forces of Darkness sought
constantly to prevent Rune from revealing his Ultimate Truths. Satanic
agencies plagued him in many human forms. Cuckolded husbands, the original
inventor of the ocarina, The Chiswick townswomen’s Guild and The Bud Abbott
Appreciation Society, to mention but a few.
Added to these were landlords
and lodging-house keepers, the proprietors of West London Chinese noodle
parlours, milkmen, tailors, shoemakers, manufacturers of magical accoutrements,
travel agents and vintners. All labouring under what Rune refers to as "the
curious misconception that a master should pay his bills as do humble
folk".
But, although under constant threat of assassination or
litigation, Hugo Rune was never afraid to speak out, name names and point the
finger of accusations. His modest aim was to increase mankind’s knowledge and
single-handedly bring about World Peace.
The Book Of Ultimate Truths must be republished
for all our sakes
But seriously... Who is Hugo Rune?
Hugo Rune is a character created by Robert Rankin. He has appeared in a
number of Rankin's books, most notably in The Book of Ultimate Truths,
the sequel Raiders of the Lost Car Park and the sequel to them, The
Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived.
With the exception of They Came and Ate Us, Armageddon III : The
B-Movie(which I haven't read yet), and excusing the fact that I havent read
every Robert Rankin book yet so I may be a little misinformed, these are the
only books that Hugo Rune appears in.
OK, So who's this Rankin bloke then?
According to the 'about the author bit' of his book The Most
Amazing Man Who Ever Lived Robert Rankin is :
Magus to the Hermetic Order of the Golden sprout, 12th Dan Master of Dimac,
poet, adventurer, swordsman and concert pianist; big game hunter, Best Dressed
Man of 1933; mountaineer, lone yachtsman, Shakespearian actor and topless go-go
dancer; Rober Rankin's hobbies include passive smoking, communicating with the
dead and lying about his achievements. He lives in Sussex with his wife and
family.
This page was last updated on 7th
November 2002