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\lhead[\textbf{The Annotated Pratchett File}]{}
\rhead[]{APF v9.0, August 2004}
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\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}
\vspace*{28 ex}
{\Huge\textbf{The Annotated Pratchett File, v9.0}}
\vspace{7 ex}

Collected and edited by: \textsf{Leo Breebaart $<${\smaller \texttt{apf@lspace.org}}$>$
\\}
Assistant Editor: \textsf{Mike Kew $<${\smaller \texttt{apf@lspace.org}}$>$
\\}
Organisation: Unseen University
\\
Newsgroups:  {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}},{\smaller \texttt{alt.books.pratchett}}
\\
Archive name: apf--9.0
\\
Last modified: 17 August 2004

Version number: 9.0 (The Pointless Albatross Release)

\end{center}\end{titlepage}
\tableofcontents

\cleardoublepage\chapter{Preface to v9.0}

This is the first `real' release of the Annotated Pratchett File since the
v7a.0 release of 16 June 1996.

Back then, I apologised for the eighteen months that had passed between
v7.0 and v7a.0, and I promised I would do better next time. Um, yes.

Apologising again, but now for the eight \emph{years} that have passed between
v7a.0 and this v9.0, seems a bit pointless. Let me instead just thank all
you {\smaller APF} readers for your patience, your submissions, your corrections, and
your offers to help. In all those eight years the flow of supportive words
and emails and Usenet messages never once dried up, and I doubt if I could
ever express adequately enough how motivating and helpful that has been.

Having learned my lesson, I will make no promises or predictions this time
with respect to future releases of the {\smaller APF}, but my honest intention is for
v9.0 to signal the start of a period of steady {\smaller APF} development on all
fronts: annotation content, World Wide Web version, typeset version ---
everything. In a sense I still consider v9.0 an `intermediate' version, and
I have Plans for major improvements all over. We will just have to see how
(and when!) it all plays out; for now I hope that v9.0 will be a welcome
milestone, of sufficient quality to make sure everybody is once again
willing to come along on the next leg of the trip.

Leo Breebaart

Delft, August 2004

\cleardoublepage\chapter{Introduction}

You are now reading the 9th edition of the Annotated Pratchett File, or {\smaller APF}
for short. For information about what is new or changed in v9.0 with
respect to previous editions I refer you to the new \emph{Version History and
Timeline} section in the \emph{Editorial Comments} chapter.

Ever since its creation in 1992, one of the most popular pastimes on the
Usenet newsgroup {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} has been discussing the many jokes,
parodies, allusions and references with which Terry Pratchett seasons his
work. Since, as Terry once put it, ``{\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} as an entity has the
attention span of a butterfly on cocaine'', it quickly became clear that it
would be a good idea to distil some of these discussions into something
with a little more persistence and staying power than individual Usenet
articles (remember that this all took place long before something like
Google Groups --- or indeed even the World Wide Web itself --- existed!). And
so the \emph{Annotated Pratchett File} was born, and (because I was brave or
foolish enough to volunteer) I became its editor.

Over the years the {\smaller APF} has grown in popularity and size. It now contains
nearly two thousand annotations, and is available in a number of different
formats. Yet it is still (and if I can help it will always be) called a
`file', reflecting its origin as a short text file that I regularly posted
to {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}.

The structure of the {\smaller APF} is straightforward, with the annotations divided
into two large chapters: the \emph{Discworld Annotations}, and all the \emph{Other
Annotations}. Within each group, the books are listed in the order in which
they were published (with the exception that in the Discworld chapter the
proper novels come before the secondary material such as the maps and the
\emph{Science of Discworld} books). Within each book, the annotations are sorted
in ascending order by page number, with that number referring to the
edition I actually own myself, which will typically be the original UK
hardcover edition. (Some of the earlier books also list paperback page
numbers --- for more information please read the \emph{Page Numbers} section in
the \emph{Editorial Comments} chapter.)

Each annotation is prefixed by either a `+', denoting an annotation that is
new or has been significantly updated in this version of the {\smaller APF}, or a `--',
denoting an unchanged older annotation. This used to be quite handy when
new {\smaller APF} versions appeared more frequently, but has since become a lot less
meaningful. We are sticking to the practice for now, on account of
tradition.

The {\smaller APF} incorporates, in this edition once again more than ever before,
many passages from articles that Terry himself has posted to
{\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}. As a long time active contributor to the group, he often
provides inside information on many aspects of his writing, and it would be
a waste to let this first-hand knowledge just disappear into Usenet
history. Much of this material has been incorporated into the annotations
themselves, but quite a bit of interesting information that did not fit
anywhere else has been collected in the \emph{Thoughts and Themes} chapter.

The {\smaller APF} ends with the already mentioned \emph{Editorial Comments} chapter, where
various nuts \& bolts of the editing process are discussed. It also lists
information to help you obtain the most recent version of the {\smaller APF} in
whatever format you prefer.

One particular piece of technical information is so important I am placing
it here as well as at the end, and that is the address to write to if you
have any suggestions, questions, corrections, or new annotations. Without
the enthusiastic reactions and input from its readers, the {\smaller APF} would never
have survived so far. Please mail all your feedback to me at:

\begin{quote}{{\smaller \texttt{apf@lspace.org}} \\
}\end{quote}

and maybe you will see \emph{your} contribution become a part of the next
edition. I will now leave you to the annotations, and end this introduction
with a thought that is a bit of a clich\'{e} but nonetheless true: I hope you
will enjoy reading the {\smaller APF} as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.

\cleardoublepage\chapter{Discworld Annotations}

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Colour of Magic}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/7\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] He stares fixedly at the Destination.''

  This line is interesting not only because it foreshadows \emph{The Light
  Fantastic} (as in fact the entire prologue does), but also because it is
  about the only time the narrator really commits himself to A'Tuin's
  gender without hedging his bets (as e.g.\  on the first page of \emph{The Light
  Fantastic}). Note the capital `H', which Death also rates in this book
  and loses in the later ones.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 ``For example, what was A'Tuin's actual sex?''

  I have had email from a herpetologist who has studied under one of the
  world's experts on turtles, and he assures me that in real life
  determining the sex of turtles is no easy task. Unlike mammals, reptiles
  don't have their naughty bits hanging out where they can be easily seen,
  and the only way to really tell a turtle's gender is by comparison: male
  turtles are often smaller than females and have thicker tails. Since
  there are no other \emph{Chelys Galactica} to compare A'Tuin to, the attempts
  of the Discworld's Astrozoologists are probably futile to begin with.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would
  continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, [{\ldots}]''

  Puns on the `steady state' theory of explaining the size, origin and
  future of the universe. The best-known \emph{other} theory is, of course, the
  Big Bang theory, referred to in the preceding sentence.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/9\,] }}
 ``Fire roared through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork.''

  Terry has said that the name `Ankh-Morpork' was inspired neither by the
  ankh (the Egyptian cross with the closed loop on top), nor by the
  Australian or New Zealand species of bird (frogmouths and small brown
  owls, respectively) that go by the name of `Morepork'.

  Since I first wrote down the above annotation, there have been new
  developments, however. In \emph{The Streets of Ankh-Morpork} and \emph{The
  Discworld Companion} we are shown an illustration of the Ankh-Morpork
  coat of arms, which \emph{does} feature a Morepork/owl holding an ankh. But
  from Terry's remarks (see next annotation) I feel it's safe to say that
  neither bird nor cross were explicitly on his mind when he first came up
  with the name Ankh-Morpork.

  Finally, many readers have mentioned the resonance that Ankh-Morpork has
  with our world's Budapest: also a large city made up of two smaller
  cities (Buda and Pest) separated by a river.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/9\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] two figures were watching with considerable interest.''

  The two barbarians, Bravd and Weasel, are parodies of Fritz Leiber's
  fantasy heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The \emph{Swords} series of books
  in which they star are absolute classics, and have probably had about as
  much influence on the genre as Tolkien's \emph{Lord of the Rings}.

  The \emph{Swords} stories date back as far as 1939, but more than sixty years
  later they have lost none of their appeal. Both \emph{The Colour of Magic} and
  \emph{The Light Fantastic} are, in large part, affectionate parodies of the
  Leiberian universe, although I hasten to add that, in sharp contrast to
  many later writers in the field, Leiber himself already had a great sense
  of humour. Fafhrd and the Mouser are not to be taken altogether serious
  in his original version, either.

  Given all this, I can perhaps be forgiven for thinking that Terry
  intended Ankh-Morpork to be a direct parody of the great city of Lankhmar
  in which many of the \emph{Swords} adventures take place. However, Terry
  explicitly denied this when I suggested it on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}:

  ``Bravd and the Weasel were indeed takeoffs of Leiber characters --- there
  was a lot of that sort of thing in \emph{The Colour of Magic}. But I didn't ---
  at least consciously, I suppose I must say --- create Ankh-Morpork as a
  takeoff of Lankhmar.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/11\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] two lesser directions, which are Turnwise and
  Widdershins.''

  `Widdershins' is in fact an existing word meaning `counter-sunwise', i.e.\ 
  counter-clockwise in the Northern hemisphere, clockwise down South. A
  synonym for `turnwise' is deosil, which helps explain Ankh-Morpork's
  Deosil Gate as found on the \emph{The Streets of Ankh-Morpork} Mappe.

  Widdershins is also the name of the planet where Dom, the hero from \emph{The
  Dark Side of the Sun} lives.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/12\,] }}
 ``\,`Why, it's Rincewind the wizard, isn't it?' [{\ldots}]''

  The story behind Rincewind's name goes back to 1924, when J.~B.~Morton
  took over authorship of the column `By The Way' in the \emph{Daily Express}, a
  London newspaper.

  He inherited the pseudonym `Beachcomber' from his predecessors on the job
  (the column had existed since 1917), but he was to make that name forever
  his own by virtue of his astonishing output and success: Morton wrote the
  column for over 50 years, six times a week, until 1965 when the column
  became a weekly feature, and continued to the last column in November
  1975.

  Beachcomber/Morton used an eccentric cast of regular characters in his
  sketches, which frequently caricatured self-important and highbrow public
  figures. One continual theme was the silliness of the law courts,
  featuring amongst others Mr Justice Cocklecarrot and the twelve
  Red-Bearded Dwarves. In one sketch, the names of those dwarfs were given
  as Sophus Barkayo-Tong, Amaninter Axling, Farjole Merrybody, Guttergorm
  Guttergormpton, Badly Oronparser, Cleveland Zackhouse, Molonay
  Tubilderborst, Edeledel Edel, Scorpion de Rooftrouser, Listenis
  Youghaupt, Frums Gillygottle, and, wait for it: Churm Rincewind. Terry
  says:

  ``I read of lot of Beachcomber in second-hand collections when I was
  around 13. Dave Langford pointed out the origin of Rincewind a few years
  ago, and I went back through all the books and found the name and
  thought, oh, blast, \emph{that's} where it came from. And then I thought, what
  the hell, anyway.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/12\,] }}
 ``Since the Hub is never closely warmed by the weak sun the
  lands there are locked in permafrost. The Rim, on the other hand, is a
  region of sunny islands and balmy days.''

  A presumably knowledgeable correspondent tells me that actually, if you
  do the calculations, it turns out that it would be the other way around
  (on average, the sun is closer to the hub than the rim, so the hub would
  be warmer).

  Do not feel obliged to take his word for it, though. `Discworld
  Mechanics' is one of {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}'s favourite Perennial Discussion
  Topics, and I don't think that any two given participants in such a
  thread have ever managed to agree on anything definite about the way in
  which the Discworld might `work'. See also the \emph{The Turtle Moves!}
  section in Chapter~5 for more information about the physical aspects of
  the Discworld.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 16/16\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] found himself looking up into a face with four eyes in
  it.''

  On the covers of the first two Discworld books, Josh Kirby actually drew
  Twoflower with four physical eyes. Consensus on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} has it
  that Terry was trying to get across the fact that Twoflower was wearing
  glasses (`four-eyes' being a common insult thrown at bespectacled folks),
  but that Josh Kirby simply triggered on the literal text and went off in
  a direction of his own. Whether this action essentially shows Kirby's
  interpretative genius (the KirbyFan explanation) or his inability to get
  the joke / read very carefully (the NonKirbyFan explanation) is a matter
  still under discussion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 18/17\,] }}
 The inn called `The Broken Drum' gets burned down in this
  book. The later Discworld novels all feature an inn called `The Mended
  Drum'. The novel \emph{Strata} contains (on p.~35/42) an explanation of why
  you would call a pub `The Broken Drum' in the first place: ``You can't
  beat it''.

  This is probably as good a place as any to mention some intriguing
  information that I received from one of my correspondents: if you have
  ever wondered what it would be like to experience the atmosphere of an
  establishment like the Mended Drum, then the closest you can possibly
  come in our world is by paying a visit to Alexandria, where there exists
  a bar called the `Spitfire', populated mostly by soldiers and sailors,
  and apparently a dead ringer for the Mended Drum. The story goes that
  when the owner of the bar passed away a few years ago, his body was kept
  in a freezer next to the toilets where, for all we know, it may still be
  today. If any of you ever happen to be in Alexandria, be sure to visit
  the `Spitfire' and check it out for us.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 22/20\,] }}
 ``Some might have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter
  [{\ldots}]''

  One of the few clues to Rincewind's age being younger rather than older,
  despite the tendency of every cover artist to depict him as at least
  sixtyish. No one ever draws him as looking like a weasel, either.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 22/20\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] an alumnus of Unseen University, [{\ldots}]''

  The name of the Discworld's premier scientific institution resonates with
  that of the Invisible College, formed by the secret organisation of the
  Rosicrucians, whose members were called the Invisibles because they never
  dared to reveal themselves in public. The Invisible College was a
  conclave of scientists, philosophers and other progressive thinkers
  which, in later times and under Stuart patronage, became the Royal
  Society.

  In the \emph{Brief Lives} arc of Neil Gaiman's \emph{Sandman} comic, Dream visits
  the Invisible College, where a scientist is happily dissecting a dead
  orangutan. I don't think that scene was \emph{entirely} coincidental{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 24/22\,] }}
 Terry has this to say about the name `Twoflower': ``[{\ldots}]
  there's no joke in Twoflower. I just wanted a coherent way of making up
  `foreign' names and I think I pinched the Mayan construction (Nine
  Turning Mirrors, Three Rabbits, etc.).''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/24\,] }}
 ``\,`If you mean: is this coin the same as, say, a fifty-dollar
  piece, then the answer is no.'\,''

  An American reader was puzzled by the fact that in Ankh-Morpork the unit
  of currency is the dollar, instead of, for instance, something more
  British, like the pound. Terry explained:

  ``The dollar is quite an elderly unit of currency, from the German
  `thaler', I believe, and the use of the term for the unit of currency
  isn't restricted to the US\@. I just needed a nice easy monetary unit and
  didn't want to opt for the `gold pieces' clich\'{e}. Sure, I live in the UK,
  but I haven't a clue what the appropriate unit of currency is for a city
  in a world on the back of a turtle :--)\,{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28/25\,] }}
 ``\,`Barely two thousand \emph{rhinu}.'\,''

  A very old British slang word for ready money is `rhino', which Brewer
  thinks may be related to the phrase `to pay through the nose', since
  `rhinos' means `nose' in Greek.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30/27\,] }}
 ``The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork smiled, but with his mouth
  only.''

  An interesting consideration is just when Lord Vetinari became Patrician.
  Clearly this isn't him (Vetinari eating crystallised jellyfish? --- I
  don't think so. Besides, \emph{Interesting Times} makes it quite clear that
  Vetinari does not know who Rincewind is).

  However, Terry has always denied this interpretation:

  ``I'm pretty certain that the same Patrician was in all the books. [{\ldots}]
  He's clearly lost weight and got more austere. It must be the pressure.
  As for racehorses and so on --- Vetinari is not the first Patrician, and
  no doubt the earlier ones, like Lord Snapcase, were often crazed, greedy
  and acquisitive. So he has inherited all sorts of things. But he doesn't
  change anything without a reason.''

  When the people on afp were not immediately prepared to take his word for
  this (after all, what does he know --- he's only the author{\ldots}), Terry
  conceded:

  ``How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?''

  Which was grudgingly accepted. Still, discussion about the differences
  between the ``early'' and the ``recent'' Patrician continues to flare up
  regularly. When some people on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} questioned whether
  Vetinari would really be the type of man to throw the kind of party
  described in \emph{Mort}, Terry answered:

  ``I've always thought the Patrician is a party animal. Can you imagine
  waking up next day and remembering all those witty things you said and
  did, and then realising that he was listening?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/39\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits?}'\,''

  Surprising as it may seem (or at least as it was to me), there are quite
  a few people who do not understand this cryptification of `economics',
  even though it is explicitly explained by Terry a bit later, on p.~71/63:
  `echo-gnomics'. Some of the confusion perhaps arises from the fact that
  we don't usually associate gnomes with spirits, as in: ghosts. But I
  think Terry here simply means spirits (as in: souls) living underground,
  with the emphasis on the word `underground'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 49/43\,] }}
 ``Let him but get to Chimera or Gonim or Ecalpon and half a
  dozen armies couldn't bring him back.''

  The Chimera was a fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology (see the
  annotation for p.~171/154 of \emph{Sourcery}). The name is also a pun on
  Cimmeria, Conan the Barbarian's mythical homeland, while `Chimerical' has
  the general connotation of something mythical or imaginary as well.

  Ecalpon is `Noplace' spelled backwards. This is similar to Erewhon, which
  is `Nowhere' spelled backwards (well, almost), the idealistic
  commonwealth described in Samuel Butler's eponymous novel. Also, `Nehwon'
  is the universe where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have most of their
  adventures.

  Go-Nim, finally, is the name of a Japanese board game similar to
  four-in-a-row.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 62/55\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] I{\smaller{ WAS EXPECTING TO MEET THEE IN }}P{\smaller{SEPHOPOLOLIS.}}''

  Death and Rincewind are replaying their own version of the well-known
  folktale \emph{Appointment in Samarra}. Terry says:

  ``My mother told me the `Appointment in Samarra' story when I was very
  young, and it remained. She says she read it somewhere, or maybe heard
  it{\ldots}

  I'd always thought it was from the 1001 Nights, although I never went
  looking for it. It's one of those stories that a lot of people vaguely
  know, without quite knowing why{\ldots}''

  For those who aren't familiar with the story, it concerns a servant to a
  rich Baghdad merchant who goes to the market and encounters Death there,
  who gestures at him. Convinced that this is a very bad omen indeed, the
  servant rushes back to his master in a great panic and begs him for a
  horse, so that he can ride to Samarra and escape whatever calamity will
  befall him should he stay in Baghdad. The kind master gives the servant a
  horse, and goes out to investigate for himself. When the merchant finds
  Death and asks him why he frightened the servant so, Death replies: ``I
  wasn't trying to scare him, it is just that I was so very surprised to
  meet him here, because I have an appointment with him tonight in
  Samarra!''

  Over the centuries, countless versions and re-tellings of this story have
  appeared in books, plays and poems in all languages and cultures. One of
  my correspondents was so intrigued by the tale that with the help of
  {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} he set out to find the original, or at least the
  earliest known version. After much research, he now believes this to be
  \emph{When Death Came to Baghdad}, an old ninth century Middle Eastern Sufi
  teaching story, told by Fudail ibn Ayad in his \emph{Hikayat-i-Naqshia}
  (`Tales formed according to a design').

  If anyone has a reference to an even earlier version, we would love to
  hear about it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 73/65\,] }}
 ``\,`Here's another fine mess you've got me into,' he moaned and
  slumped backwards.''

  This is a well-known Laurel and Hardy catchphrase. Hardy (the fat one)
  always says it to Laurel (the thin one), who then usually responded by
  ruffling the top of his hair with one hand and whimpering in
  characteristic fashion.

  People have been quick to point out to me that Hardy never actually said
  ``fine mess'', though, but always ``nice mess''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 75/67\,] }}
 This is the first occurrence of the name `Dunmanifestin' for
  the home of the Gods at the top of Cori Celesti. It is used again in
  several places throughout the other Discworld novels.

  This is not only a reference to the many British placenames that begin
  with `Dun' (a Gaelic word meaning castle or fort and hence town) but also
  a reference to the supposedly traditional name for a twee retirement
  bungalow in the suburbs. When people (especially the bourgeois middle
  classes) retire to the suburbs they always, according to the stereotype,
  give the house some `cute' punning name. Since the Dun/Done association
  is well-known, one of the more common names (though it is a matter of
  discussion if anyone has ever actually seen a house with this name) is
  `Dunroamin' --- that is ``done roaming'' --- i.e.\  the owners of the house
  have finished ``travelling the world'' and are now settled down to a life
  of the Daily Mail, golf and coffee mornings. From this, we get that a
  retirement home for gods not possessing much taste, might just be named
  `Dunmanifestin'.

  A correspondent tells me that `Dun' is also an Old English word for hill.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/68\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Zephyrus the god of slight breezes.''

  Zephyrus was in fact the Greek god of the soft west winds. The
  interactions of the gods in `The Sending of Eight' strongly bring to mind
  the Godshome scenes in Leiber's \emph{Swords} series.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 78/70\,] }}
 \emph{The Sending of Eight}

  Just as the first chapter of \emph{The Colour of Magic} has many resonances
  with Fritz Leiber's \emph{Swords} series, so can this chapter be regarded as a
  light parody of the works of horror author H.~P.~Lovecraft, who wrote
  many stories in a universe where unspeakable Evil lives, and where
  Ancient Gods (with unpronounceable names) play games with the lives of
  mortals. Lovecraft also wrote a story called \emph{The Colour out of Space},
  about an indescribable, unnatural colour.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 92/82\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the circle began to spin widdershins.''

  This entire section is a direct analogy to the workings of a normal
  electrical generator, with the Elemental Magical Force being the
  electromotive force we all know and love from high school physics
  lessons.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 98/87\,] }}
 ``The floor was a continuous mosaic of eight-sided tiles,
  [{\ldots}]''

  It is physically impossible for convex octagons (the ones we usually
  think of when we hear the word `octagon') to tile a plane. Unless, of
  course, space itself would somehow be strangely distorted (one of the
  hallmarks of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos). It is possible, however, to
  tile a plane with non-convex octagons (and Terry nowhere says or implies
  he meant convex tiles). Proof is left as an exercise to the reader (I
  hate ASCII pictures).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 101/89\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the disposal of grimoires [{\ldots}]''

  I don't think too many people will have missed that this section echoes
  the two main methods of nuclear waste disposal: sealing drums in deep
  salt mines, and dropping the drums into trenches at subduction zones. Of
  these two methods, the trench dumping has only been theorised about and
  not actually employed.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/101\,] }}
 ``\,`I spent a couple of hundred years on the bottom of a lake
  once.'\,''

  Reference to the sword Excalibur from the King Arthur legend. There's
  another reference to that legend on p.~128/113: ``\,`This could have been an
  anvil'\,''.

  Some people were also reminded of the black sword Stormbringer, from
  Michael Moorcock's Elric saga.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/101\,] }}
 ``\,`What I'd \emph{really} like to be is a ploughshare. I don't
  know what that is, but it sounds like an existence with some point to
  it.'\,''

  Swords and ploughshares have always been connected through a proverb
  originating in a famous phrase from the Bible, in Isaiah 2:4: ``[{\ldots}] and
  they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
  pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
  shall they learn war any more''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/103\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{'LL GET YOU YET, CULLY}}, said Death [{\ldots}]''

  Death is addressing Rincewind here, so the use of what looks like a
  different name is confusing. Terry explains: ``Cully still just about
  hangs on in parts of the UK as a mildly negative term meaning variously
  `yer bastard', `man', `you there' and so on. It's quite old, but then,
  Death is a history kind of guy.''

  \emph{The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable}, by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (a 19th
  century reference book; see also the \emph{Words From The Master} section in
  chapter 5) explains `cully' as being a contracted form of `cullion', ``a
  despicable creature'' (from the Italian: coglione). An Italian
  correspondent subsequently informed me that ``coglione'' is actually a
  popular term for testicle, which is often used to signify a stupid and
  gullible person. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, `cully' may
  also have been a gypsy word.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/104\,] }}
 The entire \emph{Lure of the Wyrm} section parodies the Pern
  novels (an sf/fantasy series) by Anne McCaffrey. The heroine of the first
  Pern novel \emph{Dragonflight} is called Lessa, and the exclamation mark in
  Terry's dragonriders' names parallels the similar use of apostrophes in
  McCaffrey's names.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 124/109\,] }}
 ``\emph{The dragons sense Liessa's presence.}''

  This section in italics (continued later with Ninereeds) is another Pern
  reference (see the annotation for p.~118/104), in this case to the way
  McCaffrey depicts the mental communications from the dragons.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 125/110\,] }}
 ``Oh, you know how it is with wizards. Half an hour
  afterwards you could do with another one, the dragon grumbles.''

  The `half an hour afterwards' quip is more conventionally made about
  Chinese food.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 130/114\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] it appeared to be singing to itself.''

  Although singing swords are common as dirt in myths and folklore, we do
  know that Terry is familiar with many old computer games, so the
  description of Kring may be a passing reference to the prototypical
  computer adventure game \emph{ADVENT} (later versions of which were also known
  as \emph{Adventure} or \emph{Colossal Cave}). In this game, a room exists where a
  sword is stuck in an anvil. The next line of the room's description goes:
  ``The sword is singing to itself''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 141/123\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he had been captivated by the pictures of the fiery
  beasts in \emph{The Octarine Fairy Book}.''

  A reference to our world's Blue, Brown, Crimson, Green, etc., Fairy
  Books, edited by Andrew Lang.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 156\,] }}
 ``\,`It is forbidden to fight on the Killing Ground,' he said,
  and paused while he considered the sense of this.''

  This echoes a famous line from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 movie \emph{Dr
  Strangelove}, which has President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers)
  saying: ``Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 168/145\,] }}
 ``At that moment Lianna's dragon flashed by, and Hrun landed
  heavily across its neck. Lianna leaned over and kissed him.''

  A strange error, since in the rest of the story the girl's name is
  Liessa. Terry says the typo (which occurs in both the original Colin
  Smythe hardcover and the 1st edition of the Corgi paperback, but can also
  be found as late as the 5th edition of the US Signet paperback) must have
  been introduced sometime during the publishing process: they are not in
  his original manuscript.

  Even so, the switch is kind of appropriate because Anne McCaffrey has a
  tendency herself to suddenly change a character's name or other
  attributes (T'ron becoming T'ton, etc.). At least one of my
  correspondents thought Terry was changing Liessa's name on purpose as an
  explicit parody.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 169/146\,] }}
 After Rincewind and Twoflower escape from the Wyrmberg they
  are flying a dragon one moment and a modern jetliner the next.

  Clearly they have been, get this, translated to another plane (the last
  few paragraphs of this section seem to support the theory that Terry
  actually intended this rather implicit pun). Note also the ``powerful
  travelling rune TWA'' appearing on the Luggage: Trans \emph{World} Airlines.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/148\,] }}
 `Zweiblumen' is the (almost) literal German translation of
  `Twoflower' (it actually translates to `Twoflower\emph{s}', so a `better'
  translation would have been the singular form: `Zweiblume').

  `Rjinswand', however, is merely something that was intended to \emph{sound}
  foreign --- it is not a word in any language known to the readers of
  {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 172/149\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a specialist in the breakaway oxidation phenomena of
  certain nuclear reactors.''

  ``Breakaway oxidation phenomena'' is a reasonably well-known example of
  doubletalk. Basically, what Terry's saying here is that Dr Rjinswand is
  an expert on uncontrolled fires in nuclear reactors. And we all know what
  Terry's job was before he became a Famous Author{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 176/153\,] }}
 ``\,`I am Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos,' said the craftsman.''

  `Dactylos' means `fingers' in dog-Greek. See also the annotation for p.~159/115 of \emph{Small Gods}.

  The fate of Dactylos has been suffered by craftsmen in our world as well.
  In 1555 Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of St Basil's Church
  in Moscow. He was so pleased with this piece of work by the two
  architects, Postnik and Barma, that he had them blinded so they would
  never be able to design anything more beautiful.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 179/155\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the incredibly dry desert known as the Great Nef.''

  `Neff' is the name of an oven manufacturer, and `nef' is of course `fen'
  (i.e.\  something incredibly wet) spelled backwards.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 184/160\,] }}
 ``The captain had long ago decided that he would, on the
  whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.''

  Probably the best known version of this line is from Woody Allen, who
  said: ``I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to
  achieve it through not dying''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 184/160\,] }}
 ``\,`His name is Tethis. He says he's a sea troll.'\,''

  In Greek mythology Tethys or Thetis was the personification of the
  feminine fecundity of the sea. She was the daughter of Uranus and Gaia,
  and the youngest female Titan (or Titanide). Eventually she married her
  brother Oceanus, and together they had more than 3000 children, namely
  all the rivers of the world.

  Undoubtedly because of these origins, `Tethys' is a name that has been
  given to, amongst others, a tropical sea that existed during the Triassic
  era in what is now Southern Europe, and to a moon of Saturn, one
  primarily composed of water ice.

  Note that this is one instance where it appears Terry violates his own
  unwritten rule that trolls should have `mineral' names. Perhaps this is
  simply because we are looking at this early book in the series with
  hindsight: the only rock troll to appear up to this point lasted about
  three paragraphs and didn't have a chance to introduce himself. But even
  if the unwritten rule was already established in Terry's mind at this
  point, it seems reasonable that it need not apply to Tethis, who is,
  after all, neither a rock troll nor originally a Discworld creature.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 189/164\,] }}
 ``\,`Ghlen Livid,' he said.''

  Glenlivet is a well-known Single Malt Scotch whisky. It's a wee bit more
  expensive than Johnny Walker.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/168\,] }}
 ``He told them of the world of Bathys, [{\ldots}]''

  `Bathys' is Greek for `deep', as in for example bathyscaphe deep-sea
  diving equipment.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 194/168\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the biggest dragon you could ever imagine, covered in
  snow and glaciers and holding its tail in its mouth.''

  Tethis is describing a planet designed according to a world-view that is
  about as ancient and as widespread as the idea of a Discworld itself.

  The snow and glaciers seem to point specifically to the Norse mythology
  however, where the Midgard serpent Jormungand circles the world in the
  manner described.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 198/172\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, the disc itself would have been created by Fresnel's
  Wonderful Concentrator,' said Rincewind, authoritatively.''

  It is stereotypical that in fantasy fiction (e.g.\  Jack Vance's \emph{Dying
  Earth} stories) and role-playing games (e.g.\  \emph{Advanced Dungeons \&
  Dragons}) spells are often named after their `creator', e.g.\  `Bigby's
  Crushing Hand'. And indeed, in our universe Augustin Fresnel was the 19th
  century inventor of the Fresnel lens, often used in lighthouses to
  concentrate the light beam. A Fresnel lens consists of concentric ring
  segments; its main advantage is that it is not as thick as a (large)
  normal lens would be. The disc Rincewind is referring to is a transparent
  lens twenty feet across.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 221/191\,] }}
 ``Whoever would be wearing those suits, Rincewind decided,
  was expecting to boldly go where no man [{\ldots}] had boldly gone before
  [{\ldots}]''

  From the famous opening voice-over to the \emph{Star Trek} television series:

  ``Space{\ldots} the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship
  Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek
  out new life and new civilisations --- to boldly go where no man has gone
  before.''

  This became ``where no-one has gone before'' only in the newer, more
  politically correct \emph{Star Trek} incarnations.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 222/192\,] }}
 ``\,`?\ Ty{\o} yur {\aa}tl h{\o} sooten g{\aa}trunen?'\,''

  People have been wondering if this was perhaps a real sentence in some
  Scandinavian language (the letters used are from the Danish/Norwegian
  alphabet), but it isn't.

  Terry remarks: ``The point is that Krullian isn't Swedish --- it's \emph{just a
  language that looks foreign}. In the same way, I hope the hell that when
  \emph{Witches Abroad} is translated the translators use some common sense when
  dealing with Nanny Ogg's fractured Esperanto.''

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Light Fantastic}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{The Light Fantastic}

  The book's title comes from the poem \emph{L'Allegro}, written by John Milton
  in 1631:

\begin{verse}\textit{Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee \\Jest and youthful Jollity \\Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles \\Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles \\Such as hang on Hebe's neck \\And love to live in dimple sleek \\Sport that wrinkled Care derides \\And Laughter holding both his sides \\Come and trip it as ye go \\On the Light Fantastic toe. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 6/6\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] proves, whatever people say, that there \emph{is} such a thing
  as a free launch.''

  The reference is to the saying ``there ain't no such thing as a free
  lunch'' (also known by its acronym `TANSTAAFL', made popular by science
  fiction author Robert Heinlein in his classic novel \emph{The Moon is a Harsh
  Mistress}, although the phrase was originally coined by American
  economist John Kenneth Galbraith).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the sort of book described in library catalogues as
  `slightly foxed', [{\ldots}]''

  ``Slightly foxed'' is a term used primarily by antiquarian booksellers to
  denote that there is staining (usually due to Ferric OXide, hence
  `FOXed') on the pages of a book. This does not usually reduce the value
  of the book, but booksellers tend to be scrupulous about such matters.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 Many people have commented on the last name of the 304th
  Chancellor of Unseen University: Weatherwax, and asked if there is a
  connection with Granny Weatherwax.

  In \emph{Lords and Ladies}, Terry supplies the following piece of dialogue (on
  p.~224/161) between Granny and Archchancellor Ridcully as an answer:

  ``\,`There was even a Weatherwax as Archchancellor, years ago,' said
  Ridcully. `So I understand. Distant cousin. Never knew him,' said
  Granny.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] even with the Wee Willie Winkie candlestick in his hand.''

  This is one of those candlesticks with a flat, saucer-like base, a short
  candleholder in the middle and a loop to grip it by at one side. `Wee
  Willie Winkie' is a Mother Goose nursery rhyme, and traditional
  illustrations always show Willie going upstairs carrying a candle.

\begin{verse}\textit{Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town, \\Upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown. \\Rapping at the windows, Crying through the lock, \\`Are the children all in bed? For it's now eight o'clock.' \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/9\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Book of Going Forth Around Elevenish, [{\ldots}]''

  The title the ancient Egyptians used for what we now call the Book of the
  Dead was \emph{The Book of Going Forth By Day}. Note that in the UK until a
  few years ago the pubs opened at 11 a.m.\ 

  If you try really hard (one of my correspondents did) you can see this as
  a very elaborate joke via the chain: Around Elevenish $\rightarrow$ Late in the
  morning $\rightarrow$ Late $\rightarrow$ Dead $\rightarrow$ Book of the Dead. But I doubt if even Terry
  is \emph{that} twisted.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 10/10\,] }}
 Dandelion Clock

  Amongst English (and Australian) children there exists the folk-belief
  that the seed-heads of dandelions can be used to tell the time. The
  method goes as follows: pick the dandelion, blow the seeds away, and the
  number of puffs it takes to get rid of all the seeds is the time, e.g.\ 
  three puffs = three o'clock. As a result, the dandelion stalks with their
  globes of seeds are regularly referred to as a ``dandelion clocks'' in
  colloquial English.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 10/10\,] }}
 ``\,`To the upper cellars!' he cried, and bounded up the stone
  stairs.''

  The magic eating its way through the ceilings with the wizards chasing it
  floor after floor vaguely resonates with the `alien blood' scene in the
  movie \emph{Alien}, where the acidic blood of the Alien burns through
  successive floors of the ship, with people running down after it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 24/24\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in
  his dinner, [{\ldots}], he is tired of life.''

  See the annotation for p.~193/158 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/26\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ WAS AT A PARTY}}, he added, a shade reproachfully.''

  When someone on the net wondered if this scene had been influenced by
  Monty Python (who also do a Death-at-a-party sketch), Terry replied:

  ``No. I'm fairly honest about this stuff. I didn't even see the film until
  long after the book was done. Once again, I'd say it's an easy parallel
  --- what with the Masque of the Red Death and stuff like that, the joke is
  just lying there waiting for anyone to pick it up.''

  \emph{The Masque of the Red Death} is a well-known story by Edgar Allan Poe,
  in which the nobility, in a decadent and senseless attempt to escape from
  the plague that's ravishing the land, lock themselves up a castle and
  hold a big party. At which a costumed personification of Death, of
  course, eventually turns up and claims everyone anyway.

  It is perhaps also worth pointing out that the quoted sentence looks very
  much like a classic Tom Swiftie (if you can accept Death as a shade). Tom
  Swifties (after the famous series of boys' novels which popularised them)
  are sentences of the form ``xxx, said he zzz-ly'', where the zzz refers
  back to the xxx. Examples:

\begin{quote}{``Pass me the shellfish,'' said Tom crabbily. \\``Let's look for another Grail!'' Tom requested. \\``I used to be a pilot,'' Tom explained. \\``I'm into homosexual necrophilia,'' said Tom in dead earnest. \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 30/30\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the only forest in the whole universe to be called ---
  in the local language --- Your Finger You Fool, [{\ldots}]''

  The miscommunication between natives and foreign explorers Terry
  describes here occurs in our world as well. Or rather: it is \emph{rumoured},
  with stubborn regularity, to have occurred all over the globe. Really
  hard evidence, one way or the other, turns out to be surprisingly hard to
  come by. As Cecil Adams puts it in \emph{More of the Straight Dope}: ``Having
  now had the ``I don't know'' yarn turn up in three different parts of the
  globe, I can draw one of two conclusions: either explorers are incredible
  saps, or somebody's been pulling our leg.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 34/34\,] }}
 ``Twoflower touched a wall gingerly.''

  Speaking of Tom Swifties{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 34/34\,] }}
 ``\,`Good grief! A real gingerbread cottage!'\,''

  The cottage and the events alluded to a bit later (``\,`Kids of today,'
  commented Rincewind. `I blame the parents,' said Twoflower.'') are
  straight out of the \emph{Hansel and Gretel} fairy tale by the brothers Grimm.

  If you have access to the Internet, you can find an online version of the
  original fairy tale at the URL:

  \url{ftp://ftp.uu.net/doc/literary/obi/Fairy.Tales/Grimm/hansel.and.gretel.txt.Z}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35/35\,] }}
 ``\,`Candyfloss.'\,''

  Candyfloss is known as cotton candy in the US, or fairy floss in
  Australia. It's the pink spun sugar you can eat at fairs and shows.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35/35\,] }}
 ``He read that its height plus its length divided by half its
  width equalled exactly 1.67563{\ldots}''

  A parody of the typical numerical pseudo-science tossed about regarding
  the Great Pyramid and the `cosmic truths' (such as the distance from the
  Earth to the Sun) that the Egyptians supposedly incorporated into its
  measurements.

  The remark about sharpening razor blades at the end of the paragraph is
  similarly a reference to the pseudo-scientific `fact' that (small models
  of) pyramids are supposed to have, among many other powers, the ability
  to sharpen razor blades that are left underneath the pyramids overnight.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 37/37\,] }}
 ``\,`Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.'\,''

  From the first \emph{Conan The Barbarian} movie (starring Arnold
  Schwarzenegger): ``Conan! What is good in life?'' ``To crush your enemies,
  drive them before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.'' This
  quote, in turn, is lifted more or less verbatim from an actual
  conversation Genghiz Khan is supposed to have had with his lieutenants.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/45\,] }}
 ``\,`Of course I'm sure,' snarled the leader. `What did you
  expect, three bears?'\,''

  Another fairy tale reference, this time to \emph{Goldilocks and the Three
  Bears}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 46/46\,] }}
 ``\,`Someone's been eating my bed,' he said.''

  A mixture of ``someone's been eating my porridge'' and ``someone's been
  sleeping in my bed'', both from the \emph{Goldilocks and the Three Bears} fairy
  tale.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/47\,] }}
 ``Illuminated Mages of the Unbroken Circle''

  An organisation with this name is also mentioned in the \emph{Illuminatus!}
  trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 57/57\,] }}
 ``The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the
  balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion,
  uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.''

  The four fundamental forces that govern \emph{our} universe are gravitation,
  electro-magnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.

  The word `charm' also resonates with the concept of quarks, the
  elementary quantum particles that the strong nuclear force in fact acts
  on. For more information see the annotation for p.~133/97 of \emph{Lords and
  Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 62/62\,] }}
 ``\,`In the beginning was the word,' said a dry voice right
  behind him. `It was the Egg,' corrected another voice. [{\ldots}] `[{\ldots}] I'm
  sure it was the primordial slime.' [{\ldots}] `No, that came afterwards. There
  was firmament first.' [{\ldots}] `You're all wrong. In the beginning was the
  Clearing of the Throat---'\,''

  The bickering of the spells is cleared up somewhat by the creation
  passages on pp. 103/85--119/99 from \emph{Eric}. It is quite clearly stated
  that first the Creator did an Egg and Cress (for Rincewind), then He
  Cleared His Throat, then He Read the Octavo (that's the word then), which
  created the world and finally the primordial slime came into being
  because Rincewind couldn't eat the Egg and Cress Sandwich and just
  dropped it on the beach. The Creator subcontracted for the firmament, so
  it isn't quite clear when that came to be.

  ``In the beginning was the word'' is of course also a biblical allusion to
  John 1:1: ``In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
  the Word was God.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 82/82\,] }}
 ``\,`Anyway, I don't believe in Caroc cards,' he muttered.''

  Caroc = Tarot. See also the annotation for p.~110/90 of \emph{Mort}.

  A minor inconsistency, by the way, is that on p.~24/24 there actually is
  a reference to Tarot cards.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/88\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles
  down at the Young Men's Pagan Association?''

  A reference to the Young Men's Christian Association, YMCA\@. See also the
  annotation for p.~14/14 of \emph{Pyramids}.

  In our world the YMCA somehow became associated with the homosexual scene
  (I think quite a few people singing merrily along to the Village People's
  disco hit `YMCA' would have been very surprised to learn what the song
  was \emph{really} about), hence the ``studded collars and oiled muscles'' bit.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 93/93\,] }}
 ``\,`Only when you leave, it's very important not to look back.'\,''

  It's always important never to look back if you're rescuing somebody from
  Death's domain. The best known example of this can be found in the tragic
  legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus went to fetch his departed loved
  one, talked Hades (the Greek version of Death) into it, but had to leave
  without looking back. Of course he looked --- and she was gone forever. A
  contemporary retelling of the Orpheus legend can be found in Neil
  Gaiman's \emph{Sandman} series.

  A few people have written and suggested a reference to Lot's wife in
  Genesis 19:26 (who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back
  when they left Sodom and Gomorrah), but the fact that we're talking about
  Death's domain here indicates clearly to me that the Orpheus reference is
  the one Terry intended.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 104/104\,] }}
 ``Rincewind wasn't certain what a houri was, but after some
  thought he came to the conclusion that it was a little liquorice tube for
  sucking up the sherbet.''

  A houri is actually a beautiful young girl found in the Moslem paradise.
  For more information on sherbets see the annotation for p.~122/111 of
  \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 105/105\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] homesickness rose up inside Rincewind like a
  late-night prawn birani.''

  A birani is an Indian rice curry.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 128/128\,] }}
 ``\,`Man, we could be as rich as Creosote!'\,''

  This is the first mention of Creosote, whom we will later meet as a fully
  developed character in his own right, in \emph{Sourcery}. See also the
  annotation for p.~125/113 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/133\,] }}
 The idea of a strange little shop that appears, sells the
  most peculiar things, and then vanishes again first appears in a short
  story by H.~G.~Wells, appropriately called \emph{The Magic Shop}. A recent
  variation on the same theme can be found in Stephen King's \emph{Needful
  Things}.

  When an a.f.p.\ reader mistakenly thought that this type of shop was
  invented by Fritz Leiber (see the annotation for p.~9/9 of \emph{The Colour of
  Magic}), Terry replied:

  ``Actually, magically appearing/disappearing shops were a regular feature
  of fantasy stories, particularly in the old \emph{Unknown} magazine. They
  always sold the hero something he didn't --- at the time --- know he
  needed, or played some other vital part in the plot. And I think they
  even turned up on the early Twilight Zones too. You're referring to a
  Leiber story called Bazaar of the Bizarre or something similar, where a
  shop appears which seems to contain wonderful merchandise but in fact
  contains dangerous trash.''

  The Leiber story is indeed called \emph{Bazaar of the Bizarre}. It features
  Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and can be found in \emph{Swords Against Death}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/171\,] }}
 ``\,`Do not peddle in the affairs of wizards{\ldots}'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~183/149 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 209/209\,] }}
 ``The young turtles followed, orbiting their parent.''

  My herpetological correspondent tells me that in our world no known
  turtles give any sort of care to their young. They just lay the eggs and
  leave the hatchlings to fend for themselves, which incidentally helps
  explain why sea turtles are becoming extinct.

  It can be argued that Great A'Tuin is in fact a kind of sea turtle
  (admittedly, a somewhat \emph{unusual} sea turtle), since only sea turtles
  have flippers in place of feet and spend most of their time swimming.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 213/213\,] }}
 ``\,`They do say if it's summa cum laude, then the living is
  easy ---.'\,''

  Substituting ``graduation with distinction'' for the Latin ``summa cum
  laude'' gives a perfectly unexceptional sentiment, but it is, of course,
  also a reference to the song `Summertime' from the Gershwin
  opera/operetta/musical \emph{Porgy and Bess}: ``Summertime, and the living is
  easy''.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Equal Rites}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
A central theme of this book (as well as of the other Discworld witch
  novels) is the contrast between on one side the (female) witches or
  wiccans, who are in touch with nature, herbs and headology, and on the
  other side the (male) wizards who are very ceremonial and use elaborate,
  mathematics-like tools and rituals. This conflict rather closely mirrors
  a long-standing feud between occult practitioners in our real world. (And
  all the infighting within each camp occurs in real life, as well.)

  My source for this also mentions that Pratchett's witches, especially,
  are obvious stereotypes of the kinds of people one can run into at wiccan
  festivals.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
``Only dumb redheads in Fifties' sitcoms are wacky.''

  Refers to Lucille Ball from \emph{I Love Lucy} fame.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
One of my correspondents recalls that he interviewed Terry in 1987 for a
  university magazine. In that interview Terry said that one thing which
  had tickled him about Josh Kirby's artwork for the \emph{Equal Rites} cover
  was that it subliminally (accidentally?) reflected the Freudian overtones
  of the book (references to ``hot dreams'', the angst of adolescence, things
  that might be called ``magic'' envy){\ldots} Kirby's artwork ``coincidentally''
  draws Esk with the broom handle where a penis would be (traditionally
  supposed to be the basis of the ``witches flying around on broomsticks''
  myth).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Kirby caricatures himself as the pointy-eared wizard on the back cover ---
  anyone who has seen his picture in \emph{The Josh Kirby Posterbook} can
  confirm this.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. -/5\,] }}
 ``Thanks to Neil Gaiman, who loaned us the last surviving copy of
  the \emph{Liber Paginarum Fulvarum}, [{\ldots}]''

  Neil Gaiman is the author of the acclaimed \emph{Sandman} comics series, as
  well as Terry's co-author on \emph{Good Omens}.

  \emph{Liber Paginarum Fulvarum} is a dog-Latin title that translates to \emph{Book
  of Yellow Pages}, i.e.\  not the \emph{Book of the Dead}, but rather the
  \emph{Phonebook of the Dead}. The book appears in \emph{Good Omens} as well as in
  \emph{Sandman}, where it is used in an attempt to summon Death (although the
  colourist didn't get the joke and simply coloured the pages brown). Terry
  said (when questioned about it in a \emph{Good Omens} context):

  ``Liber Paginarum Fulvarum is a kind of shared gag. It's in the dedication
  of \emph{Equal Rites}, too. Although I think we've got the shade of yellow
  wrong --- I think there's another Latin word for a kind of yellow which is
  closer to the Yellow Pages colour.''

  The other word for yellow Terry is thinking of may possibly be `gilvus',
  or `croceus', or `luteus'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/10\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] up here in the Ramtop Mountains [{\ldots}]''

  RAMTOP was the name of a system variable in the old Sinclair Spectrum
  computers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/45\,] }}
 ``\,`I've seen the thundergods a few times,' said Granny, `and
  Hoki, of course.'\,''

  The name Hoki derives from `hokey' in combination with the Norse god
  Loki. The description of Hoki is pure Pan, however.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 73/73\,] }}
 ``According to the standard poetic instructions one should move
  through a fair like the white swan at evening moves o'er the bay, [{\ldots}]''

  These instructions stem in fact from a folk song called `She Moved
  Through the Fair', which has been recorded by (amongst others) Fairport
  Convention, Van Morrison and All About Eve:

\begin{verse}\textit{My young love said to me, `My mother won't mind \\And my father won't slight you for your lack of kine'. \\And she stepped away from me and this she did say, \\`It will not be long now till our wedding day' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair \\And fondly I watched her move here and move there \\And she made her way homeward with one star awake \\As the swan in the evening moves over the lake \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 79/79\,] }}
 ``\,`Gypsies always come here for the fair, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Someone on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} pointed out that in our world, Gypsies were
  named because people thought they were Egyptians. Since the Discworld
  equivalent of Egypt is Djelibeybi, shouldn't Hilta Goatfounder have been
  talking about, say, `Jellybabes'? Terry answered:

  ``Okay. Almost every word in the English language has a whole slew of
  historic associations. People on the Disc can't possibly speak `English'
  but I have to write in English. \emph{Some} carefully-positioned
  `translations' like `It's all Klatchian to me' can work, but if I went
  the whole hog and `discworlded' every name and term, then the books would
  be even more impenetrable and would probably only be read by people who
  like learning Klingon. I do my best --- French fries can't exist on
  Discworld, for example --- but I think `gypsies' is allowable.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 80/79\,] }}
 ``If broomsticks were cars, this one would be a split-window
  Morris Minor.''

  A Morris Minor is a British car that non-Brits might be familiar with
  either through the video clip for Madness' song `Driving in my car', or
  through the TV series \emph{Lovejoy}. In that series, Lovejoy's car `Miriam'
  is a Morris Minor. For the rest of you, here's a description:

  Imagine a curvaceous jelly-mould in the shape of a crouching rabbit, like
  Granny used to use. Turn it open-side-down and fit four wheels, near the
  corners. On the rabbit's back build a cabin, with picture windows and a
  windscreen in two parts at an angle to each other. Add turn indicators
  consisting of little arms which flip out of the body at roof level, just
  behind the doors. Furnish the cabin in a post-War austerity style, and
  power the result with a 1935 vintage 850cc straight four engine pulling
  about 30bhp. In its day, in 1948, this was the height of desirability ---
  so much so that for its first few years it was only available for export.

  Even in the Nineties, a fair number of Moggies are still going, er,
  strong. You can actually pay a couple of thousand pounds for a good one
  which works, because they're so easy to maintain. And the split-screen
  ones are very definitely collectors' items.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 111/109\,] }}
 ``Bel-Shamharoth, C'hulagen, the Insider --- the hideous old
  dark gods of the Necrotelicomnicom, [{\ldots}]''

  The Necrotelicomnicom is another reference to the Phonebook of the Dead
  (see the annotation for the dedication of \emph{Equal Rites}), but is also a
  pun on the evil book of the dead \emph{Necronomicon}, used by H.~P.~Lovecraft
  in his Cthulhu stories.

  Bel-Shamharoth is an Elder God of the Discworld we already met in `The
  Sending of Eight' in \emph{The Colour of Magic}. C'hulagen is obviously made
  up out of the same ingredients as C'thulhu, and the Insider refers to the
  unnamed narrator of Lovecraft's \emph{The Outsider}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 119/117\,] }}
 ``The lodgings were [{\ldots}] next to the [{\ldots}] premises of a
  respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good
  fences make good neighbours.''

  Terry's having fun with a familiar saying that originated with Robert
  Frost's poem \emph{Mending a Wall}:

\begin{verse}\textit{My apple trees will never get across \\And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. \\He only says, `Good fences make good neighbours'. \\
}\end{verse}

  And since people keep pointing it out to me I suppose it might as well be
  mentioned here that `fence' is also the English word for a dealer in
  stolen goods.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 121/119\,] }}
 ``\,`Mrs Palm,' said Granny cautiously. `Very respectable
  lady.'\,''

  ``Mrs Palm(er) and her daughters'' is a euphemism for male masturbation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/120\,] }}
 ``\,`Yes, that's it,' said Treatle. `Alma mater, gaudy armours
  eagle tour and so on.'\,''

  Treatle refers here to the old student's (drinking) song `Gaudeamus
  Igitur', written in 1781 by Christian Wilhelm Kindleben, a priest in
  Leipzig who got kicked out because of his student songs. The song is
  still in use at many universities and schools, where it gets sung during
  graduation ceremonies. The actual lyrics are:

\begin{verse}\textit{Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus. \\Post iucundam iuventutem, \\Post molestam senectutem, \\Nos habebit humus, nos habebit humus. \\
}\end{verse}

  Which roughly translates to:

\begin{verse}\textit{Let us be merry, therefore, whilst we are young men. \\After the joys of youth, \\After the pain of old age, \\The ground will have us, the ground will have us. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 132/130\,] }}
 The maid at Unseen University is called Ksandra, which puns
  on Troy's Cassandra; but might also refer to Sandra being yet another
  typical `Tracey/Sharon' sort of name in England. See also the entry for
  p.~106/95 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

  Perhaps the fact that nobody can understand Ksandra (because she talks
  with her mouth full of clothes-pegs) is also an obscure reference to the
  classical Cassandra, daughter of Priam of Troy, whom the Gods gave the
  gift of prophecy and the curse of no-one believing a word she said.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/130\,] }}
 ``\,`Hmm. Granpone the White. He's going to be Granpone the
  Grey if he doesn't take better care of his laundry.'\,''

  You really have to read Tolkien in order to understand why this is so
  funny. Sure, I can explain that in the \emph{The Lord of the Rings} a big deal
  is made of the transformation of wizards from one `colour' to another
  (and in particular Gandalf the Grey becoming Gandalf the White), but that
  just doesn't do justice to the real atmosphere of the thing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 143/141\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Creator hadn't really decided what he wanted and
  was, as it were, just idly messing around with the Pleistocene.''

  Refers to the Pleistocene geological era (a few dozen million years or so
  ago), but also to Plasticine, a brand name that has become (at least in
  Britain, Australia and New Zealand) a generic name for the modeling clay
  children play with.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 163/159\,] }}
 Some folks thought they recognised the duel between Granny
  Weatherwax and Archchancellor Cutangle from T.~H.~White's description of
  a similar duel in his \emph{Arthur, The Once and Future King} (also depicted
  as a very funny fragment in Disney's \emph{The Sword in the Stone}, which was
  an animation film based on this book). However, Terry says:

  ``The magical duel in \emph{Equal Rites} is certainly not lifted from T. H.
  White. Beware of secondary sources. Said duel (usually between a man and
  a woman, and often with nice Freudian touches to the things they turn
  into) has a much longer history; folkies out there will probably know it
  as the song `The Two Magicians'.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 176/172\,] }}
 ``\,`Million-to-one chances,' she said, `crop up nine times out
  of ten.'\,''

  The first mention of this particular running gag in the Discworld canon
  (to be featured most prominently in \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}).

  It is not quite \emph{the} earliest appearance in Terry's work, though: he
  also uses it on p.~46/55 of \emph{The Dark Side of the Sun}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 188/184\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] which by comparison made Gormenghast look like a
  toolshed on a railway allotment.''

  Gormenghast is the ancient, decaying castle from Mervyn Peake's
  \emph{Gormenghast} trilogy. See also the annotation for p.~17/17 of
  \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 202/197\,] }}
 ``\,`Like ``red sky at night, the city's alight'',' said
  Cutangle.''

  Plays on the folk saying: ``Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. Red sky
  in the morning, shepherd's warning''.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Mort}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 17/16\,] }}
 ``\,`They call me Mort.' W{\smaller{HAT A COINCIDENCE}}, [{\ldots}]''

  Not only does `Mort' mean `death' in French, but in \emph{The Light Fantastic}
  we also learned (on p.~95/95), that Death's \emph{own} (nick)name is Mort.
  Opinions on a.f.p.\ are divided as to which of these two facts is the
  `coincidence' Death is talking about.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 24/21\,] }}
 ``The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is
  monarchy, [{\ldots}]''

  This is where the popular (on the net, at least) `kingons and queons'
  footnote starts out, which parodies a postulate of J. Sarfatti based on
  Bell's theorem on quantum physics. Bell proves that in order for quantum
  theory to be valid, there has to exist a way to transfer information
  between subatomic particles that is faster than light. Sarfatti then
  theorised that this so called `superluminar' communication could be
  modulated and used to send messages.

  During a discussion on a.f.p., Terry had this to add to the subject:

  ``I've a strong suspicion that the smaller the country, the more powerful
  the monarch as an emitter of kingons.

  Surely the size of the king in proportion to the size of his country is
  the important factor. If you're king of a country of ten people there
  must be quite a high kingon flux.

  As to where kingons come from in the first place, they come from God. God
  is invoked in the coronation service. God \emph{wants} fat red-haired girls
  and clothes horses who can't keep their mobile phone conversations
  private. God likes people with lots of front teeth. God must have a hand
  in all this, otherwise we'd have slaughtered all kings years ago.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 30/25\,] }}
 ``\,`How do you get all those coins?' asked Mort. I{\smaller{N PAIRS.}}''

  A reference to the old Eastern European practice of covering a dead
  friends' eyes with coins.

  In the Greek version of this custom, a single coin or obulus was put
  under the tongue of a deceased person. This was done so that the departed
  loved one would have some change handy to pay Charon with (the grumpy old
  ferryman who transported departed souls over the river Styx towards the
  afterlife )-- but only if they paid him first).

  The Eastern European version has a similar background.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/26\,] }}
 ``The answer flowed into his mind with all the inevitability of
  a tax demand.''

  An acknowledgment of the ``nothing is certain but death and taxes'' saying.
  See also the annotation for p.~151/133 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 33/28\,] }}
 ``\,`I shall call you Boy', she said.''

  The subplot of Ysabell and Mort and the matchmaking efforts by her father
  echoes Charles Dickens' \emph{Great Expectations} (where Estelle, for
  instance, also insists on calling Pip `Boy' all the time).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 34/29\,] }}
 Albert's stove has `The Little Moloch (Ptntd)' embossed on its
  door.

  There exists a make of woodburning stove called `The Little Wenlock'.

  For those who don't know what a Moloch is, I'll let Brewer (see the
  annotation for p.~117/103 of \emph{The Colour of Magic}) do the explaining:

  ``\emph{Moloch}: Any influence which demands from us the sacrifice of what we
  hold most dear. Thus \emph{war} is a Moloch, \emph{king mob} is a Moloch, the
  \emph{guillotine} was the Moloch of the French Revolution, etc.\  The allusion
  is to the god of the Ammonites [Phoenicians], to whom children were `made
  to pass through the fire' in sacrifice.''

  To be fair, however, it must be pointed out that almost all we know about
  Moloch is based on what the bitter enemies of the Phoenicians said about
  him.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 40/33\,] }}
 ``A{\smaller{ND WHY DO YOU THINK I DIRECTED YOU TO THE STABLES?}} T{\smaller{HINK
  CAREFULLY NOW.}}''

  The whole section on Mort's training, and this paragraph in particular,
  explores a theme familiar from stories such as told in \emph{The Karate Kid},
  or \emph{The Empire Strikes Back}, and of course the TV series \emph{Kung Fu},
  where a young student is given many menial tasks to perform, which are
  revealed to be integral to his education.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/39\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the city of Sto Lat [{\ldots}]''

  A Polish correspondent tells me that `Sto lat' is actually the title of a
  Polish party song, more or less equivalent to `For he's a jolly good
  fellow'. `Sto lat' means `hundred years', and the lyrics to the song are
  as follows:

\begin{verse}\textit{Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje, zyje nam. \\Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje, zyje nam. \\Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz --- niech zyje, zyje nam. \\Niech zyje nam! \\
}\end{verse}

  Which loosely translates to:

\begin{verse}\textit{Hundred years, hundred years, let him live for us, \\Hundred years, hundred years, let him live for us, \\Once again, once again, let him live for us! \\
}\end{verse}

  Thinking I was on to something I immediately enquired if `Sto Helit',
  another name Terry uses often, had a similar background, but my
  correspondent says it's not even Polish at all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 54/45\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{T'S THE MORPHOGENETIC FIELD WEAKENING}}, said Death.''

  Terry loves playing with morphogenetic principles in the Discworld canon,
  and I think this is the first place he explicitly mentions it.
  Morphogenetics are part of a controversial theory put forward by
  ex-Cambridge biologist Rupert Sheldrake. `Controversial' is in fact
  putting it rather mildly: personally I feel `crackpot' would be a much
  better description. Which explains why on the Discworld, of course, it's
  valid science.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 65/53\,] }}
 ``T{\smaller{IME LIKE AN EVER-ROLLING STREAM BEARS ALL ITS{\ldots}}}''

  Death is quoting from \emph{Our God, Our Help in Ages Past}, by Isaac Watts.
  The verse in full is:

\begin{verse}\textit{Time like an ever-rolling stream \\Bears all its sons away \\They fly forgotten as a dream \\Dies at the opening day. \\
}\end{verse}

  No wonder Albert thinks Death has been overdoing it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 71/59\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the abode of Igneous Cutwell, DM(Unseen), [{\ldots}]''

  DM(Unseen) means that Cutwell holds a Doctorate in Magic from Unseen
  University. It's the usual way of writing an academic qualification in
  Britain (e.g.\  DD for Doctor of Divinity, or PhD for Doctor of Philosophy)
  --- though the University name ought to be in Latin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 84/69\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] just like a Cheshire cat only much more erotic.''

  See the annotation for p.~142/141 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 85/69\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the fire of the Aurora Coriolis [{\ldots}]''

  This is the air glow around Cori Celesti (as in our aurora borealis), but
  it is also a reference to the Coriolis force that acts on spinning
  objects.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/72\,] }}
 ``\,`Die a lot, do you?' he managed.''

  For those readers who are not familiar with Tibetan Buddhism: it is
  believed that religious leaders who are spiritually advanced (the Dalai
  Lama being only one such individual) will reincarnate and continue to
  guide the people. In 1993, for instance, an eight-year old boy in Tibet
  was discovered to be the seventeenth reincarnation of the Karmapa, and
  was promptly whisked away from his native village and installed in the
  Tsurphu-monastery.

  In \emph{Guards!\ Guards!} we eventually learn that Abbot Lobsang has indeed
  been reincarnated.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 90/74\,] }}
 ``Princess Keli awoke.''

  Another `dumb blonde' pun (on Kelly this time) along the lines of Ptraci
  and Ksandra? See the annotation for p.~45/45 of \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 93/76\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] if Mort ever compared a girl to a summer's day, it
  would be followed by a thoughtful explanation of what day he had in mind
  and whether it was raining at the time.''

  Considering the sheer volume of Discworld material written so far, with
  its high jokes-per-page count, it is quite remarkable that Terry
  Pratchett doesn't recycle (or inadvertently reinvent) his own jokes more
  often than he does. As for instance in the case of this particular
  Shakespeare-inspired joke that would be repeated two books later in \emph{Wyrd
  Sisters} (see the annotation for p.~213/212 of that book).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 99/81\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the princesses were so noble they, they could pee
  through a dozen mattresses ---'\,''

  Albert here mangles the Grimm fairy tale known as \emph{The Princess and the
  Pea}, in which a princess proves her nobility to her future husband and
  his mother by being so fine-constitutioned that a pea placed underneath
  the dozen mattresses she was given to sleep on kept her awake all night.

  If you have access to the Internet, you can find an online version of the
  original fairy tale at the URL:

  \url{ftp://ftp.uu.net/doc/literary/obi/Fairy.Tales/Grimm/princess.and.pea.txt.Z}

  I have since then received mail indicating that the best known version of
  this fairy tale was the one written by Hans Christian Andersen, and that
  the Grimm version was in fact pulled from the collection because it was
  so similar. I was not able to obtain any further evidence for this claim,
  so if anybody out there knows something about this, please drop me a
  line.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 110/90\,] }}
 Caroc cards and the Ching Aling.

  Caroc = Tarot and Ching Aling = I Ching: two ways of accessing the
  Distilled Wisdom of the Ancients, and all that.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/97\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ SHALL CALL IT}} --- D{\smaller{EATH'S }}G{\smaller{LORY.}}''

  In the fishing world there exists a popular dry fly called Greenwell's
  Glory, named after its inventor, a 19th century parson.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 126/103\,] }}
 ``\,`--- and then she thought he was dead, and she killed
  herself, and then he woke up and so he did kill himself, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Ysabell starts to list off a number of tragic romances, mostly mangled
  versions of existing stories. This one appears to be the Shakespearean
  tragedy \emph{Romeo and Juliet}, or perhaps the original source: Ovid's
  \emph{Pyramus and Thisbe}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/104\,] }}
 ``\,`--- swam the river every night, but one night there was
  this storm and when he didn't arrive she ---'\,''

  This is the saga of Hero and Leander. Leander swam the Hellespont each
  night to be with Hero (who was a virgin (yeah, sure!) in the service of
  Aphrodite, and therefore not accessible by more conventional means). But
  then there was indeed a storm, and the candle she used as a beacon blew
  out, and the Gods couldn't hear his prayers over the noise of the storm,
  and so he drowned, and the next morning she saw his body and drowned
  herself as well. Read Christopher Marlowe's \emph{Hero and Leander} for more
  details.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/109\,] }}
 ``\,`Why, lordship, we drink scumble, for preference.'\,''

  Scumble is the Discworld equivalent of scrumpy, a drink probably unknown
  to most non-UK readers. It's a (very) strong cider, originating from the
  West country, Somerset farmhouses in particular.

  On the subject of scrumpy, Terry writes:

  ``I can speak with authority, having lived a short walking --- to get
  there, at least, although it seemed to take longer coming back ---
  distance from a real cider house.

  1) You are unlikely to buy scrumpy anywhere but from a farm or a pub in a
  cider area.

  2) It won't fizz. It slumps in the glass, and is a grey-orange colour.

  3) The very best scrumpy is (or at least, was) made on farms where a lot
  of the metalwork around the press was lead; the acid apple juice on the
  lead gave the resultant drink a kick which lasted for the rest of your
  life.

  4) While a lot of the stories about stuff being put in `to give it body'
  are probably apocryphal, apparently it wasn't uncommon to put a piece of
  beef in the stuff to give it `strength'.

  5) I certainly recall a case of a female tourist having to have an
  ambulance called out after two pints of scrumpy.

  6) We used to drink \emph{almost} a pint, topped off with half an inch of
  lemonade; this was known as `cider and gas' and was popular in our part
  of the Mendips. Two pints was the max. I recall that as we went back
  across the fields someone who is now a professor of medieval history fell
  down a disused mineshaft and still carried on singing.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/126\,] }}
 Alberto Malich was rumoured to have disappeared when trying
  to perform the Rite of AshkEnte backwards. Since we know that the Rite is
  used to summon Death, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to suppose that
  performing it backwards might drive Death away from you, which is
  probably why Albert did it. Unfortunately for him, it is also not very
  unreasonable to suppose that performing the rite backwards will instead
  summon \emph{you} to Death{\ldots}

  There also are two villages called Ash in Kent, UK\@. It is unknown if
  there is a deliberate connection.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 161/132\,] }}
 Queen Ezeriel refers to our world's Cleopatra who also used
  to bathe in asses' milk, and who eventually committed honourable suicide
  by clutching a venomous snake (an asp, to be precise) to her bosom.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 183/149\,] }}
 ``\,`Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal
  often offends, I read somewhere.'\,''

  Ysabell probably read one part of this in Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the
  Rings} where we find (in \emph{The Fellowship of the Ring}, Book One, Chapter~III) that Gildor Inglorion the High Elf says: ``Do not meddle in the
  affairs of wizards because they are subtle and quick to anger''. The other
  part she may have got from signs often seen in stores and pubs around the
  English-speaking world: ``Do not ask for credit, because a refusal often
  offends''.

  See also the annotation for p.~367/264 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 186/152\,] }}
 ``B{\smaller{EGONE, YOU BLACK AND MIDNIGHT HAG}}, he said.''

  Death is alluding to Shakespeare's \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1, where
  Macbeth says to the witches: ``How now, you secret, black, and midnight
  hags!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 192/157\,] }}
 ``\,`Sodomy non sapiens,' said Albert under his breath.''

  ``Sodomy non sapiens'' is dog-Latin for ``buggered if I know''. Since this is
  explicitly translated by Albert two sentences later, it never occurred to
  me to include this annotation in earlier versions of the {\smaller APF}. I had to
  change my mind when email and discussions in a.f.p.\ made it clear that
  quite a few readers never make the connection, and think instead that
  Albert \emph{really} doesn't know what the phrase means.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/158\,] }}
 ``\,`When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of
  ankle-deep slurry.'\,''

  The original quote here dates back to 1777, and is by Samuel Johnson (a
  well-known harmless drudge): ``When a man is tired of London he is tired
  of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.''

  Quite a few people have mistaken this quote for a reference to Douglas
  Adams. Of course Adams was simply parodying Johnson's quote as well when
  he wrote (in Chapter~4 of \emph{The Restaurant at the End of the Universe}):

  ``[{\ldots}] when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article
  with the words `When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of
  life', the suicide rate there quadrupled overnight.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 195/159\,] }}
 ``\,`Alligator sandwich,' he said. `And make it sna---'\,''

  Refers to an old playground one-liner: ``give me an alligator sandwich and
  make it snappy!''. Terry uses this joke in a different context in \emph{Witches
  Abroad} (see the annotation for p.~176/154 of that book).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 197/161\,] }}
 ``\,`Fireworks?' Cutwell had said.''

  The stuff about wizards knowing all about fireworks is a reference to
  Tolkien's \emph{The Hobbit}, where the great Wizard Gandalf was famed (in
  times of peace) for entertaining everybody with fireworks.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 212/172\,] }}
 In the Disc model, Ankh-Morpork was a carbuncle.

  A carbuncle is (1) a red semiprecious gem, and (2) a festering sore like
  a boil.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 221/180\,] }}
 ``Alberto Malich, Founder of This University.''

  Albert's name resonates slightly with our world's Albertus Magnus (also
  known as Albert the Great). Albertus Magnus (born in 1193 in Laufingen at
  the Donau, Germany), became known as `the Magician' and was probably the
  most famous priest, philosopher and scientist of his time. Amongst other
  things he taught at the University of Paris, was Bishop of Regensburg,
  and at the age of 84 he again undertook the long journey from Cologne to
  Paris to defend the scientific work of his greatest student, Thomas
  Aquinas, against attacks and misunderstandings.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 224/183\,] }}
 ``I don't even \emph{remember} walking under a mirror.''

  Superstition says that both walking under a ladder and breaking a mirror
  give bad luck. Therefore, by the sort of skewed logic Terry continually
  gives to his characters, walking under a mirror must be \emph{really} bad
  news.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 226/184\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] purposes considerably more dire than, say, keeping a
  razor blade nice and sharp.''

  See the annotation for p.~35/35 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 240/196\,] }}
 ``He remembered being summoned into reluctant existence at
  the moment the first creature lived, in the certain knowledge that he
  would outlive life until the last being in the universe passed to its
  reward, when it would then be his job, figuratively speaking, to put the
  chairs on the tables and turn all the lights off.''

  Three years later, in 1990, Neil Gaiman's Death says, in the story
  `Facade':

  ``When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last
  living thing dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the
  tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I
  leave.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 255/208\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{S THIS THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS, AND BURNED
  THE TOPLESS TOWERS OF }}P{\smaller{SEUDOPOLIS?}} wondered Death.''

  A reference to Helen of Troy (or Tsort, I suppose I should say), over
  whom the Trojan War was started. The exact original quote, from
  Christopher Marlowe's \emph{The Tragical History of Dr Faustus}, goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, \\And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? \\Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! \\
}\end{verse}

  Ilium is the Latin name for Troy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 271/221\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Only Ysabell said that since you turned the glass over
  that means I shall die when I'm---' YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT, said Death
  coldly. MATHEMATICS ISN'T ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE.}''

  Except that the events detailed in \emph{Soul Music} imply that Ysabell was
  right in this case (``After that, it was a matter of math. And the
  Duty.''){\ldots}

\vspace{4ex}\section{Sourcery}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/10\,] }}
 ``\,`My son,' he said. `I shall call him Coin.'\,''

  A pun on the English boy's name `Colin', with a nod to the expression ``to
  coin a phrase''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/14\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] this was a bit more original than the usual symbolic
  chess game [{\ldots}]''

  This subject comes up every now and again on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}, so it is
  time for an annotation to settle this matter for once and for all:
  playing (chess) games with Death is a \emph{very} old concept. It goes back
  much further than either Ingmar Bergman's famous 1957 movie \emph{The Seventh
  Seal}, or Chris deBurgh's less famous 1975 song `Spanish Train' (which
  describes a poker game between God and the Devil).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 22/22\,] }}
 ``It was quite possible that it was a secret doorway to
  fabulous worlds [{\ldots}]''

  A reference to C.~S.~Lewis's classic fantasy story \emph{The Lion, The Witch
  and the Wardrobe}, in which the heroes are magically transported to the
  Land of Narnia through the back of an old wardrobe, which was made from a
  tree that grew from the seeds of a magical apple taken from that Land
  long before.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28/28\,] }}
 ``\,`I saw this picture of a sourcerer in a book. He was standing
  on a mountain top waving his arms and the waves were coming right up
  [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Probably a reference to a famous scene from the `Sorcerer's Apprentice'
  segment in Disney's 1940 film \emph{Fantasia}. The ``sourcerer'' being in fact
  the Apprentice, Mickey, dreaming of commanding the wind to blow, the
  waves to wave, the stars to fall, and so on.

  Some people were also reminded of Prospero in Shakespeare's \emph{The
  Tempest}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/42\,] }}
 ``\,`Psst,' it said. `Not very,' said Rincewind [{\ldots}], `but I'm
  working on it.'\,''

  Play on the word `pissed', common British/Australian (but apparently not
  American) slang for `drunk'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 51/48\,] }}
 ``\emph{Of all the disreputable taverns in all the city you could
  have walked into, you walked into his}, complained the hat.''

  Paraphrases Humphrey Bogart's famous line from \emph{Casablanca}: ``Of all the
  gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 55/52\,] }}
 ``By the way, the thing on the pole isn't a sign. When they
  decided to call the place the Troll's Head, they didn't mess about.''

  The reference is to traditional British pub names like King's Head,
  Queen's Head or Nag's Head, all occurring quite frequently, where the
  appropriate head (a nag being a horse) is displayed on a sign outside,
  often on a pole before the building.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 66/61\,] }}
 ``The study of genetics on the Disc had failed at an early
  stage, when wizards tried the experimental crossing of such well known
  subjects as fruit flies and sweet peas. Unfortunately they didn't grasp
  the fundamentals, and the resultant offspring --- a sort of green bean
  thing that buzzed --- led a short sad life before being eaten by a passing
  spider.''

  Sweet peas were used by Mendel in his early genetic experiments. Fruit
  flies are used in contemporary genetics. Among the `fundamentals' that
  the wizards failed to grasp is of course the fact that (a) you can only
  cross individuals \emph{within} each species, not \emph{across}, and (b) you are
  not supposed to use magic.

  With respect to (a) I was told that in 1991 (three years after
  \emph{Sourcery}) an article was published in which a team of geneticists write
  about a certain transposon that seemed to be common to both maize and
  fruit flies, implying that it might be possible to have some form of
  horizontal transmission between vegetable and animal DNA, after all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 68\,] }}
 ``\emph{S{\smaller{EE ALSO}}: thee Apocralypse, the legende of thee Ice Giants,
  and thee Teatime of the Goddes.}''

  In Norse mythology, the ``Twilight of the Gods'' refers to Ragnarok, the
  final conflict at the end of times between the gods and their enemies
  (amongst which are the Ice Giants). See also the annotation for p.~308/222 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 69/64\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Anus mirabilis?}'\,''

  ``Annus mirabilis'' translates to ``year of wonder''. ``\emph{Anus} mirabilis'' does
  not.

  Brewer mentions that the year of wonder in question is actually known to
  be 1666, ``memorable for the great fire of London and the successes of our
  arms over the Dutch.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 71/66\,] }}
 ``\,`From these walls,' said Carding, `Two hundred supreme mages
  look down upon you.'\,''

  Napoleon, to his troops just before the Battle of the Pyramids: ``From the
  summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 75/69\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] that would be the Patrician, Lord Vetinari,' said
  Carding with some caution.''

  A sideways pun (via `veterinary') on the name of the famous de Medici
  family, who were the enlightened rulers of Renaissance Florence.

  During one of those interminable ``which actor should play which Discworld
  character if there was a movie?'' discussions, Terry gave some insight in
  how he himself visualises the Patrician:

  ``I can't remember the guy's name, but I've always pictured the Patrician
  as looking like the father in \emph{Beetlejuice} --- the man also played the
  Emperor of Austria in \emph{Amadeus}. And maybe slightly like the head bad guy
  in \emph{Die Hard}.''

  The actors Terry is thinking of are Jeffrey Jones and Alan Rickman,
  respectively.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/70\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] his chair at the foot of the steps leading up to the
  throne, [{\ldots}]''

  In Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the Rings}, the Stewards of Gondor also sat on
  a chair on the steps below the real throne, awaiting the return of the
  king. The prophecy in that case also included a magic sword, although
  Tolkien neglects to make any mention of a strawberry-shaped birthmark.

  Other occurrences of the legend can be found in Robert Jordan's \emph{The
  Wheel of Time} epic fantasy series, in Raymond E. Feist's \emph{Prince of the
  Blood}, and in David Eddings' \emph{Belgariad} quintet.

  This is undoubtedly one of those cases where everybody is drawing on a
  much older idea. Legends about kings, swords and birthmarks are of course
  legion, although I must admit that so far I haven't been able to actually
  find an occurrence of the `chair below the real throne' concept outside
  of contemporary fiction.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/70\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the sort of man you'd expect to keep a white cat, and
  caress it idly while sentencing people to death in a piranha tank [{\ldots}]''

  A reference to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, leader of SPECTRE and arch enemy of
  James Bond.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/81\,] }}
 ``The market in Sator Square, the wide expanse of cobbles
  outside the black gates of the University, was in full cry.''

  The word `Sator' refers to a famous magic square (magic square, get it?)
  dating back to the times of the spread of Christianity in Europe. `Sator'
  means sower or farmer. The complete square is:

\begin{quote}{S A T O R \\A R E P O \\T E N E T \\O P E R A \\R O T A S \\
}\end{quote}

  This square is palindromic in all directions. The sentence you get reads:
  \emph{Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas}, which means, more or less: ``The sower
  [i.e.\  God] in his field controls the workings of his tools [i.e.\  us]''.
  Some correspondents questioned the correctness of this translation, so if
  anyone has a good reference to something else I'd love to hear it.

  The magic Sator square also has the property that it can be `unfolded'
  into two ``A PATER NOSTER O'' strings that form a cross with the `N' as a
  pivot element (sorry, proper graphics will have to wait until a future
  edition of the {\smaller APF}). The `A' and the `O' stand for alpha and omega.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 107/98\,] }}
 ``\,`And I seem to remember he spoke very highly of the \emph{soak}.
  It's a kind of bazaar.'\,''

  Punning on `souk', meaning a Middle Eastern marketplace; and the verb
  `soak', meaning to charge (and get) exorbitant prices.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/110\,] }}
 ``the kind of spaghetti that would make M.~C.~Escher go for a
  good lie down [{\ldots}]''

  Maurits C. Escher: Dutch graphic artist of the 20th century, well-known
  for his tangled, paradoxical pictures of optical illusions and
  plane-filling tilings. Read Douglas Hofstadter's \emph{G\"{o}del, Escher, Bach}
  for much, much more information.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/111\,] }}
 ``\,`It looks like someone has taken twice five miles of inner
  city and girded them round with walls and towers,' he hazarded.''

  From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem \emph{Kubla Khan}:

\begin{verse}\textit{So twice five miles of fertile ground \\With walls and towers were girded round \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/111\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] `sherbet and, and --- young women.'\,''

  `Sherbet' is a cooling Oriental fruit drink (also a frozen dessert) as
  well as a fizzy sweet powder children eat as a sweet, and which comes in
  a cardboard tube with a liquorice `straw' at the top. To get to the
  sherbet you bite off the end of the liquorice and suck through it. See
  also the annotation for p.~104/104 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 125/113\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] pretty much of a miracle of rare device.'\,''

  Coleridge's \emph{Kubla Khan}:

\begin{verse}\textit{It was a miracle of rare device \\A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 125/113\,] }}
 ``My name is Creosote, Seriph of Al Khali, [{\ldots}]''

  Ok, lessee: Creosote parodies the proverbially rich Croesus (king of
  Lidya --- which lies in what is now Turkey --- in the 6th century BC),
  `Serif' is a typographical term which also puns on `caliph', and `Al
  Khali' is pronounced `alkali' (just covering all the bases here, as my
  original source put it), but probably refers to the Rub' al Khali desert
  in Arabia.

  Creosote itself is actually the name for an oily liquid mixture of
  organic chemicals, resulting as a by-product from the industrial burning
  of coal or wood.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 126/114\,] }}
 The hashishim as the ``original Assassins''.

  The English word ``assassins'' was originally used to denote a group of
  fanatical Ismailis (a Shi'ite Muslim sect) who, between 1094 and 1273,
  worked for the creation of a new Fatimid caliphate, murdering prominent
  individuals. They murdered prominent individuals; hence, ``assassin'' in
  English came to mean a politically motivated murderer.

  The name derives from the Arabic ``hashashin'' --- Marco Polo and other
  European chroniclers claimed that the Assassins used hashish to stimulate
  their fearless acts. For example, Brewer writes:

  ``\emph{Assassins}. A band of Carmathians, collected by Hassa, subah of
  Nishapour, called the \emph{Old Man of the Mountains}, because he made Mount
  Lebanon his stronghold. This band was the terror of the world for two
  centuries, when it was put down by Sultan Bibaris. The assassins indulged
  in \emph{haschisch} (bang), an intoxicating drink, and from this liquor
  received their name.''

  For more information, see also the Hawkwind song `Hassan I Sabbah' on
  their album \emph{Quark, Strangeness and Charm}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 126/114\,] }}
 Creosote's poetry is mostly based on Edward Fitzgerald's
  translation of the \emph{Ruba\"{\i}yat} of Omar Khayyam. The poem parodied on this
  page goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{A book of verses underneath the bough \\A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/115\,] }}
 ``\,`They spent simply ages getting the rills sufficiently
  sinuous.'\,''

  \emph{Kubla Khan}:

\begin{verse}\textit{And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/115\,] }}
 ``\,`Wild honey and locusts seem more appropriate, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Because John the Baptist ate those, according to Matthew 3:4 (also Mark
  1:6): ``And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern
  girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.''

  In order to avoid confusion it should perhaps be pointed out that the
  locusts in question are the seeds of honey locust trees, also known as
  carob and (from this story, of course) St John's Bread.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/115\,] }}
 ``\,`You can't play a dulcimer, by any chance?'\,''

  \emph{Kubla Khan}:

\begin{verse}\textit{It was an Abyssinian maid, \\And on her dulcimer she played. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 128/116\,] }}
 ``\,`Has anyone ever told you your neck is as a tower of
  ivory?'\,''

  This, and Creosote's further compliments to Conina (``your hair is like a
  flock of goats that graze upon the side of Mount Gebra'', ``your breasts
  are like the jewelled melons in the fabled gardens of dawn'', etc.) are
  all very similar to the compliments in the Biblical `Song of Solomon':

\begin{verse}\textit{Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; \\thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: \\thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, \\whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, \\all shields of mighty men. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, \\which feed among the lilies. \\
}\end{verse}

  I did an electronic search across the entire King James bible for
  ``jewelled melons'', but those appear to be an invention of Creosote's.
  Fine by me --- I was already slightly shocked to find out that ``thy hair
  is as a flock of goats'' was a genuine Biblical compliment and not
  something Terry had made up.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 129/117\,] }}
 ``Get up! For the morning in the cup of day, / Has dropped
  the spoon that scares the stars away.''

  The \emph{Ruba\"{\i}yat}:

\begin{verse}\textit{Awake! for morning in the bowl of night \\Hath flung the stone that puts the stars to flight. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 130/118\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a falling apple or a boiling kettle or the water
  slopping over the edge of the bath.''

  A falling apple supposedly helped Newton discover the Law of Gravity, a
  boiling kettle helped Watt revolutionise the steam engine (see also the
  annotation for p.~175/153 of \emph{Reaper Man}), and Archimedes, according to
  legend, discovered the principles of fluid displacement while taking a
  bath.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 132/119\,] }}
 ``The Seriph's palace, known to legend as the Rhoxie, [{\ldots}]''

  No connection to the original Croesus here, but rather to the Alhambra,
  the palace of the Emirs of Granada in 15th century Spain. As Terry says:

  ``Incidentally, the Seriph's palace, the Rhoxie, is indeed a `resonance'
  with the Alhambra --- a famous Moorish palace which became a synonym for
  an impressive building, and later became a common cinema name as in Odeon
  and, yes, Roxy.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 141/127\,] }}
 ``Nijel the Destroyer'' may be a suitably heroic-looking name,
  but `Nijel' is of course pronounced as `Nigel', a name that is
  traditionally associated with wimpy rather than with heroic males.

  I am told that among school-age Australians, Nigel is in fact slang for
  someone with no friends.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/129\,] }}
 ``\,`For example, do you know how many trolls it takes to
  change a lamp-wick?'\,''

  Someone, somewhere, hasn't heard of the ``How many $<$insert ethnic group$>$
  does it take to change a light-bulb?''-jokes this is a reference to. This
  annotation is for him/her.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/129\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] it's more than just pointing a finger at it and
  saying ``Kazam---''\,'\,''

  Captain Marvel, an American comic book character was able to transform
  himself into his superhero alter-ego by saying the magic word `Shazam'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/139\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Librarian dropped on him like the descent of
  Man.''

  Reference to Charles Darwin's landmark 1871 book \emph{The Descent of Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 162/147\,] }}
 ``\,`He asked me to tell him a story.'\,''

  This is the first, but not the last time in the book that Creosote asks
  Conina for a story. This refers to \emph{1001 Nights}, and the stories
  Scheherezade had to tell every night to \emph{her} Caliph, Harun al-Rashid.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 167/151\,] }}
 ``\,`I'm looking up the Index of Wandering Monsters', said
  Nijel.''

  `Wandering Monsters' is a phrase that comes from the world of fantasy
  role-playing games such as \emph{Dungeons And Dragons}, and it more or less
  means just what you think it means. Nijel is of course exactly the type
  of stereotypical nerd who would, in our world, actually play D\&D.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/154\,] }}
 ``\,`It have thee legges of an mermade, the hair of an
  tortoise, the teeth of an fowel, and the wings of an snake.'\,''

  More reputable witnesses than Broomfog describe the chimera or chimaera
  (from Greek mythology) as a fire-breathing monster having either the
  hindquarters of a serpent and the head of a lion on the body of a goat,
  or else the back of a goat, the wings of a dragon, the front half of a
  lion, and three heads (one each for goat, lion and dragon).

  Woody Allen somewhere describes a mythical beast called the Great Roe,
  which has ``the head of lion and the body of a lion, only not the same
  lion''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 185/167\,] }}
 ``Next to it was a small, sleek oil lamp and [{\ldots}] a small
  gold ring.''

  The magic lamp and magic ring, which summon a demon when rubbed, appear
  in the legend of Aladdin. On p.~208/187 Creosote tells the story of how
  ``one day this wicked old pedlar came round offering new lamps for old
  [{\ldots}]''. This is also part of the original Aladdin fairy tale.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 210/189\,] }}
 ``It was a Fullomyth, an invaluable aid [{\ldots}]''

  Refers to the `Filofax' system: a small notebook (the more expensive
  versions are leather-bound) with loose-leaf information sheets, diary,
  calendar, notes, wine lists, London underground maps, etc.\  In the UK the
  Filofax at one time became the badge of the stereotypical 80s Yuppie,
  seen working in London's ``square mile'', walking around with a mobile
  phone clamped to his ear while referring to his Filofax to find a free
  appointment. Hence the Genie: ``\,`Let's do lunch{\ldots}'\,''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 215/193\,] }}
 ``\,`Like not thinking about pink rhinoceroses,' said Nijel
  [{\ldots}]''

  I always thought that the impossibility of trying not to think of
  something specific was a general concept, but a correspondent informs me
  that the writer Tolstoy actually founded a club as a boy, which you could
  be admitted to if you managed a test. The test was to sit in a corner,
  and \emph{not} think of a white bear.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 215/193\,] }}
 Significant Quest $\rightarrow$ Trivial Pursuit.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 227/204\,] }}
 ``Other things besides the cream floated to the top, he
  reflected sourly.''

  Another Tom Swifty, as per the annotation for p.~26/26 of \emph{The Light
  Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 230/207\,] }}
 ``\,`The world, you see, that is, the reality in which we live,
  in fact it can be thought of as, in a manner of speaking, a rubber
  sheet.'\,''

  Ovin is modifying Einstein's explanation of gravity for a magical
  setting. See also the annotation for p.~134/128 of \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 236/212\,] }}
 ``\,`We are poor little {\ldots} unidentified domesticated animals
  {\ldots} that have lost our way {\ldots}' he quavered.''

  `Sheep' was \emph{almost} right. The exact song the horsemen are trying to
  sing goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{We're poor little lambs, that have lost our way \\CHORUS: ``Baaa, baa, baa.'' \\
}\end{verse}

  and is a favourite of the highly drunk.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 245/221\,] }}
 ``\,`It's not that, then?'\,''

  In all editions of this novel I am aware of (UK Corgi paperback, UK
  Gollancz hardcover, US Signet paperback) this line is printed in a plain
  font. It seems logical, however, that the line is said by Pestilence and
  should therefore have been in italics.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 257/232\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, yes. It's vital to remember who you really are. It's
  very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to
  do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.'\,''

  Rincewind, nerving himself up to distract the Things in the Dungeon
  Dimensions so that Coin can escape, is anticipating Granny Weatherwax in
  this little speech. The theme is clearly important to Terry from the
  humanist angle, but its roots are in the occult --- actively holding in
  mind who and what you are is a traditional exercise in a number of
  mystical teachings. Note that this statement is the result of the
  inspiration particle which hit Rincewind on p.~165/149.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 259/233\,] }}
 ``For a moment the ape reared against the darkness, the
  shoulder, elbow and wrist of his right arm unfolding in a poem of applied
  leverage, and in a movement as unstoppable as the dawn of intelligence
  brought it down very heavily.''

  This is a rather subtle reference to the scene with the bone and tapir
  skull in the `Dawn of Man' portion of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C.
  Clarke's movie \emph{2001: A Space Odyssey}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Wyrd Sisters}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Wyrd Sisters}

  In \emph{Macbeth}, the three witches are sometimes called the weird sisters,
  e.g.\  act~2, scene~1: (Banquo) ``I dreamt last night of the three weird
  sisters [{\ldots}]''; or act~4, scene~1: (Macbeth) ``Saw you the weird sisters?''
  (Lennox) ``No, my lord.''

  But there's a bit more to it than just the Macbeth reference. `Wyrd' is
  the Norse concept of destiny or fate, as embodied by the Norns (who
  probably inspired the Witches in \emph{Macbeth}). Since `weird' to a modern
  reader just means `strange', it's easy to miss the overtones of the title
  and just assume that it's an Old spelling of `weird'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/5\,] }}
 ``\,`When shall we three meet again?'\,''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~1, scene~1, first line. The entire opening scene of \emph{Wyrd
  Sisters} is of course a direct parody on the opening scene of \emph{Macbeth}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/5\,] }}
 ``Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve
  Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; [{\ldots}]''

  Probably the most famous Chance (or Community Chest) card in Monopoly:
  ``GO TO JAIL --- Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect
  \$200.''. (or 200 pounds, or 200 guilders, or 200 of whatever currency you
  care to name).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/7\,] }}
 ``The junior witch, whose name was Magrat Garlick, relaxed
  considerably.''

  Terry says: ``Magrat is pronounced Magg-rat. Doesn't matter what I think
  is right --- \emph{everyone} I've heard pronounce it has pronounced it
  Maggrat.''

  ``In Margaret Murray's book ``The Witch Cult in Western Europe'' you will
  find a number of Magrats and Magrets, and a suggestion that they were not
  misspellings but an earlier form of Margaret; also in the lists of those
  arraigned for witchcraft are the surnames Garlick, Device and Nutter. No
  Oggs or Weatherwax's, though.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 ``Meanwhile King Verence, monarch of Lancre, was making a
  discovery.''

  There exists a book entitled \emph{Servants of Satan}, which is about the
  history of witch hunts. It contains the following paragraph:

  ``This brings us back to Pierre de Lancre. He became convinced that Basque
  women where an immoral and unfaithful lot when observing their social
  arrangements during his witch-hunting expedition. De Lancre was
  especially horrified at the leadership roles in religious services taken
  by Basque women, the very women among whom witchcraft was rife{\ldots}''

  Terry comments: ``I'm astonished. I've never heard of the guy, and I'm
  reasonably well-read in that area. But it \emph{is} a lovely coincidence.''

  It may also not be entirely a coincidence that `Lancre' is a common way
  of referring to Lancashire, the county where the famous 17th century
  witch trials were held (see the annotation for p.~78/57 of \emph{Lords and
  Ladies}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/10\,] }}
 ``N{\smaller{O PREMONITIONS?}} S{\smaller{TRANGE DREAMS?}} M{\smaller{AD OLD SOOTHSAYERS SHOUTING
  THINGS AT YOU IN THE STREET?}}''

  Refers to the famous ``Beware the ides of March'' warning in Shakespeare's
  \emph{Julius Caesar}, act~1, scene~2.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 14/14\,] }}
 ``\,`Can you tell by the pricking of your thumbs?' said Magrat
  earnestly.''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1: (2 Witch) ``By the pricking of my thumbs,
  Something wicked this way comes [{\ldots}]''.

  Keep an eye on \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1. It's one of Terry's favourites
  in \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/19\,] }}
 ``Duke Felmet stared out gloomily at the dripping forest.''

  Felmet's dislike of the forest resonates with the prophecy foretelling
  Macbeth had nothing to fear until Birnam wood itself would march against
  him.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/20\,] }}
 ``There had been something about him being half a man, and{\ldots}
  infirm on purpose?''

  Infirm \emph{of} purpose, is what Lady Macbeth calls her husband in \emph{Macbeth},
  act~2, scene~2.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/20\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] with nothing much to do but hunt, drink and exercise
  his droit de seigneur.''

  `Droit de seigneur' or `jus primae noctae' (`right of first night'): a
  custom alleged to have existed in medieval Europe giving the lord of the
  land the right to sleep the first night with the bride of any one of his
  vassals. The evidence for this custom deals with redemption dues which
  were paid to avoid its enforcement. It probably existed as a recognised
  custom in parts of France and possibly Italy and Germany, but not
  elsewhere.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 22/21\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] an architect who had heard about Gormenghast but hadn't
  got the budget.''

  Gormenghast is the ancient, decaying castle from Mervyn Peake's
  \emph{Gormenghast} trilogy. See also the annotation for p.~17/17 of
  \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 22/22\,] }}
 ``\,`There is a knocking without,' he said.''

  In act~2 of \emph{Macbeth}, scenes 2 and 3 have a lot of [Knocking within] in
  the stage directions.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 25/25\,] }}
 ``\,`How many times have you thrown a magic ring into the deepest
  depths of the ocean and then, when you get home and have a nice bit of
  turbot for your tea, there it is?'\,''

  Nanny's ring story is a well-known folk tale that goes back as least as
  far as Herodotus, but has also been used by e.g.\  Tolkien and Jack Vance.

  More interesting is that at least one non-Brit over on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}
  had some trouble making sense of the implied connection between the
  concepts of `turbot' and `tea'. What he did not realise was that `tea' is
  the term the British tend to use for any meal taken between 4.30 and 7
  pm, which may therefore include a nice, juicy turbot.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/26\,] }}
 ``\,`You'd have to be a born fool to be a king,' said Granny.''

  I must have read \emph{Wyrd Sisters} close to twenty times by now, and except
  for the last time this nice bit of foreshadowing completely passed me by.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 30/30\,] }}
 ``\,`All the women are played by men.'\,''

  For those who do not know: in Shakespeare's time this was indeed the
  case; no women were allowed on stage.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35/35\,] }}
 ``He'd tried to wash the blood off his hand.''

  Obvious, because very well known, but since I'm annotating all the other
  Shakespeare references, I might as well point out here that Felmet's
  attempts to wash the blood from his hands echo Lady Macbeth's actions in
  \emph{Macbeth} after the killing of Duncan in act~5, scene~1: ``Out, damned
  spot!'', etc.\ 

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 36/35\,] }}
 \emph{The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All}

  Terry invented this title; he has \emph{not} written any words to it (apart
  from the fragments that appear in the novels); but many fans (including a
  folk singer called Heather Wood) have; and there \emph{did} turn out to exist
  an old Oxford drinking song that also uses the key phrase of the hedgehog
  song. See the \emph{Song{\ldots}} section in Chapter~5 for one documented version
  of that song. Terry pleads parallel evolution, and observes that: ``There
  is a certain, how shall I put it, natural cadence to the words.''

  Readers of {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} have also engaged in a collective
  songwriting effort, the results of which can be found in the Pratchett
  Archives (see Chapter~6 for details), in the file
  /pub/pratchett/misc/hedgehog-song. See also Chapter~5 for a sample.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/49\,] }}
 ``Nanny Ogg also kept a cat, a huge one-eyed grey tom called
  Greebo [{\ldots}]''

  `Greebo' is a word that was widely used in the early seventies to
  describe the sort of man who wanders around in oil-covered denim and
  leather (with similar long hair) and who settles disagreements with a
  motorcycle chain --- the sort who would like to be a Hell's Angel but
  doesn't have enough style.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/50\,] }}
 ``\,`Well met by moonlight,' said Magrat politely. `Merry meet. A
  star shines on ---'\,''

  Magrat's first greeting comes from \emph{A Midsummer Night's Dream}: ``Ill met
  by moonlight, proud Titania''. See also the annotation for p.~350/252 of \emph{Lords
  and Ladies}.

  From Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the Rings} comes the Elvish greeting: ``A star
  shines on the hour of our meeting''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 53/53\,] }}
 ``\,`Every inch a king,' said Granny.''

  A quote from \emph{King Lear}, act~4, scene~6.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/58\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{A Wizard of Sorts},' Vitoller read. `\emph{Or, Please
  Yourself}.'\,''

  Not quite a Shakespeare title, but \emph{Please Yourself} refers to both \emph{As
  You Like It} and the subtitle of \emph{Twelfth Night}: ``Or What You Will''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 60/60\,] }}
 ``It was the cats and the roller skates that were currently
  giving him trouble{\ldots}''

  Refers to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals \emph{Cats} and \emph{Starlight
  Express}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 61/60\,] }}
 ``However, in Bad Ass a cockerel laid an egg and had to put up
  with some very embarrassing personal questions.''

  Legend has it that from an egg laid by a cockerel and hatched by a
  serpent, a cockatrice (also known as a basilisk) will spawn. Since the
  cockatrice is a monster with the wings of a fowl, the tail of a dragon,
  and the head of a cock, whose very look causes instant death, it should
  be clear that such an egg would be a very bad omen indeed.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 65/65\,] }}
 ``\,`Is this a dagger I see before me?' he mumbled.''

  From what is probably the most famous soliloquy in \emph{Macbeth}: act~2,
  scene~1. See also the annotation for p.~184/183.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 68/67\,] }}
 ``The stone was about the same height as a tall man, [{\ldots}]''

  This is a reference to the Rollright stones near Chipping Norton in the
  UK, which according to legend can not be accurately counted.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 75/74\,] }}
 ``A faint glow beyond the frosted panes suggested that, against
  all reason, a new day would soon dawn.''

  The first scene of the first act of Shakespeare's \emph{Hamlet} starts at
  midnight, and describes a scene lasting about fifteen minutes --- yet the
  act ends at dawn. Likewise, the summoning of WxrtHltl-jwlpklz the demon
  takes place at night, but ends with the quote given above.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 82\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Twins, toddling hand in hand along the midnight
  corridors, [{\ldots}]''

  The same image can also be found in Stanley Kubrick's classic horror
  movie \emph{The Shining}, where the ghosts of two small girl twins (who
  were horribly murdered in a `dark deed') walk handin hand through the
  corridors of the Overlook Hotel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 84/83\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] its eyes two yellow slits of easy-going malevolence
  [{\ldots}]''

  In earlier editions of the {\smaller APF} this was flagged as one of Terry's major
  inconsistencies. After all, Greebo is supposed to have only \emph{one} eye.

  But since then, Terry has explained on a.f.p: ``Greebo is loosely modelled
  on a real cat I knew when I was a kid --- he had two eyes, but one was
  sort of pearly coloured. He's \emph{blind} in one eye.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/87\,] }}
 ``Magrat was picking flowers and talking to them.''

  What follows is a satire of the mad Ophelia in \emph{Hamlet}: ``There's
  rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is
  pansies, that's for thoughts.'' (act 4, scene~5).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 95/94\,] }}
 ``It's all very well calling for eye of newt, but do you mean
  Common, Spotted or Great Crested?''

  Eye of Newt is one of the ingredients used by the witches in \emph{Macbeth},
  act~4, scene~1.

  This scene also resonates very faintly with the famous running gag in the
  movie \emph{Monty Python and the Holy Grail}:

\begin{quote}{Bridgekeeper: ``What{\ldots} is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?''\\Arthur: ``What do you mean? An African or European swallow?''\\Bridgekeeper: ``Huh? I --- I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh!'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/103\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] (a dandelion clock at about 2 pm).''

  For an explanation of the dandelion clock see the annotation for p.~10/10
  of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 108/107\,] }}
 ``\,`Infirm of purpose!'\,''

  Lady Macbeth says this in \emph{Macbeth}, act~2, scene~2.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 108/108\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] and \emph{you} said, ``If it's to be done, it's better if
  it's done quickly'', or something [{\ldots}]'\,''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~1, scene~7: ``If it were done when `tis done, then `twere
  well it were done quickly.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 109/108\,] }}
 ``Granny glanced around the dungeon.''

  This is another misprint: it should be Nanny, not Granny. Terry says the
  error is not present in his own version of the text, but both the UK and
  USA paperbacks have it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/126\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the land and the king are one.'\,''

  A concept straight out of the Arthurian legends.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 128/127\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] rose from the ditch like Venus Anadyomene, only older
  and with more duckweed.''

  Venus Anadyomene is the classical image of Venus rising from the sea
  (from which she was born), accompanied by dolphins. The name is given to
  the famous lost painting by Apelles, as well as to the one by Botticelli
  in the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/132\,] }}
 ``\,`I have no recollection of it at this time,' he murmured.''

  Duke Felmet is echoing the words of Richard Nixon's subordinates under
  questioning by the Senate Committee during the Watergate affair.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 134/133\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] whirl a farmhouse to any available emerald city of
  its choice.''

  A \emph{Wizard of Oz} reference.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 139/138\,] }}
 ``\,`I mean, Black Aliss was one of the best.'\,''

  My sources tell me that Black Annis is the name of a fearsome witch from
  Celtic/Saxon mythology.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/141\,] }}
 ``Greebo's grin gradually faded, until there was nothing left
  but the cat. This was nearly as spooky as the other way round.''

  Refers to the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's \emph{Alice's Adventures in
  Wonderland}, a beast famous for slowly vanishing until only its grin
  remains.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 145/144\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Herne the Hunted, the terrified and apprehensive
  deity of all small furry creatures [{\ldots}]''

  Herne the Hun\emph{ter} is a spectral hunter of medieval legend, said to
  originally have been a keeper in Windsor Forest. Herne appears in many
  stories, varying from Shakespeare (who else) to the fairly recent ITV
  television series ``Robin of Sherwood'' (starring Jason ``son of'' Connery).

  When {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} readers mistakenly assumed that the reference
  \emph{originated} from this series, Terry cautioned: ``Be careful when
  reference spotting{\ldots} Herne the Hunter certainly did turn up in the Robin
  of Sherwood series and on an album by ``Let's breathe romantically to
  music'' group Clannad, but any passing pagan will tell you he goes back a
  lot, lot further than that.''

  Herne the Hunter also appears himself in \emph{Lords and Ladies}. Here is some
  relevant information condensed from the book \emph{The Western Way} by John
  and Caitlin Matthews:

  ``Herne the Hunter / Cernunnos is God of green and growing things;
  huntsman, spirit of earth, birth and masculinity. Often pictured seated
  cross-legged with antlers on his brow, he is [{\ldots}] tutelary deity of many
  modern witch covens.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 156/155\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] trying to find a laboratory opposite a dress shop
  that will keep the same dummy in the window for sixty years, [{\ldots}]''

  This refers to the 1960 movie version of H.~G.~Wells' \emph{The Time Machine},
  where the director uses the effect described to indicate the rapid
  passing of time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 158/158\,] }}
 ``He'd sorted out the falling chandelier, and found a place
  for a villain who wore a mask to conceal his disfigurement, [{\ldots}]''

  Describes \emph{The Phantom of the Opera}, another musical by Andrew Lloyd
  Webber. See also the annotations for \emph{Maskerade}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/158\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the hero had been born in a handbag.''

  The protagonist in Oscar Wilde's \emph{The Importance of Being Earnest} was
  found, as a baby, in a handbag.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/158\,] }}
 ``It was the clowns who were giving him trouble again.''

  The clowns are the Marx Brothers. The third clown is Harpo, who never
  speaks, only honks (``business with bladder on a stick''). The short speech
  that follows, ``This iss My Little Study{\ldots}'' is typical Groucho, and the
  ``Atsa right, Boss'' is Chico.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/158\,] }}
 ``\emph{Thys ys amain Dainty Messe youe have got me into,
  Stanleigh}''

  Laurel \& Hardy. Laurel's first name was Stan. See also the annotation for
  p.~73/65 of \emph{The Colour of Magic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 160/159\,] }}
 The Dysk.

  The famous Globe Theatre (which was octagonal in form!) was built by
  Cuthbert Barbage on the Bankside in Southwark (London) in 1599.
  Shakespeare had a share in the theatre and acted there.

  The Globe was destroyed by fire, rebuilt, and eventually completely
  demolished in 1644. Currently, The Globe is being rebuilt again by an
  American entrepreneur on the South Bank, a few hundred yards from its
  original site.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 162/161\,] }}
 ``\emph{All the disk is but an Theater}, he wrote, \emph{Ane alle men
  and wymmen are but Players}. [{\ldots}] \emph{Sometimes they walke on. Sometimes
  they walke off}.''

  \emph{As You Like It}, act~2, scene~7: ``All the world's a stage, And all the
  men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;
  [{\ldots}]''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 163/162\,] }}
 ``I had this dream about a little bandy-legged man walking
  down a road.''

  I have resisted annotating this for 7 editions of the {\smaller APF}, but oh what
  the heck: Hwel is dreaming of Charlie Chaplin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 165/164\,] }}
 ``\,`I \emph{said}, where's your pointy hat, dopey?'\,''

  Dopey is one of the seven dwarfs in Walt Disney's animated \emph{Snow White}.
  Terry likes toying with Disney's dwarf names. See for instance the
  annotation for p.~324/271 of \emph{Moving Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 167/166\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Brothers! And yet may I call all men brother, for on this
  night ---}'\,''

  This is (in spirit) the St Crispin's Day speech from \emph{King Henry V}. See
  the annotation for p.~239/238.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 182/181\,] }}
 ``Double hubble, stubble trouble, Fire burn and cauldron
  bub----''

  The witches in \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1: ``Double, double toil and
  trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 169/168\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] go around with axes in their belts, and call
  themselves names like Timkin Rumbleguts.''

  This is a sarcastic comment on the behaviour of most generic fantasy
  dwarfs, but of course the main image it invokes is of classic Tolkien
  characters like Thorin Oakenshield, etc.\ 

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/172\,] }}
 ``\,`We've got a special on GBH this season.'\,''

  The abbreviation GBH stands for Grievous Bodily Harm.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 178/177\,] }}
 ``The pay's the thing.''

  Puns on a well-known Shakespeare quote from \emph{Hamlet} (act 2, scene~2):

\begin{verse}\textit{The play's the thing \\Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king \\
}\end{verse}

  If you have access to the Internet, you can find online versions of all
  of Shakespeare's plays at the URL:

  \url{http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 179/178\,] }}
 ``\,`I've got this idea about this ship wrecked on an island,
  where there's this---'\,''

  This can of course refer to a thousand different movies or plays. In view
  of the general influences for this book, however, I'd bet my money on
  Shakespeare's \emph{The Tempest}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 181/180\,] }}
 ``\emph{Round about the cauldron go}, [{\ldots}]''

  What follows is a parody on \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1, in which three
  witches boil up some pretty disgusting things in their cauldron. Try
  reading both versions side by side.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 182/181\,] }}
 ``He punched the rock-hard pillow, and sank into a fitful
  sleep. Perchance to dream.''

  Taken from the famous ``To be or not to be'' soliloquy in \emph{Hamlet}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 183/182\,] }}
 ``KING: Now if I could just find my horsey{\ldots}''

  Hwel's script is \emph{Richard III} done as a Punch-and-Judy show.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 184/183\,] }}
 ``Is this a duck I see before me, its beak pointing at me?''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~2, scene~1 again. See the annotation for p.~65/65.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 186/185\,] }}
 ``Leonard of Quirm. He's a painter, really.''

  Refers to Leonardo da Vinci, who also worked on (but didn't succeed in
  building) a flying machine.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 186/185\,] }}
 ``We grow old, Master Hwel. [{\ldots}] We have heard the gongs at
  midnight.''

  Shakespeare again: \emph{King Henry IV, part 2}, act~3, scene~2:

  ``FALSTAFF: Old, old, Master Shallow. [{\ldots}] We have heard the chimes at
  midnight, Master Shallow.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 189/188\,] }}
 ``\,`There's many a slip twixt dress and drawers.'\,''

  A Nanny Ogg variant on the saying ``There's many a slip `tween the cup and
  the lip'' (`slip' here meaning `petticoat').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 189/188\,] }}
 ``\,`A week is a long time in magic,' said Nanny.''

  Sir Harold Wilson: ``A week is a long time in politics''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/192\,] }}
 ``1{\smaller{ST WITCHE}}: He's late. (Pause)'' [Etc.]

  Parodies Samuel Beckett's classic play \emph{Waiting for Godot}, where similar
  dialogue occurs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 199/198\,] }}
 ``\,`Did you know that an adult male carries up to five pounds
  of undigested red meat in his intestines at all times?''

  Stereotypical (but basically true) propaganda that radical vegetarians
  like to quote in order to gross people out and get them to stop eating
  meat (of course, the average vegetarian has about five pounds of
  undigested vegetable matter in his intestines). The clich\'{e} is used fairly
  often, amongst other places in the movie \emph{Beverly Hills Cop}.

  Terry had this to say on the subject: ``Yep. That one I got from some way
  out vegetarian stuff I read years ago, and went round feeling ill about
  for days. And two years ago I saw \emph{Beverly Hills Cop} on TV and rejoiced
  when I heard the line. God, I wish I'd seen the film before I'd written
  \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}{\ldots} I'd have had someone out on stake-duty on horseback,
  and someone creep up behind them with a banana{\ldots}''

  Note that in \emph{Men at Arms}, the second City Watch book, Terry does manage
  to work in a \emph{Beverly Hills Cop} joke. See the annotation for p.~251/190
  of \emph{Men At Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 207/206\,] }}
 ``\,`All hail wossname,' she said under her breath, `who shall
  be king here, after.'\,''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~1, scene~2: ``All hail, Macbeth; that shalt be king
  hereafter!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 208/207\,] }}
 ``\,`Is anyone sitting here?' he said.''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~3, scene~4:

\begin{quote}{Macbeth: `The table's full.' \\Lennox: `Here is a place reserv'd, sir.' \\Macbeth: `Where?' \\
}\end{quote}

  Visible only to Macbeth the ghost of Banquo is sitting in his chair.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 211/210\,] }}
 ``\,`We're scheming evil secret black and midnight hags!'\,''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1: ``How now, you secret, black, and midnight
  hags!'' See also the annotation for p.~186/152 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 212/211\,] }}
 ``\,`I never shipwrecked anybody!' she said.''

  Neither did the three witches from \emph{Macbeth}, if you read carefully, but
  I nevertheless think there is a reference here: act~1, scene~3.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 213/212\,] }}
 ``I'd like to know if I could compare you to a summer's day.
  Because --- well, June 12th was quite nice, and {\ldots}''

  One of Shakespeare's more famous sonnets (Sonnet XVIII, to be precise)
  starts out:

\begin{verse}\textit{Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? \\Thou art more lovely and more temperate \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 213/212\,] }}
 ``\,`But I never walked like that! Why's he got a hump on his
  back? What's happened to his leg?'\,''

  A reference to Richard the Third. A rather appropriate reference: in
  Shakespeare's \emph{Richard III}, he is presented as an evil, lame,
  hunchbacked king, whom Henry must kill to save England. This is not
  historically correct --- rather it is how Henry would have liked people to
  remember it. Had Shakespeare strayed from the `official' version he would
  have found himself in deep trouble with Henry's heirs --- royalty was
  taken seriously in those days.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 213/213\,] }}
 ``\,`It's art,' said Nanny. `It wossname, holds a mirror up to
  life.'\,''

  \emph{Hamlet}, act~3, scene~2: ``To hold, as `twere, the mirror up to nature;
  to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and
  body of the time his form and pressure.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 214/213\,] }}
 ``\,`Ditch-delivered by a drabe', they said.''

  One of the ingredients in \emph{Macbeth}, act~4, scene~1 is a ``finger of
  birth-strangled babe, ditch-delivered by a drabe''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 225/225\,] }}
 ``---T{\smaller{HE NEXT NIGHT IN YOUR DRESSING ROOM THEY HANG A STAR---}}''

  Death is quoting from `There's No Business Like Show Business', the song
  from the Irvin Berlin musical \emph{Annie Get Your Gun}, also performed by
  Ethel Merman in the 1954 movie \emph{There's No Business Like Show Business}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 227/226\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] who would have thought he had so much blood in
  him?'\,''

  Lady Macbeth in \emph{Macbeth}, act~5, scene~1: ``Yet who would have thought
  the old man to have had so much blood in him''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 235/234\,] }}
 ``Like Bognor.''

  Bognor Regis is a town on the south coast of England, between Brighton
  and Portsmouth. A sleepy seaside resort, it is best-known for King George
  V's attributed last words, supposedly said after his physician told him
  he would soon be brought to Bognor to convalesce: ``Bugger Bognor!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 236/235\,] }}
 ``\,`Can you remember what he said after all those tomorrows?'\,''

  \emph{Macbeth}, act~5, scene~5, from a another famous soliloquy:

\begin{verse}\textit{To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, \\Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, \\To the last syllable of recorded time; \\And all our yesterdays have lighted fools \\The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! \\Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player \\That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, \\And then is heard no more: it is a tale \\Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, \\Signifying nothing. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 239/238\,] }}
 ``They were far more the type of kings who got people to
  charge into battle at five o'clock in the morning{\ldots}''

  Shakespeare's Henry V was just such a king, and Terry is referring here
  to the `St Crispin's Day' speech in \emph{King Henry V}, act~4, scene~3:

\begin{verse}\textit{And gentlemen in England now a-bed \\Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, \\And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks \\That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{4ex}\section{Pyramids}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/5\,] }}
 The Titles of the Books

  \emph{Pyramids} is split into four `Books', a structure that gives it a unique
  position amongst the otherwise chapterless Discworld novels (\emph{The Colour
  of Magic} doesn't really count --- it's a collection of linked novellas,
  not a single novel with chapters or sections).

  Book I is \emph{The Book of Going Forth}, which refers to \emph{The Book of Going
  Forth By Day}, (see the annotation for p.~9/9 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}).
  Book II is \emph{The Book of the Dead}, a more direct reference to the
  Egyptian Book of the Dead. Book III is \emph{The Book of the New Son} which
  puns on the title of the Gene Wolfe SF novel \emph{The Book of the New Sun}
  (perhaps there is an earlier title both authors are drawing on, but I
  haven't been able to trace it). Book IV, finally, is \emph{The Book of 101
  Things A Boy Can Do}, which gives a nod to the typical titles sported a
  few decades ago by books containing wholesome, innocent, practical, but
  above all \emph{educational} activities for children.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/7\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the only turtle ever to feature on the
  Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, [{\ldots}]''

  The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram depicts the evolution of stars, plotting
  luminosity (how strongly they emit light) versus surface temperature
  (determined from their colour).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/8\,] }}
 ``Some people think a giant dung beetle pushes it.''

  The ancient Egyptians did, for instance.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 10/10\,] }}
 ``Morpork was twinned with a tar pit.''

  A reference to the concept of twin cities.

  Following the horrors of the Second World War, and in the spirit of
  egalitarianism and common feeling for our fellow men which prevailed at
  that time, it was decided that the best way to cement bonds between the
  people of the world so that they would never \emph{ever} even consider
  dropping big noisy things on each other again, was to have every town,
  village and (apparently) cowshed in Europe `twinned' with an equivalent
  one which had previously been on the other side.

  With these new-found unities, the merry laughing people of Europe would
  engage in fraternal and sporting activities, school-children would go on
  two-week exchange visits to discover that they couldn't stand sauerkraut,
  and the respective mayors of the towns would be able to present each
  other with touching and expensive symbols of international friendship and
  get in the local paper all on other peoples' money.

  The most visible effect of this accord is the presumptuous little legend
  under the sign at the entrance to towns and villages saying ``Little
  Puddlebury --- twinned with Obermacht am Rhein''. Some towns (Croydon
  springs to mind) got a little over-enthusiastic about twinning, with the
  result that they are coupled to several towns, which makes the sign
  saying ``Croydon welcomes careful drivers'' look reminiscent of a
  seventeen-year-old's jacket at a Guns n' Roses concert.

  You may --- or may not --- care to know that the UK town of Cowes has a
  twin relation with the New Zealand township of Bulls.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/11\,] }}
 ``Teppic paused alongside a particularly repulsive gargoyle
  [{\ldots}] He found himself drumming his fingers on the gargoyle, [{\ldots}]
  Mericet appeared in front of him, wiping grey dust off his bony face.''

  It may not be immediately obvious from the text, but Mericet \emph{was} the
  gargoyle. Teppic had been leaning on his camouflaged instructor all the
  time. This is another annotation which I am only putting in after
  repeated requests from readers. Personally, I feel that `getting' this is
  simply a question of careful reading. But a quick straw poll of a.f.p.\ readers showed most were in favour of explicitly annotating it, so in it
  went.

  Terry was once asked at a talk if he was always fully in control of his
  characters and events or if they tended to run away with him. The answer
  was: always in control --- with one single exception. The whole of the
  assassin examination sequence in \emph{Pyramids} was written ``almost in a
  trance'' with no idea of what was to happen next. It is one of his
  favourite bits.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/12\,] }}
 Teppic's test.

  Teppic's examination is heavily modelled on the British Driving test,
  which, as with the other important tests in British life such as 16- and
  18-plus exams, undergraduate finals, and doctoral vitas is not actually
  intended to test whether you are actually any \emph{good} at what is being
  tested, concentrating instead on your proficiency at following arbitrary
  instructions.

  Many of the elements of a driving test are present in the passages which
  follow: The short list of questions, the sign on a small card (often held
  upside down), the clipboard. Mericet's rather stilted language, ``Now, I
  want you to proceed at your own pace towards the Street of Book-keepers,
  obeying all signs and so forth'', is almost a direct parody, as is the
  little speech at the end of the test. The `Emergency Drop' (p.~42/42) is
  the `Emergency Stop', where you have to stop the car ``as if a child has
  run out into the road, while keeping control of the vehicle at all
  times''. Finally, the back of the Highway Code has a table with minimum
  vehicle stopping distances, which examiners \emph{almost} never ask about.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 14/14\,] }}
 ``He [{\ldots}] jumped a narrow gap on to the tiled roof of the
  Young Men's Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth Association
  gym, [{\ldots}]''

  Refers our world's YMCA youth hostels. YMCA stands for `Young Men's
  Christian Association', and is often made fun of (e.g.\  Monthy Python and
  their `Young Men's Anti-Christian Association').

  See also the annotation for p.~88/88 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 15/15\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the narrow plank bridge that led across Tinlid Alley.''

  In our world, Tin Pan Alley is the popular name for the area in New York
  City near 14th Street, where many publishers of popular songs had their
  offices in the late 19th / early 20th century. Aspiring composers would
  audition their new songs, and the din of so many songs being pounded out
  of pianos up and down the street gave the district its name. Another
  theory has it that the name derived from the rattling of tins by rivals
  when a performance was too loud and too protracted.

  In England, Denmark Street, off Charing Cross Road, was also called Tin
  Pan Alley.

  Today the phrase simply refers to the music publishing industry in
  general, and it is therefore no surprise that later, in \emph{Soul Music}, we
  learn that the Guild of Musicians have their headquarters there.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 17/17\,] }}
 ``Oh, Djelibeybi had been great once, [{\ldots}]''

  The name Djelibeybi puns on the sweets called Jelly Babies. See also the
  annotation for p.~109/82 of \emph{Soul Music}.

  It has been remarked that there are quite a few parallels between the
  country of Djelibeybi and the castle of Gormenghast as described by
  Mervyn Peake in his \emph{Gormenghast} trilogy (which we know Terry has read
  because in \emph{Equal Rites} he compares Unseen University to Gormenghast,
  and in \emph{Wyrd Sisters} he does the same with Lancre Castle). The hero of
  \emph{Gormenghast}, Titus, also has a mother with a cat obsession, and his
  father died because he thought he was an owl. Furthermore, the atmosphere
  of decay, ancient history and unchanging ritual pervades both Djelibeybi
  and Gormenghast, with in both cases the presence of arbiters of tradition
  who are almost as powerful as (or even more so than) the actual ruler.

  For those interested in pursuing Gormenghast further (people who have
  read it almost invariably seem to think it's a work of genius), the names
  of the three novels are \emph{Titus Groan} (1946), \emph{Gormenghast} (1950) and
  \emph{Titus Alone} (1959, revised 1970).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/19\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Plague of Frog.''

  Refers to the Biblical `Plague of Frogs' from Exodus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/20\,] }}
 On the subject of the Assassin's Guild School, Terry has this
  to say: ``Yes, the whole setup of the Assassin's Guild school has, uh, a
  certain resonance with Rugby School in \emph{Tom Brown's Schooldays} (note to
  Americans: a minor Victorian classic of school literature which no-one
  reads anymore and which is probably now more famous for the first
  appearance of the Flashman character subsequently popularised by George
  MacDonald Fraser).''

  Teppic and his friends map directly to corresponding characters in \emph{Tom
  Brown's Schooldays}: Teppic is Tom, Chidder is Harry ``Scud'' East, Arthur
  is George Arthur and Cheesewright is sort of Flashman, but not exactly.

  The line on p.~27/26 about ``\,`If he invites you up for toast in his study,
  \emph{don't go},'\,'' may refer to the incident where Tom is roasted in front of
  the fire by Flashy and his cronies. The reference to blanket-tossing on
  p.~45/44, which Arthur puts a stop to, is also an incident in \emph{Tom
  Brown}, on Tom's first day. The scene in the dormitory on the first
  night, when Arthur gets down to say his prayers, also has an equivalent
  in the book.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 39/38\,] }}
 ``\,`Truly, the world is the mollusc of your choice{\ldots}'\,''

  The oyster is, of course, a mollusc.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/44\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the day when Fliemoe and some cronies had decided
  [{\ldots}]''

  Someone on a.f.p.\ noticed that `Flymo' is a brand of lawnmower, and
  wondered if there was a connection. Terry replied:

  ``Er. I may as well reveal this one. That section of the book is `somewhat
  like' \emph{Tom Brown's Schooldays}. A bully (right hand man to the famous
  Flashman) was Speedicut. Speedicut is (was?) a name for a type of
  lawnmower --- I know, because I had to push the damn thing{\ldots} Hence{\ldots}
  Fliemoe.

  Well, it's better than mugging old ladies{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/44\,] }}
 ``It transpired that he was the son of the late Johan Ludorum
  [{\ldots}].''

  At a British public school/grammar school sports day, the pupil who
  overall won the most, was declared `Victor Ludorum' --- ``Winner of the
  games''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/45\,] }}
 ``He could send for Ptraci, his favourite handmaiden.''

  Should be pronounced with a silent `p'. Note also that in the UK the name
  Tracey (Sharon, too) is often used to generically refer to the kind of
  girl immortalised in the ``dumb blonde'' jokes, or Essex Girl jokes as they
  are known in the UK\@.

  This annotation may also help explain why over on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}
  people regularly and affectionately refer to their Favourite Author as
  `Pterry' (although the lazier participants usually just refer to him as
  TP, conforming to the sometimes bloody annoying Usenet habit of
  acronymising everything longer than two words or four characters,
  whichever comes first. Hence DW stands for Discworld, TCOM for \emph{The
  Colour of Magic}, and {\smaller APF} for Annotated Pratchett File --- but you already
  knew that).

  I was later informed that `Pterry' was also the name of a pterodactyl on
  a kids' TV program called \emph{Jigsaw}, but as far as I can recall Terry's
  nickname was not coined with that in mind.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/49\,] }}
 ``It's rather like smashing a sixer in conkers.''

  Conkers are the nuts of the Horse Chestnut --- not the one you eat, the
  other one with the really spiky outer covering. It is a regular autumn
  pass-time in England for school-boys to put conkers on the end of bits of
  string, and commence doing battle.

  The game of conkers is played by two players, almost always by challenge.
  One player holds his conker up at arms length on the end of its bit of
  string, and the other player tries to swing his one with sufficient force
  to break the other player's conker. After a swing, roles are reversed.
  Since this is a virtually solely male sport, whose participants' average
  age is about seven (although there is a bunch of nutters who regularly
  get on local news programmes with their ``world championship''), there is
  of course much potential for strategic `misses' against the opponents
  knuckles, or indeed against almost any other part of his anatomy.

  In the (rather unlikely, usually) event of one conker breaking the other
  one, the winning conker becomes a `one-er'. A conker which has won twice,
  is a `two-er'. Hence a `sixer' (although it must be remembered that there
  are of course the usual collection of bogus seventeeners and
  sixty-seveners which circulate the black market of the playing field).
  There is a black art as to how to ensure that your conker becomes a sixer
  --- baking very slowly in the oven overnight, is one approach, as is
  soaking for a week in vinegar. Most of these methods tend to make the
  conkers, if anything, more rather than less brittle. There's probably a
  lesson for us all in there somewhere.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/49\,] }}
 The legend of Ankh-Morpork being founded by two orphaned
  brothers who had been found and suckled by a hippopotamus refers to the
  legend of Romulus and Remus who were two orphaned brothers raised by a
  wolf, who later went on to found Rome (the brothers did, not the wolf).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/56\,] }}
 ``Hoot Koomi, high priest of Khefin [{\ldots}] stepped forward.''

  The name Koot Hoomi (or Kuthhumi) is a Sanskrit word that means
  `teacher'.

  Koot Hoomi is the author of a series of letters that were published as
  \emph{The Mahatma Letters To A.~P.~Sinnett}, and which form the basis of many
  theosophical teachings.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 63/62\,] }}
 ``\,`Look, master Dil,' said Gern, [{\ldots}]''

  Since not everyone is familiar with all those weird English food items,
  this is probably a good place to point out that there is a red line that
  runs from `Dil the Embalmer' to `Dill the Pickler' to `dill pickle', a
  British delicacy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 64/62\,] }}
 ``\,`Get it? Your name in lights, see?'\,''.

  ``Your name in lights'' is generally a term indicative of achieved fame and
  success. In this context, however, not everybody may be aware that
  `lights' is also a word originally describing the lungs of sheep, pigs,
  etc., but more generally used for all kinds of internal organs.
  Presumably Gern has taken various parts of the dead king and spelt out
  Dil's name.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 64/62\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] I didn't think much of the Gottle of Geer routine,
  either.'\,''

  Ventriloquists who want to demonstrate their skill will include the
  phrase ``bottle of beer'' as part of their patter. However, as it is
  impossible to pronounce the `B' without moving your lips, it usually
  comes out as ``gottle of geer''. Gern has presumably been playing macabre
  ventriloquism games with the corpse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 64/63\,] }}
 ``\,`Good big sinuses, which is what I always look for in a
  king.'\,''

  In the process of embalming, the Egyptians removed the deceased's brain
  through the nose cavity. That's all I know about the process, and if it's
  all right with you people I'd rather keep it that way.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 71/69\,] }}
 ``\,`Do I really have to wear this gold mask?'\,''

  Terry has confirmed that the scenes in which Dios dresses up Teppic in
  his King's outfit (starting with the Flail of Mercy and culminating in
  the Cabbage of Vegetative Increase) are a parody of the old BBC
  children's game show \emph{Crackerjack}. In this show the contestants were
  asked questions, and for each correct answer they received a prize, which
  they had to hold on to. If they answered wrong, they were given a large
  cabbage, increasing the likelihood of dropping everything. The person
  left at the end who hadn't dropped anything won the game.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 73/71\,] }}
 ``\,`Interfamilial marriage is a proud tradition of our lineage,'
  said Dios.''

  Teppic is astonished to hear that his great-great-grandmother once
  declared herself male as a matter of political expediency. It was in fact
  indeed the custom of the Egyptians to marry their pharaohs to close
  relatives, and Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I, wife and half-sister
  of Thutmose II, and mother-in-law of Thutmose III actually did proclaim
  herself king in order to seize the throne.

  Incidentally, Dios is using the wrong word here: A marriage between
  relatives would be \emph{intra}familial, not \emph{inter}familial.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 90/87\,] }}
 ``\,`This thing could put an edge on a rolling pin.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~35/35 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}. There's another
  more explicit reference on p.~140/134: ``[{\ldots}] contrary to popular opinion
  pyramids don't sharpen razor blades''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 95/91\,] }}
 ``\,`Squiggle, constipated eagle, wiggly line, hippo's bottom,
  squiggle' [{\ldots}] the Sun God Teppic had Plumbing Installed and Scorned the
  Pillows of his Forebears.''

  The constipated eagle is obviously the plumbing system, but what not many
  people outside Britain will realise is that the hippo's bottom comes from
  an advert for Slumberdown beds, which featured a hippo sitting down next
  to a chick.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 95/92\,] }}
 Pteppic's dream about the seven fat and seven thin cows is a
  reference to the Bible's Joseph, who had to explain a similar dream
  (which did not have the bit about the trombone, though), to the Pharaoh.
  \emph{Pyramids} is of course riddled with religious references, most of which
  are too obvious or too vague to warrant inclusion here.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 100/97\,] }}
 ``All things are defined by names. Change the name, and you
  change the thing.''

  This is a very ancient concept in magic and `primitive' religions.
  Although I haven't asked him, I'm willing to bet money that Terry did
  \emph{not} take his inspiration from Ursula Le Guin's \emph{A Wizard of Earthsea},
  despite the many emails I have received suggesting a connection.

  For a definitive reference on this subject, read James George Frazer's
  \emph{The Golden Bough}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 102/99\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] I am a stranger in a familiar land.''

  The phrase ``stranger in a strange land'' originates from the Bible, Exodus
  2:22, ``And she bare [Moses] a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he
  said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.''

  Since the ``strange land'' in question was Egypt, there's a nice resonance
  with \emph{Pyramids} itself in Terry's use of the phrase.

  These days, people may be more familiar with the quote as the title of
  Robert Heinlein's 60s cult science fiction book.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 109/105\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Doppelgangs},' he said.''

  Pun on the German word `doppelg\"{a}nger', meaning `body double'. Thanks to
  dozens of bad sf-movies the word has entered the English language in the
  mostly sinister meaning of some metamorphic life form taking the shape of
  a human being.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/121\,] }}
 Notice the sound accompanying the pyramid flares. It
  phonetically spells `Cheops'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 134/128\,] }}
 ``It seemed to Teppic that its very weight was deforming the
  shape of things, stretching the kingdom like a lead ball on a rubber
  sheet.''

  This metaphor ties in neatly with the quantum aspects of the Pyramids:
  rubber sheets distorted by balls are one popular way of visualising
  Einstein's general theory of relativity. The sheet represents the
  space-time-continuum, and the balls are bits of mass (like suns and
  planets). The balls press down and deform the space around them. When
  things try to move along the rubber sheet, not only are they attracted
  into the dimples in the sheet (gravity), but things like light which try
  to travel in a straight line find little kinks in their path around an
  object.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 144/138\,] }}
 ``\,`She can play the dulcimer,' said the ghost of Teppicymon
  XXVII, apropos of nothing much.''

  Reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's \emph{Kubla Khan}. See also the
  annotation for p.~127/115 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 156/150\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] distilling the testicles of a small tree-dwelling
  species of bear with the vomit of a whale, [{\ldots}]''

  Animal substances are extensively used as fixatives in perfume. Examples
  include musk (from deer-testicles; `musk' is Sanskrit for `scrotum'),
  ambergris (from the intestines of whales) and castor (from a beaver's
  perineal gland).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 157/150\,] }}
 ``{\ldots}Phi * 1700[u/v]. Lateral e/v. Equals a tranche of seven
  to twelve{\ldots}''

  Some confusion has arisen here, because the asterisk symbol `*' is the
  same one used in at least some of the editions of \emph{Pyramids} as a
  footnote marker. This has caused a few people to wonder if there's a
  `missing footnote' intended for this page. Matters are not helped much by
  the fact that the American paperback edition \emph{does} contain the text of a
  footnote on (their equivalent of) p.~157/150. This footnote is simply
  misplaced and the marker for it occurs on the \emph{previous} page (see also
  previous annotation).

  We'll let Terry have the last word in order to remove any remaining
  doubt: ``I'm pretty sure the missing footnote in Pyramids doesn't exist.
  If it's what I'm thinking of, we just bunged in loads of gibberish maths
  and among the symbols was, yes, `*'.''

  I am told that in later paperback editions the asterisk in question has
  been entirely removed from the text.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 168/162\,] }}
 ``\,`I've got as far as ``Goblins Picnic'' in Book I.'\,''

  After the children's song called ``Teddy Bears' Picnic'':

\begin{verse}\textit{If you go down to the woods today \\You're sure of a big surprise \\If you go down to the woods today \\You'd better go in disguise \\For ev'ry bear that ever there was \\Will gather there for certain, because \\Today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 176/169\,] }}
 The philosophers shooting arrows at tortoises are discussing
  one of Zeno's three motion paradoxes. See also Douglas Hofstadter's
  \emph{G\"{o}del, Escher, Bach}. Or Zeno.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 178/171\,] }}
 ``The rest of them die of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle,
  [{\ldots}]''

  Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (HUP) says that for a quantum particle
  (e.g.\  an electron), it is impossible to know with complete accuracy both
  where it is and how fast it is going. The act of observing it interferes
  with the event you want to measure (in fact, one might say that at the
  quantum level the observation \emph{is} the event) in such a way that it is
  physically impossible to determine both velocity and position of the
  particle in question.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 179/171\,] }}
 Philosophers' names.

  Xeno refers to Zeno, of aforementioned paradox. Copolymer (``the greatest
  storyteller in the history of the world'') might refer to both Homer
  (because of the name) and Herodotus, `the father of history', who was
  known for his very chatty and discursive style, and who basically made
  his living as a story-teller/dinner guest. Pthagonal (``a very acute man
  with an angle'') refers to Pythagoras. Iesope (``the greatest teller of
  fables'') to Aesop. Antiphon (``the greatest writer of comic plays'') to
  Aristophanes. And Ibid (whose name reminds us of Ovid) is actually short
  for ibidem, which means, when citing literature references: `same author
  as before'. Hence the quip later on: ``Ibid you already know''.

  The only one left is Endos the Listener, who is perhaps meant to portray
  the standard second-man-in-a-Socratic-dialogue --- the man who spends the
  entire dialogue saying things like ``That is correct, Socrates'', ``I
  agree'', ``you're right'', ``your reasoning appears correct'', and the like.

  Also, an `antiphon' is a name for a versicle or sentence sung by one
  choir in response to another (e.g.: ``No you can't / Yes I can!'' repeated
  many times with rising pitch. Or a more modern example would perhaps be
  Queen's `Bohemian Rhapsody': ``No, we will not let you go / Let me go!'').
  `Copolymer' is a term from chemistry; it refers to a polymer (plastic)
  made from more than one kind of monomer (simple compound).

  [~Finally, my source also suspects that Copolymer's monologue may be a
  take-off on a particular translation of his \emph{Histories}. Anybody?~]

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 179/172\,] }}
 ``\,`The tortoise \emph{did} beat the hare,' said Xeno sulkily.''

  Reference to Aesop's classic fable \emph{The Hare and the Tortoise}.

  If you have access to the Internet, you can find an online version of the
  Aesop fables at the URL:

  \url{ftp://ftp.uu.net/doc/literary/obi/Aesop/Fables.Z}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 180/173\,] }}
 ``Now their gods existed. They had, as it were, the complete
  Set.''

  For those of you whose Egyptian mythology is a little rusty: Set, brother
  to Isis and Osiris and father of Anubis, was the Egyptian God of evil and
  darkness.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 181/174\,] }}
 ``\,`Sacrifice a chicken under his nose.'\,''

  Refers to the old practice of burning a feather under the nose of an
  unconscious or fainted person.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 181/174\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] here comes Scarab again{\ldots} yes, he's gaining
  height{\ldots} Jeht hasn't seen him yet, [{\ldots}].'\,''

  The high priest's commentary on the gods' battle for the sun is obviously
  based on sports commentators. In particular, several of the phrases are
  based on the diction of David Coleman, a popular British figure of fun
  noted for his somewhat loose grasp on reality and his tendency towards
  redundancy and solecism. In fact, an amusingly redundant comment spoken
  live by a personality is sometimes referred to as a `Colemanball', after
  the column of that name in the satirical magazine \emph{Private Eye}.

  Typical Colemanballs include, ``{\ldots}He's a real fighter, this lad, who
  believes that football's a game of two halves, and that it isn't over
  until the final whistle blows'', or during the test (cricket) matches,
  ``And he's coming up to bowl now{\ldots} The bowler's Holding, the batsman's
  Willey{\ldots}''. (That last one wasn't even by David Coleman, but still
  qualifies as a Colemanball).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 197/189\,] }}
 ``\,`Symposium' meant a knife-and-fork tea.''

  Etymologically, a symposium is indeed a ``get-together for a drink''. Since
  the Greeks believed in lubricating intellectual discussion with drink,
  the term eventually came to be used for a meeting which combined elements
  of partying and intellectual interchange.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 197/189\,] }}
 The Tsortean wars refer to the Trojan wars. (Read also
  \emph{Eric}. Or Homer.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 201/193\,] }}
 ``A philosopher had averred that although truth was beauty,
  beauty was not necessarily truth, and a fight was breaking out.''

  A famous quotation from John Keats' `Ode on a Grecian Urn':

\begin{verse}\textit{`Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' --- that is all \\Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 204/195\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] ships called the \emph{Marie Celeste}, [{\ldots}]''

  The \emph{Marie Celeste} left port in 1872 with a full crew, but was later
  found (by the crew of the \emph{Dei Gratia}), abandoned on the open sea, with
  no crew, the single lifeboat missing, and half-eaten meals in the mess
  hall. It was later discovered that captain Morehouse of the \emph{Dei Gratia}
  had dined with the captain of the \emph{Celeste} the night before she sailed,
  and Morehouse and his crew were eventually tried for murder, but
  acquitted because there was no hard evidence. The missing crewmen were
  never found.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 205/197\,] }}
 ``And one of them had reputedly turned himself into a golden
  shower in pursuit of his intended.''

  According to Greek mythology the beautiful Dana\"{e} had been locked away in
  a dungeon by her father (King Acrisius of Argos) because a prophecy had
  foretold that his grandson would slay him. But Zeus, King of the Gods,
  came upon Dana\"{e} in a shower of gold, and fathered Perseus upon her.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 221\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] every camel knew what two bricks added up to.''

  In jokes, the castration (or, as the punchline dictates, speeding up)
  of camels is achieved by taking two bricks and smashing the animal's
  testicles between them.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 250/239\,] }}
 ``\,`Go, tell the Ephebians ---' he began.''

  This is a paraphrase of ``Go tell the Spartans'', which is the beginning of
  the memorial for the Spartan soldiers who got massacred by the Persians
  at Thermopylae as a result of Greek treachery. The full quote is given by
  Simonides (5th century BC) as:

\begin{verse}\textit{Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, \\That here obedient to their laws we lie \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 270/259\,] }}
 ``And it was while he was staring vaguely ahead, [{\ldots}] that
  there was a faint pop in the air and an entire river valley opened up in
  front of him.''

  People interested in more stories about magically disappearing valleys
  are referred to R.~A.~Lafferty's `Narrow Valley' (to be found in his
  collection \emph{Nine Hundred Grandmothers}), where a half a mile wide valley
  is sorcerously narrowed (with its inhabitants) to a few feet and then
  opened up again by the end of the story.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 271/259\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the birds said more with a simple bowel movement than
  Ozymandias ever managed to say.''

  Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramses the Second. Percy Bysshe
  Shelley's poem \emph{Ozymandias} is famous, but because it is short and it has
  always been a favourite of mine I hope you will forgive me the indulgence
  of reproducing it here in full:

\begin{verse}\textit{Ozymandias \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{I met a traveler from an antique land \\Who said: ``Two vast and trunkless legs of stone \\Stand in the desert{\ldots} Near them, on the sand, \\Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, \\And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, \\Tell that their sculptor well those passions read \\Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, \\The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; \\And on the pedestal these words appear: \\`My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: \\Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' \\Nothing beside remains. Round the decay \\Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare \\The lone and level sands stretch far away.'' \\
}\end{verse}

  While I was browsing the net in order to find an on-line copy of
  \emph{Ozymandias} so that I could cut-and-paste the text, I came across a
  wonderful piece of related information. It appears that in 1817 Shelley
  held a sonnet-writing session with his friend, the poet Horace Smith.
  Both wrote a sonnet on the same subject, but while Shelley came up with
  the aforementioned \emph{Ozymandias}, Mr Smith produced something so
  delightfully horrendous I simply have to indulge even further, and
  include it here as well. By now the connection to our original annotation
  has been completely lost, but I think you might agree with me that
  Smith's poem would be worthy of Creosote:

\begin{verse}\textit{On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in \\the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, \\Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws \\The only shadow that the Desert knows. \\``I am great Ozymandias,'' saith the stone, \\``The King of kings: this mighty city shows \\The wonders of my hand.'' The city's gone! \\Naught but the leg remaining to disclose \\The sight of that forgotten Babylon. \\We wonder, and some hunter may express \\Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness \\Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase, \\He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess \\What wonderful, but unrecorded, race \\Once dwelt in that annihilated place. \\
}\end{verse}

  The poem was cited by Guy Davenport of the University of Kentucky in a
  New York Times article a few years ago, which concluded: ``Genius may also
  be knowing how to title a poem.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 273\,] }}
 ``\,`You said it worked for Queen wossname, Ram-Jam-Hurrah, or
  whoever,' said Chidder.''

  Legend has it that Cleopatra had herself smuggled to Caesar inside an
  oriental rug.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 277/265\,] }}
 ``\,`For the asses' milk?' said Koomi [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~161/132 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Guards!\ Guards!}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 10/10\,] }}
 ``\,`Hooray, hooray for the spinster's sister's daughter.'\,''

  This recalls the ritual question ``Is there no help for the Widow's Son?''
  in Masonic ritual.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 16/15\,] }}
 ``\,`Let's say a skion turns up, walks up to the Patrician
  [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The correct spelling is actually `scion', meaning ``young descendant of a
  noble family''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 18/17\,] }}
 ``\,`Yea, the king will come [{\ldots}] and Protect and Serve the
  People with his Sword.'\,''

  This is Terry having fun with foreshadowing again. The prophecy of
  Brother Plasterer's granddad describes Carrot to a tee, with the ``Protect
  and Serve'' tying in neatly with the motto of the City Watch (see the
  annotation for p.~51/48).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/19\,] }}
 ``\,`They were myths and they were real,' he said loudly. `Both a
  wave and a particle.'\,''

  Reference to the wave/particle duality theory of e.g.\  light, which
  appears to have the properties of both a wave and a particle, depending
  upon what context you are working in.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 21/19\,] }}
 ``\,`That was where you had to walk on ricepaper wasn't it,' said
  Brother Watchtower conversationally.''

  Reference to the old David Carradine TV series, \emph{Kung Fu}. In one of the
  earliest episodes our Shaolin monk-in-training was tasked to walk along a
  sheet of ricepaper without ripping it or leaving a mark.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/24\,] }}
 ``It wasn't only the fresh mountain air that had given Carrot
  his huge physique.''

  Someone on a.f.p.\ asked Terry if the name or the character of Carrot was
  perhaps inspired by an old American comic called \emph{Captain Carrot and his
  Amazing Zoo Crew}. Terry answered:

  ``Never heard of it. The TRUE answer is that when I was writing the book
  an electrician was rewiring our house and the nickname of his red-haired
  apprentice was Carrot. It kind of stuck in my mind.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 29/27\,] }}
 ``\,`And Bob's your uncle.'\,''

  Some people have been wondering just where this expression comes from
  (the joke also occurs on p.~16/15 and p.~108/98). Terry himself gives the
  following answer:

  ``Apparently from a 19th Century Prime Minister, Lord Robert Stanley, who
  was a great one for nepotism. If you got a good Government job it was
  because ``Bob's your uncle''. It came to mean `everything's all right'.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 52/48\,] }}
 The fizzing and flashing illuminated sign outside Captain
  Vimes' office is a reference to the tired old visual clich\'{e} from most
  film noir. The seedy detective's office or apartment always has a big
  neon sign just outside the window.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 51/48\,] }}
 The motto of the Night Watch, ``F{\smaller{ABRICATI DIEM, PVNC}}'', is dog
  Latin for ``Make my day, punk''.

  ``Go ahead, make my day'' is a well-known Clint `Dirty Harry' Eastwood
  quote. The `punk' comes from another famous \emph{Dirty Harry} scene (see the
  annotation for p.~136/124)

  Notice also that the translation Terry supplies (``To protect and to
  serve'') is actually the motto of the Los Angeles Police Force.

  My source tells me that Hollywood writers and directors, notorious for
  the accuracy of their movies and TV shows, tend to have \emph{all} police cars
  bear this motto. In a sort of reverse formation, this has caused some
  individual police forces across the USA to adopt it, so that by now the
  motto has become fairly wide-spread.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 53/49\,] }}
 ``\,`The E. And the T sizzles when it rains.'\,''

  The magic tavern sign Brother Watchtower is stealing has a burnt-out `E'
  and a sizzling `T' just like the `HOT L BALTIMORE' sign in the play of
  the same name.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 54/49\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a certain resemblance to a chimpanzee who never got
  invited to tea parties.''

  For the entertainment of their younger visitors, British zoos used to
  have the tradition of holding Chimpanzees' Tea Parties, where the chimps
  were dressed up and seated at a table, drinking and eating from a plastic
  tea set.

  Chimp tea parties have remained in the British consciousness due to the
  TV advertisements for PG Tips tea bags featuring chimps pouring tea.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 55/51\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Shershay la fem}, eh? Got a girl into trouble?'\,''

  ``Cherchez la femme'' (``look for the woman'') is a clich\'{e} phrase of pulp
  detective fiction: when someone's wife has been murdered one should
  always search for signs of another woman's involvement.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 60/55\,] }}
 ``\,`Good day! Good day! What is all of this that is going on
  here (in this place)?'\,''

  Carrot's actions and words in this scene mirror the behaviour of the
  stereotypical British friendly neighbourhood bobby attempting to break up
  a family argument or innocent street brawl. Nearly all my correspondents
  trace this stereotype directly back to the sixties BBC television series
  \emph{Dixon of Dock Green}, where every bobby was your friend and it was
  perfectly acceptable for a copper to walk into a room and say ``\,`Ello!
  `Ello! What's going on `ere then?''. Calling people `sunshine' (next
  footnote on the page), and signing off with ``Evening, all'' are apparently
  also Dixonisms.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 62/56\,] }}
 ``\,`Evenin', Detritus.'\,''

  `Detritus' is a word meaning ``any loose matter, e.g.\  stones, sand, silt,
  formed by rock disintegration''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 64/59\,] }}
 ``\,`What'd he mean, Justices?' he said to Nobby. `There ain't no
  Justices.'\,''

  This annotation has been the subject of some heated a.f.p.\ discussion
  (and if you think that this is a silly thing to get worked up over, you
  are obviously not familiar with {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}. Or with Usenet, for
  that matter). Anyway, there were a few people who felt that Terry was
  referring here to Larry Niven's \emph{Ringworld} series, where the main
  character, Louis Wu, always uses the phrase ``There ain't no justice''
  (abbreviated as ``TANJ''). Other people found this connection incredibly
  far-fetched for such a generic sentence, and said so rather forcefully.

  Eventually, Terry stepped in and short-circuited the entire discussion by
  writing: ``Mostly in the Discworld books, particularly \emph{Mort}, the phrase
  is ``There's no justice'' so that it can be balanced with ``There's just
  me/you/us''. And that phrase is truly generic. Really, so is ``There ain't
  no justice'' --- it's just that Niven does use it a lot and, I suspect,
  uses it because it is familiar to readers. Admittedly, it's become `his'
  via repetition. But there's a difference between using an established
  phrase which another author has commandeered and using one \emph{specifically}
  associated with one person --- ``Make my day'' has one owner, whereas ``There
  ain't no justice'' is a clich\'{e}. To be honest, I didn't have anything
  particularly in mind when Charley uttered the phrase --- but if you think
  it's a Niven reference, fair enough.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/70\,] }}
 ``\,`Do \emph{real} wizards leap about after a tiny spell and start
  chanting `Here we go, here we go, here we go', Brother Watchtower?
  \emph{Hmm}?'\,''

  ``Here we go, here we go'' is a chant (usually sung to the tune of Sousa's
  `Stars and Stripes Forever') commonly associated with football (soccer)
  fans.

  According to my correspondent it is also used, historically, by gangs of
  striking miners just before they realise that the mounted policemen with
  big sticks are coming their way. Definitely a British phenomenon.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 91/83\,] }}
 ``It was strange, he felt, that so-called intelligent dogs,
  horses and dolphins never had any difficulty indicating to humans the
  vital news of the moment [{\ldots}]''

  Just for the record: some famous television/movie dogs fitting this
  description are Lassie and Rin Tin Tin; horse examples are Champion,
  Trigger, Silver (``I said \emph{posse}!''), and Black Beauty; the only dolphin
  example I know of is probably the most famous of them all: Flipper.

  Australian fans have expressed their disappointment that Terry left out
  Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, whose ability to communicate very complex,
  often extremely abstract concepts with a bit of clicking and hopping
  around was apparently a wonder to behold.

  Terry later more than made up for this when he introduced Scrappy the
  Kangaroo as a character in \emph{The Last Continent}. See also the
  annotation for p.55 of that book.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 91/83\,] }}
 ``And \emph{then} he went out on to the streets, untarnished and
  unafraid.''

  ``But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who
  is neither tarnished nor afraid.'' is a well-known quote --- that describes
  Carrot to a tee --- from Raymond Chandler's essay \emph{The Simple Art of
  Murder}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 93/85\,] }}
 ``\,`Who loves you, pussycat?', said Nobby under his breath.''

  Nice amalgamation of TV detective Kojak's use of the word `pussycat' and
  his catchphrase ``Who loves ya, baby?''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 94/86\,] }}
 ``\,`I've seen a horsefly [{\ldots}] And I've seen a housefly. I've
  even seen a greenfly, but I ain't never seen a dragon fly''

  Sounds reminiscent of the `I've never seen an elephant fly' song which
  the crows sing in Walt Disney's 1941 movie \emph{Dumbo}. Another similar
  children's song is called `The Never Song' by Edward Lipton.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/88\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Gayheart Talonthrust of Ankh stood fourteen thumbs
  high, [{\ldots}]''

  The breeding of swamp dragons is a parody of British high society's
  obsession with horse breeding. The height of a horse is traditionally
  measured in hands.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 99/90\,] }}
 ``\,`One just has to put up with the occasional total whittle.'\,''

  Describing Errol as a whittle is actually a quite clever pun. On the one
  hand `whittle' simply means something reduced in size (usually by means
  of slicing bits and pieces off it), while on the other hand Sir Frank
  Whittle was the inventor of the modern aircraft jet engine.

  When Whittle showed his original design to his supervisor at Manchester
  University, the latter said, ``Very interesting, Whittle my dear boy, but
  it will never work''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/94\,] }}
 ``\,`Just give me the facts, m'lady,' he said impatiently.''

  ``Just the facts, ma'am'', is a catchphrase from the \emph{Dragnet} radio series
  (later a TV series, and later still a Dan Aykroyd/Tom Hanks movie).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/94\,] }}
 ``Of all the cities in all the world it could have flown into,
  he thought, it's flown into mine{\ldots}''

  Pretty obvious Bogart/Casablanca paraphrase, in keeping with Vimes' role
  as the Discworld equivalent of the ultimate film noir anti-hero.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/104\,] }}
 The bit about the hero killing a monster in a lake, only to
  have the monster's mum come right down the hall the next day and
  \emph{complain}, is a reference to Grendel and his mother, two famous monsters
  from the \emph{Beowulf} saga.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/104\,] }}
 ``Pour encourjay lays ortras.''

  Discworld version of the French phrase ``pour encourager les autres''. The
  phrase originates with Voltaire who, after the British executed their own
  admiral John Byng in 1757 for failing to relieve Minorca, was inspired to
  write (in Chapter~23 of \emph{Candide}) a sentence that translates to: ``in
  this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to
  encourage the others''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 116/106\,] }}
 ``\,`For example, foxes are always knocking over my dustbins.'\,''

  Terry, at least at one point in his life, lived in the west country, near
  Bristol. Bristol has become famous for its urban foxes (although they
  apparently operate in all largish greenish cities in the UK). In the
  early 80s, BBC Bristol made a famous programme on these urban foxes,
  called \emph{Foxwatch}.

  On this programme, hitherto unachieved photographs of vixens caring for
  their sprogs were aired; this made the programme (which was narrated by
  David Attenborough) very famous. The Archchancellor's rant is a very good
  approximation of a David Attenborough wildlife programme narration. And
  according to the Foxwatch myth, foxes knock over dustbins.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/107\,] }}
 ``\,`Did you suggest a working party?', said Wonse.''

  It is British Government Policy to suggest a working party whenever an
  intractable problem presents itself. It is usually stocked with
  opposition MPs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/108\,] }}
 ``Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left,
  however improbable, must be the truth. [{\ldots}] There was also the curious
  incident of the orangutan in the night-time {\ldots}''

  Two Sherlock Holmes references for the price of one. The original quotes
  are ``It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the
  impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'' from
  \emph{The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet}, and ``[{\ldots}] the curious incident of
  the dog at nighttime'' in \emph{Silver Blaze}.

  The second reference also reminds me, in a very roundabout way, of Edgar
  Allan Poe's \emph{The Murders in the Rue Morgue}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 120/110\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] as ghastly an array of faces as ever were seen
  outside a woodcut about the evils of gin-drinking [{\ldots}]''

  The reference here is to the famous series of 18th century morality
  woodcuts by William Hogarth, with names like ``Gin Lane'' and ``Beer
  Street''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 126/115\,] }}
 ``\,`Dunno where this place is, Captain. It belongs to some
  posh bint.'\,''

  This is very British slang. Posh, meaning upper class, arises from the
  days of the Empire. It is an acronym, standing for `Port Out, Starboard
  Home'. These were the most pleasant (least hot?) cabins on the ships
  sailing to the jewel in the crown, India, and therefore the most
  expensive, meaning that only the aristocracy could afford them.

  (The above explanation is in fact quite false --- that is, it's true that
  posh means upper class, but the acronym is one of these persistent, oh so
  plausible, after-the-fact etymologies, which are nearly always wrong.)

  `Bint' arises as a bit of cockney soldier slang in WWII\@. It is actually
  Arabic for `young girl'. Many British soldiers were stationed in
  Alexandria, Egypt, in North Africa, and this word was brought into the
  language by them.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 134/122\,] }}
 ``\,`So I'm letting you have a place in Pseudopolis Yard.'\,''

  The Watch's second base, affectionately called `The Yard', is a reference
  to Scotland Yard, where the British Police Headquarters used to be
  located (these days, they have moved to New Scotland Yard).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 136/124\,] }}
 ``This is Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV, the hottest
  dragon in the city. It could burn your head clean off.''

  Vimes replays here one of the best-known scenes in Clint Eastwood's first
  `Dirty Harry' movie, the 1971 \emph{Dirty Harry}.

  ``Aha! I know what you're thinking{\ldots} Did I fire six shots or only five?
  To tell you the truth, I forgot it myself in all this excitement. This
  here's a {.44} Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and it can
  blow your head clean off. Now, you must ask yourself one question: ``Do I
  feel lucky?'' Well, do you, punk?''

  Note how nicely Winter\emph{forth} the \emph{fourth} corresponds to the caliber of
  the Magnum.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 143/130\,] }}
 ``\,`'E's plain clothes, ma'am,' said Nobby smartly. `Special
  Ape Services'.''

  \emph{Special Ape Services} shares the acronym SAS with the crack British
  troops who are sent to storm embassies, shoot prisoners of war, and
  execute alleged terrorists before anything has been proven by trial, etc.\ 
  Not that one wants to get political, mind you.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 156/141\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah. Kings can cure that, you know,' said another
  protomonarchist knowingly.''

  See the annotation for p.~103/76 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 162/147\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] and stepped out into the naked city.''

  \emph{The Naked City} was an American TV cop show in the 50s, mostly forgotten
  today, except for its prologue narration: ``There are eight million
  stories in the naked city. This is one of them.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 164/149\,] }}
 ``There are some songs which are never sung sober. `Nellie
  Dean' is one. So is any song beginning `As I was a walking{\ldots}'\,''

  `Nellie Dean' is an old music hall song:

\begin{verse}\textit{There's an old mill by the stream \\Nellie Dean. \\Where we used to sit and dream \\Nellie Dean. \\
}\end{verse}

  For an explanation of songs beginning `As I was a walking{\ldots}' see the
  annotation for p.~313/238 of \emph{Men at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 200/181\,] }}
 ``\,`This is love-in-a-canoe coffee if ever I tasted it.'\,''

  This refers to the punchline of the old joke (familiar from, for
  instance, a Monty Python sketch):

\begin{quote}{Q: What do American beer and making love in a canoe have in common?\\A: They're both fucking close to water. \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 200/182\,] }}
 ``\,`He's called Rex Vivat.'\,''

  \emph{Rex Vivat}, of course, means: ``long live the king''. This reminds me a
  bit of Robert Rankin, who named his lead character in \emph{They Came And Ate
  Us} Rex Mundi. Rex's sister has a role in the book too. Her name is
  Gloria.

  Now you may begin to understand why Rankin is so often discussed on
  {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}, and why there is so much overlap between his and
  Terry's audiences.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 236/214\,] }}
 ``\,`The Duke of Sto Helit is looking for a guard captain, I'm
  sure.'\,''

  The Duke of Sto Helit, in case anyone had forgotten, is none other than
  Mort.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 241/219\,] }}
 ``Someone out there was going to find out that their worst
  nightmare was a maddened Librarian. With a badge.''

  The movie \emph{48 Hrs}, starring Nick Nolte and Eddy Murphy, has a scene in
  which Eddy Murphy is in a bar full of rednecks, shouting ``I am your worst
  nightmare! A nigger with a badge!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 260/236\,] }}
 ``\,`If that dragon's got any voonerables, that arrow'll find
  `em.'\,''

  Killing dragons by shooting a magical arrow in a special location is a
  standard clich\'{e} of mythology and fantasy fiction. One of the best-known
  contemporary examples can be found in Tolkien's \emph{The Hobbit}, where Bard
  kills the dragon Smaug with a special black arrow.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 278/252\,] }}
 ``\,`All for one!' [{\ldots}] `All for one what?' said Nobby.''

  ``All for one and one for all'' was of course the motto of the Three
  Musketeers. A whole new generation has learned about this through the
  combined efforts of an uninspired Disney flick and a particularly
  nauseating song by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 282/256\,] }}
 ``Both dragons appeared to realise that the fight was the
  well-known Klatchian standoff.''

  Or Mexican standoff in our world, which is when two people have loaded,
  cocked guns pointed right at each other. If either shoots, they both die.
  This leaves them stuck, since if either just turns away, the other will
  immediately shoot him.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 284/257\,] }}
 The scene where Errol's supersonic boom smashes the dragon
  out of the air is possibly based on another Clint Eastwood movie, the
  1982 \emph{Firefox}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 289/262\,] }}
 ``\,`In 1135 a hen was arrested for crowing on Soul Cake
  Thursday.'\,''

  There are several historical examples in our world of animals being
  arrested, excommunicated or killed for various crimes. Articles in the
  October 1994 issue of \emph{Scientific American} and in \emph{The Book of Lists \#3}
  give several examples: a chimpanzee was convicted in Indiana in 1905 of
  smoking in public; 75 pigeons were executed in 1963 in Tripoli for
  ferrying stolen money across the Mediterranean; and in 1916, ``five-ton
  Mary'' the elephant killed her trainer and was subsequently sentenced to
  death by hanging --- a sentence that involved a 100-ton derrick and a
  steam shovel. But the law is fair, and sometimes the animals get the
  better of it: when in 1713 a Franciscan monastery brought the termites
  who had been infesting their buildings to trial, a Brazilian court ruled
  that termites had a valid prior claim to the land, and ordered the monks
  to give the termites their own plot.

  Note that Soul Cake Thursday in later Discworld novels becomes Soul Cake
  Tuesday, after previously having been Soul Cake Friday in \emph{The Dark Side
  of the Sun}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 313/284\,] }}
 ``\,`Sergeant Colon said he thought we'd get along like a
  \emph{maison en Flamb\'{e}}.'\,''

  Maison en Flamb\'{e} = house on fire.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 314/285\,] }}
 ``\,`Here's looking at you, kid,' he said.''

  Another quote from \emph{Casablanca}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Eric}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Eric}

  The subtitle to \emph{Eric} (`Faust', crossed out) already indicates what
  story is being parodied in this novella: that of the German alchemist and
  demonologist Johannes (or Georg) Faust who sold his soul to the devil.

  The most famous version of the Faust legend is perhaps the one told by
  Goethe in \emph{Faust}, with Cristopher Marlowe's earlier play \emph{The Tragical
  History of Dr Faustus} a close second.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/9\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] where the adventuresses Herrena the Henna-Haired
  Harridan, Red Scharron and Diome, Witch of the Night, were meeting for
  some girl talk [{\ldots}]''

  Herrena is the swordswoman from \emph{The Light Fantastic} who hunted
  Rincewind, and Red Scharron is the Discworld version of Red Sonja. I
  can't place Diome, though her name sounds horribly familiar. There was a
  minor Greek goddes called Dione, and a Greek warrior called Diomedes, but
  neither of those sounds appropriate.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 27/21\,] }}
 The book Eric uses to summon his demon has the title
  \emph{Mallificarum Sumpta Diabolicite Occularis Singularum}, or the Book of
  Ultimate Control. But note the initials.

  Also, the actual dog-Latin translates more or less to: ``Evil-making
  Driver of the Little One-Eyed Devil''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/31\,] }}
 ``In the centre of the inferno, rising majestically from a lake
  of lava substitute and with unparalleled view of the Eight Circles, lies
  the city of Pandemonium.''

  The name `Pandemonium' originates with Milton's \emph{Paradise Lost}; it's the
  city built by Lucifer and his followers after the Fall.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 46/41\,] }}
 The name of the Tezumen god, `Quetzovercoatl', puns on the
  actual Aztec god Quetzalc\'{o}atl.

  According to Aztec mythology, Quetzalc\'{o}atl was also supposed to return to
  his people at some particular future date.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/46\,] }}
 ``There are quite a lot of uses to which you can put a stone
  disc with a hole in the middle, and the Tezumen had explored all but one
  of them.''

  This may refer to the Aztecs (who the Tezumen are obviously modelled on
  anyway) who, according to popular legend did not know about the wheel
  either, but reputedly used small discs with holes in them for money, and
  who had a basketball-like game where the baskets were also stone discs
  with holes in them. The tale that the losers got sacrificed is probably
  untrue. But the winners were allowed to take the possession of any
  spectators they chose --- no one hung around after the game in those days.

  Other sources say that it was the \emph{winners} who got the privilege of
  being sacrificed. Oh well, whether it was losers, spectators, or winners
  --- at least \emph{somebody} got sacrificed.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 52/47\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a giant-sized statue of Quetzovercoatl, the Feathered
  Boa.''

  Quetzalc\'{o}atl the Aztec God was in fact portrayed as a winged serpent.
  This is almost, but not quite, the same as a feathered boa. A feather boa
  is of course also an item of women's clothing that became popular in the
  1920s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/51\,] }}
 Ponce da Quirm, looking for the Fountain of Youth, is based on
  Ponce de Leon, the 15th century Spanish nobleman who did the same.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 81/69\,] }}
 ``Fortunately, Rincewind was able to persuade the man that the
  future was another country.''

  Reference to the opening words of \emph{The Go-between}. See the annotation
  for p.~13/11 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 82/70\,] }}
 ``Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules, of Hector and
  Lysander and such great names as these.''

  This is actually the opening line to the march `The British Grenadiers',
  an English song dating back to the 17th century with about the same
  jingoism factor as `Rule Britannia' or `Land of Hope and Glory':

\begin{verse}\textit{Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules, \\Of Hector and Lysander, and such great men as these; \\But of all the world's brave heroes there's none that can compare \\With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadier. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 89/75\,] }}
 Lavaeolus is not only a dog-Latin translation of `Rincewind',
  but the character is also a parody of Ulysses, tragic hero of the Trojan
  wars. It's really not necessary to annotate all the stuff about wooden
  horses and such, right? Right?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/81\,] }}
 ``\,`It'll be fifteen choruses of `The Ball of Philodephus' next,
  you mark my words.'\,''

  Refers to an old and rather obscene British drinking song called `The
  Ball of Kerrymuir', which, according to Terry: ``[{\ldots}] belongs in the same
  category as `Colonel Bogey' --- everyone knows a line or two [sorry{\ldots}
  everyone male and in the UK, anyway]''.

  For a sample of the lyrics to this song, see the \emph{Song{\ldots}} section in
  Chapter~5 of this document.

  The song's title was changed into the slightly more convincing-sounding
  `The Ball of Philodelphus' in the small-format UK paperback of \emph{Eric}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 99/82\,] }}
 ``--- vestal virgins, Came down from
  Heliodeliphilodelphiboschromenos, And when the ball was over, There were
  ---''

  From one of the more printable verses of `The Ball of Kerrymuir' (see
  previous annotation):

\begin{verse}\textit{Four and twenty virgins \\Came down from Inverness, \\And when the ball was over \\There were four and twenty less \\
}\end{verse}

  One page later (p.~100/83) there is a final reference to the song: ``---
  the village harpy she was there ---''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 115/96\,] }}
 ``\,`Multiple choice they call it, it's like painting the ---
  painting the --- painting something very big that you have to keep on
  painting, sort of thing.'\,''

  The British proverb this refers to is ``it's like painting the Forth
  bridge''. The Forth bridge can be found spanning the Forth river (no
  kidding) between the towns of North Queensferry and South Queensferry,
  just outside Edinburgh, Scotland. It is so large that when they have
  finished painting it, it is time to start over again.

  In reality, I'm told, they simply look for bits of the Forth bridge
  that need painting and paint them. So it is true that they keep on
  painting, but they do it discretely, not continuously.

  (One correspondent reports that a similar story is told about Golden
  Gate bridge being in a perpetual state of corrosion control painting,
  and it would not surprise to find other very large man-made structures
  will have given rise to their own local versions of the proverb.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/97\,] }}
 ``\,`Centuries [{\ldots}]. Millenia. Iains.'\,''

  For some reason, Rincewind has problems with the word `aeons'. See p.~94/86 of \emph{Sourcery} for the first documented occurrence of this
  particular blind spot.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 121/100\,] }}
 ``Some ancient and probably fearful warning was edged over
  the crumbling arch, but it was destined to remain unread because over it
  someone had pasted a red-and-white notice which read: `You Don't Have To
  Be `Damned' To Work Here, But It Helps!!!'\,''

  The original notice (according to Dante, in the translation by Rev.\ Francis Cary) would have been the famous: ``Through me you pass into the
  city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the
  people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me
  was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before
  me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure.
  All hope abandon, ye who enter here.''

  The more obvious reference (included here only to stop the email from
  people who thought I missed it) is of course the cheesy legend ``You Don't
  Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 121/101\,] }}
 ``\,`Multiple exclamation marks [{\ldots}] are a sure sign of a
  diseased mind.''

  People like using this particular quip in Usenet conversations or in
  their {.signatures}, and every time somebody will follow-up with ``hey,
  you're wrong, that's a quote from \emph{Reaper Man}!''.

  The answer is of course simply that similar quotes occur in \emph{both} books
  (in \emph{Reaper Man} it's on p.~215/189, and goes: ``Five exclamation marks,
  the sure sign of an insane mind'').

  Since then, \emph{Maskerade} has been released, which of course takes the
  concept of the insanity-defining exclamation marks to a whole new level.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/101\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] I think it's quite possible that we're in Hell.'\,''

  The whole sequence in Hell is based loosely on Dante's \emph{Inferno} (which
  in turn is based on Vergil's \emph{Aeneid}) in much the same way the book as a
  whole is based on \emph{Faust}. Rincewind and Eric correspond to Vergil (who
  is Dante's guide to Hell) and Dante in the same way that they are
  Mephistopheles and Faust. The various references to the geographical
  topology build on how Dante organised Hell in nine concentric circles
  (this of course had to become eight circles for the Discworld version!).
  The outer circles contained lesser sinners, such as Julius Caesar and
  Socrates, while the inner circles were reserved for mortal sinners
  (mostly Dante's political enemies; some people down there weren't dead at
  the time of publication, but got a mention anyway). At the centre, in the
  9th circle, Lucifer sits chewing away on Brutus, Crassus and Judas. If
  you climb over him you get to Purgatory, meeting Cato the younger on the
  way.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 125/103\,] }}
 ``I mean, I heard where we're supposed to have all the \emph{best}
  tunes,''

  Refers to the old saying ``the devil has all the good tunes''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 131/107\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] his punishment was to be chained to that rock and
  every day an eagle would come down and peck his liver out. Bit of an old
  favourite, that one.'\,''

  Most people will associate this particular punishment with Prometheus
  (who stole the secret of fire from the Gods and gave it to mankind), but
  in fact Prometheus underwent his punishment chained to a rock in the
  Caucasus (from which Hercules later freed him). The chap who had to go
  through to the same thing in the Underworld was the giant Tityus, who had
  tried to rape Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo. As the demon says:
  this particular punishment is a bit of an old favourite with Zeus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 132/108\,] }}
 ``\,`Man who went and defied the gods or something. Got to keep
  pushing that rock up the hill even though it rolls back all the time---'\,''

  Eric is thinking of king Sisyphus of Corinth, who betrayed Zeus to the
  father of the girl Aegina, whom Zeus had abducted (the girl, not the
  father).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 135/110\,] }}
 ``\,`According to Ephebian mythology, there's a girl who comes
  down here every winter.'\,''

  In Greece she was called Persephone, daughter of Ceres, the goddess of
  agriculture. Hades abducted Persephone, imprisoned her in the underworld,
  and took her for his wife. Ceres went into mourning and there was a
  worldwide death of crops and famine. The gods negotiated a deal with
  Hades whereby he would release Persephone from the underworld, but only
  if she had eaten nothing while down there (she hadn't thus far, being too
  upset). Upon hearing of her impending release, Persephone's heart was
  gladdened, and before she could be stopped, she started eating a
  pomegranate. She spit it out, but it was found she had swallowed six
  pomegranate seeds. Hades therefore demanded that she should spend 6
  months out of each year in the underworld. During the 6 months that
  Persephone is down below, her mother, Ceres, neglects her duties and this
  causes the winter. Hence: ``\,`I think the story says she actually \emph{creates}
  the winter, sort of.' `I've known women like that,' said Rincewind,
  nodding wisely.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 136/110\,] }}
 ``\,`Or it helps if you've got a lyre, I think.'\,''

  A reference to the legend of Orpheus (see also the annotation for p.~93/93 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}), who charmed Hades and Persephone into
  releasing Eurydice by virtue of his lyre-playing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 153/124\,] }}
 ``Pour encouragy le --- poor encoura --- to make everyone sit
  up and damn well take notice.''

  ``Pour encourager les autres.'' See the annotation for p.~114/104 of
  \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}

\vspace{4ex}\section{Moving Pictures}\nopagebreak

This one has uncountable references to classic Hollywood movies and
anecdotes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Terry actually meant for Gaspode to die at the end of the book, but his
  editors/beta-readers made him reconsider.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
People have noticed that the two femmes fatale of this novel are called
  Ginger and Ruby, both names signifying a red colour. Terry Pratchett says
  that he did \emph{not} intend this as a reference to \emph{Gone with the Wind}'s
  Scarlett.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Instead, Ruby got her name because like all trolls she needed a mineral
  name. Ginger got her name because Terry wanted to use the Fred Astaire
  quote (see a few annotations further down) about her partner, and so
  Ginger was an obvious choice for the leading lady's name.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/7\,] }}
 ``This is space. It's sometimes called the final frontier.''

  See the annotation for p.~221/191 of \emph{The Colour of Magic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 15/12\,] }}
 ``\,`Looking,' it said [{\ldots}] `f'r a word. Tip of my tongue.'\,''

  The word is `Eureka'. See the annotation for p.~139/101 of \emph{Small Gods.}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 18/14\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought they were trying to cure the philosopher's stones,
  or somethin',' said the Archchancellor.''

  That should be: trying to \emph{find} the Philosopher's Stone: the quest of
  all alchemists is to discover a substance that will turn all base metals
  into gold.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/15\,] }}
 Archchancellor Ridcully's wizard name is `Ridcully the Brown'.

  In Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the Rings} there's a (relatively) minor wizard
  called `Radagast the Brown', who was also very well in tune with nature,
  and definitely of the
  ``roams-the-high-forest-with-every-beast-his-brother'' type. Talked to the
  birds, too.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 22/18\,] }}
 ``And then a voice said: `That's all, folks.'\,''

  Anybody out there who has never seen Porky Pig use this phrase to end one
  of those classic Looney Tunes animated cartoons?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 23/19\,] }}
 ``They often didn't notice them, or thought they were
  walruses.''

  Sometimes people send me annotations that are so beautifully outrageous
  that I simply \emph{have} to include them. For instance, the walruses may be
  connected to the boiling mercury mentioned earlier in the text, via the
  chain: boiling mercury $\rightarrow$ mad hatters $\rightarrow$ Lewis Carroll $\rightarrow$ walrus.

  Isn't it a beauty?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 34/28\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] what is the name of the outer-dimensional monster
  whose distinctive cry is ``Yerwhatyerwhatyerwhat''\,'?''

  I had been getting some conflicting stories concerning this annotation,
  so I hope that this time I have managed to get it right.

  Apparently ``Yer what?'' is a common London phrase, used when you didn't
  catch what someone said, or you want them to repeat it because you can't
  believe it.

  The longer form is more typically associated with soccer fans, as part of
  a chant, usually made in response to an opposing supporter army's war
  cries in an attempt to imply a certain lack of volume (and hence numbers)
  to the other side's support:

\begin{verse}\textit{Yerwhat (pause) \\Yerwhat (pause) \\Yerwhatyerwhatyerwhat. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 34/28\,] }}
 ``\,`Yob Soddoth,' said Ponder promptly.''

  Yob Soddoth should be pronounced: ``Yob sod off''. `Sod off' is a British
  form of `bugger off', and `yob' is an old term now almost entirely
  synonymous to the phrase ``English football supporter'' (apparently Mark
  Twain once said: ``they are not fit to be called boys, they should be
  called yobs''). The word probably derives from `back-chat' --- a 19th
  century London thieves' argot in which words were turned round in order
  to confuse police eavesdroppers. Not so far removed from Polari, in fact
  (see the \emph{Words From The Master} section in Chapter~5).

  At the same time it is also a pun on H.~P.~Lovecraft's `Yog-Sothoth', one
  of the chief supernatural nasties in the Cthulhu mythos (see especially
  the novelette \emph{The Dunwich Horror} and the novel \emph{The Lurker at the
  Threshold}).

  Finally, Ponder and Victor are studying the \emph{Necrotelicomnicom} in this
  scene. See the annotation for p.~111/109 of \emph{Equal Rites} for more
  information on the Lovecraft connection there.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 34/28\,] }}
 ``Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with A Million Young''

  Another one of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos nasties is `Shub-Niggurath',
  The Goat with a Thousand Young. (`The Black Goat of the Woods with a
  Thousand Young' is the full, but less common, title).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35/29\,] }}
 Victor Tugelbend's university career, with his uncle's will
  and all that, shows parallels to similar situations described in Roger
  Zelazny's (highly recommended) science fiction novel \emph{Doorways in the
  Sand}, and in Richard Gordon's `Doctor' series of medical comedy
  books/movies (\emph{Doctor in the House}, \emph{Doctor in Love}, \emph{Doctor at Sea},
  etc.)

  I had noticed the Zelazny parallel when I first read \emph{Moving Pictures},
  but thought the reference was too unlikely and too obscure to warrant
  inclusion. Since then \emph{two} other people have pointed it out to me{\ldots}

  Terry later remarked, in response to someone mentioning the \emph{Doctor in
  the House} movie on the net: ``I remember that film --- the student in
  question was played by Kenneth More. All he had to do, though, was fail
  --- the people who drew up the will involving Victor thought they were
  cleverer than that. Maybe they'd seen the film{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 41/34\,] }}
 Movie producer Thomas Silverfish is directly modelled on movie
  mogul Samuel Goldwyn, whose real name was Samuel Gelbfisch, and who spent
  a short time as Samuel Goldfish before changing his name a second time to
  Goldwyn.

  Goldwyn was responsible for a whole sequence of malapropisms known
  collectively as Goldwynisms, some of which are so well known now as to
  have passed into the common parlance. A number of Goldwyn quips are
  repeated (in one form or another) by Silverfish throughout the book
  (``you'll never work in this town again'', ``include me out'', ``a verbal
  contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on'', etc.).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/41\,] }}
 ``No-one would have believed, in the final years of the Century
  of the Fruitbat, that Discworld affairs were being watched keenly and
  impatiently by intelligences greater than Man's, or at least much
  nastier; that their affairs were being scrutinised and studied as a man
  with a three-day appetite might study the All-You-Can-Gobble-For-A-Dollar
  menu outside Harga's House of Ribs{\ldots}''

  This paragraph is a word-by-word parody of H.~G.~Wells' \emph{War of the
  Worlds}, which begins with:

  ``No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century
  that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences
  greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied
  themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and
  studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might
  scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of
  water.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 56/47\,] }}
 ``\,`Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little.'\,''

  Refers to the quip: ``Can't act. Can't sing. Can dance a little.'', made
  about Fred Astaire, reputedly by a studio-executive at RKO after
  Astaire's first screen test.

  When somebody once asked Astaire's producer about the story, however, he
  was told that it was complete and obvious nonsense, since Fred Astaire
  already was a established major Broadway star at the time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/48\,] }}
 ``\,`This is Gaffer Bird,' beamed Silverfish.''

  `Gaffer' not only means `old man', but a gaffer is also the head
  electrician in a film production unit, charged principally with taking
  care of the lighting. Gaffer's tape is a less sticky form of duct tape,
  used universally in the theatre, concert and movie worlds to keep people
  from stumbling over cables.

  If you enjoy annoying people, go over to the Kate Bush newsgroup
  {\smaller \texttt{rec.music.gaffa}}, and ask there if her song `Suspended in Gaffa' refers to
  Gaffer's tape or not.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 73/61\,] }}
 ``\,`Or Rock. Rock's a nice name.'\,''

  Presumably in reference to late actor Rock Hudson, with `Flint' punning
  on Errol Flynn.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 75/62\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Victor fights the dreaded Balgrog''.

  In Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the Rings} you can find a very nasty monster
  called a Balrog.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 81/67\,] }}
 Ginger's real name is Theda Withel, which might be a very
  oblique reference to Theda Bara, famous movie star of the 1910s, a kind
  of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, avant la lettre (`Theda Bara' is an
  anagram of `Arab Death'!). Her portrayal of evil women in movies like
  \emph{When a Woman Sins} and \emph{The She Devil} caused the current meaning of the
  word `vamp' to be added to the English language.

  Just as Dibbler later describes Ginger to Bezam Planter as ``the daughter
  of a Klatchian pirate and his wild, headstrong captive'', so does a studio
  biography describe Theda Bara as born in the Sahara to a French artiste
  and his Egyptian concubine. But in fact, Theda's father was a Cincinnati
  tailor.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 82/69\,] }}
 The resograph built by Riktor the Tinkerer.

  Terry says: ``The reality meter in Moving Pictures is loosely based on a
  Han dynasty (2nd Century AD) seismograph; a pendulum inside the vase
  moves and causes one of eight dragons to spit a ball in the direction of
  the tremor.''

  Also, the name `Riktor' refers to our `Richter', of the earthquake scale
  fame.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 86/71\,] }}
 ``And perhaps even a few elves, the most elusive of Discworld
  races.''

  Some people were wondering if this doesn't contradict the information we
  get about Elves later, in \emph{Lords and Ladies}, such as that they can only
  enter our World during Circle Time --- besides, Elves would hardly be the
  type of beings to become actors, one should think.

  The answer can be found in \emph{Lords and Ladies} as well, however, on p.~229/165:

\begin{quote}{Ridcully: ``Elves? Everyone knows elves don't exist any more. Not proper elves. I mean, there's a few folk who say they're elves ---''\\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{Granny Weatherwax: ``Oh, yeah. Elvish ancestry. Elves and humans breed all right, as if that's anything to be proud of. But you just get         a race o' skinny types with pointy ears and a tendency to giggle         and burn easily in sunshine. I ain't talking about them. There's         no harm in them. I'm talking about real wild elves, what we ain't         seen here for ---''\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/73\,] }}
 ``\,`We just call it the `Hiho' song. That's all it was.
  Hihohiho. Hihohiho.'\,''

  The best-known song in Walt Disney's 1937 full length animation movie
  \emph{Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs} is sung by the seven dwarfs and starts:

\begin{verse}\textit{Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho \\It's off to work we go \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 76\,] }}
 ``They were the only witnesses to the manic figure which
  splashed down the dripping street, pirouetted through the puddles,
  [{\ldots}]''

  As Nobby's subsequent comment (``Singing in the rain like that.'')
  already indicates, Holy Wood magic is making Dibbler reenact one of
  the ost famous movie scenes of all time: Gene Kelly dancing and
  singing through the deserted city streets in \emph{Singin' in the Rain}.
  The `DUMdi-dum-dum, dumdi-dumdi-DUM-DUM' rhythm also fits the song
  exactly.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/80\,] }}
 \emph{The Boke Of The Film}

  Traditional (if somewhat archaic by now) subtitle for movie
  novelisations. The related phrase ``The Book of the Series'' is still alive
  and well, mostly in the context of documentaries.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/80\,] }}
 ``This is the Chroncal of the Keeprs of the ParaMountain [{\ldots}]''

  Another fleeting reference to the movie company Paramount.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 101/84\,] }}
 ``\,`And my daughter Calliope plays the organ really nice,
  [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Calliope is not only the name of the Muse of Epic Poetry, but a calliope
  is also a large, organ-like musical instrument consisting of whistles
  operated by steam. There exists a very funny Donald Duck story, called
  `Land of the Totem Poles' (written by the one and only Carl Barks), in
  which Donald somehow manages to become a travelling calliope salesman.
  Highly recommended.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/86\,] }}
 ``The sharp runes spelled out \emph{The Blue Lias}. It was a troll
  bar.''

  `Lias' is a blue limestone rock found in the south-west of England.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 105/87\,] }}
 ``\,`Cos he was her troll and he done her wrong.'\,''

  Ruby's song `Amber and Jasper' is the Discworld version of the folk song
  `Frankie and Johnny':

\begin{verse}\textit{Frankie and Johnny were lovers, \\Oh, Lordie how they could love! \\They swore to be true to each other, \\Just as true as the stars above, \\He was her man, but he done her wrong. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 111/93\,] }}
 Ruby's song: ``Vunce again I am fallink in luf / Vy iss it I
  now am a blue colour? / Vot is the action I should take this time / I
  can't help it. Hiya, big boy.''

  In the 1930 movie \emph{Blue Angel} Marlene Dietrich plays Lola-Lola, the
  cabaret entertainer who ruins the life of the stuffy professor who falls
  in love with her. In the movie, Marlene performs a song called `Falling
  in Love':

\begin{verse}\textit{Falling in love again \\Why am I so blue? \\What am I to do? \\I can't help it. \\
}\end{verse}

  Marlene Dietrich sang this with her characteristic German accent, hence
  the ``fallink'' and ``vy'' in the parody.

  The line ``Hiya, big boy'' is typically associated with Mae West, though I
  have not been able to find out if it was ever used in any specific movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 115/95\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Victor couldn't understand a word.''

  The duck's incomprehensibility brings to mind the animated incarnation of
  Donald Duck. In fact, all of the Holy Wood animals have begun to act a
  bit like famous cartoon animals; for instance the cat and the mouse
  acting out a Tom \& Jerry scene (although the speech impediment of the cat
  is more reminiscent of Sylvester).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 115/95\,] }}
 ``\,`What's up, Duck?' said the rabbit.''

  One of Bugs Bunny's catch phrases: ``What's up, doc?''. (There is in fact a
  cartoon where Bugs actually says ``What's up, duck?'' to Daffy Duck{\ldots})

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 147/123\,] }}
 ``\,`Rev Counter for Use in Ecclesiastical Areas'\,''

  `Rev' is short for both `Reverend' and for `revolutions'. On the one hand
  it stands to reason that in Ecclesiastical areas you'll find lots of
  clergymen, which you may want to count. On the other hand the Biblical
  book of Ecclesiastes contains the words used by the Byrds in their song
  `Turn! Turn! Turn!', so perhaps Riktor's counter was indeed intended to
  count actual revolutions after all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 149/124\,] }}
 ``\,`Go, Sow, Thank You Doe.'\,''

  The usual slang for a one-night stand or a quickie at the local brothel
  is ``Wham, Bam, thank you, Ma'am.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 151/126\,] }}
 ``\,`A rock on the head may be quite sentimental, [{\ldots}], but
  diamonds are a girl's best friend.'\,''

  In the 1949 movie \emph{Gentlemen Prefer Blondes}, Marilyn Monroe sings:

\begin{verse}\textit{A kiss on the hand may be quite continental \\But diamonds are a girl's best friend \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/129\,] }}
 ``\,`What's it called?' `Laddie,' said the handler.''

  Laddie is the Discworld counterpart to our world's famous movie collie,
  Lassie.

  In the movie \emph{Son of Lassie} the protagonist was in fact called Laddie,
  but was played by Pal, the dog who had previously played Lassie in the
  original movie \emph{Lassie Come Home}. Interestingly enough, Pal had a
  real-life son who \emph{was} called Laddie, but this Laddie was only used for
  stunt and distance shots since he wasn't as pretty as his brother, who
  eventually got to play Lassie in the CBS TV show, and who was the only
  dog ever in the role to actually be called Lassie, or rather, Lassie Jr.

  Lassie was always played by a male dog, mainly because a bitch tends to
  go into heat, during which time she becomes unphotogenic because of
  severe shedding. It also gets bothersome to have to deal with the
  constant disruptions on the set caused by various male dogs in the area
  wanting to, um, propose to her.

  Finally, two odd little coincidences. First, the \emph{Lassie} dogs often had
  small dogs as companions. Second, Pal/Lassie's trainer was a man by the
  name of Rudd Weatherwax{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 158/132\,] }}
 Film studio names.

  Untied Alchemists is United Artists. Fir Wood Studios is Pinewood
  Studios. Microlithic Pictures is Paramount (tiny rock vs.\  big mountain),
  and Century Of The Fruitbat is Twentieth Century Fox. Terry says: ``I've
  already gone electronically hoarse explaining that Floating Bladder
  Productions was just picked out of the air [{\ldots}]''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/132\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] we're doing one about going to see a wizard.
  Something about following a yellow sick toad,' [{\ldots}]''

  That's a yellow brick road, and the reference is of course to \emph{The Wizard
  of Oz}.

  Terry's pun also reminded a correspondent of an old joke about an Oz frog
  with a bright yellow penis who hops up to a man and says: ``I'm looking
  for the wizard to help me with my `problem'.'' The man answers: ``No
  problem, just follow this road until you get to the emerald city.'' The
  frog thanks him and hops off along the road. Shortly afterwards, Dorothy
  and Toto come along and she also asks the man where she can find the
  wizard, and then he says: ``Just follow the yellow dick toad''.

  Well, \emph{I} thought it was funny.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 165/137\,] }}
 ``It was about a young ape who is abandoned in the big city
  and grows up being able to speak the language of humans.''

  The Librarian's script is of course a reversal of Edgar Rice Burroughs'
  \emph{Tarzan} story. Since Tarzan is supposed to be one of those five or so
  cultural icons that are so truly universal that \emph{everybody} in the world
  is familiar with them, I expect this may well turn out to be the {\smaller APF}'s
  Most Unnecessary Annotation of all{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 172/143\,] }}
 ``\,`It sounded like `I want to be a lawn', I thought?'\,''

  Ginger echoes movie star Greta Garbo's famous quote: ``I want to be
  alone''.

  Garbo later claimed, by the way, that what she had actually said at the
  time was ``I want to be \emph{let} alone'', which is of course not quite the
  same thing at all{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 174/145\,] }}
 The \emph{Necrotelicomnicom}.

  On the Discworld the \emph{Necrotelicomnicom} (see also the entry for p.~111/109 of \emph{Equal Rites}) was written by the Klatchian necromancer Achmed
  the Mad (although he preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These
  Headaches). In real life, horror author H.~P.~Lovecraft assures us that
  the \emph{Necronomicon} was written by the mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 178/148\,] }}
 ``\,`It's fifteen hundred miles to Ankh-Morpork,' he said.
  `We've got three hundred and sixty elephants, fifty carts of forage, the
  monsoon's about to break and we're wearing{\ldots} we're wearing{\ldots} sort of
  things, like glass, only dark{\ldots} dark glass things on our eyes{\ldots}'\,''

  Paraphrases a well-known quote from the \emph{Blues Brothers} movie, fifteen
  minutes before the end, just as the famous chase scene is about to begin
  and Jake and Elwood are sitting in their car:

\begin{quote}{Elwood: ``It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're               wearing sunglasses''\\Jake: ``Hit it.'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 197/164\,] }}
 ``\,`In a word --- im-possible!' `That's two words,' said
  Dibbler.''

  Another Goldwynism: ``I can tell you in two words: im-possible.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 206/171\,] }}
 ``\,`If you cut me, do I not bleed?'\,'' said Rock.

  Paraphrased from Shylock's famous monologue in Shakespeare's \emph{The
  Merchant of Venice}, act~3, scene~1: ``If you prick us, do we not bleed?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 221/184\,] }}
 ``\,`Just one picture had all that effect?'\,''

  Dibbler and Gaffer don't put a name to it, but they are discussing the
  theory of subliminal messages here. It's one of those theories that
  somehow manages to sound so `right' you just \emph{want} it to be true.
  Studies have been done, however, but none has ever shown tricks like
  subliminal advertising to actually have any measurable effect on an
  audience.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 223/186\,] }}
 ``\,`It always starts off with this mountain ---'\,''

  Ginger's dream describes the characteristic `logo' scenes of all the
  major movie companies. The mountain is from Paramount (``there are stars
  around it''), and after that we get Columbia (``a woman holding a torch
  over her head''), 20th Century Fox (``a lot of lights''), and MGM (``this
  roar, like a lion or tiger'').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 229/191\,] }}
 ``\,`And Howondaland Smith, Balgrog Hunter, practic'ly eats the
  dark for his tea,' said Gaspode.''

  Smith's name is derived from Indiana Jones, and for the explanation about
  `Balgrog' see the annotation for p.~75/62.

  `Howondaland' also brings to mind Gondwanaland, a name for the southern
  continents mashed together by continental drift.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 245/204\,] }}
 ``\,`You find nice place to indulge in bit of `What is the
  health of your parent?' [{\ldots}]'\,''

  ``How's your father'' is a British euphemism for ``sexual intercourse'', made
  popular by the \emph{Carry On} series of films.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 282/235\,] }}
 ``Twopence more and up goes the donkey!''

  Terry explains: ``[{\ldots}] In \emph{Moving Pictures} and \emph{Reaper Man} a lot of use
  is indeed made of, god help me, Victorian street sayings that were the
  equivalent of `sez you'. ``Tuppence more and up goes the donkey'', a
  favourite saying of Windle Poons, comes from the parties of strolling
  acrobats who'd carry their props on a donkey. They'd make a human pyramid
  and collectors would go around with the hat declaring that ``tuppence more
  and up goes the donkey'' as well. But the donkey never got elevated
  because, of course, the collectors always needed ``tuppence more''.''

  ``It belongs in the same general category of promise as `Free Beer
  Tomorrow'.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 297/249\,] }}
 The climactic scene of the novel is not only a \emph{King Kong}
  reversal spoof. Terry says the 50 ft.\  woman also refers to the
  protagonist from the 1958 movie \emph{Attack of the 50 Ft.\  Woman} (recently
  and redundantly remade with Daryl Hannah in the title role --- if there's
  one movie that did not need to be remade it was this one, trust me).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 304/254\,] }}
 ``\,`If it bleeds, we can kill it!'\,''

  This line is from the 1987 movie \emph{Predator}, starring Arnold
  Schwarzenegger. `It' in this case was a green-blooded, invisible alien
  hunter.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 305/255\,] }}
 ``Y{\smaller{OU BELONG DEAD}}, he said.''

  This is based on Boris Karloff's final words in the 1935 movie \emph{Bride of
  Frankenstein}: ``We belong dead''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 305/255\,] }}
 ``\,`Careful,' said the Dean. `That is not dead which can
  eternal lie.'\,''

  This is from a famous H.~P.~Lovecraft quote (which was also used by metal
  groups Iron Maiden (on the \emph{Live After Death} album cover) and Metallica
  (in the song `The Thing That Should Not Be')):

\begin{verse}\textit{That is not dead which can eternal lie \\And with strange aeons even death may die \\
}\end{verse}

  It is supposed to be a quote from Abdul al-Hazred's \emph{Necronomicon} (see
  annotation for p.~174/145), and Lovecraft uses the verse in several
  stories, particularly in \emph{The Call of Cthulhu} and \emph{The Nameless City}.

  In reality, I'm told the quote originated with the Victorian decadent
  poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, but I have no definite reference on
  this.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 306/256\,] }}
 ``\,`'Twas beauty killed the beast,' said the Dean, who liked
  to say things like that.''

  Last line of \emph{King Kong}, said under similar circumstances.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 310/259\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] everyone has this way of remembering even things that
  happened to their ancestors, I mean, it's like there's this great big
  pool of memory and we're linked up to it [{\ldots}]''

  This is Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 312/261\,] }}
 ``\,`A fine mess you got me into.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~73/65 of \emph{The Colour of Magic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 319/266\,] }}
 Detritus hitting the gong in the underground theatre refers
  to the Rank Organisation's man-with-the-gong trademark, which Rank used
  at the start of each film just as Columbia used the Statue of Liberty and
  MGM the roaring lion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 323/270\,] }}
 ``\,`Play it again, Sham,' said Holy Wood.''

  The most famous line never uttered in \emph{Casablanca}: ``Play it again, Sam.''
  It should perhaps be pointed out that Sham Harga is a character we
  already met in \emph{Mort}. Terry did \emph{not} just create him in order to be
  able to make this pun.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 324/271\,] }}
 ``\,`And that includes you, Dozy!'\,''

  One of the dwarfs in Disney's \emph{Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs} was
  called Sleepy, another was called Dopey.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 327/274\,] }}
 ``\,`Cheer up,' she said. `Tomorrow is another day.'\,''

  The final line of \emph{Gone with the Wind}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 329/276\,] }}
 ``\,`Uselessium, more like,' murmured Silverfish.''

  The paragraph where this quote occurs of course describes how Silverfish
  discovers the Discworld equivalent of Uranium. In this light, it may be
  interesting to recall that before he became a full-time writer Terry
  Pratchett worked as press officer for nuclear power stations.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
As far as the giant statue is concerned (and the running gag about it
  reminding everyone of their uncle Oswald or Osric etc.): the nickname
  `Oscar' for the Academy Awards statuette apparently originated with the
  Academy Librarian (oook!), who remarked that the statue looked like her
  uncle Oscar. The nickname first appeared in print in a 1934 column by
  Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, and quickly became a household word.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Reaper Man}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Reaper Man}

  The title \emph{Reaper Man} parodies Alex Cox's 1984 cult movie \emph{Repo Man}.

  More accurately, \emph{Repo Man} itself is a pun on `reaper man', a very
  ancient name for Death (compare also e.g.\  `the grim reaper'). But
  apparently Terry has said elsewhere (i.e.\  not on the net), that his
  `Reaper Man' was indeed meant as a pun on the movie-title (much to the
  chagrin of his publishers, who would have probably preferred it if he had
  called it \emph{Mort II}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
The `Bill Door' sections of this novel have many parallels with classic
  Westerns, e.g.\  \emph{High Plains Drifter}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
If you liked the idea of the trolley life-form, you may also want to
  check out a short story by Avram Davidson called \emph{Or All The Sea With
  Oysters}. It's all about the life cycle of bicycles and their larval
  stages: paperclips and coat hangers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/7\,] }}
 ``It is danced under blue skies to celebrate the quickening of
  the soil{\ldots}''

  Whatever the original idea behind Morris dancing was, it long ago indeed
  became associated with Spring (``As fit as [{\ldots}] a morris for May Day'' ---
  Shakespeare), and nowadays many Morris teams begin their dancing season
  with a May Day performance. See the \emph{{\ldots}and Dance} section of Chapter~5
  for more on Morris dancing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/7\,] }}
 ``It is danced innocently by raggedy-bearded young mathematicians
  [{\ldots}]''

  The Morris used to be a peasants' dance, but these days Morris dancers
  often are, for some reason, scientists, mathematicians, or (ook!)
  librarians.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/9\,] }}
 Azrael is not a reference to Gargamel's cat in the Smurf
  cartoons. Rather, both Azraels are references to the Islamic Angel of
  Death, supposedly the very last creature to die, ever.

  In the actual legend, Azrael is bound in chains thousands of miles long,
  and possesses millions of eyes: one for every person that has ever lived
  or will ever live. When a person dies, the eye in question closes
  forever, and when Azrael goes blind it will be the end of the human race.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/14\,] }}
 ``The front gates of Nos 31, 7 and 34 Elm Street, Ankh
  Morpork.''

  Minor inconsistency: we are told the conversation between the pines lasts
  seventeen years, so when the old one finally gets chopped down, its age
  should have been 31751 years, not still 31734.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 15/16\,] }}
 ``The pendulum is a blade that would have made Edgar Allan Poe
  give it all up and start again as a stand-up comedian [{\ldots}]''

  Refers to Poe's famous story \emph{The Pit and the Pendulum} in which a victim
  of the inquisition is tied up beneath a giant descending, sweeping,
  razor-sharp pendulum.

  If you have access to the Internet, you can find an online version of
  this story at the URL:

  \url{ftp://ftp.uu.net/doc/literary/obi/Edgar.Allan.Poe/The.Pit.And.The.Pendulum.Z}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 25/24\,] }}
 ``\,`What I could do with right now is one of Mr Dibbler's famous
  meat pies ---' And then he died.''

  The attributed last words of William Pitt the younger were: ``I think I
  could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 25\,] }}
 ``There was no shape, no sound. It was void, without form. The
  spirit of Windle Poons moved on the face of the darkness.''

  An allusion to the Biblical creation of the universe as described in
  Genesis 1:2: ``And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
  was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the
  face of the waters.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/30\,] }}
 ``\,`Did you see his eyes? Like gimlets!' [{\ldots}] `You mean like
  that Dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street?'\,''

  A Gimlet Eye is a piercing stare or squint. See also the annotation for
  p.~35/27 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 32/30\,] }}
 ``\,`Anyway, you can't trust those voodoo gods. Never trust a god
  who grins all the time and wears a top hat, that's my motto.'\,''

  This god is Baron Samedi (or Saturday), the most important (and
  best-known) voodoo god or loa. He is the God of the Dead, and is
  traditionally associated with cross-roads.

  For more information about Baron Samedi you should, of course, read
  \emph{Witches Abroad} (see also the annotation for p.~179/157 of that book).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 37/35\,] }}
 ``\,`Yes, but they drink blood,' said the Senior Wrangler.''

  I suppose most people will know that a wrangler is somebody who rounds up
  cattle or horses, but it may be less common knowledge that a `Senior
  Wrangler' is in fact the title given to the top 12 maths graduates at
  Cambridge University. In maths, those who get firsts are called
  Wranglers, seconds are senior optimes, and thirds are junior optimes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/53\,] }}
 ``\,`Celery,' said the Bursar.''

  A few correspondents thought that the Bursar's particular choice of
  vegetable might have been motivated by an old episode of the \emph{Goon Show},
  where a sketch goes in part:

\begin{quote}{Sheriff of Nottingham: ``What? Tie him to a stake?'' \\Bluebottle: ``No, do not tie me to a stake'' (pause) ``I'm a vegetarian!'' \\Prince John: ``Then tie him to a stick of celery.'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 60/55\,] }}
 The address of the Fresh Start Club: \emph{668 Elm Street}.

  Connects a reference to the \emph{Nightmare on Elm Street} series of horror
  movies with the tentative title for a \emph{Good Omens} sequel: \emph{668 --- The
  Neighbour of the Beast} (see the \emph{Good Omens} annotation on that
  subject).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 66/60\,] }}
 Ridcully's uncle disappeared under mysterious circumstances
  after eating a charcoal biscuit on top of a meal spiced up by half a pint
  of Wow-Wow Sauce.

  The circumstances may become less mysterious once you realise that
  charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre are the basic ingredients of gunpowder.

  Also, there actually exists a condiment called Wow-Wow Sauce, which was
  popular during the 1800s. More information can be found in the \emph{Discworld
  Companion}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 72/65\,] }}
 ``Many songs have been written about the bustling metropolis,
  [{\ldots}]''

  Ok, let's see.

  `Ankh-Morpork! Ankh-Morpork! So good they named it Ankh-Morpork!' comes
  from `New York, New York' (see also the annotation for p.~142/130 of
  \emph{Johnny and the Dead}), `Carry Me Away From Old Ankh-Morpork' is `Carry
  Me Back To Old Virginia', and `Ankh-Morpork Malady' may be `Broadway
  melody'.

  `I Fear I'm Going Back to Ankh-Morpork' has not been traced to a
  particular song title, but general opinion holds that it is a spoof of
  the Bee Gees song `Massachussets', which starts out ``Feel I'm goin' back
  to Massachussetts''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/69\,] }}
 ``\,`Did it take long to get it looking like that?' `About five
  hundred years, I think.'\,''

  Or, as Terry explains more poignantly in a \emph{Sourcery} footnote (on p.~21/22): ``You mows it and you rolls it for five hundred years and then a
  bunch of bastards walks across it.''

  A few people thought these might have been references to a scene in one
  of the Asterix comics, but this is another case of two authors both using
  the same, older source.

  As Terry explains: ``The lawns line was I believe a comment made by a
  University gardener to an American tourist years and years ago; it turns
  up from time to time.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 77/69\,] }}
 ``\,`Isn't that one off Treacle Mine Road?'\,''

  And on p.~176/155 we learn that One-Man-Bucket was run over by a cart on
  Treacle Street. Treacle is another word for molasses, and most people
  will be familiar with the concept of ``a hole in the ground from which you
  get molasses'' through \emph{Alice in Wonderland}'s Mad Tea Party.

  Terry jokes: ``Treacle mining is a lost British tradition. There used to
  be treacle mines in Bisham (near Marlow, on the Thames) and in several
  northern towns, I believe. But the natural treacle was too sharp and
  coarse for modern tastes and the industry was finally killed off by the
  bulk import of cheap white sugar in the last century.''

  ``I know the Bisham treacle was very crudely melted into moulds and sold
  in slabs. Shops used to smash the slabs up and sell the solid treacle as
  sweets. It's quite a different stuff to the crude `golden syrup' treacle
  still occasionally sold.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 80/72\,] }}
 ``\,`A couple of'em had a bit of a tiff or something? Messing
  around with golden apples or something?'\,''

  In Greek mythology it was a golden apple that indirectly led to the
  Trojan war and to the accompanying complete division of the divine
  pantheon into two opposing camps.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/79\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] honorary vestigial virgining [..]''

  Pun on the Vestal virgins (priestesses of the goddess Vesta) in ancient
  Rome. `Vestigial' of course means ``remaining or surviving in a degenerate
  or imperfect condition or form''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/87\,] }}
 ``Who is he going to call! \emph{We're} the wizards around here.''

  A reference to the catchphrase ``Who ya gonna call?!'' from the movie
  \emph{Ghostbusters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 98/88\,] }}
 ``Mr so-called Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents!'\,''

  Send-up of the folk-story \emph{The Pied Piper of Hamelin}.

  If you have access to the Internet, you can find an online version of
  this fairy tale at the URL:

  \url{ftp://ftp.uu.net/doc/literary/obi/Fairy.Tales/Grimm/pied.piper.of.hamelin.txt.Z}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 100/89\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] it puts a bloody RSVP on it!' `Oh Good. I like
  sherry,' said the Bursar.''

  VSOP is a type of brandy, not sherry. RSVP, of course, stands for
  ``Respondez s'il vous plait'' --- i.e.\  please reply [to this invitation].

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 105/94\,] }}
 ``\,`Don't stand in the doorway, friend. Don't block up the
  hall.'\,''

  This is an almost verbatim line from Bob Dylan's `The Times They Are A
  Changin'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 105/94\,] }}
 ``Or sporting a Glad To Be Grey badge''

  `Glad To Be Gay' was the well-known slogan of the Gay Liberation
  movement, a decade or so ago (as well as the title of an excellent Tom
  Robinson song). In the late 80s, `Glad To Be Grey' badges were actually
  commercially available.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 106/95\,] }}
 The names of the Fresh Start Club members.

  Count Notfaroutoe refers to Count Nosferatu, the vampire from Friedrich
  Murnau's classic 1922 movie \emph{Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens}
  (remade in 1979 by Werner Herzog, starring Klaus Kinski). `Lupus' is
  Latin for wolf, so `Lupine' means `wolfish', similar to e.g.\  `feline'.
  Finally, there exists a mineral called ixiolite. Note, by the way, that
  banshees are traditionally supposed to be female creatures.

  When someone on a.f.p.\ asked if Reg Shoe was based on Reg, the leader of
  the Judean Peoples' Front in Monty Python's \emph{Life of Brian}, Terry
  answered:

  ``No. Not consciously, anyway.

  As with other `real world' Discworld names, like Susan, Victor, Albert,
  etc, I picked the name because of{\ldots} er{\ldots} associational harmonics.
  Albert is an `old' name. Reg is a good working class name and has a
  post-war feel to it. It's hard to explain it further, but all popular
  names carry a burden of associations. The best examples in the last
  decade have been Sharon and Tracy; whatever the \emph{truth}, the perception
  is that these are working-class, Essex bimbo names, although twenty or
  thirty years ago they'd have been considered glamorous (which is why, the
  myth runs, the kids got given them). Any Brit would probably associate a
  type or age with names like, say, Victoria, Emma, Kylie, Sid, Wayne and
  Darron. Reg is a good name for a dependable guy, the sort who runs the
  skittles league (I know this, `cos my Uncle Reg did{\ldots})''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 108/97\,] }}
 ``Every full moon I turn into a wolfman. The rest of the time
  I'm just a {\ldots} wolf.''

  This interesting twist on the age-old werewolf idea has been thought of
  and used by others a few times before. I'd particularly recommend `What
  Good is a Glass Dagger', an excellent short story by Larry Niven. (I
  realise that merely by mentioning it here I may have spoilt it for you,
  but I think the story is still very enjoyable, regardless).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 113/100\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] songs like `The Streets of Ankh-Morpork' [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Refers to the classic Ralph McTell song `The Streets of London'. An
  impressive set of lyrics for `The Streets of Ankh-Morpork' can be found
  on the Pratchett Archives.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 135/120\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ EXPECT}}, he said, T{\smaller{HAT YOU COULD MURDER A PIECE OF
  CHEESE?}}''

  Echoes p.~24/21 of \emph{Mort}, where Death says to Mort: ``I{\smaller{ DON'T KNOW ABOUT
  YOU, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY}}''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 146/129\,] }}
 ``L{\smaller{AST YEAR SOMEONE GOT THREE STREETS AND ALL THE UTILITIES.}}''

  The game `Exclusive Possessions' is of course the Discworld equivalent of
  Monopoly.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 131\,] }}
 ``When he turned the blade, it made a noise like \emph{whommmm}.
  The fires of the forge were barely alive now, but the blade glowed
  with razor light.''

  This description evokes images of the light sabers in the \emph{Star Wars}
  movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 149/132\,] }}
 ``On the fabled hidden continent of Xxxx, somewhere near the
  rim, there is a lost colony of wizards who wear corks around their pointy
  hats and live on nothing but prawns.''

  The continent referred to in this quote is Australia (which means that we
  are talking here about the Wizards of Oz, right?), where there exists a
  brand of beer called `XXXX' (pronounced `Four Ex'), produced by the
  Castlemaine Tooheys brewery. A New Zealand correspondent tells me that
  the reason the beer is called `XXXX' is that if it had been called `BEER'
  the Australians wouldn't have been able to spell it. Ahem.

  (The actual origin of the name `XXXX' lies in the number of marks used by
  Castlemaine to indicate alcoholic strength. Most European beers today are
  of 4X strength, with some being 3X or even 5X.)

  The corks around the pointy hats refer to the supposedly traditional
  headwear of Australian Swagmen: Akubra hats with pieces of cork dangling
  on strings around the wide rim in order to keep the flies off the
  wearer's face. Needless to say, you can live a lifetime in Australia and
  never get to actually see somebody who looks like this. Monty Python's
  `Philosophers' sketch is a good send-up of the stereotype.

  Since then, the stereotype has been reinforced by a series of Australian
  Tourism Commission ads promoting Australia in America and Britain on
  1980s television, which featured Paul `Crocodile Dundee' Hogan saying
  something along the lines of: ``Come on down here, and we'll throw another
  shrimp on the barbie for you'' (`barbie' = barbecue).

  At the risk of boring you all to death with this, I must admit that I am
  curious as to the exact wording of that Hogan ad. I have received
  extraordinary amounts of mail about this annotation, and so far there
  have been seven different phrases mentioned, namely:

\begin{quote}{--- toss another shrimp on the barbie for you \\--- throw another shrimp on the barbie \\--- chuck another prawn on the barbie \\--- slap a prawn on the barbie for you \\--- shove a couple more prawns on the barbie \\--- pop another prawn on the barbie for you \\--- put another prawn on the barbie for you \\
}\end{quote}

  So, can anybody tell me (a) whether the ad said `shrimp' or `prawn', (b)
  whether the ``for you'' was actually part of the sentence or not, and (c)
  whether these poor animals were in fact tossed, thrown, chucked, slapped,
  shoved, popped, or simply put on the barbie?

  Finally, an Australian correspondent tells me that ``Don't come the raw
  prawn with me, sport'' is a local saying having a meaning somewhere in
  between ``Pull the other one, it's got bells on'' and ``Don't give me that
  crap''. Use this information at your own peril.

  Annotation update: Some time after the above annotation appeared in {\smaller APF}
  7.0 I received email from a correspondent who had actually managed to
  obtain a compilation video from the Australian Tourist Commission,
  containing all the ads Paul Hogan did for them in the 1984--89 period.
  Among those was, indeed, one he did for the internationally targeted
  campaign, at the end of which he clinches his spiel by saying:

\begin{quote}{``C'mon. Come and say g'day. I'll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie \\for ya.'' \\
}\end{quote}

  I find it highly ironic that the actual mystery verb turns out to be one
  that was not mentioned by \emph{any} of my previous correspondents{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/136\,] }}
 ``\,`I don't hold with all that stuff with cards and trumpets
  and Oo-jar boards, mind you.'\,''

  An Ouija board is a well-known means of communicating with the dead. It's
  a board with letters and symbols on it, and the spirits supposedly move a
  glass over it and spell out messages. The name `Ouija' derives from `oui'
  and `ja', two words meaning `yes', one of the symbols on the board.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 151/133\,] }}
 ``\,`Everyone thought you were to do with taxes.' N{\smaller{O}}. N{\smaller{OT
  TAXES.}}''

  As Benjamin Franklin once wrote: In this world nothing can be said to be
  certain, except death and taxes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 156/138\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] especially if they \emph{do} let the younger wizards build
  whatever that blasted thing is they keep wanting to build in the squash
  court.''

  This is a reference to the fact that the first nuclear reactor, built by
  Enrico Fermi, was indeed erected under a squash court.

  Irrelevant, but interesting, is that for a long time Russian physicists,
  misled by a poor translation, believed that Fermi's work was done in a
  `pumpkin field'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 168/147\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah{\ldots} many a slip `twixt dress and drawers,' said Duke.''

  See the annotation for p.~189/188 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 175/153\,] }}
 ``Behind him, the kettle boiled over and put the fire out.
  Simnel fought his way through the steam.''

  The joke here is that Ned Simnel is trying to think of a new, better way
  to power his Combination Harvester, when he is interrupted by the
  ``pointless distraction'' of his kettle boiling over. This refers to our
  world's anecdote about James Watt, who supposedly got his idea for
  improving the steam engine when he watched the condensing steam from a
  kettle on the boil.

  (Note that contrary to popular belief, Watt \emph{didn't} invent the steam
  engine itself: what he did was have revolutionary new ideas (e.g.\  the use
  of a condenser) on how to make the steam engine really (cost-)efficient,
  practical and portable.)

  For more information on steam engines, see also the annotation for p.~259/186 of \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 178/157\,] }}
 ``Mustrum Ridcully trotted into his study and took his
  wizard's staff from its rack over the fireplace. He licked his finger and
  gingerly touched the top of his staff.''

  Gary Cooper does this a few times in the 1941 movie \emph{Sergeant York}.
  According to my source, Cooper's explanation in the movie was ``It cuts
  down the haze a mite'' --- or something along those lines.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 182/160\,] }}
 ``\,`It's from the Dungeon Dimensions!' said the Dean. `Cream
  the basket!'\,''

  Basket is a British euphemism for bastard. In this case it of course also
  applies to the shopping trolley (or basket).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 187/164\,] }}
 ``\,`No, Not ``with milk''\,', said Windle.''

  See the annotation for p.~277/243.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 192/168\,] }}
 The harvesting battle between Death and the Combined
  Harvester has echoes of various similar contests in American folklore.

  There is for instance the story of the legendary American lumberjack Paul
  Bunyan and the Lumber Machine. According to that legend (as told in the
  Disney cartoon, ahem), Paul realised, after a magnificent battle at the
  end of which the Machine had won by a quarter-inch more timber, that the
  age of the great lumberjacks was over, and he wandered off with his steed
  Babe the Blue Ox, never to be seen again.

  There's also the much older American folk song `John Henry', which
  describes a similar contest in which John Henry beats the new
  steam-driven pile-driver (he was a railway builder, and drove in the
  spikes that held the rails down), but dies of the effort.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 201/176\,] }}
 ``Stripfettle's Believe-It-Or-Not Grimoire''

  Ripley's \emph{Believe It Or Not!} was more or less the forerunner of today's
  tabloids of the `500 pound baby' variety. However, his items were
  supposedly true and he had a standing offer to provide notarised proof if
  you didn't believe him. Typical items included potatoes that looked like
  President Eisenhower, dogs that could hold a dozen tennis balls in their
  mouths, and a fireplace that cast a shadow that looked like the profile
  of the owner of the house, but would only cast the shadow at the exact
  time of the owner's death.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 204/179\,] }}
 ``Remember --- wild, uncontrolled bursts{\ldots}''

  From the movie \emph{Aliens}: ``Remember --- short, controlled bursts{\ldots}''. This
  entire section is filled with action-movie references (`Yo!'), but
  \emph{Alien}/\emph{Aliens} seems to have been a particularly fruitful source. Many
  quotes and events have direct counterparts: ``Yeah, but secreted from
  what?'', ``No one touch \emph{anything}'', ``It's coming from \emph{everywhere}!'', and
  ``We are \emph{going}'' are only a few examples, and of course there is the
  matter of the Queen{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 217/191\,] }}
 ``The raven cleared its throat. Reg Shoe spun around. `You
  say one word,' he said, `just one bloody \emph{word}{\ldots}'\,''

  Edgar Allen Poe rears his head once more in a reference to his famous
  poem, \emph{The Raven}, which is all about death, doom and gloom. In the poem,
  the ominous raven in question constantly repeats just a single word:
  \emph{Nevermore}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 233/204\,] }}
 ``Windle snapped his fingers in front of the Dean's pale
  eyes. There was no response. `He's not dead,' said Reg. `Just resting,'
  said Windle.''

  Just two words: Parrot Sketch.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 234/204\,] }}
 ``\,`I used to know a golem looked like him, [{\ldots}] You just
  have to write a special holy word on `em to start `em up.'\,''

  For those needing a refresher course in Jewish magic, a golem is indeed a
  clay automaton. The special holy word is either the name of God, or the
  Hebrew word for truth, `emet' (aleph-mem-tav). To turn the golem off, you
  erase the name, or, if you used `emet', the initial aleph, which changes
  the word to `met' (mem-tav), meaning dead.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 235/206\,] }}
 ``\,`Artor! Nobblyesse obligay!'\,''

  From the phrase \emph{noblesse oblige}, meaning ``rank imposes certain
  obligations''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 246/215\,] }}
 ``\,`Bonsai!'\,''

  A typical Pratchettian mix-up of two different things: `Banzai!' is the
  Japanese war cry shouted by kamikaze pilots as they performed their
  suicide runs. It means `ten thousand years', and was originally an
  honorary greeting used in front of the Emperor, whom the kamikazes were,
  of course, dying for.

  `Bonsai' is the art of growing tiny potted trees shaped and stunted into
  very particular growth patterns.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 246/215\,] }}
 ``\,`Like{\ldots} small trees. Bush-i-do. Yeah.'\,''

  `Bushido' means ``the way of the warrior'', and is pronounced bu-shi-do.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 247/216\,] }}
 ``Occasionally people would climb the mountain and add a
  stone or two to the cairn at the top, [{\ldots}]''

  My correspondents tell me that there are many such mountains to be found
  around the world. In Ireland there is one specific mountain called Maeves
  Grave. On the top of it is a heap of stones which is believed to be the
  grave of the evil Celtic Queen Maeve. To prevent her from ever leaving
  the grave, each visitor to the mountain is supposed to pick up a stone,
  and carry it up the hill and put it on the grave.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 258/226\,] }}
 ``\,`I'm just going out,' he said. `I may be some time.'\,''

  A quote that Terry uses again in another, similar situation. See the
  annotation for p.~236/170 of \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 259/226\,] }}
 The idea of a were-man and were-woman who fall in love, but
  whose animal and human phases are out of sync with respect to each other
  was the main plot element in the 1985 fantasy movie \emph{Ladyhawke}, starring
  Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 264/230\,] }}
 ``Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, [{\ldots}]''

  In previous editions of the {\smaller APF}, I said that the Great Attractor was part
  of an astronomical theory that had been discredited some time ago. It
  turns out that this is far from the truth.

  Basically, astronomers have discovered that there are large regions of
  the cosmos being held back from the smooth overall expansion (or Hubble
  flow) as dictated by the Big Bang/Expanding Universe theory.

  The culprit would seem to be something or some things within a vast
  clumping of galaxies that appears to be causing an acceleration of all
  the surrounding galaxies in its direction. In an offhand comment during a
  press conference, Alan Dressler referred to this galactic pileup as the
  `Great Attractor', and the name immediately stuck.

  Although the theory was not universally accepted by all scientists, I
  understand the evidence for it has held up well, and in fact I saw a
  recent newspaper article claiming that the Great Attractor had actually
  been identifier by a group of international astronomers as the cluster
  Abel 3627.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 264/231\,] }}
 ``L{\smaller{ORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF
  THE REAPER MAN?}}''

  Some folks thought that this line sounded familiar and wondered if it was
  a quote, but Terry has assured us that he made this one up all by
  himself.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 265/232\,] }}
 ``\emph{YES}''

  In the hardcover edition of \emph{Reaper Man}, this super-large word appears
  on a left page, so that it takes the reader by surprise as she turns the
  page. In the paperback edition this is not the case, thus spoiling the
  effect entirely.

  When questioned about this, Terry said: ``Do you really think I'm some
  kind of dumbo to miss that kind of opportunity? I wrote 400 extra words
  to get it on a left-hand page in the hardcover --- then Corgi shuffled
  people in the production department when it was going through and my
  careful instructions disappeared into a black hole. Go on{\ldots} tell me more
  about comic timing{\ldots}''

  The American paperback edition, by the way, also gets it right.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 267/235\,] }}
 ``To deliver a box of chocolates like this, dark strangers
  drop from chairlifts and abseil down buildings.''

  A reference to a UK TV commercial for `Milk Tray' chocolates, in which a
  James Bond-like figure does death-defying stunts, only to leave a box of
  chocolates in some place where a woman finds them at the end of the ad.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 267/235\,] }}
 ``\,`D{\smaller{ARK ENCHANTMENTS}}', he said.''

  A reference to a brand of chocolates called `Black Magic'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 270/237\,] }}
 ``\,`Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last
  week,' said the low priest.''

  Refers to the \emph{Raiders of the Lost Ark} movies, in which Indiana Jones
  (with trademark whip) always steals stuff from sacred temples loaded with
  spikes, big rolling balls, and nasty insects.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 271/238\,] }}
 ``The priests heard the chink of a very large diamond being
  lifted out of its socket.''

  This is the sequence where Death enters the Lost Jewelled Temple of Doom
  of Offler the Crocodile God and purloins the massive diamond called the
  Tear of Offler from the statue therein.

  On p.~109/109 of the \emph{The Light Fantastic}, however, Twoflower tells
  Bethan the story of Cohen the Barbarian stealing this very same sacred
  diamond.

  There are ways around this inconsistency, of course. The most reasonable
  one seems to me the fact that there is no reason why we have to assume
  that all the stories told about Cohen are necessarily true.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 275/242\,] }}
 ``\,`Let's see {\ldots} something like `Corn be ripe, nuts be brown,
  petticoats up {\ldots}' something.'\,''

  This is a paraphrase or alternate version of an existing ``ould Sussex
  Folk Song'', quoted in Spike Milligan's autobiography \emph{Adolf Hitler: My
  Part in his Downfall} as follows:

\begin{verse}\textit{Apples be ripe, nuts be brown, \\Petticoats up, trousers down. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 275/242\,] }}
 ``\,`I take it you \emph{do} dance, Mr Bill Door?' F{\smaller{AMED FOR IT,
  MISS FLITWORTH.}}''

  Dancing with death is of course a metaphor as familiar as playing a game
  of chess or Exclusive Possessions with Death.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 276/242\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] `Do-si-do!' [{\ldots}]''

  A dosi-do is a square dance figure in which two dancers start facing each
  other, then circle round each other, passing back to back (in French:
  `dos-a-dos').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 277/243\,] }}
 ``\,`I know this one! It's the Quirmish bullfight dance!
  Oh-lay!' `W{\smaller{ITH MILK}}'?''

  \emph{Oh-lay!}, a phonetic version of the Spanish cry \emph{{!`}Ol\'{e}!}, sounds also the
  same as the pronunciation of the French phrase ``au lait'' which means
  ``with milk'', as in e.g.\  `cafe au lait'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 280/246\,] }}
 ``One yodel out of place would attract, not the jolly echo of
  a lonely goatherd, but fifty tons of express-delivery snow.''

  A reference to the puppet sequence in \emph{The Sound of Music}, a song in
  which both yodelling and lonely goatherds are featured.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 280/246\,] }}
 ``\,`And who was that masked man?' They both looked around.
  There was no one there.''

  Refers to the Lone Ranger.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 282/248\,] }}
 ``\,`Just me, your lordship,' said the watchman cheerfully.
  `Turning up like a bad copper.'\,''

  `Copper' is a British colloquialism for policemen (see also the
  annotation for p.~185/140 of \emph{Men at Arms}), but `copper' is also a
  somewhat archaic synonym for `penny', which gives the link to the saying:
  ``turning up like a bad penny''.

  Hence also the old joke: `What do you call a policeman's night shift
  pay?' `Copper nitrate'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 283/249\,] }}
 ``\,`You know,' said Windle, `it's a wonderful afterlife.'\,''

  \emph{It's A Wonderful Life} is the title of Frank Capra's classic 1946 movie
  about a special kind of undead (or rather: unliving) man.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 284/250\,] }}
 ``W{\smaller{INDLE POONS?}} `Yes?' T{\smaller{HAT WAS YOUR LIFE.}}''

  Reference to the TV show \emph{This Is Your Life}, where a noted celebrity is
  surprised and (hopefully) embarrassed by having the high (and
  occasionally low) points of his/her life recounted by friends and
  acquaintances during a half hour programme.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Witches Abroad}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/7\,] }}
 ``\,`Hurrah, I've discovered Boyle's Third Law.'\,''

  Sinking to the ultimate depths of trivial annotating, I suppose I should
  point out here, if only for completeness' sake, that (a) there is only
  one single `Boyle's law', which (b) says that if temperature is kept
  constant, the volume and pressure of a gas are inversely related.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/7\,] }}
 ``Like finding that bloody butterfly whose flapping wings cause
  all these storms we've been having lately [{\ldots}]''

  Rather literal interpretation of one of the most often-cited examples of
  Chaos theory, called the Butterfly effect: a butterfly flapping its wings
  can cause a storm because in Chaos theory results are not proportional to
  causes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/9\,] }}
 The three urban legends Terry mentions briefly in the footnote
  are all quite well-known, and can be found in any decent collection of
  such stories, but just in case not everyone is familiar with them:

  The first story is about a family whose grandmother dies on vacation. In
  order to avoid bureaucratic hassle they decide to strap her to the
  roof-rack of the car, and cross the border back to their own country.
  During a rest-room stop, somebody steals the car, grandmother and all.

  The second story is that of the people who return home after a night out,
  and find their dog choking to death in front of the door. They race him
  to the vet, who discovers that the dog is choking on a human finger he
  must have bitten off a burglar.

  The third story is that of a man and woman having sex in the back seat of
  a car, when some serious accident happens and they become trapped. In
  order to free them from their predicament, the car has to be cut open
  with a torch, after which the woman supposedly comments: ``My husband will
  be furious, it was \emph{his} car''.

  Much more information about these and countless other urban legends can
  be found in Jan Harold Brunvand's books. If you're on the net, you may
  want to check out {\smaller \texttt{alt.folklore.urban}}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 10/9\,] }}
 ``She had called upon Mister Safe Way, Lady Bon Anna, Hotaloga
  Andrews and Stride Wide Man.''

  Safeway is the name of a supermarket chain. Terry says: ``I needed some
  good names that sounded genuinely voodoo. Now, one of the names of one of
  the classic gods is Carrefour. It's also the name of a supermarket chain
  in my part of the world, and I used to grin every time I drove past.
  Hence, by DW logic, Safeway. Bon Anna I'm pretty sure is a genuine voodoo
  goddess. The other two are entirely made up but out of, er, the right
  sort of verbal components.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/11\,] }}
 ``Desiderata Hollow was making her will.''

  `Desiderata' literally means: ``things missing and felt to be needed''. It
  is the name of a popular prose poem, written by Max Ehrman in 1927, full
  of advice about life and how to deal with it.

  DESIDERATA is copyrighted material, and can not be reproduced or sold
  without permision. Any violation is the basis for legal action. Books
  containing DESIDERATA are published by Crown Publishers, N.Y.C. and can
  be obtained from Tim Tiley Ltd., Bristol. The author was Max Ehrmann.
  Other permissions must be obtained from the owner of the copyright ---
  Robert L. Bell, 427 South Shore Drive, Sarasota, Florida, USA 34234.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 16/15\,] }}
 ``\,`Wish \emph{I} was going to Genua,' she said.''

  Terry writes: ``This may or may not already be an annotation somewhere,
  but Genua is a `sort of' New Orleans with a `sort of' Magic Kingdom
  grafted on top of it.

  It had its genesis some years ago when I drove from Orlando to New
  Orleans and formed some opinions about both places: in one, you go there
  and Fun is manufactured and presented to you, in the other you just eat
  and drink a lot and fun happens.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 17/15\,] }}
 ``\,`Mr Chert the troll down at the sawmill does a very good deal
  on coffins [{\ldots}]'\,''

  This confirms the unwritten rule that says all Discworld trolls must have
  mineral names: `chert' is a dark-coloured, flintlike quartz.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 17/16\,] }}
 ``Her name was Lady Lilith de Tempscire, [{\ldots}]''

  Tempscire is actually a French transliteration of Weatherwax.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/17\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] at least two of those present tonight were wearing
  Granny Weatherwax's famous goose-grease-and-sage chest liniment.''

  In Victorian times, children's chests were often smeared with a large
  helping of goose grease in order to keep out the cold.

  Channel swimmers also used to use goose grease. Perhaps they still do{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/18\,] }}
 ``\,`Tempers Fuggit. Means that was then and this is now,' said
  Nanny.''

  Well --- almost. The actual Latin phrase is ``tempus fugit'': ``time flies''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 27/24\,] }}
 ``As Nanny Ogg would put it, when it's teatime in Genua it's
  Tuesday over here{\ldots}''

  This refers to an old and very silly song by J. Kendis and Lew Brown,
  which goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{When it's night-time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here. \\Oh! the onions in Sicily make people cry in California. \\Why does a fly? When does a bee? \\How does a wasp sit down to have his tea? \\If you talk to an Eskimo, his breath will freeze your ear. \\When it's night-time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 30/26\,] }}
 ``\,`You can't get the wood,' she said.''

  This was Henry Crun's standard excuse for not actually building anything
  he'd invented, on the \emph{Goon Show}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 33/29\,] }}
 ``The author, Grand Master Lobsang Dibbler, had an address in
  Ankh-Morpork.''

  This is yet another incarnation of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Ankhian
  entrepreneur we learn much more about in \emph{Moving Pictures}, and who also
  appears in \emph{Small Gods} as the Omnian businessman Dhblah.

  Also, the name is a direct reference to Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, who was
  one of our world's more successful psychic hoaxers: actually named Cyril
  Hoskin, and son of a Devon plumber, Lobsang Rampa claimed to be a Tibetan
  monk with paranormal powers. He wrote the best-selling 1956 book \emph{The
  Third Eye} which, even though Rampa was exposed as a fraud by \emph{Time}
  Magazine in 1958, is still being printed and sold as the real thing 30
  years later. Rich, gullible people like actress Shirley MacLaine still
  pay money to have their `third eye' opened up by contemporary Rampa
  equivalents.

  When questioned about the name, Terry answered: ``I know all kindsa
  Tibetan names{\ldots} Kelsang, Jambel, Tsong, Tenzin, Tupten (drops Tibetan
  reference book on foot){\ldots} but Lobsang is, thanks to Mr Rampa, probably
  the best known.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 33/29\,] }}
 ``There was a knock on the door. Magrat went and opened it.
  `Hai?', she said.''

  Apart from being Magrat's ninja war cry, `Hai?' also means `Yes?' in
  Japanese.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 38/34\,] }}
 ``\,`Shut up. Anyway, she's non compost mental,' said Granny.''

  ``Non compos mentis'' is a Latin phrase meaning ``not of sound mind''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 42/37\,] }}
 ``\,`Anno Domini, I said.'\,''

  Anno Domini means `year of our Lord' (as in e.g.: 1993 AD). It is indeed
  also used to denote old age, although this usage is a fairly recent
  literary invention, dating back to at least 1888 when Rudyard Kipling
  wrote the short story \emph{Venus Annodomini}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/41\,] }}
 ``No one ran up them wearing dirndls and singing. They were not
  nice mountains.''

  Refers to the opening scene of \emph{The Sound of Music}, where Julie Andrews
  does just that: running up the mountains, and singing, and wearing
  dirndls (if you want to know what a dirndl looks like, go see the movie).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 48/42\,] }}
 ``The witches flew along a maze of twisty little canyons, all
  alike.''

  This refers back to a legendary message that appeared in Crowther \&
  Woods' text adventure game \emph{ADVENT} (see also the annotation for p.~130/114 of \emph{The Colour of Magic}): ``You are in a maze of twisty little
  passages, all alike.''

  Many games have included variants of this. It also appeared in \emph{Zork}
  (``The second of the great early experiments in computer fantasy gaming'',
  as \emph{The New Hacker's Dictionary} describes it), and in the \emph{Hitch Hiker's
  Guide to the Galaxy} game you appear in your own brain, in ``a maze of
  twisty synapses''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 48/42\,] }}
 The section dealing with dwarfs (and in fact, almost
  \emph{everything} Terry writes about dwarfs) is a parody of Tolkien's dwarves.

  In particular, compare the witches' musings on mine entries and invisible
  runes to Tolkien's scenes outside Moria. Dwarf bread brings to mind
  Tolkien's waybreads: cram and lembas. And as the witches leave the
  dwarfs, they have an encounter with a wretched creature mumbling
  something about his birthday{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 49/43\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] and spake thusly: `Open up, you little sods!'\,''

  In Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the Rings} there is a famous scene outside the
  dwarven mines of Moria, where invisible runes written on the door (and
  revealed by the wizard Gandalf) give our heroes the clue as to how to get
  the door to open, namely by saying the word `friend'.

  Personally, I like Nanny Ogg's way better.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 51/45\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] if more trolls stopped wearing suits and walking
  upright, and went back to living under bridges [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~193/140 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 52/45\,] }}
 ``It's often said that eskimos have fifty words for snow. This
  is not true.''

  In fact, the situation regarding eskimos and snow is pretty much the same
  as the one Terry subsequently describes for dwarfs and rocks: eskimos
  have a number of different words for different \emph{kinds} of snow and ice,
  but nothing out of the ordinary.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/51\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] whenever I deals with dwarfs, the phrase `Duck's Arse'
  swims across my mind.'\,''

  From the phrase ``tight as a duck's arse'', implying excessive meanness.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 61/53\,] }}
 ``\,`I knows all about folk songs. Hah! You think you're
  listenin' to a nice song about{\ldots} about cuckoos and fiddlers and
  nightingales and whatnot, and then it turns out to be about{\ldots} about
  something else entirely,' she added darkly.''

  Just as an example of the type of song Granny may have in mind, here are
  a few verses of `The Cuckoo's Nest':

\begin{verse}\textit{As I went a-walking one morning in May \\I spied a pretty fair maid and unto her did say \\For love I am inclined and I'll tell you of my mind \\That my inclination lies in your cuckoo's nest. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Some like a girl who is pretty in the face \\And some like a girl who is slender in the waist \\Ah, but give me a girl who will wriggle and will twist \\At the bottom of the belly lies the cuckoo's nest. \\
}\end{verse}

  When this annotation led to a torrent of similar folk songs being
  discussed on a.f.p., at one point Terry chimed in with: ``My favourite was
  something I think by a guy called Diz Disley back in the very early 70s.
  From memory:

\begin{verse}\textit{As I walked out one May morning, \\In the month of Februaryyy, \\I saw a pretty serving maid a-comin' \\out the dairy; \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{A handsome knight came ridin' by \\I politely raised my cap and \\They went behind the stable \\and I never saw what happened.'' \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 62/54\,] }}
 ``\,`Thank goodness witches float.'\,''

  An obvious joke, but easily missed: refers to ducking suspected witches.
  If they drowned, they were innocent.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 62/55\,] }}
 ``The maiden, the mother and the{\ldots} other one.''

  The ``other one'' is the crone. See also the annotation for p.~248/218.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 67/59\,] }}
 ``\,`Der flabberghast,' muttered Nanny. `What's that?' said
  Magrat. `It's foreign for bat.'\,''

  Well no, it isn't, actually. The German word for bat is `Fledermaus', as
  in Johann Strauss' famous operette \emph{Die Fledermaus}. `Flabberghast' seems
  to derive more from the plain English `flabbergasted' (meaning:
  astonished beyond belief). Similarly, `die flabbergast' apparently was a
  Mozart-spoofing sketch that Dudley Moore did in \emph{Beyond The Fringe}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 87/75\,] }}
 The names the witches are considering for themselves are puns
  on existing airline companies or their acronyms. Nanny Ogg starts to say
  \emph{Virgin Airlines}, but is rudely interrupted by a gust of wind.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/77\,] }}
 ``\,`I like stuff that tells you plain what it is, like{\ldots}
  well{\ldots} Bubble and Squeak, or{\ldots} or{\ldots} `Spotted Dick,' said Nanny
  absently.''

  Americans might be amazed to learn that Bubble and Squeak, Spotted Dick,
  and Toad-in-the-Hole (which is mentioned a few lines further down) are
  all actually the names of existing British delicacies.

  Nanny Ogg is correct in identifying Toad-in-the-Hole as a sausage
  embedded in a sort of tart filled with pancake batter.

  Bubble and Squeak is traditionally made on Boxing Day from Christmas
  leftovers (potato, onion, cabbage and Brussels sprouts appear to be
  favourite ingredients among {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} readers, fried up together
  in lard.

  Spotted Dick is a suet-sponge pudding with currants or sultanas in it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 89/78\,] }}
 ``\,`Magrat says she will write a book called Travelling on One
  Dollar a Day, and it's always the same dollar.'\,''

  Refers to the famous traveller's guide originally titled \emph{Europe on Five
  Dollars a Day}. This is of course also extensively parodied in the \emph{Hitch
  Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy} (``see the wonders of the universe for only
  twenty Altairian dollars per day'').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 91/79\,] }}
 ``What does cojones mean?''

  `Cojones' is Spanish for `hen's eggs', colloquially used for `testicles'.
  The whole `Thing with the Bulls' section spoofs the annual bull running
  festival of Pamplona in our world. Ernest Hemingway was very impressed
  with this macho activity, and used the word `cojones' to describe the
  bravery displayed by the young men participating in the event.

  I doubt if it originated with Hemingway, but to this day ``having the
  balls'' is used in both English and Spanish to mean ``act bravely''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 95/83\,] }}
 ``\,`'S called the Vieux River.' `Yes?' `Know what that means?'
  `No.' `The Old (Masculine) River,' said Nanny. `Yes?' `Words have sex in
  foreign parts,' said Nanny hopefully.''

  The Mississippi River is often known as `Old Man River', for instance in
  the classic song from the 1936 Kern/Hammerstein musical \emph{Show Boat}. Near
  the mouth of the Mississippi lies New Orleans, on which Genua seems to be
  largely based. And then there are the riverboats, with the gamblers{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 96/84\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] she wants to make it a Magic Kingdom, a Happy and
  Peaseful place [{\ldots}]''

  The most famous part of the Walt Disney World theme park in Orlando,
  Florida, is officially called the `Magic Kingdom'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/84\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Samedi Nuit Mort, the last night of carnivale, [{\ldots}]''

  Samedi Nuit Mort = Saturday Night Dead, a reference to the television
  comedy show \emph{Saturday Night Live}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97/85\,] }}
 ``\,`That means Fat Lunchtime,' said Nanny Ogg, international
  linguist.''

  Actually, `Mardi Gras' means Fat Tuesday. Nanny Ogg is confusing `Mardi'
  with `Midi', which mean `midday', i.e.\  lunchtime.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/99\,] }}
 ``Even Magrat knew about Black Aliss.''

  In Terry Pratchett's universe Black Aliss is obviously the evil witch of
  \emph{all} fairy tales. The stories referred to here are \emph{Sleeping Beauty},
  \emph{Rumpelstiltskin} and \emph{Hansel And Gretel}, all of which are available as
  on-line versions (see the annotation for p.~34/34 of \emph{The Light
  Fantastic}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/107\,] }}
 ``Are you the taxgatherers, dear?' `No, ma'am, we're ---' `---
  fairies,' said Fairy Hedgehog quickly.''

  This is a \emph{Blues Brothers} reference: in the film, the dialogue goes:
  ``\,`Are you the police?' `No, ma'am, we're musicians.'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 134/117\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] there's been other odd things happening in this
  forest.'\,''

  Magrat then goes on to describe more or less what happened in the fairy
  tales of \emph{Goldilocks and the Three Bears} and \emph{The Three Little Pigs}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 134/118\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] some ole enchantress in history who lived on an
  island and turned shipwrecked sailors into pigs.'\,''

  For once, Nanny Ogg \emph{doesn't} mix up two or more real-world tales, but
  gets the story (almost) right: Circe was the name of the sorceress from
  the \emph{Odyssey} who lived on the island Aeaea, and turned Ulysses'
  shipmates into pigs when they landed (but didn't shipwreck) there.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 136/119\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] around Defcon II in the lexicon of squabble.''

  In the jargon of American military planners, the DEFCON scale (for
  \emph{Defence Readiness Condition}) is used to describe the level of
  preparedness of U.S. military forces. I quote from \emph{The Language of
  Nuclear War --- An Intelligent Citizen's Dictionary} by H. Eric Semler,
  James J. Benjamin, Jr., and Adam P. Gross:

  ``DEFCON 5 describes a state in which forces are at normal readiness,
  while DEFCON 1, referred to as the ``cocked pistol,'' indicates a state of
  extreme emergency, when forces are poised for attack. Not all U.S.
  military forces are simultaneously at the same DEFCON\@. The DEFCON varies
  depending upon the type of weapon with which the troops are equipped and
  the region in which they are deployed. For example, U.S. troops in South
  Korea are always at DEFCON 4 but soldiers tending nuclear missiles
  deployed in the continental U.S. are normally kept at DEFCON 5. During
  the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy raised the DEFCON of
  U.S. forces to DEFCON 2 (a status just below wartime conditions).''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 137/120\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh? It's all wishing on stars and fairy dust, is it?'\,''

  Fairly standard magic-related concepts, but perhaps it should be noted
  that wishing on stars is done in Disney's \emph{Pinocchio}, while fairy dust
  features heavily in \emph{Peter Pan} (both the original play and the
  subsequent Disney movie).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 137/120\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] and no one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand
  in a fire.'\,''

  I feel that in \emph{Witches Abroad} Terry was experimenting much more than
  usual with the literary device of foreshadowing. This is only one of the
  many instances in the book where something is said that means nothing to
  the reader first time around, but which suddenly becomes very significant
  when you notice it during a re-read, and you already know what is going
  to happen later.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 139/122\,] }}
 ``\,`What some people need,' said Magrat, [{\ldots}], `is a bit more
  heart.' `What some people need,' said Granny Weatherwax, [{\ldots}], `is a lot
  more brain.' [{\ldots}] What \emph{I} need, thought Nanny Ogg fervently, is a
  drink.''

  These are references to the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion respectively,
  once you remember that an alcoholic drink is also known as `Dutch
  courage'. In fact, in the original book the courage the Lion is given
  comes in a bottle, and many feel that Baum had alcohol in mind when he
  wrote it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 139/122\,] }}
 The farmhouse landing on Nanny Ogg, and the subsequent
  events involving dwarfs looking for ruby-coloured footwear are references
  to \emph{The Wizard of Oz}.

  All Terry's references are to the movie version, incidentally, not the
  book. In the book Dorothy obtains Silver Shoes instead of Ruby Slippers,
  doesn't say anything approaching ``{\ldots} we're not in Kansas any more'', and
  of course the book doesn't have a `dingdong' song.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 140/123\,] }}
 ``\,`You know, Greebo,' she said. ``I don't think we're in
  Lancre.'

  Dorothy, to her dog, in \emph{The Wizard of Oz}: ``Toto, I've a feeling we're
  not in Kansas anymore.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 148/130\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] that girl with the long pigtails in a tower [{\ldots}]
  Rumplestiltzel or someone.'\,''

  The girl with the long hair is Rapunzel from the famous fairy tale of the
  same name. `Rumpelstiltskin' is a different, unrelated fairy tale
  involving a dwarf spinning gold out of straw.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 153/134\,] }}
 ``Not a Ronald in sight.''

  Terry says: ``Yep{\ldots} direct use of existing East London rhyming slang
  there (Richard the Third = turd).''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/139\,] }}
 ``\,`That's `cos you're a wet hen, Magrat Garlick,' said
  Granny.''

  When questioned about the phrase, Terry explained: ``Perfectly good
  British slang. A `wet hen' is bedraggled, sad and useless. Probably not
  as useless as a big girl's blouse, though, and better off than a lame
  duck.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/152\,] }}
 ``\,`My full name's Erzulie Gogol,' said Mrs Gogol. `People
  call me Mrs Gogol.'\,''

  This resonates with \emph{In the Heat of the Night} (see the annotation for p.~365/277 of \emph{Men at Arms}), in so much as we have two persons of the same
  profession, one of them black, the other white, and one of them \emph{way} out
  of her territory.

  The name `Erzuli' comes directly from Voodoo religion. Ma\^{\i}tresse Erzulie
  (also known as Ezili) is the ideal figure of womanhood, and the spirit of
  love and beauty.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 174/153\,] }}
 ``\,`This is Legba, a dark and dangerous spirit,' said Mrs
  Gogol.''

  Legba (also known as Papa Legba or Legba Ati-bon) is the Voodoo spirit of
  the cross-roads, where the Above meets the Below. He is ``on both sides of
  the mirror''. He leans on a stick, and another of his symbols is the
  macoutte (straw sack). Chickens are sacrificed to him by twisting their
  neck till they are dead.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 176/154\,] }}
 ``So he said `Get me an alligator sandwich --- and make it
  quick!'\,''

  It is obvious that Granny is trying to tell a joke here --- and failing
  miserably. The problem was that quite a few readers (including yours
  truly) were having trouble figuring out what that joke was supposed to be
  in the first place.

  People started asking about the Alligator Joke so frequently on
  {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}, that eventually Terry himself posted the following
  ``definitive explanation of the alligator joke'':

  ``It is (I hope) obvious that Granny Weatherwax has absolutely no sense of
  humour but she has, as it were, heard about it. She has no grasp of how
  or why jokes work --- she's one of those people who say ``And then what
  happened?'' after you've told them the punchline. She can vaguely remember
  the one-liner ``Give me an alligator sandwich --- and make it snappy!'' but
  since she's got no idea of why it's even mildly amusing she gets
  confused{\ldots} all that she can remember is that apparently the man wants it
  quickly.''

  When conversation on the net then turned to the origins of the joke, he
  followed up with:

  ``As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I first came across the joke in an
  ancient US comedy routine --- Durante or someone like him. It sounds
  burlesque.''

  See the annotation for p.~195/159 of \emph{Mort} for another type of meta-joke
  based on the alligator joke.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 177/155\,] }}
 Emberella $\rightarrow$ Embers; Cinderella $\rightarrow$ Cinders{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 179/157\,] }}
 ``\,`I am called Saturday.' `Man Saturday, eh?' said Nanny Ogg.''

  Nanny is thinking of Man Friday as in Robinson Crusoe's native friend.
  But Saturday is of course none other than Baron Samedi (Samedi =
  Saturday), the Voodoo keeper of cemeteries and lord of zombies. He
  appears as a skeleton wearing a top hat and a black cane.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 197/172\,] }}
 ``Nanny Ogg waved the jug again. `Up your eye!' she said.
  `Mud in your bottom!'\,''

  The two traditional English toasts being mixed up here are ``bottoms up''
  and ``here's mud in your eye''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 198/174\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Nanny Ogg and the coachmen were getting along, as she
  put it, like a maison en flamb\'{e}.''

  See the annotation for p.~313/284 of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 199/175\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Nanny Ogg kept calling them `Magrats', but they were
  trousers, and very practical.''

  Calling them Magrats is a reference to Bloomers, originally a female
  costume consisting of jacket, shirt and Turkish trousers gathered closely
  around the ankles, introduced by Mrs Amelia Bloomer of New York in 1849.
  Associated with the Woman's Rights Movement, the outfit met with little
  success. Nowadays `bloomers' is applied to the trouser portion only.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 228/201\,] }}
 ``\,`This is [{\ldots}] Sir, Roger de Coverley.'\,''

  `Sir Roger de Coverley' is the title of a folk dance.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 228/201\,] }}
 ``\,`{\ldots}my name is Colonel Moutarde{\ldots}'\,''

  `Moutarde' is French for `mustard'. Colonel Mustard is the name of one of
  the characters in the board game (and subsequent movie) \emph{Clue} (or
  \emph{Cluedo}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 229/201\,] }}
 Casanunda, ``the world's greatest lover'', refers to our
  world's Casanova. Notice that Casanova is often roughly pronounced as
  `Casanover' (emphasis on the `over'), and that Casanunda (emphasis on the
  `unda') is a dwarf{\ldots}

  Actually, Casanunda is lying, because we later find out he's only the
  world's \emph{second} greatest lover. But this should not surprise us, since
  yet even later (in \emph{Lords and Ladies}) we also find out that he is an
  Outrageous Liar.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 235/207\,] }}
 ``Nanny Ogg's voyages on the sea of intersexual dalliance had
  gone rather further than twice around the lighthouse, [{\ldots}]''

  A popular way of staving off boredom at typical British seaside holiday
  resorts is to take a trip in a small boat, which will often journey out
  as far as the local lighthouse and circumnavigate it. Hence the above
  colloquialism, implying that Nanny's experiences were not limited to the
  inshore waters of male/female relationships.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 248/218\,] }}
 ``The maiden, the mother and the crone.''

  Traditionally, the wiccan goddess (see \emph{Equal Rites} annotation) is
  viewed as the triple entity maiden/mother/crone, and our witches indeed
  echo this model. Neil Gaiman uses the triple goddess quite often in his
  \emph{Sandman} series.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 249/219\,] }}
 ``Mrs Gogol's hut travelled on four large duck feet, which
  were now rising out of the swamp.''

  Baba Yaga is a witch in Russian folklore, who had a hut that stood, and
  was able to turn around, on chicken feet. I don't believe that hut could
  walk, however. (Neil Gaiman seemed to think it could, though: Baba Yaga
  and a walking hut figure in Book 3 of his excellent \emph{Books of Magic}.)

  One of Mussorgsky's \emph{Pictures at an Exhibition} (`House on hen's legs')
  also refers back to Baba Yaga, by way of another Russian's painting of
  said fairy tale hut.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 252/222\,] }}
 ``\,`I'm a world-famous liar.' `Is that true?' `No.'\,''

  Casanunda here recreates the famous liar paradox: Epimenides the Cretan
  saying ``All Cretans are liars''. For more information on this paradox see
  any good book about logic puzzles, although I particularly recommend
  Douglas R. Hofstadter's \emph{Metamagical Themas}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 252/222\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, maybe I'm only No.\ 2,' said Casanunda. `But I try
  harder.'\,''

  This was the catchphrase from a well-known ad campaign in the late 60s.
  The No.\ 2 was car rental firm Avis; Hertz was No.\ 1.

  Avis still uses the ``we try harder'' slogan, but the ``we're No.\ 2'' part
  was dropped a long time ago.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 274/241\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] what was that Tsortean bloke who could only be
  wounded if you hit `im in the right place?'\,''

  Nanny is thinking of the Discworld version of Achilles, who was
  invincible except for a small spot on his heel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/252\,] }}
 ``Nanny kicked her red boots together idly. `Well, I suppose
  there's no place like home,' she said.''

  Another \emph{Wizard of Oz} reference (kicking her shoes together three times
  and saying a similar sentence invoked the spell that transported Dorothy
  home from Oz).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 285/252\,] }}
 ``But they went the long way, and saw the elephant.''

  Several people were immediately reminded of Fritz Leiber's Hugo award
  winning novelette \emph{Gonna Roll The Bones}, which ends: ``Then he turned and
  headed straight for home, but he took the long way, around the world.''
  Terry has said there is no conscious connection, however.

  ``Seeing the elephant'' also resonates nicely with \emph{The Lord of the Rings},
  where Bilbo complains wistfully that he never got to see an elephant on
  \emph{his} adventures `abroad': ``[{\ldots}] Aragorn's affairs, and the White
  Council, and Gondor, and the Horsemen, and Southrons, and oliphaunts ---
  did you really see one, Sam? --- and caves and towers and golden trees and
  goodness knows what besides. I evidently came back by much too straight a
  road from my trip. I think Gandalf might have shown me round a bit.''

  Also, ``to have seen the elephant'' is British military slang dating back
  to the 19th century, and means to have taken part in one's first battle,
  while during the 1849 California Goldrush, ``going to see the elephant''
  was widely used as a phrase by people to signify their intention to
  travel westwards and try their luck. (See e.g.\  JoAnn Levy's 1999 book
  \emph{They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush}.)

\vspace{4ex}\section{Small Gods}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/7\,] }}
 ``\,`I remember,' said Lu-Tze.''

  Lu-Tze is probably meant to parallel Lao-Tze, the writer of the \emph{Tao Te
  Ching} and thus one of the founders of Taoism. The mountain range he
  carries with him is reminiscent of stories told by and of Taoist and
  Buddhist sages.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/7\,] }}
 ``\,`Young fellow called Ossory, wasn't there?'\,''

  For what it's worth: an ossuary is a place where the bones of the dead
  are kept.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 9/8\,] }}
 The name `Brutha' is of course pronounced as a jive-ified
  `brother', and resonates with the name of Buddhism's prophet Buddha.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/9\,] }}
 Brother Nhumrod.

  Brother Nhumrod's name is not only an obvious pun on the man's sexual
  problems, but also refers to the Biblical Nimrod who was ``a mighty hunter
  before the Lord'' (Genesis 10:8).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/10\,] }}
 ``Give me a boy up to the age of seven, Nhumrod had always
  said.''

  This is a reference to the Jesuit saying: ``Give me a child for the first
  seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.''

  The Jesuits boasted that they could convert anyone if they just started
  early enough.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 15/12\,] }}
 The Cenobiarch.

  A cenobite is a ``member of a religious order following a communal way of
  life''. The `arch' suffix denotes leadership (as in e.g.\  `matriarch').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 15/12\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] and torturers, and Vestigial Virgins{\ldots}''

  See the annotation for p.~88/79 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/15\,] }}
 \emph{You Don't Have To Be Pitilessly Sadistic To Work Here But It
  Helps!!!}

  Refers to those lame stickers and signs in offices and work areas all
  over the world that say: ``You don't have to be insane to work here but it
  helps!''.

  In \emph{Eric} a similar slogan is pasted on the door to the Discworld Hell
  (``You don't have to be `Damned' to work here{\ldots}'').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/23\,] }}
 ``De Chelonian Mobile [{\ldots}] The Turtle Moves.''

  This whole theory parodies Galileo Galilei's struggle to get his theory
  of a moving earth (moving around the sun, that is) accepted by the
  Christian Church.

  The specific phrasing of the motto refers to what Galileo supposedly
  uttered under his breath after recanting his theory to the Inquisition
  (mirrored by Didactylos having to do the same in front of Vorbis); ``E pur
  si muove'' --- ``And yet it moves''. This explains why the Chelonists say
  ``The Turtle Moves'' and not, say, ``It's A Turtle'' or ``We're On A Turtle''.
  After all, the point of contention is the existence of the turtle, not
  whether it's mobile or stationary.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/23\,] }}
 ``\,`And what does that stand on?' he said.''

  This is the classic objection to the turtle theory, at least according to
  an anecdote that has been told about every big name scientist from
  Bertrand Russell to William James. In the story, the scientist, after
  giving a lecture on astronomy, is approached by a little old lady who
  says that he's got it all wrong and that the world in fact rests on the
  back of a giant turtle. The scientist then asks the lady what the turtle
  is standing on, and she answers: on the back of a second, even larger
  turtle. But, asks the scientist, what does \emph{that} turtle stand on? To
  which the lady triumphantly answers: ``You're very clever, young man, but
  it's no use --- it's turtles all the way down!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 53/39\,] }}
 ``\,`He was eight feet tall? With a very long beard? And a huge
  staff? And the glow of the holy horns shining out of his head?'\,''

  Michelangelo depicted Moses with horns after coming down from Mount
  Sinai. This can be traced back to an interpretation error from the
  original Hebrew, where the same word can mean either ``send out rays'' or
  ``be horned'', depending on context.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 55/40\,] }}
 ``\,`I was beginning to think I was a tortoise dreaming about
  being a god.'\,''

  This parallels one of the writings of Chuang Tzu, a Taoist sage:

  ``Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and
  fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't
  know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up, and there he was, solid and
  unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who
  had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang
  Chou.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 60/44\,] }}
 ``\,`The other novices make fun of him, sometimes. Call him The
  Big Dumb Ox.'\,''

  St Thomas Aquinas (1224--1274) was called the ``the dumb ox'' by his fellow
  students due to his silence during theological disputes at the
  university. He just listened, or perhaps lurked is a better term. He also
  had a large and awkward frame, like Brutha.

  The story goes that Thomas' teacher (Albertus Magnus, see the annotation
  for p.~221/180 of \emph{Mort}) rebuked the insensitive students by saying:
  ``His name will be remembered long after yours are all forgotten''. He was
  right. Thomas Aquinas was canonised less than a century later. (And so
  was Albertus Magnus, but not until 1931.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 78/57\,] }}
 ``He was good at raking paths. He left scallop patterns and
  gentle soothing curves.''

  This is a description of a Zen rock garden.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 80/59\,] }}
 ``\,`Nice fresh indulgences? Lizards? Onna stick?'\,''

  Given the Medieval Catholic nature of Omnianism, Dhblah's trade in
  indulgences (time off for a loved one in Purgatory) isn't at all
  surprising.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 83/60\,] }}
 ``Below it, the doors of the Great Temple, each one made of
  forty tons of gilded bronze, opened by the breath (it was said) of the
  Great God Himself, swung open ponderously and --- and this was the holy
  part --- silently.''

  The doors of a temple in Alexandria were opened by a steam engine
  designed by the Greek philosopher Hero. With similar legends surrounding
  it.

  This is a myth, however. Hero \emph{did} invent a steam ``engine'', but it was
  merely a small sphere that rotated due to steam pressure (history's
  earliest executive toy?) There is no evidence that he ever used the
  invention for any real work (e.g.\  opening doors).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 87/64\,] }}
 ``\,`And --- that other one. The \emph{eminence grease}.'\,''

  \'{E}minence grise = ``grey eminence'', as in ``shadowy power''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 90/66\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] they have to cross a terrible desert and you weigh
  their heart in some scales [{\ldots}] And if it weighs less than a feather,
  they are spared the hells.'\,''

  In Egyptian myth, a dead man was judged by Osiris, Thoth, Anubis and
  forty-two Assessors in the Hall of Judgement in the Underworld. His heart
  was balanced against the Feather of Truth while he made his Confession.
  If his heart was heavy (with guilt), then the monster Amit ate the heart.
  See the Egyptian Book of the Dead for more details.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 92/67\,] }}
 ``Give me that old-time religion{\ldots}''

  This is the title to a song, originally belonging to the evangelist
  revival camp meeting category, which has the chorus:

\begin{verse}\textit{Give me that old time religion, \\Give me that old time religion, \\Give me that old time religion, \\Cos it's good enough for me. \\
}\end{verse}

  It has been taken up by the SF filk community (`filk' = folk singing, but
  with funny or parodying lyrics), which has added verses like:

\begin{verse}\textit{Let's sing praise to Aphrodite \\She may seem a little flighty, \\but she wears a green gauze nighty, \\And she's good enough for me. \\
}\end{verse}

  and the Lovecraftian:

\begin{verse}\textit{We will worship old Cthulhu, \\Yes, we'll worship old Cthulhu, \\I can't find a rhyme for Cthulhu \\And that's good enough for me. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 100/73\,] }}
 ``You have to walk a lonesome desert{\ldots} You have to walk it
  all alone{\ldots}''

  Terry said in an article to a.f.p: ``This probably is a good time to raise
  the `lonesome valley/lonesome desert' lines from \emph{Small Gods}, with
  apologies to you who, because of finance, heel-dragging by publishers or
  because you threw all that tea in the harbour, haven't read it yet. Yes,
  I know variants of the song have turned up on various
  folk/country/spiritual albums over the last forty years, but some
  American friends tracked variations of it back to the last century and
  the anonymous mists of folk Christianity. So I used it, like everyone
  else has done. Like `Lord of the Dance', it's one of those songs that
  transcends a specific religion --- and also a very attractive use of
  language.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 105/77\,] }}
 ``The Voice of the Turtle was heard in the land.''

  The Bible, Song of Solomon 2:12:

\begin{verse}\textit{The flowers appear on the earth; \\the time of the singing of birds is come, \\and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, \\and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. \\Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. \\
}\end{verse}

  Note that the biblical `turtle' in fact refers to the turtledove.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 106/77\,] }}
 ``\,`I am what I am. I can't help it if people think something
  else.'\,''

  This is \emph{not} a Popeye reference! ``I am that I am'' is what God said to
  Moses in answer to the questions ``What is his name? What shall I say to
  them?'' (Exodus 3:14).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 108/79\,] }}
 ``There was Sergeant Simony, a muscular young man [{\ldots}]''

  `Simony' is the religious crime of selling benefices. Since Terry doesn't
  refer to or joke about this second meaning at all in the rest of the
  book, I had left this annotation out of previous versions of the {\smaller APF}, but
  people kept writing me about it, so this time I've put it in for
  completeness' sake.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/83\,] }}
 ``\,`Three years before the shell.'\,''

  The phrase ``x years before the mast'' was used by sailors to indicate the
  length of time they've been in their profession. Common seamen slept in
  the forward part of the ship, i.e.\  before the main mast on sailing ships.
  Officers slept in the after part of the ship where they could get easy
  access to the tiller.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/85\,] }}
 Terry Pratchett translates the book title \emph{Ego-Video Liber
  Deorum} here as \emph{Gods: A Spotter's Guide}.

  Actually, the dog-Latin translates more literally to \emph{The I-Spy Book of
  Gods}. I-Spy books are little books for children with lists of things to
  look out for. When you see one of these things you tick a box and get
  some points. When you get enough points you can send off for a badge.
  They have titles like \emph{The I-Spy Book of Birds} and \emph{The I-Spy Book of
  Cars}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/85\,] }}
 ``Or, to put it another way the existence of a badly
  put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker.''

  This whole section is parodying the creationist argument that complex
  creatures such as those which exist in the world could only be the
  product of deliberate design and hence must have been created by a
  Supreme Being rather than by a `blind' process such as evolution.
  Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins provided a counter-argument in his
  book \emph{The Blind Watchmaker}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 119/87\,] }}
 ``It was worse than women aboard. It was worse than
  albatrosses.''

  Both women and albatrosses are traditionally considered bad luck on a
  ship. For a classic example of the latter, just recall Samuel Taylor
  Coleridge's poem \emph{The Rime of the Ancient Mariner}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 126/92\,] }}
 ``The shepherd had a hundred sheep, and it might have been
  surprising that he was prepared to spend days searching for one sheep;
  [{\ldots}]''

  Another Biblical allusion. Jesus used this as a parable for the mercy of
  God, in Matthew 18:12: ``How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and
  one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and
  goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/92\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the priests of Ur-Gilash [{\ldots}]''

  The name is a composite of several ancient names. The Epic of Gilgamesh
  is an ancient Babylonian tale which contains some interesting parallels
  to contemporary Biblical stories. Gil-Galash was ruler of one of the
  Euphrates civilisations. And Ur was, of course, a Babylonian city, as
  well as a prefix signifying ``primal'' or ``original''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 131/95\,] }}
 ``\,`According to Book One of the Septateuch, anyway.'\,''

  A reference to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible/Torah.

  When Brutha, Om's last great prophet, finishes writing \emph{his} book, the
  Septateuch will become the Octateuch, which is of course wholly
  appropriate for the Discworld{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 138/100\,] }}
 ``\,`There's one of `em that sits around playing a flute most
  of the time and chasing milkmaids.'\,''

  This describes Krishna, an avatar or incarnation of the god Vishnu in
  Indian mythology, who spent his youth playing the flute and dancing with
  as many as 100 milkmaids at a time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 139/101\,] }}
 Legibus's entrance incorporates some concepts borrowed from
  several legends of famous philosophers.

  Archimedes was the one who jumped out of the bath and ran naked down the
  street shouting `Eureka!' after he'd discovered the principle of fluid
  displacement. He also said ``Give me but a place to stand and a long
  enough lever, and I can move the world'', a quote that Terry repeatedly
  uses in different forms. The ``Number Nine pot and some string, please''
  probably refers to the ancient method of calculating the curvature of the
  Earth's surface as done by Eratosthenes of Cyrene. The drawing of
  triangles vaguely recalls Pythagoras.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/103\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high
  place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships [{\ldots}]''

  Legend has it that Archimedes did just this in the defence of the city of
  Syracuse in 213 BC.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 143/103\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] some intricate device that demonstrated the
  principles of leverage by incidentally hurling balls of burning sulphur
  two miles.'\,''

  This is a description of the Ballista, another weapon supposedly invented
  by Archimedes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 152/110\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] if Xeno the Ephebian said, `All Ephebians are liars
  ---'\,''

  This is the Liar Paradox again. See the annotation for p.~252/222 of
  \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 153/111\,] }}
 ``\,`That's right,' he said. `We're philosophers. We think,
  therefore we am.'\,''

  Play on Descartes' famous philosophical pronouncement ``Cogito, ergo sum''
  --- ``I think, therefore I am''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 153/111\,] }}
 ``\,`Thesis plus antithesis equals hysteresis,' said Ibid.''

  A play on the central tenet of dialectical materialism, which was lifted
  (by Marx and Engels) from Hegelian philosophy: ``Thesis plus antithesis
  yields synthesis''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/112\,] }}
 ``\,`Fedecks the Messenger of the Gods, one of the all-time
  greats,' said Xeno.''

  Federal Express (or FedEx) is an overnight shipping courier service.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/112\,] }}
 A running gag in the book is the penguin associated with
  Patina, the Goddess of Wisdom. This refers to Minerva or Pallas Athena
  (\emph{Pal}-las A-\emph{thena}, get it, get it?), who was the Roman/Greek goddess
  of wisdom, and whose symbol was an owl.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/115\,] }}
 The Greek name Didactylos, besides having the word
  `didactic' as its root (very appropriate for a philosopher), also
  translates as `Two-fingers'.

  The British equivalent of ``giving someone the finger'' consists of
  extending two fingers upwards, palm facing the gesturer, in a kind of
  rotated `V for Victory' sign.

  The origin of this rude gesture is supposed to date back to the battle of
  Agincourt. In those days the French used to cut the index and middle
  fingers off the right hands of any British archers they happened to
  catch, in order to render them useless for further shooting should they
  e.g.\  ever manage to escape and rejoin their army.

  When the English finally won the battle (largely thanks to their
  longbowmen) the gesture quickly evolved from a Frenchmen-ridiculing ``look
  what I still got'' statement into a more general rudeness.

  Whether this story, charming as it may be, is in fact completely
  incorrect, or only partially incorrect, or completely correct after all,
  is something I will no longer be attempting to resolve in this
  annotation, since proponents of all three theories have been supplying me
  with quotes from various history books in order to support their claim.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 164/118\,] }}
 ``Candidates for the Tyrantship were elected by the placing
  of black or white balls in various urns, thus giving rise to a well-known
  comment about politics.''

  That comment probably being: ``It's all a load of balls''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 168/121\,] }}
 \emph{Nil Illegitimo Carborundum} is dog-Latin for ``Don't let the
  bastards grind you down''.

  Variants of it crop up in various places, most notably \emph{Nil Carborundi
  Illegitimo} which apparently is a key phrase in the Illuminati mythos.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 170/122\,] }}
 Urn's name is a reference to the old joke:

\begin{quote}{Question: ``What's a Greek urn?'' \\Answer: ``About \$2,50 an hour!'' \\
}\end{quote}

  Or, as the \emph{Goon Show} put it:

\begin{quote}{--- ``What's a Greek urn?'' \\--- ``It's a vase made by Greeks for storing liquid.'' \\--- ``I wasn't expecting that answer.'' \\--- ``Neither were quite a few smart-alec listeners.'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 178/128\,] }}
 ``\,`Worried, eh? Feeling a bit Avis Domestica? Cluck-cluck?'\,''

  Actually, the Latin name for `chicken' is \emph{Gallus Domesticus} --- even
  though `avis' by itself does mean `bird'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 178/129\,] }}
 ``He caught a glimpse of a circle of damp sand, covered with
  geometrical figures. Om was sitting in the middle of them.''

  The whole scene with Om drawing shapes in the sand is a reference to the
  computer programming language Logo, in which figures are drawn by a
  turtle-shaped cursor (`turtle graphics'). In fact, it was also possible
  to get a real `turtle': a little robot attached to a Logo machine by a
  long cable which would walk around on a big sheet of paper.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 180/130\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah,' said Didactylos. `Ambi-sinister?' `What?' `He means
  incompetent with both hands,' said Om.''

  Ambidextrous means able to use both hands equally well. `dextr-' is the
  prefix meaning ``right'' as in ``right hand''. `Sinistr-' is the prefix
  meaning ``left''. Hence: ambi-sinister = having two left hands.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 182/131\,] }}
 ``The Library of Ephebe was --- before it burned down --- the
  second biggest on the Disc.''

  Refers of course to our world's Alexandrian Library. Brewer tells us that
  this Library was supposed to have contained 700,000 volumes. It was
  already burned and partially consumed in 391, but when the city fell into
  the hands of the calif Omar, in 642, the Arabs found books sufficient to
  ``heat the baths of the city for six months''.

  Legend has it that Omar ordered the Library torched because all the books
  in it either agreed with the Koran, and were therefore superfluous; or
  else disagreed with the Koran, and were therefore heretical, but this is
  probably just apocryphal. Other references say that the inhabitants of
  Alexandria torched the scrolls themselves in order to keep the knowledge
  out of the hands of the Arabs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 182/131\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a whole gallery of unwritten books [{\ldots}]''

  Libraries of unwritten books are of course very rare, but do tend to crop
  up occasionally in L-Space. The library described in the opening section
  of \emph{Beyond Life} by James Branch Cabell contains the novels of David
  Copperfield as well as Milton's \emph{King Arthur}. In Neil Gaiman's
  \emph{Sandman}, Lucien's library (a direct homage to Cabell) also contains
  books that were never written, such as \emph{Alice's Journey Beyond The Moon}
  by Lewis Carroll, \emph{The Lost Road} by J.~R.~R. Tolkien, and P. G.
  Wodehouse's \emph{Psmith and Jeeves}. There's also a library of future books
  in Robin McKinley's novel \emph{Beauty}.

  Finally, other people were reminded of the library in Jorge Luis Borges'
  story \emph{The Library of Babel}, where a vast universe is described which
  contains \emph{all} possible books (assuming a finite alphabet and a fixed
  book size the number of all possible books is mindbogglingly huge, but
  finite) --- in random order. Most books in such a library would appear
  written by the `monkey and typewriter' brigade, but all the coherent
  books, whether actually written or not, are in there as well.

  All libraries are connected through L-Space anyway, aren't they?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 183/132\,] }}
 Didactylos carrying a lantern and living in a barrel is a
  reference to Diogenes, the famous philosopher who is reputed to have done
  the same.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 184/132\,] }}
 Aristocrates = Aristotle + Socrates + aristocratic.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 185/133\,] }}
 ``Art was not permitted in Omnia.''

  The comment about no art and pictures being allowed in Om resonates with
  similar prohibitions in various real world religions, ranging from the
  Muslims to the Amish.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 208/150\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah gentlemen,' said Didactylos. `Pray don't disturb my
  circles.'\,''

  Legend has it that when Syracuse was eventually taken the Roman soldiers
  entered Archimedes' house as he was trying to solve a geometrical
  problem. He had just been drawing some figures on the floor of his house
  when the soldiers entered. ``Gentlemen, pray don't disturb my circles,''
  Archimedes is reported to have said to the soldiers, one of whom then
  drew his sword and slew him on the spot.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 209/150\,] }}
 ``\,`You don't belong to the Quisition,' said the Corporal.
  `No. But I know a man who does,' said Brutha.''

  In the UK there were a series of adverts for the AA (Automobile
  Association) where people were in various dire motoring trouble. They
  were asked by a passenger (say) if they knew how to get out of it. They
  replied either: ``No. But I know a man who can.'' or ``No. But I know a man
  who does.'' It's now very much a part of English idiom.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 215/154\,] }}
 ``\,`Describe what an Ambiguous Puzuma looks like,' he
  demanded.''

  Brutha goes on to describe the Puzuma as having its ears laid flat
  against its head. Of course, as we learned in the footnote on p.~178/171
  of \emph{Pyramids}, in a Puzuma's ``natural state'', everything is laid flat
  against everything else{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 220/158\,] }}
 ``\,`One minute upright, next minute a draught-excluder.'\,''

  Discussions on a.f.p., initiated by a puzzled American reader, revealed
  that the concept of a `draught-excluder' is one of those things only
  British readers are familiar with. Many English houses, especially older
  ones, have doors with a gap at the bottom, which will allow cold draughts
  into the room. To solve this, rather than simple expedients such as
  making doors that fit, the English instead place a cylindrical stuffed
  object (often shaped amusingly like a snake with felt eyes and tongue,
  for the tackily inclined) along the bottom of the door to keep out the
  draughts. Hence: a draught excluder.

  I have been informed that the English exported their draught excluders to
  Australia as well, and that Croatians also know them, but use them for
  windows rather than for doors.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 225/161\,] }}
 ``\,`Tell him you can't recall!'\,''

  ``I can't recall'' was the mantra of the White House officials during the
  investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal in the late 1980s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 226/162\,] }}
 ``\,`Life in this world,' he said, `is, as it were, a sojourn
  in a cave.'\,''

  This paragraph is a very loose parody of a famous Socratic dialogue in
  Plato's \emph{Republic}, Book VII\@. I quote (and edit down a wee bit) from
  \emph{Labyrinths of Reason} by William Poundstone, p.~203:

  ``Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth
  open toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been
  from childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot
  move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from
  turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a
  distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way,
  like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over
  which they show the puppets.

  [{\ldots}] and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another,
  which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? [{\ldots}] And of the
  objects which are being carried in like manner they would see only the
  shadows? [{\ldots}] And if they were able to converse with one another, would
  they not suppose they were naming what was actually before them? [{\ldots}] To
  them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the
  images.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 226/162\,] }}
 ``Go on, do Deformed Rabbit {\ldots}it's my favourite.''

  Reference to the art of making shadow animals with your hands, as
  described on p.~43/36 of \emph{Moving Pictures}: ``\,`Mainly my uncle did
  ``Deformed Rabbit'', said Victor. `He wasn't very good at it, you see.'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 226/162\,] }}
 ``\,`And the wrong sort of ash', said Vorbis.''

  The (true) story goes that British Rail was having difficulty one winter
  getting trains to run on time, which they blamed on the snow. They were
  then quizzed as to why their snow-ploughs couldn't deal with the problem.
  They replied that it was ``the wrong sort of snow'', a phrase that has now
  entered the English idiom.

  In defence of British Rail it should be pointed out that their remark
  wasn't as silly as it seems at first sight: what happened was that fine,
  dry, powdery snow blew inside the traction motor cooling slots and,
  melting, caused the motors to arc over. It simply is very rare for
  British snow to be cold and dry enough to do this, hence the ``wrong sort
  of snow'' comment which the press, seeking as usual for any excuse to make
  fun of British Rail, leapt upon with great glee.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 231/166\,] }}
 Didactylos' anecdote about the royal road to learning
  parodies a similar one told about Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 236/170\,] }}
 ``\,`I'm just going out,' said Brutha. `I may be some time.'\,''

  Brutha here repeats the last words of Captain Oates, who walked out in a
  blizzard on Scott's unsuccessful Antarctic expedition, in order to try
  and save food for the remaining expedition members. He was never seen
  again. It didn't work.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 249/179\,] }}
 ``The scalbie took no notice. [{\ldots}] It had perched on Om's
  shell.''

  Resonates with the \emph{B.C.} comic strip, which occasionally features a bird
  of indeterminate species standing on a turtle's shell. They don't get
  along very well, either.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 254/182\,] }}
 ``\,`Got to have a whole parcel of worshippers to live on Nob
  Hill.'\,''

  Nob Hill is an affluent section of San Francisco (which in turn got its
  name from `nob', a British term of derision for upper-class people,
  especially those who are a little ostentatious with their wealth).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 259/186\,] }}
 ``\,`Something that'd open the valve if there was too much
  steam. I think I could do something with a pair of revolving balls.'\,''

  Urn's steam engines are more or less identical to the ones that were
  described by Archimedes and used in ancient Ephebe --- I mean Greece.
  These engines also used copper spheres as heating vessels, and these
  spheres did, in fact, have a regrettable tendency to explode, which is
  what limited their use until some bright person thought of adding
  overpressure relief valves.

  These steam engines never really caught on, because of various practical
  problems and the greater cost-effectiveness of slave-power. See also the
  James Watt annotation for p.~175/153 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

  The contraption with revolving balls Urn is thinking of in the sentence
  quoted above was identified by several readers as something called a
  speed governor, invented by James Watt. This consists of two balls
  spinning on two opposite movable arms around a rotating central axis.
  When the centrifugal force gets large enough to lift the balls up, the
  movement opens a safety valve that lets off the steam, causing the
  rotation to slow down and the balls to come down again, closing the
  valve, etc.\  --- a simple but ingenious negative feedback device.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 264/190\,] }}
 ``There was a city once [{\ldots}] there were canals, and gardens.
  There was a lake. They had floating gardens on the lake,[{\ldots}]. Great
  pyramid temples that reached to the sky. Thousands were sacrificed.''

  This description evokes Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), the capital of
  the ancient Aztec Empire. Tenochtitlan was built on islands in a lake
  (now drained) and was crossed by canals, and the floating gardens may
  still be seen, as may ruins of many pyramid temples on which thousands
  were indeed sacrificed.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 277/198\,] }}
 ``\,`About life being like a sparrow flying through a room?
  Nothing but darkness outside? And it flies through the room and there's
  just a moment of warmth and light?'\,''

  This story appears in the Anglo-Saxon historian St Bede's account of the
  conversion of England to Christianity in the year 625. A noble relates
  this metaphor for human existence to King Edwin of Northumbria, and
  concludes, ``Of what went before and of what is to follow, we are utterly
  ignorant. If therefore this new faith [Christianity] can give us some
  greater certainty, it justly deserves that we should follow it.''

  The original meaning of the parable was to describe the human condition,
  with life as a moment of light between two dark unknowns; it's a nice
  twist of irony that Terry here uses it to describe the \emph{divine} condition
  instead.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 286/205\,] }}
 ``Like many early thinkers, the Ephebians believed that
  thoughts originated in the heart, and that the brain was merely a device
  to cool the blood.''

  In our world this idea was originally proposed by none other than
  Aristotle. Aristotle got almost everything to do with natural history
  dead wrong, although in his defense it must be said that it was not his
  fault that later cultures took his works to be Absolute Truth instead of
  trying to experiment and find things out for themselves.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 287/206\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] promises in his head.''

  The Small Gods' offer that ``All this can be yours, if you just worship
  \emph{me}{\ldots}'' parallels the Temptation of Christ in the desert, during his
  forty days' fast before starting his preaching.

  The offer of food is similar, but more closely related to St Peter's
  vision in Acts 10:11, in which a blanket is lowered from heaven,
  containing all sorts of ritually unclean food, notably Pork (the Roast
  Pig which is proffered by the Small Gods).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 289/207\,] }}
 ``The wheel had been nailed flat on the top of a slim pole.''

  St Simon Stylites (or Simon the Elder), a Syrian Monk, spent the last 39
  years of his life living atop a pole. There are quite a few accounts of
  pole sitting in Syrian Monasticism, and a variety of other hermits and
  extremely pious lunatics also lived this way.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 290/208\,] }}
 ``\,`My parents named me Sevrian Thaddeus Ungulant, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The hero of Gene Wolfe's science fiction novel \emph{Book of the New Sun} is
  called Severian. Like Brutha, Severian has a problem with forgetting
  things.

  St Ungulant's sidekick Angus resonates with the breed of cattle of the
  same name (the Aberdeen Angus), which in turn may not be entirely
  unrelated to the fact that an `ungulate' is a hoofed mammal.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/220\,] }}
 ``\,`A nod's as good as a poke with a sharp stick to a deaf
  camel, as they say.'\,''

  A reference to the British saying ``A nod's as good as a wink to a blind
  horse'', meaning that no hint is useful to one who does not notice it,
  implying that a hint is currently in progress. Terry combines this in
  typical fashion with the saying ``It's better than a poke in the eye with
  a sharp stick''.

  Monty Python had similar fun with this proverb in their ``Nudge nudge''
  sketch: ``\,`A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 321/230\,] }}
 ``\,`What've you got? He's got an army! You've got an army? How
  many divisions have you got?'\,''

  As the Allies in World War II were planning the landing in Italy, they
  had frequent meetings to discuss methods and consequences. On one of
  these meetings, Churchill made a reference to what the Pope would think
  about all this. To which Stalin replied, ``The pope? How many divisions
  does he have?''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 324/232\,] }}
 ``I don't know what effect it's going to have on the enemy,
  he thought, but it scares the hells out of me.''

  Paraphrases a comment made by the Duke of Wellington immediately before
  the Battle of Waterloo, about his own troops, in particular about the
  Highland regiments (large, hairy, kilts, bagpipes, etc.).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 325/233\,] }}
 ``\,`We said, the first thing we'll do, we'll kill all the
  priests!'\,''

  Paraphrases a line from Shakespeare's \emph{King Henry VI, part 2}, act~4,
  scene~2 (a play that's also about bloody revolution): ``The first thing we
  do, let's kill all the lawyers.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 327/234\,] }}
 ``Bishops move diagonally.''

  Reference to chess moves.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 340/244\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] plunged his beak through the brown feathers between
  the talons, and \emph{gripped}.''

  While I agree with Terry that biological correctness shouldn't stand in
  the way of a good joke or plot point, I feel it should still be pointed
  out that the organs Om is presumably aiming for don't exist in birds.
  They simply haven't got the balls.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 341/244\,] }}
 ``When you have their full attention in your grip, their
  hearts and minds will follow.''

  `Testiculos' does not \emph{quite} translate as `full attention'.

  The correct version of the quote originates with Chuck Colson, one of
  Richard Nixon's Watergate henchmen.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 346/248\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] two pounds of tortoise, travelling at three metres a
  second, hit him between the eyes.''

  Brewer tells us that in 456 BC Aeschylus, ``the most sublime of the Greek
  tragic poets'', was ``killed by a tortoise thrown by an eagle (to break the
  shell) against his bald head, which it mistook for a stone''.

  Somebody on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} accused Terry of using `deus ex machina'
  solutions too often in the Discworld novels, and cited this as a
  particular example. After all, everything has been going just swimmingly
  for Vorbis right until the very end, when the situation is simply
  resolved by having Om smash into him. In answer to this, Terry wrote:

  ``This is a valid point{\ldots} but the key is whether the `solution' is
  inherent in the story.

  Consider one of the most basic lessons of folk tale. The young adventurer
  meets the old woman begging for food and gives her some; subsequently
  (she being, of course, a witch) he becomes king/wins the princess/etc
  with her aid, because of his actions earlier.

  A solution doesn't `come along'; it's built into the fabric of the story
  from an early stage. \emph{Guards!\ Guards!} and \emph{Interesting Times} both use
  this device. I'd suggest that such a resolution is perfectly valid --- as
  they say, using a gun to shoot the bad guy in Act 3 is only okay if the
  gun has been on the wall since Act 1. In \emph{Small Gods}, though, not a
  single new thing is introduced or resurrected in order to defeat Vorbis
  --- he's defeated because of the way various characters react to events.
  The problem contains the solution coiled inside.

  If it's cowardice not to kill off your heroes but let them survive
  because luck runs their way, then I'll plead guilty in the certain
  knowledge that I won't get within a mile of the dock because of the
  crowds of authors and directors already there{\ldots}:--)\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 352/252\,] }}
 ``\,`Right. Right. That's all I'm looking for. Just trying to
  make ends hummus.'\,''

  Hummus is a meat substitute/complement, made from chickpeas, usually
  eaten in Middle Eastern countries.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 355/254\,] }}
 ``Y{\smaller{OU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE}}, he said, T{\smaller{HAT HELL IS
  OTHER PEOPLE?}}''

  ``Hell is other people'' is a quote from, and the message of, Jean-Paul
  Sartre's play \emph{No Exit}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 355/255\,] }}
 Could the name Fasta Benj possibly be derived from `Faster,
  Ben Johnson'?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 377/270\,] }}
 ``R{\smaller{EMIND ME AGAIN}}, he said, H{\smaller{OW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES
  MOVE.}}''

  Refers back to a joke on p.~12/14 of \emph{Sourcery}, where we are told that
  Death dreads playing symbolic last chess games because ``he could never
  remember how the knight was supposed to move''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
There is a rumour going round that there was to be a crucifixion scene at
  the end of this book but that the publishers made Terry take it out.

  The idea of such a scene would appear to be a misrepresentation of the
  `Brutha bound to the turtle' scene. To quote Terry on this:

  ``Crucifiction in \emph{Small Gods}: this is a familiar thing to me, a DW
  `fact' that's gone through several retellings. Nothing's been taken out
  of \emph{Small Gods}, or put in, and there was no pressure to do either.''

\vspace{4ex}\section{Lords and Ladies}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/5\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] young Magrat, she of the [{\ldots}] tendency to be soppy about
  raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens.''

  One of the best songs from \emph{The Sound of Music} is called `My Favourite
  Things' (it's the song Maria sings for the Von Trapp children when they
  are all frightened of the thunderstorm). The opening verse goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, \\Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens, \\Brown paper packages, tied up with strings, \\These are a few of my favourite things. \\
}\end{verse}

  The Von Trapp children would probably have murdered Magrat if she had
  been their governess.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/11\,] }}
 ``But that was a long time ago, in the past [footnote: Which is
  another country]''

  This might refer to \emph{Hamlet}, where the future is described as ``The
  undiscover'd country from whose bourn / No traveller returns'', or perhaps
  Terry has read \emph{The Go-between}, a 1950 book by L.~P.~Hartley, which
  opens with the words: ``The past is a foreign country; they do things
  differently there'', which has become a familiar quotation in England.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/11\,] }}
 ``And besides, the bitch is{\ldots} {\ldots}older.''

  This is another Christopher Marlowe quote, from \emph{The Jew of Malta} (act
  IV, scene i):

\begin{quote}{Barnadine: ``Thou hast committed ---'' \\Barabas: ``Fornication? But that was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead.''\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/16\,] }}
 ``This was the octarine grass country.''

  A reference to (Kentucky) bluegrass country.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/16\,] }}
 ``Then, [{\ldots}] the young corn lay down. In a circle.''

  An explanation of the Crop Circle phenomenon might be in order here.

  Crop Circles are circular patches of flattened crops which have appeared
  in fields of cereals in the South and West of England over the last few
  years. There is no firm evidence pointing to their cause: this has been
  taken by certain parties as a prima facie proof that they are of course
  caused by either alien spacecraft or by some supernatural intelligence,
  possibly in an attempt to communicate.

  In recent years, circle systems have become increasingly elaborate, most
  notably in the case of a circle in the shape of the Mandelbrot Set, and
  another system which is shown on the cover of the recent Led Zeppelin
  compilation album, which seems to indicate that whoever's up there they
  probably have long hair and say \emph{Wow!} and \emph{Yeah!} a lot. A number of
  staged circle-forging challenges in the summer of `92 have demonstrated
  both how easy it is to produce an impressive circle by mundane, not to
  say frivolous methods, and also the surprisingly poor ability of
  `cereologists' to distinguish what they describe as a ``genuine'' circle
  from one ``merely made by hoaxers''.

  Anyone with a burning desire to believe in paranormal explanations is
  invited to post to the newsgroup {\smaller \texttt{sci.skeptic}} an article asserting
  essentially ``I believe that crop circles are produced by UFO's/Sun
  Spots/The Conservative Government/The Easter Bunny'' and see how far they
  get{\ldots}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 24/19\,] }}
 ``Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the
  cause of housework in other people.''

  Over on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} it was postulated that this sounded a bit too
  much like a quote not to be a quote (annotation-hunters can get downright
  paranoid at times), but it took us a while to figure out where it
  originated, although in retrospect we could have used Occam's razor and
  looked it up in Shakespeare immediately. In \emph{King Henry IV, part 2}, act~1, scene~2, Falstaff says: ``I am not only witty in myself, but the cause
  that wit is in other men.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 27/21\,] }}
 ``Some people are born to kingship. Some achieve kingship, or
  at least Arch-Generalissimo-Father-of-His-Countryship. But Verence had
  kingship thrust upon him.''

  The original quote is (as usual) by William Shakespeare, from \emph{Twelfth
  Night} (act 2, scene~5), where Malvolio reads in a letter (which he
  thinks was written to him by his mistress):

\begin{quote}{``In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some \\are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness \\thrust upon `em.'' \\
}\end{quote}

  The dictator most associated with the phrase
  `Arch-Generalissimo-Father-of-His-Countryship' is probably Franco.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28/21\,] }}
 ``Now he was inspecting a complicated piece of equipment. It
  had a pair of shafts for a horse, and the rest of it looked like a
  cartful of windmills. [{\ldots}] `It's a patent crop rotator,' said Verence.''

  The patent crop rotator is an agricultural tool that might not figure
  very prominently in your day-to-day conversation (possibly since no such
  machine exists: crop rotation means growing different things in a field
  in successive years) but British comedy writers are apparently fascinated
  by it. Several people wrote to tell me that the cult TV comedy series
  \emph{The Young Ones} also used the patent crop rotator in their episode
  \emph{Bambi}.

  When Neil (the hippy) is testing Rick (the nerd) on medieval history, the
  following dialogue ensues (edited somewhat for clarity):

\begin{quote}{Rick: `Crop rotation in the 14th century was considerably more widespread{\ldots} after{\ldots} God I know this{\ldots} don't tell me{\ldots}            after 1172?'\\Neil: `John.' \\Rick: `Crop rotation in the 14th century was considerably more widespread after John?'\\Neil: `{\ldots}Lloyd invented the patent crop rotator.' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 29/22\,] }}
 ``\,`I asked Boggi's in Ankh-Morpork to send up their best
  dress-maker [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Boggi's = Gucci's.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 38/29\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle
  than upgrade an old slow one [{\ldots}]''

  Think CPU's and MHz.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 40/30\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ LIKE TO THINK I AM A PICKER-UP OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES.}}
  Death grinned hopefully.''

  In Shakespeare's \emph{The Winter's Tale} we find the character Autolycus (``a
  Rogue''), saying in act~4, scene~2:

\begin{quote}{``My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under \\Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 42/31\,] }}
 ``\,`My lord Lankin?'\,''

  Lord Lankin is a character in a traditional folk ballad:

\begin{verse}\textit{Then Lankin's tane a sharp knife \\that hung down by his gaire \\And he has gi'en the bonny nane \\A deep wound and a sair \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 67/50\,] }}
 ``One of them was known as Herne the Hunted. He was the god of
  the chase and the hunt. More or less.''

  See the annotation for p.~145/144 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 78/57\,] }}
 The names of the would-be junior witches.

  Two of the names resonate with the names used in \emph{Good Omens}: Agnes Nitt
  is similar to Agnes Nutter, and Amanita DeVice (Amanita is also the name
  of a gender of deadly poisonous mushrooms) is similar to Anathema Device.
  There's also a Perdita in Shakespeare's \emph{The Winter's Tale}; the name
  means `damned' or `lost'.

  In fact, all these names are based on the names of the so-called
  Lancashire Witches. The deeds of this group on and around Pendle Hill
  were the subject of probably England's most famous 17th century witchhunt
  and trials. The story is described in some fictional detail in a
  little-known book called, surprise, \emph{The Lancashire Witches}, written at
  the end of the nineteenth century in Manchester by William Harrison
  Ainsworth.

  Interestingly enough, Ainsworth also wrote a book called \emph{Windsor Castle}
  in which Herne the Hunter appears as a major character (see previous
  annotation).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 85/62\,] }}
 The names of the ``new directions''.

  `East of the Sun, West of the Moon': a fairly well-known phrase used,
  amongst others, by Tolkien in a poem, by Theodore Roosevelt as the title
  for a book on hunting, and by pop-group A-ha as an album title. It
  originally is the title of an old Scandinavian fairy tale, which can be
  found in a book by Kay Nielsen, titled \emph{East of the Sun and West of the
  Moon --- Old Tales from the North}. Terry has confirmed that this book was
  his source for the phrase.

  `Behind the North Wind': from the title of a book by George McDonald: \emph{At
  the Back of the North Wind}, the term itself being a translation of
  \emph{Hyperborea}.

  `At the Back Of Beyond': an idiom, perhaps originating from Sir Walter
  Scott's \emph{The Antiquary}: ``Whirled them to the back o' beyont''.

  `There and Back Again': The sub-title of Tolkien's \emph{The Hobbit}.

  `Beyond the Fields We Know': from Lord Dunsany's novel \emph{The King of
  Elfland's Daughter}, where ``the fields we know'' refers to our world, as
  opposed to Elfland, which lies `beyond'. The phrase was also used as the
  title of a collection of Dunsany's stories.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 86/63\,] }}
 ``\,`You know, ooh-jar boards and cards [{\ldots}] and paddlin' with
  the occult.'\,''

  ooh-jar = Ouija. See the annotation for p.~154/136 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 90/66\,] }}
 ``\,`{\ldots} and to my freind Gytha Ogg I leave my bedde and the rag
  rugge the smith in Bad Ass made for me, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The origins of the `rag rugge' are more fully explained in \emph{Equal Rites}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/76\,] }}
 ``\,`Kings are a bit magical, mind. They can cure dandruff and
  that.'\,''

  Well, for one thing kings can cure dandruff by permanently removing
  people's heads from their shoulders, but I think that what Terry is
  probably referring to here is the folk-superstition that says that a
  King's touch can cure scrofula (also known as the King's Evil), which is
  a tubercular infection of the lymphatic glands.

  A similar type of legend occurs in Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the Rings}, but
  Shakespeare also has a lot to say on the subject in \emph{Macbeth}, act~4,
  scene~3.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 105/76\,] }}
 ``Within were the eight members of the Lancre Morris Men [{\ldots}]
  getting to grips with a new art form.''

  In fact, many real life Morris teams put on so-called `Mummers Plays':
  traditional plays with a common theme of death and resurrection. These
  ritual plays are performed on certain key days of the year, such as
  Midwinter's Day (Magrat's wedding is on Midsummer's Eve!), Easter, or All
  Souls Day (Halloween), at which time the Soul Cake play is performed. I
  am also told that a Soul Cake, traditionally served at All Souls, is
  similar to a Madeira Sponge (or `yellow cake' as the Americans call it).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 106/77\,] }}
 ``\,`We could do the Stick and Bucket Dance,' volunteered Baker
  the weaver.''

  There are Morris dances that use sticks, but according to my sources
  there aren't any that use buckets. Jason's reluctance to do this dance
  has its parallels in real world Morris dancing: at least in one area
  (upstate New York), a dance called the Webley Twizzle has a reputation
  for being hazardous to one's health, which is perhaps why it's hardly
  ever danced. It has even been claimed that someone broke his leg doing
  it, although no one seems to know any details. Of course, the reluctance
  of the Lancre Morris Men to perform the `Stick and Bucket' may also have
  to do with the fact that the name of the dance very probably indicates
  another `mettyfor' along the lines of maypoles and broomsticks.

  See the \emph{{\ldots}and Dance} section in Chapter~5 for more information about
  Morris dancing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 106/77\,] }}
 ``\,`I repaired a pump for one once. Artisan wells.'\,''

  Jason Ogg is thinking of Artesian Wells, a kind of well that gets its
  name from the French town of Artois, where they were first drilled in the
  12th century.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 106/77\,] }}
 ``\,`And why's there got to be a lion in it?' said Baker the
  weaver.''

  Because the play-within-a-play performed by the rude mechanicals in \emph{A
  Midsummer Night's Dream} (act 1, scene~2) also features a lion in a
  starring role, of course.

  The Morris Men's discussions on plays and lions reminded one of my
  sources of the play written by Moominpapa in \emph{Moominsummer Madness} by
  Tove Jansson. When asked about it, Terry said that although he has read
  the Moomin books, the lion dialogue is not connected with them.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 106/78\,] }}
 ``\,`Hah, I can just see a real playsmith putting \emph{donkeys} in a
  play!'\,''

  \emph{A Midsummer Night's Dream}, by that mediocre hack-writer William S., is
  an example of a real play that \emph{has} a donkey in it. Or to be absolutely
  precise, a character magically cursed with a donkey's head.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 109/79\,] }}
 ``The Librarian looked out at the jolting scenery. He was
  sulking. This had a lot to do with the new bright collar around his neck
  with the word ``PONGO'' on it. Someone was going to suffer for this.''

  The taxonomic name for orangutans is `Pongo pygmaeus'. And of course
  Pongo is a popular dog name as well, doubling the insult.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/86\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] universes swoop and spiral around one another like
  [{\ldots}] a squadron of Yossarians with middle-ear trouble.''

  Terry writes: ``Can it be that this is forgotten? Yossarian --- the `hero'
  of \emph{Catch--22} --- was the bomber pilot who flew to the target twisting and
  jinking in an effort to avoid the flak --- as opposed to the Ivy League
  types who just flew nice and straight{\ldots}''

  A minor correction: Yossarian was not the pilot, but rather the
  bombardier, who kept screaming instructions to the pilot over the
  intercom, to turn hard right, dive, etc.\ 

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/86\,] }}
 ``The universe doesn't much care if you step on a butterfly.
  There are plenty more butterflies.''

  This immediately recalls the famous science fiction short story \emph{A Sound
  of Thunder}, by Ray Bradbury, which has as its basic premise that the
  universe cares very much indeed if someone steps on a butterfly.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 121/89\,] }}
 ``\,`Good morning, Hodgesaargh,' she said.''

  Hodgesaargh is based on Dave Hodges, a UK fan who runs a project called
  \emph{The REAL Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy}. This is a computer database
  containing a couple of thousand entries (the project began in 1987) in
  the style of Douglas Adams's \emph{Hitch Hiker's Guide}. Dave takes his Guide
  along with him to SF conventions and events, where he auctions off
  printed versions of the Guide in order to raise money for charity. This
  is why the Guide is not readily available, e.g.\  on the Internet.

  One of the entries in the Guide concerns a computer virus called ``Terry'',
  which, it says, ``autographs all the files on the disk as well as any
  nearby manuals''.

  In real life Dave Hodges works for a firm that keeps birds away from
  airports and other places. To this purpose he sometimes uses a falcon
  called, yes, Lady Jane, who bites all the time, which gave Terry the idea
  for the character Hodgesaargh.

  Note that there exist at least two other ``let's write a Hitch Hikers
  Guide'' projects on the Internet that I know of. One of these is the
  \emph{Project Galactic Guide}, which can be reached on the Web through the
  URL: \url{http://www.galactic-guide.com/}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 123/89\,] }}
 ``Verence, being king, was allowed a gyrfalcon [{\ldots}]''

  The complex issues of class distinction in falconry apparently existed in
  medieval times just as Terry describes them here. In \emph{The Once and Future
  King}, T.~H.~White quotes a paragraph by Abbess Juliana Berners: ``An
  emperor was allowed an eagle, a king could have a jerfalcon, and after
  that there was the peregrine for an earl, the merlin for a lady, the
  goshawk for a yeoman, the sparrow hawk for a priest, and the musket for a
  holy-water clerk.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/97\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] five flavours, known as `up', `down', `sideways', `sex
  appeal', and `peppermint'.''

  The flavours of resons are a satire of the somewhat odd naming scheme
  modern physicists have chosen for the different known quarks, namely:
  `up', `down', `strange', `charm', and `beauty' (in order of discovery and
  increasing mass).

  Since theoretical physicists don't like odd numbers they have postulated
  the existence of a sixth quark --- `truth', which was only recently
  created at FermiLab in the USA.

  The beauty and truth quarks are often called `bottom' and `top'
  respectively. In earlier times (and sometimes even now), the strange
  quark was indeed called `sideways'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/97\,] }}
 ``\emph{resons} [footnote: Lit: `Thing-ies']''

  In Latin `res' does indeed mean `thing'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 141/103\,] }}
 ``\,`You are in my kingdom, woman,' said the Queen. `You do not
  come or go without the leave of me.'\,''

  This has echoes of another traditional ballad, this time `Tam Lin':

\begin{verse}\textit{Why come you to Carterhaugh \\Without command of me? \\I'll come and go, young Janet said, \\And ask no leave of thee \\
}\end{verse}

  As with some of the other folk song extracts Terry is closer to the
  recorded (in this case Fairport Convention) version than to the very
  early text in (say) the \emph{Oxford Book of Ballads}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 144/104\,] }}
 ``\,`Head for the gap between the Piper and the Drummer!'\,''

  There are several stone circles in England similar to the Dancers.
  Usually, legend has it that a group of dancers, revellers, ball players,
  etc.\  got turned to stone by the devil's trickery, for not keeping the
  Sabbath, or for having too much fun, or some other awful transgression.
  The Merry Maidens stone circle, with two nearby standing stones known as
  the Pipers, is one such site in Cornwall; the Stanton Drew stone circles
  near Bristol, the petrified remains of a wedding party that got out of
  control, also include a stone circle said to be dancers with a nearby set
  of stones representing the fiddlers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 153/111\,] }}
 ``Magrat had tried explaining things to Mrs Scorbic the cook,
  but the woman's three chins wobbled so menacingly at words like
  `vitamins' that she'd made an excuse to back out of the kitchen.''

  The technical name for vitamin C is ascorbic acid.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 163/118\,] }}
 ``\,`Like the horseshoe thing. [{\ldots}] Nothing to do with its
  shape.'\,''

  Granny refers to the traditional explanation for hanging horseshoes over
  the door, which is that they bring luck, but only if placed with the open
  side up --- otherwise the luck would just run out the bottom.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 172/125\,] }}
 ``\,`Good morrow, brothers, and wherehap do we whist this merry
  day?' said Carter the baker.''

  It is impossible to list all the ways in which the sections about the
  Lancre Morris Men and the play they are performing parodies the
  play-within-a-play that occurs in \emph{A Midsummer Night's Dream}. The only
  way to get full enjoyment here is to just go out and read Shakespeare.
  While you're at it, pay particular attention to the names and occupations
  of both Terry's and William's `Rude Mechanicals'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/125\,] }}
 ``\,`And we're Rude Mechanicals as well?' said Baker the
  weaver.''

  Baker's next three lines are ``Bum!'', ``Drawers!'' and ``Belly!''. These come
  from a song by Flanders and Swann, which is called `P**! P*! B****! B**!
  D******!'. The first verse goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{Ma's out, Pa's out, let's talk rude! \\Pee! Po! Belly! Bum! Drawers! \\Dance in the garden in the nude, \\Pee! Po! Belly! Bum! Drawers! \\Let's write rude words all down the street; \\Stick out our tongues at the people we meet; \\Let's have an intellectual treat! \\Pee! Po! Belly! Bum! Drawers! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 174/126\,] }}
 ``\,`Yeah, everyone knows `tis your delight on a shining
  night', said Thatcher the carter.''

  It is relevant that Thatcher is making this remark to Carpenter the
  poacher, because it is a line from the chorus of an English folk song
  called `The Lincolnshire Poacher':

\begin{verse}\textit{When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire \\Full well I served my master for more than seven year' \\`Til I took up to poaching, as you shall quickly hear \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Oh `tis my delight on a shining night \\In the season of the year! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 174/126\,] }}
 The three paths leading from the cross-roads in the woods
  are variously described as being ``all thorns and briars'', ``all winding'',
  and the last (which the Lancre Morris Men decide to take) as ``Ferns grew
  thickly alongside it''.

  This echoes the poem and folk song `Thomas the Rhymer', about a man who
  followes the Queen of Elves to Elfland:

\begin{verse}\textit{O see ye not yon narrow road, \\So thick beset wi' thorns and riers? \\That is the Path of Righteousness, \\Though after it but few enquires. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And see ye not yon braid, braid road, \\That lies across the lily leven? \\That is the Path of Wickedness, \\Though some call it the Road to Heaven. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And see ye not yon bonny road \\That winds about the fernie brae? \\That is the Road to fair Elfland, \\Where thou and I this night maun gae. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 177/128\,] }}
 ``\,`But it ain't April!', neighbours told themselves [{\ldots}]''

  Inconsistency time! On p.~154/135 of \emph{Witches Abroad}, Granny responds to
  Nanny Ogg's intention of taking a bath with the words ``My word, doesn't
  autumn roll around quickly''.

  In subsequent discussions on the net it was postulated that Nanny's bath
  habits could well be explained by taking into account the fact that the
  Discworld has eight seasons (see first footnote in \emph{The Colour of Magic}
  on p.~11/11), which might result in e.g.\  two autumns a year. And of
  course, on our world April \emph{is} indeed a month in Autumn --- in the
  southern hemisphere (don't ask me if that also holds for a Discworld,
  though).

  Personally, I tend to agree with Terry, who has once said: ``There are
  \emph{no} inconsistencies in the Discworld books; occasionally, however, there
  are alternate pasts''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 191/138\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] fed up with books of etiquette and lineage and
  \emph{Twurp's Peerage} [{\ldots}]''

  \emph{Burke's Peerage} is a book that lists the hereditary titled nobility of
  the British Realm (the Peers of the Realm, hence the title of the book).
  It contains biographical facts such as when they were born, what title(s)
  they hold, who they're married to, children, relationships to other
  peers, etc.\  For example, under `Westminster, Duke of' it will give
  details of when the title was created, who has held it and who holds it
  now.

  Also, `twerp' and `berk' (also spelt as `burk') are both terms of abuse,
  with `twerp' being relatively innocent, but with `berk' coming from the
  Cockney rhyming slang for `Berkshire Hunt', meaning `cunt'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 191/138\,] }}
 ``It probably looked beautiful on the Lady of Shallot, [{\ldots}]''

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a well-known poem called \emph{The Lady of
  Shalott} (see also e.g.\  Agatha Christie's \emph{The Mirror Crack'd}). A
  shallot (double l, single t), however, is a small greenish/purple
  (octarine?) onion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 193/139\,] }}
 ``\,`I mean, we used to have a tradition of rolling boiled eggs
  downhill on Soul Cake Tuesday, but ---'\,''

  It is in fact a Lithuanian tradition (one of many) to roll boiled eggs
  downhill on Easter Sunday in a game similar to lawn bowls. The idea is to
  either (1) break the other person's egg, thereby eliminating them from
  the competition (although this can be risky, since your own egg may also
  break) or (2) to get your egg to just hit someone else's, in which case
  you win their egg. Similar traditions undoubtedly exist in many other
  European countries (in fact, I'm told it is also done in some English
  villages), though not in the Netherlands, where we'd be having extreme
  difficulties finding a spot high enough for an egg to be rolled down from
  in the first place.

  This the first mention in the Discworld books of Soul Cake \emph{Tuesday} (see
  also the annotation for p.~289/262 of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}). Perhaps Terry
  finally settled on this day of the week because of the resonance with the
  traditional `Pancake Tuesday' (the first Tuesday after Lent).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/140\,] }}
 ``Even these people would consider it tactless to mention the
  word `billygoat' to a troll.''

  This sentence used to have me completely stumped, until I discovered
  (with the help of the ever helpful {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} correspondents) that
  this refers to a well-known British fairy tale of Scandinavian origin
  called `The Three Billygoats Gruff'.

  That tale tells the story of three billygoat brothers who try to cross a
  bridge guarded by, you guessed it, a mean troll who wants to eat them.
  Luckily, the troll wasn't very smart, so the first two goats were able to
  outwit him by passing him one at a time, each saying ``Don't eat me, just
  wait for my brother who's much bigger and fatter than I am''. The third
  goat, Big Billygoat Gruff, was big, all right. Big enough to take on the
  troll and butt him off the bridge and right over the mountains far from
  the green meadow (loud cheers from listening audience). So the troll was
  both tricked and trounced.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 204/147\,] }}
 ``\,`I'll be as rich as Creosote.'\,''

  Creosote = Croesus. See the annotation for p.~125/113 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 216/156\,] }}
 ``\,`All the hort mond are here,' Nanny observed [{\ldots}]''

  Hort mond = haut monde = high society.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 226/162\,] }}
 ``\,`And there's this damn cat they've discovered that you can
  put in a box and it's dead and alive at the same time. Or something.'\,''

  This is Schr\"{o}dinger's cat. See also the annotation for p.~279/199.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
[p. {???}/171] ``\,`I was young and foolish then.' `Well? You're old and
  foolish now.'\,''

  More people than I can count have written, in the light of Terry's
  fondness for They Might Be Giants, pointing out their song `I Lost My
  Lucky Ball and Chain':

\begin{verse}\textit{She threw away her baby-doll \\I held on to my pride \\But I was young and foolish then \\I feel old and foolish now \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 239/172\,] }}
 ``This made some of the \emph{grand guignol} melodramas a little
  unusual, [{\ldots}]''

  Grand guignol, after the Montmartre, Paris theatre \emph{Le Grand Guignol}, is
  the name given to a form of gory and macabre drama so laboriously
  horrific as to fall into absurdity.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 243/175\,] }}
 ``\,`Mind you, that bramble jam tasted of fish, to my mind.' `S
  caviar,' murmured Casanunda.''

  Many people recognised this joke, and mentioned a variety of different
  sources. Terry replied: ``It's very, very old. I first heard it from
  another journalist about 25 years ago, and he said he heard it on the
  (wartime) radio when he was a kid. I've also been told it is a music-hall
  line.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 248/178\,] }}
 ``Quite a lot of trouble had once been caused in Unseen
  University by a former Archchancellor's hat, [{\ldots}]''

  Refers back to certain events described more fully in \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 250/180\,] }}
 \emph{Jane's All The World Siege Weapons}

  \emph{Jane's} is a well known series of books/catalogues for military
  equipment of all sorts and types. There is a Jane's for aeroplanes, for
  boats, etc.\ 

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 276/199\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] in this case there were three determinate states the
  cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.''

  This is a reference to the well-known `Schr\"{o}dinger's cat' quantum theory
  thought-experiment in which a cat in a box is probabilistically killed,
  leaving it in a superposition of being alive and being dead until the box
  is opened and the wavefunction collapses.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 276/199\,] }}
 ``Shawn dived sideways as Greebo went off like a Claymore
  mine.''

  A Claymore mine is an ingenious and therefore extremely nasty device. It
  is a small metal box, slightly curved. On the convex side is written
  ``THIS SIDE TOWARDS THE ENEMY'' which explains why literacy is a survival
  trait even with US marines. The box is filled with explosive and 600
  steel balls. It has a tripod and a trigger mechanism, which can be
  operated either by a tripwire or, when the operator doesn't want to miss
  the fun, manually. When triggered, the device explodes and showers the
  half of the world which could have read the letters with the steel balls.
  Killing radius 100 ft., serious maiming radius a good deal more. Used to
  great effect in Vietnam by both sides.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 277/199\,] }}
 ``Green-blue blood was streaming from a dozen wounds [{\ldots}]''

  This is a brilliant bit of logical extrapolation on Terry's part. Since
  iron is anathema to elves, they obviously can't have haemoglobin-based
  red blood. Copper-based (green) blood is used by some Earth animals,
  notably crayfish, so it's an obvious alternative. Of course, it was \emph{Star
  Trek} that really made pointy-eared, green-blooded characters famous{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/205\,] }}
 ``\,`This girl had her fianc\'{e} stolen by the Queen of Elves and
  she didn't hang around whining, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  A reference to the folk song `Tam Lin', in which Fair Janet successfully
  wrests her Tam Lin from the Queen of Fairies, despite various alarming
  transformations inflicted on him.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/205\,] }}
 ``\,`I'll be back.'\,''

  Catchphrase used by Arnold Schwarzenegger in (almost) all his movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 287/207\,] }}
 ``Ancient fragments chimed together now in Magrat's head.''

  The six lines given make up three different poems. From \emph{The Fairies}, by
  Irish poet William Allingham (1850):

\begin{verse}\textit{Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen \\We dare not go a-hunting for fear of little men \\
}\end{verse}

  From a traditional Cornish prayer:

\begin{verse}\textit{From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties \\and things that go bump in the night \\Good Lord deliver us \\
}\end{verse}

  And finally from a traditional school girls' skipping rhyme:

\begin{verse}\textit{My mother said I never should \\Play with the fairies in the wood \\If I did, she would say \\You naughty girl to disobey \\Your hair won't grow, your shoes won't shine \\You naughty little girl, you shan't be mine! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 295/213\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] one and six, beetle crushers! [{\ldots}] one, two,
  forward{\ldots} bean setting!'\,''

  This section demonstrates that Terry is not a Morris dancer himself; the
  terminology isn't quite authentic enough. But ``beetle crushers'' is an
  actual Morris step, and ``bean setting'' is the name of a dance and, by
  extension, a name for a move used in that dance.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 298/215\,] }}
 ``\,`Girls used to go up there if they wanted to get ---'\,''

  Women who wished to conceive would spend the night on the um, appropriate
  bit of the Cerne Abbas Giant site in Dorset. See the annotation for p.~302/217.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 300/216\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the only other one ever flying around here is Mr
  Ixolite the banshee, and he's very good about slipping us a note under
  the door when he's going to be about.''

  If you haven't read \emph{Reaper Man} yet, you may not realise that the reason
  why Mr Ixolite slips notes under the door is that he is the only banshee
  in the world with a speech impediment.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 302/217\,] }}
 ``\,`They're nervy of going close to the Long Man. [{\ldots}] Here
  it's the landscape saying: I've got a great big tonker.'\,''

  The Discworld's Long Man is a set of three burial mounds. In Britain
  there is a famous monument called the Long Man of Wilmington, in East
  Sussex. It's not a mound, but a chalk-cut figure on a hillside; the turf
  was scraped away to expose the chalk underneath, outlining a standing
  giant 70 meters tall. There are several such figures in England, but only
  two human figures, this and the Cerne Abbas Giant.

  Chalk-cut figures have to be recut periodically, which provides
  opportunities to bowdlerize them. This is probably why the Long Man of
  Wilmington is sexless; it was recut in the 1870s, when, presumably,
  public displays of great big tonkers were rather frowned upon. However,
  the other chalk-cut giant in Britain, the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, is
  a nude, 55-meter-tall giant wielding a club, who has a tonker about 12
  meters long, and proudly upraised. Nearby is a small earth enclosure
  where maypole dancing, etc.\  was once held.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 305/219\,] }}
 ``They showed a figure of an owl-eyed man wearing an animal
  skin and horns.''

  I am told this description applies to the cave painting known as The
  Sorceror (aka The Magician, aka The Shaman) in the Trois Freres cave in
  Arieges, France.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 305/219\,] }}
 ``There was a runic inscription underneath. [{\ldots}] `It's a
  variant of Oggham,' she said.''

  Ogham is the name of an existing runic script found in the British Isles
  (mostly in Ireland) and dating back at least to the 5th century. The
  Pratchett Archives contain a file with more information about the oghamic
  alphabet, including pictures of the individual characters.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/221\,] }}
 ``\,`Hiho, hiho ---'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~88/73 of \emph{Moving Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 308/222\,] }}
 ``\,`It's some old king and his warriors [{\ldots}] supposed to wake
  up for some final battle when a wolf eats the sun.'\,''

  Another one of Terry's famous Mixed Legends along the lines of the
  princess and the pea fairy tale in \emph{Mort}.

  The wolf bit is straight from Norse mythology. The wolf Fenris, one of
  Loki's monster children, will one day break free from his chains and eat
  the sun. This is one of the signs that the G\"{o}tterd\"{a}mmerung or Ragnarok
  has begun, and at this point the frost giants\footnote{Who presumably have
  \emph{still} not returned the Gods' lawnmower.} will cross the Rainbow Bridge
  and fight the final battle with the gods of Asgard and the heroes who
  have died and gone to Valhalla. See the last part of Richard Wagner's
  Ring cycle for details.

  The sleeping king is one of the oldest and deepest folk-myths of western
  culture, some versions of the popular legend even have King Arthur and
  his warriors sleeping on the island of Anglesea. For more information,
  see e.g.\  the section about the Fisher King in Frazer's \emph{The Golden
  Bough}, Jessie Weston's \emph{From Ritual To Romance} and all the stuff that
  this leads into, such as Elliot's \emph{The Wasteland} and David Lodge's
  \emph{Small World}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 316/227\,] }}
 ``The place looked as though it had been visited by Genghiz
  Cohen.''

  Much later, in \emph{Interesting Times}, we learn that Cohen the Barbarian's
  first name is, in fact, Genghiz.

  With respect to the original pun on Genghiz Kahn, Terry says:

  ``As a matter of interest, I'm told there's a kosher Mongolian restaurant
  in LA called Genghiz Cohen's. It's a fairly obvious pun, if your mind is
  wired that way.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 316/227\,] }}
 ``Queen Ynci wouldn't have obeyed{\ldots}''

  The ancient warrior queen Ynci is modelled on Boadicea (who led a British
  rebellion against the Romans). Boadicea's husband was the ruler of a
  tribe called the Iceni, which is almost Ynci backwards.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 321/231\,] }}
 ``{\ldots}I think at some point I remember someone asking us to
  clap our hands{\ldots}''

  From J.~M.~Barrie's \emph{Peter Pan}:

  [{\ldots}] [Tinkerbell the Fairy] was saying that she thought she could get
  well again if children believed in fairies. [{\ldots}] ``If you believe,''
  [Peter Pan] shouted to them, ``clap your hands; don't let Tink die.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 324/233\,] }}
 ``\,`Millennium hand and shrimp.'\,''

  One of the truly frequently asked questions on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} is
  ``Where does this phrase come from?'' (Foul Ole Ron also uses it, in \emph{Soul
  Music}.)

  The answer concerns Terry's experiments with computer-generated texts:

  ``It was a program called Babble, or something similar. I put in all kinds
  of stuff, including the menu of the Dragon House Chinese take-away
  because it was lying on my desk. The program attempted to make `coherent'
  phrases (!) out of it all.''

  One of the other things Terry must have fed it were the lyrics to the
  song `Particle Man' by They Might Be Giants (see the annotation for p.~264/199 of \emph{Soul Music}):

\begin{verse}\textit{Universe man, universe man \\Size of the entire universe man \\Usually kind to smaller men, universe man \\He's got a watch with a minute hand \\A millennium hand, and an eon hand \\When they meet it's happyland \\Powerful man, universe man. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 328/236\,] }}
 ``\,`I've got five years' worth of \emph{Bows And Ammo}, Mum,' said
  Shawn.''

  In our world there is a magazine \emph{Guns And Ammo}; this appears to be the
  Discworld equivalent.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 328/236\,] }}
 Shawn's speech.

  Shawn's speech is a parody of the `St Crispin's Day' speech in
  Shakespeare's \emph{King Henry V}. See also the annotation for p.~239/303 of
  \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 329/236\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] imitate the action of the Lancre Reciprocating Fox
  and stiffen some sinews while leaving them flexible enough [{\ldots}]''

  And this one is from the even more famous `Once more unto the breach'
  speech, also from \emph{King Henry V}:

\begin{quote}{``Then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up \\the blood.'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 341/245\,] }}
 ``\,`Ain't that so, Fairy Peaseblossom?'\,''

  One of the fairies in \emph{A Midsummer Night's Dream} is called Peasblossom.
  In itself this is not very interesting, but it is directly relevant when
  you consider the point Granny is trying to make to the Elf Queen.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 350/252\,] }}
 ``The King held out a hand, and said something. Only Magrat
  heard it. Something about meeting by moonlight, she said later.''

  In \emph{A Midsummer Night's Dream} (act 2, scene~2), Oberon, King of the
  Fairies, says to Titania, Queen of the Fairies (with whom he has a kind
  of love/hate relationship): ``Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 353/253\,] }}
 ``\,`You know, sir, sometimes I think there's a great ocean of
  truth out there and I'm just sitting on the beach playing with{\ldots} with
  \emph{stones}.'\,''

  This paraphrases Isaac Newton. The original quote can be found in
  Brewster's \emph{Memoirs of Newton}, Volume~II, Chapter~27:

  ``I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to
  have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself
  in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than
  ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
  me.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 363/261\,] }}
 ``\,`Go ahead, [{\ldots}] bake my quiche.'\,''

  Clint Eastwood's \emph{Dirty Harry} again, another satire of the line which
  also inspired ``FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC'' (see the annotation for p.~51/48 of
  \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 364/261\,] }}
 ``\,`On with the motley. Magrat'll appreciate it.'\,''

  ``On with the motley'' is a direct translation of the Italian ``Vesti la
  giubba'' which is the first line of a famous aria from the opera \emph{I
  Pagliacci}. (Operatic arias are usually known by their first line or
  first few words). It is the bitter aria in which the actor Canio laments
  that he must go on stage even though his heart is breaking, and climaxes
  with the line `Ridi Pagliaccio'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 367/264\,] }}
 ``Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian
  ones. They are not all that subtle.''

  Definitely a Tolkien reference this time. See the annotation for p.~183/149 of \emph{Mort}.

  There is a version frequently seen on the net in people's {.signatures},
  which I am sure will have Terry's full approval. It runs: ``Do not meddle
  in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your
  computer''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 371/267\,] }}
 ``\,`My great-grandma's husband hammered it out of a tin bath
  and a couple of saucepans.'\,''

  On a.f.p.\ the question was asked why, if Magrat's armour was fake and not
  made of iron at all, was it so effective against the Elves? Terry
  answers:

  ``A tin bath isn't made out of tin. It's invariably galvanised iron --- ie,
  zinc dipped. They certainly rust after a while.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 382/274\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he called it \emph{The Taming Of The Vole} [{\ldots}]''

  Shakespeare again, of course. A vole is a small animal, somewhat similar
  to a shrew.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Men at Arms}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Starting with ``Men at Arms'', the word `Discworld' appeared on the
  copyright page with a `registered trademark' symbol appended to it.

  When asked if this indicated a tougher policy against possible copyright
  infringements, Terry replied:

  ``Discworld and some associated names are subject to various forms of
  trademark, but we don't make a big thing about it. We've had to take some
  very gentle action in the past and the trademarking is a precautionary
  measure --- it's too late to do it when you're knee-deep in lawyers. There
  will be a computer game next year, and possibly a record album. We have
  to do this stuff.

  But --- I stress --- it's not done to discourage fans, or prevent the
  general usage of Discworld, etc, in what I'd loosely call fandom. By now
  afp readers ought to know that. It's been done so that we have a decent
  lever if there's a BIG problem.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Someone complained on the net that the picture of the Gonne on the back
  cover of \emph{Men at Arms} gives away too much information about the story.
  Terry replied:

  ``Hmm. We wondered about the cover `giving away half the plot' and decided
  to go with it --- especially since Josh got the Gonne exactly right from
  the description. But I'd say it's pretty obvious VERY early in the book
  what sort of thing we're dealing with. That's what distinguishes a
  `police procedural' from a mystery; after all, you know from the start
  whodunit in a Columbo plot, but the fun is watching him shuffle around
  solving it his way{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 On the cover, Josh Kirby draws Cuddy without a beard, even though
  it is mentioned many times in the text that he has one.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/6\,] }}
 ``But Edward d'Eath didn't cry, for three reasons.''

  De'ath is an existing old English name. The De'aths came over with
  William the Conqueror, and tend to get very upset if ignorant peasants
  pronounce their name{\ldots} well, you know, instead of `Dee-ath' as it's
  supposed to be pronounced.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/8\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] an iconograph box which, is a thing with a brownei
  inside that paints pictures of thing's, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Kodak's first mass-produced affordable camera was called the ``box
  brownie''. A brownie is also the name of a helpful type of goblin. And we
  all know how cameras work on the Discworld{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/14\,] }}
 ``\,`Twurp's P-eerage,' he shouted.''

  Burke's Peerage. See the annotation for p.~191/138 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/15\,] }}
 ``\,`My nurse told me,' said Viscount Skater, `that a \emph{true} king
  could pull a sword from a stone.'\,''

  Arthurian legend, Holy Grail, that kind of stuff.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 24/18\,] }}
 ``Silicon Anti-Defamation League had been going on at the
  Patrician, and now ---''

  Cf.\  the real life Jewish Anti-Defamation League.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 25/18\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the upturned face of Lance-Constable Cuddy, with its
  helpful intelligent expression and one glass eye.''

  Columbo had a glass eye (or rather, Peter Falk, who played the part, had
  one). And he was rather short.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 29/22\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, \emph{nil desperandum}, Mr Flannel, \emph{nil desperandum},' said
  Carrot cheerfully.''

  ``Nil desperandum'' is a genuine old Latin phrase, still occasionally in
  use, meaning ``don't despair''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/33\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember when he was going to go all the way up to
  Dunmanifestin to steal the Secret of Fire from the gods?' said Nobby.''

  Reference to Prometheus, who gave fire to man and got severely shafted
  for it by the previous owners. See also the annotation for p.~131/107 of
  \emph{Eric}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/33\,] }}
 ``Fingers-Mazda, the first thief in the world, stole fire from
  the gods.''

  The name `Fingers-Mazda' puns on Ahura-Mazda, or Ormuzd, the Zoroastrian
  equivalent of God.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 46/34\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember,' he said, `let's be careful out there.'\,''

  The desk sergeant in \emph{Hill Street Blues} used to say this in each episode
  of the TV series, at the end of the force's morning briefing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 49/37\,] }}
 ``\,`Morning, Mr Bauxite!'\,''

  Bauxite is the name of the rock that contains aluminium ore. I have fond
  memories of this red-coloured rock, because I grew up in a country
  (Suriname) whose economy depended entirely upon bauxite and aluminium.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 54/41\,] }}
 ``Mr Morecombe had been the Ramkins' family solicitor for a
  long time. Centuries, in fact. He was a vampire.''

  In other words: a bloodsucking lawyer, right?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 56/42\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] turn in their graves if they knew that the Watch had
  taken on a w---''

  Only funny the second time you read the book, because it is then that you
  realise that the first time every reader will have gotten this wrong{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 62/47\,] }}
 ``\,`No one ever eats the black pudding.'\,''

  Not very surprising at the Assassin's Guild: black pudding is made with
  blood.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 64/47\,] }}
 ``Captain Vimes paused at the doorway, and then thumped the
  palm of his hand on his forehead. [{\ldots}] `Sorry, excuse me --- mind like a
  sieve these days --- [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Acting like a bumbling fool, making as if to leave, then smacking his
  head, `remembering' something in the doorway, and unleashing an absolute
  killer question is exactly how TV Detective Columbo always drives his
  suspects to despair.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 72/54\,] }}
 ``\,`N{\smaller{EITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE
  MESSENGERS ABOT THIER DUTY}}'\,''

  This paraphrases the motto of the US postal service: ``Neither snow nor
  rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay these couriers from the swift
  completion of their appointed rounds''.

  In Tom Burnam's \emph{More Misinformation} it is explained that this quote by
  Herodotus is not really the official motto of the Postal service, since
  there is no such thing. But it is a quote that is inscribed on the
  General Post Office building in New York, and has been construed as a
  motto by the general populace. It refers to a system of mounted postal
  couriers used by the Persians when the Greeks attacked Persia, around 500
  BC.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/57\,] }}
 Capability Brown.

  Lancelot `Capability' Brown (1715--1783) actually existed, and was a well
  known landscape gardener and architect. His nickname derived from his
  frequent statement to prospective employers that their estates held great
  ``capabilities''. The existence of Sagacity Smith and Intuition De Vere
  Slave-Gore must be questioned, at least in this particular trouser-leg of
  time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 77/58\,] }}
 ``It contained the hoho, which was like a haha only deeper.''

  A haha is a boundary to a garden or park, usually a buried wall or
  shallow ditch designed not to be seen until closely approached.

  I'm told there's a rather nice haha at Elvaston Castle just outside
  Derby. From the house there appears to be an unobstructed vista into the
  distance, despite the presence of the main road to Derby crossing the
  field of view about 200 yards away. Unfortunately, when the house was
  designed, they hadn't invented double-decker buses or lorries, so the
  effect is a bit spoilt by the sudden appearance of the top half of a bus
  going past from time to time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/66\,] }}
 ``\,`I think perhaps Lance-Constable Angua shouldn't have another
  go with the longbow until we've worked out how to stop her{\ldots} her getting
  in the way.'\,''

  The Amazons of legend had a famously cutting way of solving this
  particular problem{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 94/71\,] }}
 ``There's a bar like it in every big city. It's where the
  coppers drink.''

  Quite stereotypical of course, but the bar from the TV series \emph{Hill
  Street Blues} is the one that I was immediately reminded of.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 94/71\,] }}
 ``\,`That's three beers, one milk, one molten sulphur on coke
  with phosphoric acid ---'\,''

  Phosphoric acid is in fact an ingredient of Coca Cola. It's part of the
  0.5 \% that isn't water or sugar.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 94/71\,] }}
 ``\,`A Slow Comfortable Double-Entendre with Lemonade.'\,''

  There is an existing cocktail called a `Slow Comfortable Screw', or, in
  its more advanced incarnation, a `A Long Slow Comfortable Screw Up
  against the Wall'.

  This drink consists of Sloe Gin (hence the `slow'), Southern Comfort
  (hence the `comfortable'), Orange Juice (which is what makes a
  screwdriver a screwdriver and not merely a bloody big vodka; hence the
  `screw'), a float of Galliano (which is in a Harvey Wallbanger; hence the
  `up against the wall'), served in a long glass (hence{\ldots} oh, work it out
  for yourself).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 74\,] }}
 ``\,`GONNE'\,''

  `Gonne' is actually an existing older spelling for `gun' that can be
  found in e.g.\  the works of Chaucer.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 113/85\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] or a hubland bear across the snow [{\ldots}]''

  Scattered across the Discworld canon are numerous little changes in
  terminology to reflect the Discworld's unusual setup, and this is one of
  the more elegant ones, since there obviously can't be polar bears on the
  Disc{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 115/86\,] }}
 The Duke of Eorle.

  Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl. Of doo-wop fame.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 115/87\,] }}
 ``One of the thoughts jostling for space was that there was no
  such thing as a humble opinion.''

  Terry has admitted that the Duke of Eorl's conversational style was a bit
  of a dig at the way discussions on the net are typically held. People
  posting to Usenet newsgroups will often prefix even the most dogmatic
  monologues or megalomaniacal statements with the words ``In my humble
  opinion{\ldots}'', in a (usually futile) attempt to render themselves
  invulnerable to criticism. The qualifier is used so often on the net that
  it even has its own acronym: `IMHO', so you won't have to type so much
  when you use it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 116/88\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] that bastard Chrysoprase, [{\ldots}]''

  Webster's defines chrysoprase as an applegreen variety of chalcedony,
  used as gem, but literally from the Greek words `chrusos', gold and
  `prason', leek. Chalcedony is a semi-precious blue-gray variety of
  quartz, composed of very small crystals packed together with a fibrous,
  waxy appearance.

  Note how both the `gold' etymology and the `waxy appearance' perfectly
  match Chrysoprase's character as the rich, suave, uptown Mafia-troll.

  Chrysoprase already appears (off-stage) on p.~179/178 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters},
  but his name is spelled `Crystophrase' there.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/96\,] }}
 ``\,`What can you make it?' Carrot frowned. `I could make a
  hat,' he said, `or a boat. Or [{\ldots}]'\,''

  This may be far-fetched, but \emph{exactly} the same joke appears in the 1980
  movie \emph{Airplane!} (renamed \emph{Flying High} in some countries).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 130/98\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a toadstool called Phallus impudicus, [{\ldots}]''

  This mushroom actually exists. The Latin name translates quite literally
  to ``Shameless penis''. In English its common name is ``Stinkhorn fungus'',
  and it has been described to me as a large, phallus-shaped, pallid,
  woodland fungus smelling very strongly of rotten meat, and usually
  covered with flies. ``Once experienced, never forgotten'', as my source
  puts it.

  Another mushroom expert subsequently mailed me a long, detailed
  description of the toadstool's appearance, which I'm not going to include
  here. Suffice it to say that it's full of phrases like ``yellow, glutinous
  goo'', ``the head exudes a black slime'' and ``I've smelled these from 50
  paces on a still day''.

  And no, the \emph{Phallus Impudicus} is not edible.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 135/102\,] }}
 ``A lot of equipment had been moved away, however, to make
  room for a billiard table. [{\ldots}] `My word. Perhaps we're adding just the
  right amount of camphor to the nitro-cellulose after all ---'\,''

  In reality, nitro-cellulose (also known as guncotton) is an extremely
  explosive substance that was discovered by people trying to make
  artificial ivory for billiard balls. Camphor is nicely flammable in its
  own right.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 136/103\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh well. Back to the crucible.''

  As well as being alchemist-speak for `back to the drawing board' (a
  crucible is a container used in high-temperature melting), there is also
  the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield where the World Snooker Championships
  are played.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 137/104\,] }}
 ``\,`Haven't you seen his portrait of the Mona Ogg. [{\ldots}] The
  teeth followed you around the room. Amazing.'\,''

  It can easily be observed that the Mona Lisa's \emph{eyes} follow one around
  the room; Leonardo da Vinci supposedly achieved this by using some
  mysterious painting technique that only the greatest of painters are
  capable of. But as Tom Burnham explains in his \emph{Dictionary of
  Misinformation}: ``The eyes-that-follow-you trick is a simple one, used by
  innumerable artists in everything from posters to billboards.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 143/108\,] }}
 ``\,`Brother Grineldi did the old heel-and-toe trick [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Joseph (Joey) Grimaldi was a famous English clown and pantomime of the
  19th century. He was so influential and instrumental in creating the
  modern concept of the clown that circus clowns are still called ``Joeys''
  after him.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 150/113\,] }}
 ``Possibly, if you fought your way through the mysterious old
  coats hanging in it, you'd break through into a magical fairyland full of
  talking animals and goblins, but it'd probably not be worth it.''

  Reference to the children's classic \emph{The Lion, The Witch and the
  Wardrobe} by C.~S.~Lewis. See also the annotation for p.~22/22 of
  \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 153/116\,] }}
 ``I'm on the path, he thought. I don't have to know where it
  leads. I just have to follow.''

  This is almost a direct quote from a scene in \emph{Twin Peaks}:

\begin{quote}{Cooper: ``God help me, I don't know where to start.'' \\Hawk: ``You're on the path. You don't need to know where it leads. Just follow.''\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 155/117\,] }}
 Zorgo the Retrophrenologist.

  For a while I thought we had finally found a troll whose name wasn't
  mineral-related, but no: zorgite is a metallic copper-lead selenide,
  found at Zorge, in the German Harz Mountains.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 157/119\,] }}
 ``\,`It's Oggham,' said Carrot.''

  See the annotation for p.~305/219 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 157/119\,] }}
 ``Soss, egg, beans and rat 12p. Soss, rat and fried slice
  10p. [{\ldots}]''

  People keep seeing a Monty Python reference in this, because they are
  reminded of the ``Eggs, bacon, beans and spam{\ldots}'' sketch.

  But Terry says: ``It's not really Python. Until recently transport cafes
  always had menus like that, except that `Chips' was the recurrent theme.
  I used to go to one where you could order: Doublegg n Chips n Fried
  Slice, Doublegg n Doublechips n Doublebeans n Soss{\ldots}

 {..and} so on{\ldots}

  The key thing was that you couldn't avoid the chips. I think if anyone'd
  ever ordered a meal without chips they'd have been thrown out.

  Note for UK types: this place was the White Horse Caf\'{e} at Cherhill on the
  A4. Probably just a memory. It wasn't far from where some famous rock
  star lunched himself in his car, although, come to think of it, not on
  chips.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/120\,] }}
 Some people on a.f.p.\ indicated that they had difficulty
  understanding just what the Gargoyle was saying, so here is a translation
  into English of his side of the dialogue:

\begin{quote}{``Right you are.'' \\``Cornice overlooking broadway.'' \\``No.'' \\``Ah. You for Mister Carrot?'' \\``Oh, yes. Everyone knows Carrot.'' \\``He comes up here sometimes and talks to us.'' \\``No. He put his foot on my head. And let off a firework. I saw him \\run away along Holofernes Street.'' \\``He had a stick. A firework stick.'' \\``Firework. You know? Bang! Sparks! Rockets! Bang!'' \\``Yes. That's what I said.'' \\``No, idiot! A stick, you point, it goes BANG!'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/120\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the strangest, and possibly saddest, species on
  Discworld is the hermit elephant.''

  Our real world's hermit crab (which can be found on islands like Bermuda)
  behaves similarly: it has no protective shell of its own, so it utilises
  the shells of dead land snails. The reason why the hermit crab is one of
  the sadder species in our world as well is given in Stephen Jay Gould's
  essay `Nature's Odd Couples' (published in his collection \emph{The Panda's
  Thumb}): the shells that form the crabs' natural habitat are from a
  species of snail that has been extinct since the 19th century. The hermit
  crabs on Bermuda are only surviving by recycling old fossil shells, of
  which there are fewer and fewer as time goes on, thus causing the hermit
  crab to become, slowly but surely, just as extinct as the snails.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 162/123\,] }}
 ``\,`He also did the Quirm Memorial, the Hanging Gardens of
  Ankh, and the Colossus of Morpork.'\,''

  The last two items are equivalents of two of our world's `seven wonders
  of antiquity': the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes.
  The Quirm memorial is less obvious. Perhaps Mausoleus' Tomb?

  There is also a similarity between the Colossus of Morpork and the
  sequence in Rob Reiner's 1985 movie \emph{This Is Spinal Tap} where a
  Stonehenge menhir, supposedly 30 feet high, is constructed to be 30
  inches high, and ends up being trodden on by a dwarf.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 163/124\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the kind of song where people dance in the street and
  give the singer apples and join in and a dozen lowly match girls suddenly
  show amazing choreographical ability [{\ldots}]''

  Terry is probably just referring to a generic stage musical stereotype
  here, but the production number mentioned most frequently by my
  correspondents as fitting the context is `Who Will Buy?' from \emph{Oliver!},
  a musical version of Charles Dickens' \emph{Oliver Twist}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 168/127\,] }}
 ``\,`Some in rags, and some in tags, and one in a velvet
  gown{\ldots} it's in your Charter, isn't it?'\,''

  This comes from the nursery rhyme \emph{Hark! Hark!}. The Mother Goose version
  goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark, \\The beggars are coming to town; \\Some in rags, some in tags, \\And some in velvet gown. \\
}\end{verse}

  \emph{Opies' Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes} gives the last two lines as:

\begin{verse}\textit{Some in rags, some in jags, \\And one in a velvet gown. \\
}\end{verse}

  Terry's household nursery rhyme book must strike a balance between these
  two versions. The rhyme is said to be about the mob of Dutchmen that
  William of Orange brought over with him to England in 1688, with the ``one
  in a velvet gown'' being the Prince himself. Or else it is a reference to
  Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, forcing monks to beg on the
  streets for a living. Take your pick.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/130\,] }}
 ``\,`A sixteen, an eight, a four, a one!'\,''

  This makes perfect sense: since trolls have silicon brains, naturally
  they'd think in binary. Every number, no matter how large can be
  represented in binary (29, for instance, is 11101; sixteen plus eight
  plus four plus one). Cuddy is therefore absolutely right when he points
  out to Detritus: ``If you can count to two, you can count to anything!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 172/131\,] }}
 ``\,`That,' said Vimes, `was a bloody awful cup of coffee,
  Sham.' [{\ldots}] `And a doughnut'.''

  This entire scene is a loose parody of David Lynch's cult TV series \emph{Twin
  Peaks}, where the protagonists are forever eating doughnuts and drinking
  ``damn fine coffee''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/131\,] }}
 ``\,`And give me some more coffee. Black as midnight on a
  moonless night.''

  In one of the early \emph{Twin Peaks} episodes, Agent Cooper praises the
  coffee at the Great Northern Hotel, and is very precise in ordering
  breakfast, specifying the way the bacon etc.\  should be cooked and asking
  for a cup of coffee which is ``Black as moonlight on a moonless night''.
  Although the waitress at the Hotel is considerably less inclined to
  nitpick than Sham Harga, she also makes a comment along the lines of
  ``That's a pretty tough order''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 175/133\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] clown Boffo, the \emph{corpus derelicti}, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  ``Corpus delicti'' is a Latin phrase meaning the victim's body in a murder
  case.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 176/133\,] }}
 ``The whole nose business looked like a conundrum wrapped up
  in an enigma [{\ldots}]''

  Paraphrase of a famous quote by Winston Churchill, referring to Russia:
  ``It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there
  is a key.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 179/135\,] }}
 ``\,`He went into Grope Alley!'\,''

  Terry has confirmed that Grope Alley is based on Threadneedle Street in
  the City of London, which used to be the haunt of prostitutes and hence
  rejoiced in the name `Gropecunte Lane' --- its modern name is just a more
  euphemistic way of putting things. It's the site of the Bank of England.
  Some would consider this to be appropriate.

  There's also a Grope Alley in Shrewsbury, getting its name from the Tudor
  buildings on either side almost meeting each other at roof level, causing
  one to have to grope along.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 184/139\,] }}
 ``\,`The word `polite' comes from `polis', too. It used to mean
  proper behaviour from someone living \emph{in} a city.'\,''

  As far as I can tell this is utter and total balderdash. `Policeman'
  indeed comes from `polis', but `polite' comes from the Latin `polire', to
  polish.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 185/140\,] }}
 ``Vimes had believed all his life that the Watch were called
  coppers because they carried copper badges, but no, said Carrot, it comes
  from the old word \emph{cappere}, to capture.''

  This, however, appears to be true, according to Brewer's, who says that
  it is ``more likely'' that `copper' derives from `cop' (instead of the
  other way around!), as in the verb `to cop something', which indeed comes
  from the Latin `capere', to take.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 189/143\,] }}
 ``He pushed his hot food barrow through streets broad and
  narrow, crying: `Sausages! Hot Sausages! Inna bun!'\,''

  From the folk song `Molly Malone':

\begin{verse}\textit{In Dublin's fair city \\Where the maids are so pretty \\I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone \\She wheels her wheel-barrow \\Through streets broad and narrow \\Crying `cockles and mussels alive alive-o' \\
}\end{verse}

  I am told that the statue that was put up in Dublin in honour of Molly
  was such an artistic failure, that it is now fondly known by the
  Dubliners as ``The Tart with the Cart''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 192/145\,] }}
 ``\,`I call it a flapping-wing-flying-device, [{\ldots}] It works by
  gutta-percha strips twisted tightly together.'\,''

  This time, Leonard has invented the rubber-band-powered model aeroplane.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/146\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] wondering how the hell he came up with the idea of
  pre-sliced bread in the first place.''

  From the saying (of inventions): ``the greatest thing since sliced bread''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 194/146\,] }}
 ``\,`My cartoons,' said Leonard. `This is a good one of
  the little boy with his kite stuck in a tree,' said Lord Vetinari.''

  The reference to Charlie Brown's struggle against the kite-eating tree in
  Charles M. Shultz's comic strip \emph{Peanuts} will be obvious to most
  readers, but perhaps not everyone will realise that in Leonardo da
  Vinci's time a cartoon was also a full-size sketch used to plan a
  painting.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 197/149\,] }}
 ``\,`They do things like open the Three Jolly Luck Take-away
  Fish Bar on the site of the old temple in Dagon Street on the night of
  the Winter solstice when it also happens to be a full moon.'\,''

  I'm rather proud of figuring this one out, because I really hadn't a clue
  as to \emph{why} this Fish Bar would be such a bad idea. Then it occurred to
  me to look up the word `Dagon'. Webster's doesn't have it, but luckily
  Brewer saves the day, as usual: `Dagon' is the Hebrew name for the god
  Atergata of the Philistines; half woman and half fish.

  It was actually a Dagon temple that the biblical Samson managed to push
  down in his final effort to annoy the Philistenes (Judges 16:23, ``Then
  the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great
  sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god
  hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.'')

  After including this annotation in earlier editions of the {\smaller APF}, there
  have been numerous emails from people pointing out that H.~P.~Lovecraft
  also uses the entity Father Dagon as the leader of the Deep Ones in some
  of his horror stories. Terry has confirmed, however, that the inspiration
  for his Dagon goes back to the original source, not Lovecraft's
  incarnation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 203/153\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Dibbler, achieving with his cart the kind of getaway
  customarily associated with vehicles that have fluffy dice on the
  windscreen [{\ldots}]''

  Take an old, battered car of the type that the Waynes and Kevins of our
  world (boyfriends to Sharon and Tracey --- see the annotation for p.~106/95 of \emph{Reaper Man}) often drive --- a Ford Cortina or Capri is the
  usual candidate in the UK\@. Respray it metallic purple. Some go-faster
  stripes, possibly a la `Starsky and Hutch' may be appropriate at this
  time. Plaster rear window with car stickers in dubious taste: ``Passion
  wagon --- don't laugh it could be your daughter inside'', ``My other car is
  a Porsche'', or even: ``I $\heartsuit$ Ankh-Morpork''. Advanced students might
  like to experiment with a stick-on cuddly Garfield in the rear window.
  Put in stretch seat-covers, preferably in luminous pink fur. Add a
  Sun-strip, possibly with the names of the owner and `His bird' on them
  (so they can remember where to sit presumably). Hang a pair of fluffy
  dice from the rear-view mirror. \emph{That} kind of vehicle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 205/155\,] }}
 ``\,`Chrysoprase, he not give a coprolith about that stuff.'\,''

  Coprolith = a fossilised turd.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 209/158\,] }}
 ``\,`He say, you bad people, make me angry, you stop toot
  sweet.'\,''

  ``Toute suite'' = immediately. One of the few bits of French that the
  typical Brit is said to remember from schooldays.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 210/158\,] }}
 ``\,`C.~M.~O.~T.~Dibbler's Genuine Authentic Soggy Mountain
  Dew,' she read.''

  Terry is not referring to Mountain Dew, the American soft drink, but is
  using the term in its original meaning, as a colloquialism for whisky ---
  particularly, the homemade `moonshine' variety.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 218/165\,] }}
 VIA CLOACA

  The major sewer in ancient Rome, running down into the Tiber, was called
  the Cloaca Maxima. Anything with `Via' in its name would have been a
  street or road. The Cloaca Maxima was actually a tunnel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 235/178\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] huge scrubbing brushes, three kinds of soap, a
  loofah.''

  Loofah is a genus of tropical climbing plant bearing a fruit, the fibrous
  skeleton of which is used for scrubbing backs in the bath.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 238/180\,] }}
 ``\,`Hi-ho --- `--- hi-ho ---' `Oook oook oook oook ook ---'\,''

  The dwarvish hiho-song. See the annotation for p.~88/73 of \emph{Moving
  Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 239/181\,] }}
 ``\,`He said ``Do Deformed Rabbit, it's my favourite'',' Carrot
  translated.''

  Running gag. See also the annotation for p.~226/162 of \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 251/190\,] }}
 ``\,`All right, no one panic, just stop what you're doing, stop
  what you're doing, please. I'm Corporal Nobbs, Ankh-Morpork City Ordnance
  Inspection City Audit --- [{\ldots}] Bureau {\ldots} Special {\ldots} Audit {\ldots}
  Inspection.'\,''

  Nobby is imitating Eddie Murphy. Terry explains:

  ``Almost a trademark of the basic Murphy character in a tight spot is to
  whip out any badge or piece of paper that looks vaguely official and
  simply gabble official-sounding jargon, which sounds as if he's making it
  up as he goes along but nevertheless browbeats people into doing what he
  wants. As in:

  `I'm special agent Axel Foley of the Special {\ldots} Division {\ldots} Secret {\ldots}
  Anti-Drugs {\ldots} Secret {\ldots} Undercover {\ldots} Taskforce, that's who I am, and
  I want to know right now who's in charge here, right now!'

  Cpl Nobbs uses this technique to get into the Armoury in M@A.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 252/191\,] }}
 ``\,`Have you got one of those Hershebian twelve-shot bows with
  the gravity feed?' he snapped. `Eh? What you see is what we got,
  mister.'\,''

  This is straight from \emph{The Terminator}. Arnold says to the gun shop
  owner: ``Have you got a phase plasma rifle in the 40 watt range?'' and the
  shopkeeper responds: ``Hey, just what you see, pal''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 255/193\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, wow! A Klatchian fire engine! This is more \emph{my}
  meteor!'\,''

  Perhaps obvious, but this \emph{really} had me puzzled until I realised that
  `meteor' refers back to Sgt~Colon's use of the French word `m\'{e}tier' a few
  pages back{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 257/195\,] }}
 ``\,`No sir! Taking Flint and Morraine, sir!'\,''

  These two trolls first appeared as actors in \emph{Moving Pictures}.

  As far as their names go, Flint is obvious, but I had to look up
  Morraine: Webster spells it with one `r', and defines it as ``the debris
  of rocks, gravel, etc.\  left by a melting glacier''.

  An email correspondent subsequently pointed out to me that Webster's
  definition is lacking, because (a) the spelling with two r's \emph{is} valid,
  and (b) morraine is \emph{unstratified} debris only. If it were stratified it
  would be called esker or kame, which are of course fluvioglacial products
  rather than just glacial.

  Hey, don't look at me --- I'm just the messenger{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 258/196\,] }}
 ``Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse
  the darkness.''

  From the old saying: ``It is better to light a candle than curse the
  darkness''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 258/196\,] }}
 ``\,`Lord Vetinari won't stop at sarcasm. He might use' ---
  Colon swallowed --- `\emph{irony}.'\,''

  This reminded many correspondents of Monty Python's `Dinsdale' sketch:

  Vercotti: I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see
  Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.

  Interviewer: What did he do?

  Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony,
  metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.

  Presenter: By a combination of violence and sarcasm the Piranha brothers,
  by February 1966, controlled London and the South East.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 263/200\,] }}
 ``\,`I mean, I don't mean well-endowed with \emph{money}.'\,''

  Very obvious, but still: it is the conventional stereotype that both
  under-sized males as well as black males are `better-endowed' than white
  males. Hence the joke: `What is fifteen inches long and white?' Answer:
  `Nothing'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 268/203\,] }}
 ``\,`Shall we be off{\ldots} Joey, wasn't it? Dr Whiteface?'\,''

  Another Grimaldi reference. See the annotation for p.~143/108.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 269/204\,] }}
 ``\,`All those little heads{\ldots}'\,''

  Clowns' faces are trademarked and cannot be copied by any other clown
  (unlike clothes or a specific act). If you are a clown, you can send a
  photograph of your face to the Clown and Character Registry, where the
  face is then painted on a goose egg (a tradition dating back to the
  1500s) and stored.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 277/210\,] }}
 ``\,`Stuffed with nourishin' marrowbone jelly, that bone,' he
  said accusingly.''

  All through the 1960s and 1970s, TV commercials for Pal (``Prolongs Active
  Life'') dog food used to claim that it contained ``nourishing marrowbone
  jelly'', and showed an oozing bone to prove it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 279/212\,] }}
 ``Gonnes don't kill people. People kill people.''

  Slogan of the US National Rifle Association.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 284/216\,] }}
 ``\,`It's Bluejohn and Bauxite, isn't it?' said Carrot.''

  More troll names. For Bauxite see the annotation for p.~49/37. Bluejohn
  is another one I had to look up, and again I was saved by Brewer's,
  because Webster's doesn't have it. Blue John is ``A petrifaction of blue
  fluor-spar, found in the Blue John mine of Tre Cliff, Derbyshire; and so
  called to distinguish it from the Black Jack, an ore of zinc. Called John
  from John Kirk, a miner, who first noticed it.''.

  Brewer's may not have the final word on this, however. A correspondent
  tells me that Blue John is actually derived from a rock called
  `Bleu-Jaune' (blue-yellow) because of its mixed colouring. This rock was
  originally named in French either because it was first found shortly
  after the Norman invasion or because the buyers were primarily French.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/216\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember, every lance-constable has a field-marshal's
  baton in his knapsack.'\,''

  ``Every French soldier carries in his cartridge-pouch the baton of a
  marshal of France.'' Said originally by Napoleon, though of course he
  would have pronounced it as ``Tout soldat francais porte dans sa giberne
  le baton de mere'chal de France.''

  Note that on p.~297/226 Detritus repeats the phrase as ``You got a
  field-marshal's button in your knapsack'', while on p.~302/230 Cuddy
  creatively manages ``You could have a field-marshal's bottom in your
  napkin''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 287/218\,] }}
 ``\,`Only two-er things come from Slice Mountain! Rocks{\ldots}
  an'{\ldots} an'{\ldots}' he struck out wildly, `other sortsa rocks! What kind
  \emph{you}, Bauxite?'\,''

  Detritus in drill sergeant mode replays a scene from the movie \emph{An
  Officer and a Gentleman}, in which sergeant Foley (played by Louis
  Gossett, Jr) has a conversation with a new recruit as follows:

\begin{quote}{Sgt~Foley: ``You a queer?'' \\Sid Worley: ``Hell no sir!'' \\Sgt~Foley: ``Where you from, boy?'' \\Sid Worley: ``Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, sir.'' \\Sgt~Foley: ``Ah! Only two things come out of Oklahoma. Steers and queers.'' \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 295/224\,] }}
 ``\,`You just shut up, Abba Stronginthearm!'\,''

  One of the members of the legendary Swedish pop group Abba was Bjorn
  Ulvaeus. Obviously, by Discworld logic, if Bjorn is a typical dwarf name,
  so is Abba. Not to mention the `Bjorn Again' pun Death makes on p.~82/62:
  Bjorn Again is the name of an Australian band with a repertoire that
  consists entirely of Abba covers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 295/224\,] }}
 ``\,`Aargh! I'm too short for this shit!'\,''

  A phrase originating from US forces slang during the Vietnam war, where
  the tour of duty was fixed so the `grunts' knew exactly how long, to the
  day, until they were due back in `the world'. A short timer was one who
  didn't have long to go and therefore didn't want to put himself at undue
  risk --- hence ``I'm too short for this shit''.

  Another popular reference to this expression is ``I'm too old for this
  shit'', a catchphrase for Danny Glover's character in the \emph{Lethal Weapon}
  series of movies.

  Terry adds:

  ``\,`I'm too short for this shit' is a line that has appeared in at least
  two grunt movies. I had intended Cuddy to use it in the sewers{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 305/232\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought you rolled around on the floor grunting and
  growing hair and stretching,' he whimpered.''

  Reference to the famous werewolf transformation scenes in the 1981 horror
  movie \emph{An American Werewolf in London}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/234\,] }}
 ``\,`So we're looking for someone else. A third man.'\,''

  A reference to the film \emph{The Third Man}. Terry says:

  ``It may be that there is a whole generation now to whom The Third Man is
  just a man after the second man. And after all, it wasn't set in Vienna,
  Ohio, so it probably never got shown in the US :--)\,''

  The book contains a couple of other resonances with \emph{The Third Man}. In
  the film, the British, French, American and Russian occupation troops in
  Vienna patrol the city in groups of four, one from each country, to keep
  an eye on each other. Carrot sends the Watch out in similar squads of a
  human, a dwarf and a troll. The final chase through the sewers under the
  city also mirrors the film.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 313/238\,] }}
 ``\,`As I was a-walking along Lower Broadway, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Terry says: ``While there are 789456000340 songs beginning ``As I was
  a-walking{\ldots}'', and I've probably heard all of them, the one I had in mind
  was `Ratcliffe Highway'.''

  `Ratcliffe Highway' (a version which can be found on the album \emph{Liege \&
  Lief} by Fairport Convention) starts out:

\begin{verse}\textit{As I was a-walking along Ratcliffe Highway, \\A recruiting party came beating my way, \\They enlisted me and treated me till I did not know \\And to the Queen's barracks they forced me to go \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 317/241\,] }}
 ``\,`Hand off rock and on with sock!'\,''

  The Discworld version of an old army Sgt~Major yell to get the troops up
  in the morning: ``Hands off cocks, on with socks!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 318/242\,] }}
 ``\,`We're a real model army, we are'\,''

  The New Model Army, besides supplying the name for a Goth group, was the
  Parliamentarian army which turned the tide of the English Civil War, and
  ensured the defeat of King Charles~I.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 321/244\,] }}
 ``\,`Yes, sir. Their cohorts all gleaming in purple and gold,
  sir.'\,''

  Lord Byron, \emph{The Destruction of Sennacherib}:

\begin{verse}\textit{The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, \\And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold{\ldots} \\The sheen of his spears was like stars on the sea, \\When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. \\
}\end{verse}

  A cohort is not an item of clothing or armour but a division of the old
  Roman Army: the tenth part of a legion, 300 to 600 men.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 325/246\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Fondel's `Wedding March' [{\ldots}]''

  Fondel = H\"{a}ndel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 325/247\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] it's got the name B.S. Johnson on the keyboard
  cover!'\,''

  Johann Sebastian Bach's initials are `JSB', which is `BSJ' backwards, and
  Bach was of course also involved in organ music. But Terry has mentioned
  numerous times (not just on-line but also in \emph{The Discworld Companion})
  that he did not choose the name with this intention at all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 332/252\,] }}
 ``\,`Who would have thought you had it in you,' said Vimes,
  [{\ldots}]''

  Shakespeare. See the annotation for p.~227/226 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 341/258\,] }}
 ``\,`Detritus! You haven't got \emph{time} to ooze!'\,''

  ``I ain't got time to bleed!'' is a line from \emph{Predator}, another Arnold
  Schwarzenegger action movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 345/262\,] }}
 ``It was important to ensure that rumours of his death were
  greatly exaggerated.''

  Paraphrase of a famous quip Mark Twain cabled to Associated Press after
  they had reported his demise.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 357/271\,] }}
 ``\emph{Cling, bing, a-bing, bong{\ldots}}''

  The scene with Vimes' watch mirrors the movie \emph{For a Few Dollars More}.
  All the way through this film, the bad guy has been letting a watch
  chime, telling his victims to go for their gun when the chimes stop (of
  course he always draws first and kills them). At the end of the film his
  victim is Lee van Cleef, and just as the watch chimes stop, Clint
  Eastwood enters with another watch, chiming away, to ensure Lee gets his
  chance and all is well.

  Terry says: ``[{\ldots}] when the play of Men At Arms was done a couple of
  months ago, [Stephen Briggs]'s people actually went to the trouble of
  getting a recording of the `right' tune for the watch.

  It was interesting to hear the laughter spread as people recognised
  it{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 365/277\,] }}
 ``\,`They call me \emph{Mister} Vimes,' he said.''

  In the Sidney Poitier movie \emph{In the Heat of the Night} the most famous
  line (and indeed the name of the sequel) is Poitier saying ``They call me
  \emph{Mister} Tibbs.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 371/281\,] }}
 ``\,`Would he accept?' `Is the High Priest an Offlian? Does a
  dragon explode in the woods?'\,''

  Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear shit in the woods?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 373/283\,] }}
 ``\,`Like a fish needs a{\ldots} er{\ldots} a thing that doesn't work
  underwater, sir.'\,''

  From the quip (attributed to feminist Gloria Steinem): ``A woman without a
  man is like a fish without a bicycle.'' Note that the bicycle is not known
  on the Discworld to anybody but the Patrician and Leonard of Quirm. And
  they don't know what it is.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Soul Music}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 The cover of \emph{Soul Music} bears more than a passing resemblance
  to the cover of the album \emph{Bat out of Hell} by Meatloaf, one of the 70s
  best-selling rock albums.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/5\,] }}
 ``This is also a story about sex and drugs and Music With Rocks
  In.''

  For anyone living in a cave: the classic phrase is ``sex and drugs and
  rock `n' roll''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 8/5\,] }}
 ``Well{\ldots} {\ldots}one out of three ain't bad.''

  With the many Meatloaf references in \emph{Soul Music} it is perhaps no
  surprise many people think they've spotted another one here, namely to
  the ballad `Two Out of Three Ain't Bad' on \emph{Bat out of Hell}.

  But in this case both Terry and Meatloaf are simply using a normal
  English phrase that's been around for ages. There is no connection.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/7\,] }}
 ``A dark, stormy night.''

  ``It was a dark and stormy night'' has entered the English language as
  \emph{the} canonical opening sentence for bad novels. Snoopy in \emph{Peanuts}
  traditionally starts his novels that way, and Terry and Neil used it on
  p.~11/viii of \emph{Good Omens} as well.

  I never knew, however, that the phrase actually has its origin in an
  existing 19th century novel called \emph{Paul Clifford} by Edward George Earle
  Bulwer-Lytton. Someone kindly mailed me the full opening sentence to that
  novel, and only then did I understand how the phrase came by its bad
  reputation:

  ``It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents --- except at
  occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which
  swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling
  along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps
  that struggled against the darkness.''

  There even exists a Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which people try to
  write the worst possible opening sentences for imaginary novels. The
  entries for the 1983 edition of the contest were compiled by Scott Rice
  in a book titled, what else, \emph{It Was a Dark and Stormy Night}. I am told
  that there were at least three such compilations released.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/10\,] }}
 ``It was always raining in Llamedos.''

  Llamedos is `sod em all' backwards. This is a reference to the town of
  Llareggub in Dylan Thomas' short prose piece \emph{Quite Early One Morning}.
  That story was later expanded into \emph{Under Milk Wood}, a verse play
  scripted for radio. In that version the name of the town was changed to
  the slightly less explicit Llaregyb.

  Apart from that, Llamedos is instantly recognisable to the British as the
  Discworld version of Wales. The double-l is a consonant peculiar to the
  Celtic language (from which Welsh is descended), hence also Buddy's habit
  of doubling all l's when he speaks.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 14/10\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the
  side.''

  Acme is an often used `generic' company name in American cartoons.
  Particularly, most of the ingenious technical and military equipment Wile
  E. Coyote uses in his attempts to capture the Roadrunnner is purchased
  from Acme.

  One of my proofreaders tells me he has a Pink Floyd \emph{Dark Side of the
  Moon} t-shirt manufactured by ACME\@. Make of that what you will.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 14/11\,] }}
 ``The harp was fresh and bright and already it sang like a
  bell.''

  Chuck Berry's `Johnny B. Goode' is, with the possible exception of
  `Louie, Louie', the greatest rock {\textquoteright}n roll song of all time. It begins:

\begin{verse}\textit{Way down Louisiana close to New Orleans, \\Way back up in the woods among the evergreens{\ldots} \\There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood, \\Where lived a country boy name of Johnny B. Goode{\ldots} \\He never ever learned to read or write so well, \\But he could play the guitar like ringing a bell. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 17/13\,] }}
 ``W{\smaller{HAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?}} S{\smaller{ERIOUSLY}}? W{\smaller{HEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO
  IT?}}''

  This philosophical question was of course first posed by none other than
  the famous Ephebian philosopher Didactylos, in \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/15\,] }}
 ``As far as looks were concerned, Susan had always put people
  in mind of a dandelion on the point of telling the time.''

  To begin with, in order to understand the dandelion reference, read the
  annotation for p.~10/10 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

  Next, many people on a.f.p.\ have been wondering if Susan was perhaps
  based on somebody specific, especially since Terry describes her
  appearance in such great detail. Various candidates were suggested,
  ranging from Neil Gaiman's Death (from his \emph{Sandman} stories) to Siouxsie
  Sioux (singer for the Goth band Siouxsie and the Banshees), to Dr Who's
  granddaughter.

  Terry replied:

  ``As far as I'm aware, the Death/Dr Who `coincidences' are in the mind of
  the beholders :--)\, Death can move through space and time, yes, but that's
  built in to the character. I made his house bigger on the inside than the
  outside so that I could have quiet fun with people's perceptions --- in
  the same way that humans live in tiny `conceptual' rooms inside the
  vastness of the `real' rooms. Only Death (or those humans who currently
  have Death-perception) not only sees but even experiences their full
  size.''

  ``I have, er, noticed on signing tours that (somewhere between the age of
  ten and eighteen) girls with names like Susan or Nicola metamorphose into
  girls with names like Susi, Suzi, Suzie, Siouxsie, Tsuzi, Zuzi and Niki,
  Nicci, Nikki and Nikkie (this is in about the same time period as boys
  with names like Adrian and Robert become boys with names like Crash and
  Frab). This is fine by me, I merely chronicle the observation. I've
  always had a soft spot for people who want to redesign their souls.

  She got the name because it's the one that gets the most variation, and
  got the hairstyle because it's been a nice weird hairstyle ever since the
  Bride of Frankenstein. She's not based on anyone, as far as I know ---
  certainly not Neil's Death, who is supercool and by no means a
  necronerd.''

  I agree with Terry about Neil's Death. She's a babe. Go read the books.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 25/19\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ REMEMBER EVERYTHING.}} [{\ldots}] E{\smaller{VERY LITTLE DETAIL.}} A{\smaller{S IF IT
  HAPPENED ONLY YESTERDAY.}}''

  Jim Steinman is the song-writing and production genius behind rock star
  Meatloaf. In 1977 he wrote the all-time classic `Paradise by the
  Dashboard Light', which opens with the lines:

\begin{verse}\textit{Well, I remember every little thing \\as if it happened only yesterday. \\Parking by the lake \\And there was not another car in sight \\
}\end{verse}

  In 1981, Steinman recorded the album \emph{Bad For Good} by himself (he either
  had a falling out with Meatloaf or the latter had voice problems at the
  time --- the story is not clear on this point) but in any case Steinman
  had originally intended the album as a Meatloaf project, but eventually
  decided to use his own vocals). On that album appeared a song (soliloquy,
  really), called `Love and Death and an American Guitar', which begins
  similar to `Paradise', but quickly goes off in an \emph{entirely} different
  direction:

\begin{verse}\textit{I remember every little thing \\as if it happened only yesterday. \\I was barely seventeen \\and I once killed a boy with a Fender guitar \\
}\end{verse}

  When \emph{Soul Music} came out, it immediately became a question of utmost
  importance (no, I don't know why, either) to Pratchett annotators all
  over the world to find out whether Terry based Death's outburst on the
  original Meatloaf track, or on the later Steinman song.

  Eventually, somebody attended a book signing and asked Terry then and
  there. The answer: Terry's source was Jim Steinman's own version of the
  song.

  I suppose I might as well mention the rest of the story while I'm at it,
  or else my mailbox will start filling up again: in 1993, Steinman and
  Meatloaf finally teamed up together again and recorded the album \emph{Bat out
  of Hell II --- Back to Hell}. The track called `Wasted Youth' turned out
  to be a re-recording of `American Guitar', but it is still recited by Jim
  Steinman himself.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/20\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ MAY BE SOME TIME}}, said Death.''

  Terry \emph{likes} this quote --- it's the third time he's used it. See also
  the annotations for p.~258/226 of \emph{Reaper Man} and p.~236/170 of \emph{Small
  Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28/21\,] }}
 ``\,`You know salmon, sarge' said Nobby. `It is a fish of which I
  am aware, yes.'\,''

  A parody of the History Today sketches by Newman \& Baddiel, where two old
  professors use a discussion on history to insult each other. These often
  started with a similar style of exchange along the lines of: ``Do you know
  the industrial revolution?'' ``It is a period of history of which I am
  aware, yes''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 30/22\,] }}
 ``\,`Are you elvish?'\,''

  The way everyone keeps asking Imp if he's elvish resonates with our
  world's `are you sure you're not Jewish?', but it's of course also a play
  on the name `Elvis', which eventually leads to the joke explained in the
  annotation for p.~376/284.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/23\,] }}
 ``\,`Lias Bluestone,' said the troll [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~103/86 of \emph{Moving Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/23\,] }}
 ``\,`Imp y Celyn,' said Imp.''

  This gets pretty much spelled out in the text: ``Imp y Celyn'' is a Welsh
  transliteration of `Bud of the Holly', i.e.\  Buddy Holly. Terry originally
  mentioned this name on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} without giving the explanation.
  It took the group quite a while to figure it out, but luckily there are
  some Welsh people on the Internet{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 31/24\,] }}
 ``\,`Glod Glodsson,' said the dwarf.''

  As his name indicates, Glod Glodsson is the son of the irritable dwarf
  Glod we learned about earlier in the footnotes for \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 33/25\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] what you would get if you extracted fossilized genetic
  material from something in amber and then gave it a suit.''

  What Terry means is that Mr Clete is a bit reptile-like. The reference is
  to the blockbuster novel/movie \emph{Jurassic Park}, in which various
  murderous lizards were brought to life using prehistoric DNA found in
  amber-fossilized mosquitoes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35/27\,] }}
 ``\,`Gimlet? Sounds dwarfish.'\,''

  ``Gimlet, son of Groin'' is a dwarf appearing in the well known Harvard
  Lampoon parody \emph{Bored of the Rings} by the famous Dutch author Tolkkeen
  with four M's and a silent Q. The original dwarf being, um, lampooned
  here is of course Tolkien's Gimli, son of Gl\'{o}in.

  In the Discworld canon, this is the first time Gimlet makes an actual
  on-stage appearance, though he has been mentioned a number of times
  before, most notably in \emph{Reaper Man} (see the annotation for p.~31/30 of
  that book).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 36/27\,] }}
 ``\,`Give me four fried rats.' [{\ldots}] `You mean rat heads or rat
  legs?' `No. Four fried rats.'\,''

  This is a spoof of the restaurant scene in \emph{The Blues Brothers}. Jake
  orders ``Four fried chickens and a coke'', and the waitress (Aretha
  Franklin) asks him whether he'd like chicken wings or legs, etc.\  Even the
  ``best damn fried rat in the city'' is a direct paraphrase of a Blues
  Brothers quote.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 36/27\,] }}
 ``\,`And two hard-boilled eggs,' said Imp. The others gave him an
  odd look.''

  This is partly a continuation of the Blues Brothers reference (after Jake
  asks for the fried chickens, Elwood asks for two slices of dry toast),
  and at the same time a nod to the Marx Brothers. In the cabin scene from
  \emph{A Night at the Opera}, Groucho is giving his order to the steward
  outside the cabin; Chico is calling out ``And two hard boiled eggs!'' from
  inside, Groucho repeats it to the steward, then Harpo honks his horn and
  Groucho says ``Make that three hard boiled eggs.'' This happens several
  times, with Groucho ordering a multi-course meal in between. At one point
  Harpo adds a second honk, in a different pitch, and Groucho adds, ``And
  one duck egg.'' At the end Harpo produces a long series of honks in
  assorted tones, and Groucho says to the steward, ``Either it's foggy out,
  or make that a dozen hard boiled eggs.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 38/29\,] }}
 ``\,`I won that at the Eisteddfod,' said Imp.''

  The eisteddfod is a real Welsh concept, originally a contest for poets
  and harpists. Nowadays, I'm told, it is more of a generic arts and crafts
  fair/contest, and it has spread as far as Australia, where the annual
  Rock Eisteddfod, according to one of my correspondents, is one of the
  most entertaining and highly competitive interschool activities around.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a thin slice of a face belonging to an old woman.''

  (See also the scene that starts on p.~181.) The attitudes and mannerisms
  of the old woman owning the pawn shop are very like those of Auntie
  Wainwright in the BBC sitcom \emph{Last of the Summer Wine}.

  For quite a number of episodes she ran the funny old antiques shop from
  which many props and plot devices were available. When people entered the
  shop, she often appeared holding a double barrelled shotgun and
  describing herself as a ``poor defenseless old lady'' or calling from just
  off the scene to describe the many (non-existant) security devices she
  has installed. She always charged too much and ``It's funny you should say
  that'' is a phrase she used a lot.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 69/52\,] }}
 ``The Hogfather is said to have originated in the legend of a
  local king [{\ldots}] passing [{\ldots}] the home of three young women and heard
  them sobbing because they had no food [{\ldots}]. He took pity on them and
  threw a packet of sausages through the window.''

  This recalls the legend of the original (Asiatic) St Nicholas, bishop of
  Myra in what is now Turkey, who threw a bag of gold (on three separate
  occasions) through the window of a poor man with three daughters, so the
  girls would have dowries, saving them from having to enter lives of
  prostitution.

  I don't know about other countries, but in the Netherlands we still
  celebrate St Nicholas' day (on December 5th) rather than Christmas. Let
  me rephrase that. We \emph{do} celebrate Christmas, but we have no tradition
  of a fat man in a red suit going ho-ho-ho while delivering presents.
  Instead, we get St Nicholas (`Sinterklaas'), who also wears red, and
  comes over from Spain each year (don't ask) to ride a white horse (not
  named Binky, as far as I know) over the rooftops and drop presents down
  the chimneys.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 43/33\,] }}
 ``Just a stroke of the chalk{\ldots}''

  I'm not sure if it warrants an annotation, but I was fairly puzzled by
  this bit when I first read \emph{Soul Music}. Only on re-reading did it dawn
  on me that what Terry is trying to tell us here is that chalked on the
  guitar is the number `1'. This will turn out to be rather significant,
  later on.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 46/35\,] }}
 ``\,`You're not going to say something like ``Oh, my paws and
  whiskers'', are you?' she said quietly.''

  The White Rabbit in \emph{Alice's Adventures in Wonderland}: ``\,`The Duchess!
  The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers!'\,''.

  Terry doesn't like the Alice books very much, though. See also the \emph{Words
  From The Master} section in Chapter~5.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/36\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] `Shave and a haircut, two pence' [{\ldots}]
  Bam-bam-a-bambam, bamBAM.''

  `Shave and a haircut, two bits' is a classic rock `n' roll rhythm (used
  in just about everything Bo Diddley did, for instance). It was most
  recently reintroduced to the public as a punchline to a joke in the movie
  \emph{Who Framed Roger Rabbit}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 48/37\,] }}
 \emph{A-bam-bop-a-re-bop-a-bim-bam-boom.}

  A-wap-ba-ba-looba-a-wap-bam-boom, one of rock {\textquoteright}n roll's most famous
  phrases, from Little Richard's `Tutti Frutti'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/38\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] oh, you're a raven, go on, say the N word{\ldots}'\,''

  The N word is, of course, `Nevermore' from Edgar Allan Poe's `The Raven'.
  See also the annotation for p.~217/191 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 55/42\,] }}
 ``The wizard who thought he owned him called him Quoth, [{\ldots}]''

  The line from `The Raven' fully goes: ``Quoth the raven `Nevermore'.''

  Quoth the Raven --- get it?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 56/42\,] }}
 ``Lunch was Dead Man's Fingers and Eyeball Pudding, [{\ldots}]''

  Terry explains that this is ``based on the UK tradition of giving horrible
  names to items on the school menu, such as Snot and Bogey Pie. Eyeball
  Pudding was usually semolina, Dead Men's Fingers are sausages. At least,
  they were at my school, and friends confirm the general approach.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 56/42\,] }}
 ``Miss Butts [{\ldots}] practised eurhythmics in the gym.''

  Eurhythmics (literally: ``good rhythms'') is an existing form of movement
  therapy that originated in Europe in the late 19th century, which aims to
  study the rhythmic underpinning of music through movement (it is of
  course also where pop band The Eurythmics got their name from).

  In its early years, the more philosophical aspects of Eurhythmics were
  not always properly recognised, which often led to classes that were,
  according to one author, ``little more than `the place were the rich girls
  from the village went to learn dancing'\,'', which of course ties in neatly
  with the Quirm College for Young Girls.

  Note that Miss Butts' co-founder of the College is Miss Delcross, and
  that the Eurhythmics method was created by the Swiss composer Emile
  Jaques-Dalcroze.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 63/48\,] }}
 ``There's a floral clock in Quirm. It's quite a tourist
  attraction.''

  A flower display common in the more genteel and down-at-heel seaside
  resorts in the shape of a clock face, with the design of the face picked
  out in flowering plants of different colours. The more clever ones use
  flowers which open and close at different times of day, thus in principle
  allowing the time to be told by looking at the flowers. The less subtle
  ones just have a clock mechanism buried in the middle, and big hands.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 69/52\,] }}
 ``There's a song about him. It begins: You'd Better Watch
  Out{\ldots}''

  The real world equivalent of this song is of course `Santa Claus is
  Coming to Town'. I just \emph{love} how Terry completely reverses the meaning
  of that song's opening line, without changing a single word.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 71/54\,] }}
 ``Behind it, in the turf, two fiery hoofprints burned for a
  second or two.''

  I have received I don't know how many emails pointing out that this
  resonates with the burning tire tracks left by the time-travelling
  DeLorean in the film \emph{Back to the Future}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 74/56\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the sky ahead of her erupted blue for a moment. Behind
  her, unseen because light was standing around red with embarrassment
  [{\ldots}]''

  Binky is obviously going \emph{very} fast, since the visible light in front of
  him is blue-shifted and behind him red-shifted, something normally only
  associated with astronomical objects.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 75/57\,] }}
 ``The Soul Cake Tuesday Duck didn't apparently have any kind of
  a home.''

  The Discworld equivalent of the Easter Bunny. See also the annotation for
  p.~193/139 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 79/59\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] C.~H.~Lavatory \& Son [{\ldots}]''

  It is a curious but true fact that we owe the modern flush toilet as we
  know it to a Victorian gentleman by the name of Thomas Crapper. Mr
  Lavatory is obviously his Discworld counterpart.

  And before I start getting mail about it: no, Crapper didn't really
  invent the flush toilet himself, but he made several improvements to the
  design (shades of James Watt here, see the annotation for p.~175/153 of
  \emph{Reaper Man}), and he certainly sold a lot of them to the British army.
  For more information about Thomas Crapper, read Cecil Adams' \emph{More of the
  Straight Dope}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 81/61\,] }}
 ``\,`What d'you call this, then, Klatchian mist?'\,''

  The British expression this refers to is `Scotch mist', used to describe
  things that persist in being present or existing despite statements to
  the contrary. For example:

\begin{quote}{Worker A: ``Someone's buggered off with me three-eighths Gripley!'' \\Worker B: (holding up three-eighths Gripley allegedly buggered-off with by person or persons unknown) ``What's this then?                Scotch mist?''\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 91/69\,] }}
 ``\,`Normal girls didn't get a My Little Binky set on their third
  birthday!'\,''

  My Little Pony is a toy aimed at young girls: a small plastic pony (in
  bright pink, or blue, etc.) with long hair which you can (allegedly) have
  endless fun combing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 98/73\,] }}
 ``\,`You mean like{\ldots} \emph{Keith} Death?'\,''

  I doubt very much if this is a true reference, but when I saw this I
  couldn't help thinking: Keith Richards always looks like Death. No reason
  why Death shouldn't look like a Keith, is there?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/77\,] }}
 ``\,`Er,' she said, `A{\smaller{NYONE HERE BEEN KILLED AND CALLED VOLF?}}'\,''

  \emph{Anyone Here Been Raped And Speak English?} was the British title of a
  book about newspapers' foreign correspondents by Edward Behr, who also
  wrote \emph{The Last Emperor}. In the US this book was released under the name
  \emph{Behrings}.

  The phrase refers to a story concerning a BBC journalist in a refugee
  camp in the Belgian Congo. He was investigating some of the atrocities
  being committed there, and was looking for a victim to interview.
  Unfortunately he didn't have a translator and the victims only spoke
  French. Finally in desperation the journalist wandered through the camp
  calling out ``Anyone here been raped and speak English?''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 104/78\,] }}
 ``\,`Hi-jo-to! Ho! Hi-jo-to! Ho!'\,''

  This is from Wagner's opera \emph{Die Walk\"{u}re}. I don't have to explain what
  valkyries are, do I?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 109/82\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] at war with Hersheba and the D'regs [{\ldots}]''

  The name D'regs is not only a pun on `dregs', but also refers to the
  Tuaregs, a nomadic Berber tribe in North Africa. The Tuaregs are also the
  desert marauders who attack Fort Zinderneuf in the movie \emph{Beau Geste}
  (based on the book by P.~C.~Wren).

  The name `Hersheba' (a pun on `Hershey Bar' / `Beersheba') is something
  that Terry came up with in 1992 on a.f.p., when he was more or less
  thinking out loud about the many people who didn't get the Djelibeybi
  reference (see the annotation for p.~17/17 of \emph{Pyramids}):

  ``[{\ldots}] say Djelibeybi OUT LOUD --- I must have had twenty letters (and one
  or two emails) from people who didn't twig until the third time round{\ldots}
  oh god{\ldots} do they have them in the US\@? Should it have been called
  Emmenemms, or Hersheba{\ldots} hmm, Hersheba{\ldots} could USE that, yes, little
  country near Ephebe{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 109/82\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{S THIS THE KLATCHIAN }}F{\smaller{OREIGN }}L{\smaller{EGION?}}''

  I'll just let Terry himself handle this one:

  ``Just so we don't get a zillion postings about cartoon films and comics
  and movies that \emph{Soul Music} has been copied from: the whole Klatchian
  Foreign Legion bit has its roots in `Beau Geste', which was \emph{the} Foreign
  Legion movie. It must be one of the most parodied, echoed and copied
  movies of all time --- it was so influential that it is probably where
  most people's ideas of the FFL originate.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 112/84\,] }}
 ``There was a riot going on.''

  This line is a fairly clich\'{e} rock {\textquoteright}n roll text fragment. It is used in
  quite a few songs, most notably in `Riot in Cell Block \#9', a song that
  has been performed by everybody from Dr Feelgood to the Blues Brothers.
  \emph{There's A Riot Goin' On} is also the name of a famous 1971 funk album by
  Sly and the Family Stone.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 116/88\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Vox Humana, the Vox Dei and the Vox Diabolica.''

  The Vox Humana is an existing organ stop (to be precise: a reed-type stop
  with a short resonator, common in baroque organs), and so is the Vox
  Angelicii. But my sources are divided as to whether the Vox Dei actually
  exists. About the Vox Diabolica everyone is in perfect agreement: ain't
  no such thing, and never was.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 116/88\,] }}
 ``He raised his hands.''

  The Librarian powering up the organ resonates with the scene in which
  Marty McFly turns on Doc Brown's guitar amplifier in \emph{Back to the
  Future}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/89\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] except the legendary harp of Owen Mwnyy [{\ldots}]''

  Owen Mwnyy is pronounced as `Owing Money' (in Welsh, the `w' is a vowel,
  pronounced as a `u'). Also, Owen Myfanwy was a Welsh folk hero, and of
  course all Welsh folk heroes are dab hands with the harp, which is the
  Welsh national musical instrument.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 120/90\,] }}
 ``\,`Cliff? Can't see anyone lasting long in \emph{this} business
  with a name like \emph{Cliff}'.''

  A reference to Cliff Richard --- see the annotation for p.~48/45 of
  \emph{Johnny and the Dead}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 121/91\,] }}
 ``\,`Moving around on your seat like you got a pant full of
  ant.'\,''

  James Brown, the Godfather of Soul: `I've got Ants in my Pants and I want
  to Dance.'

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/92\,] }}
 ``They've got one of those new pianofortes [{\ldots}]' `But dat
  sort of thing is for big fat guys in powdered wigs.''

  Johann Sebastian Bach was invited to Potsdam for the very purpose of
  trying out King Frederic of Prussia's new pianofortes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 123/93\,] }}
 ``{\ldots} the beat went on {\ldots}''

  `The Beat Goes On' is a song by Sonny Bono (yes, the dude who used to be
  married to Cher).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 126/95\,] }}
 ``\,`Hello, hello, hello, what is all this{\ldots} then?' he said
  [{\ldots}]''

  Stereotypical British policeman's phrase. See the annotation for p.~60/55
  of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/95\,] }}
 ``\,`He can't stop us. We're on a mission from Glod.'\,''

  ``We're on a mission from God'' is perhaps the most famous quote from the
  \emph{Blues Brothers} movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 131/98\,] }}
 ``\,`As soon as he saw the duck, Elmer knew it was going to be a
  bad day.'\,''

  A nice double reference. To begin with, the cartoons Terry is referring
  to here are Gary Larson's \emph{Far Side} cartoons (which I can highly
  recommend. Just try to avoid the collections published after 1990 or so.
  They're not that bad, but the earlier ones are significantly better).

  Second, there are the eternal cartoon conflicts between Elmer Fudd,
  hunter, and Daffy Duck, duck. Usually, when Elmer meets Daffy, it \emph{will}
  turn out to be a bad day for him.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 134/101\,] }}
 ``Along the Ankh with Bow, Rod and Staff with a Knob on the
  End''

  Not a reference to anything specific, but there used to be dozens of
  travel books with names like ``Along the [fill in river] with [gun and
  camera, rod and line, etc]'', usually written by retired Victorian army
  men.

  These clich\'{e}-ridden travelogues were already being parodied as early as
  1930 by George Chappell in his \emph{Through the Alimentary Canal with Gun and
  Camera}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 135/101\,] }}
 ``\,`Blert Wheedown's Guitar Primer,' he read.''

  Blert Wheedown puns on Bert Weedon, famous for his many ``play in a day''
  guitar primers, which are mainly bought by doting but slightly out of
  touch grandmothers for grandsons who'd rather have ``The Death Metal book
  of three chords using less than three fingers''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 140/105\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] when Mr Hong opened his takeaway fish bar on the site
  of the old temple in Dagon street?''

  For a full explanation of Mr Hong's tragic fate, see the annotation for
  p.~197/149 of \emph{Men at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/107\,] }}
 ``\,`We call him Beau Nidle, sir.'\,''

  Beau Nidle = Beau Geste + bone idle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 146/110\,] }}
 ``There was a path, though. It led across the fields for half
  a mile or so, then disappeared abruptly.''

  This would be a good description of \emph{Wheatfield with Crows} by Van Gogh,
  who took his own life shortly after finishing this painting.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 151/114\,] }}
 ``Her mother's favourite dish had been Genocide by
  Chocolate.''

  `Death by Chocolate' is an existing dish, as well as a chain of
  restaurants in New Zealand and Australia.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 152/114\,] }}
 ``M{\smaller{ORPHIC RESONANCE}}, he said, [{\ldots}]''

  Another reference to Rupert Sheldrake's theories. See the annotation for
  p.~54/45 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 161/121\,] }}
 ``The next table was occupied by Satchelmouth Lemon [{\ldots}]''

  Louis Armstrong's nickname was Satchmo, which was short for Satchelmouth.
  The `Lemon' part of the name also ties in with black artists by way of
  the legendary bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 162/122\,] }}
 ``She was quite attractive in a skinny way, Ridcully thought.
  What was the tomboy word? Gammon, or something.''

  Gammon is the lower end of a side of bacon. What Ridcully is thinking of
  is the word `gamine', which does have the same meaning as tomboy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 163/123\,] }}
 ``\,`It looks like a spike at the front and a duck's arse,
  excuse my Klatchian, at the back.'\,''

  ``Duck's arse'' is, in fact, the correct name for the type of fifties' rock
  {\textquoteright}n roll haircut more politely described as a duck \emph{tail} haircut: one
  with the hair long in the back.

  ``Excuse my French'' is a euphemism, said after swearing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 169/127\,] }}
 ``\,`A song about Great Fiery Balls. [{\ldots}] Couldn't really make
  out the words, the reason bein', the piano exploded.'\,''

  Jerry Lee Lewis used to set fire to his piano using gasoline while
  playing his immortal `Great balls of Fire'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/130\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] much later on, on the day when the music died, [{\ldots}]''

  The day of the infamous plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, the Big
  Bopper and Ritchie Valens all in one go is commonly referred to as ``the
  day the music died''. Years later, Don McLean would immortalise the phrase
  even further in his song `American Pie', but that song is definitely
  \emph{not} the original source.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/130\,] }}
 ``Ridcully was going to say, oh, you're a rebel, are you,
  what are you rebelling against, and he'd say{\ldots} he'd say something pretty
  damn memorable, that's what he'd do!''

  In the 1954 movie \emph{The Wild One}, starring Marlon Brando as Johnny, the
  following exchange occurs:

\begin{quote}{Girl in a bar: So Johnny, what're you rebelling against? \\Johnny: What've you got? \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 173/130\,] }}
 ``\,`mumblemumblemumble', said the Dean defiantly, a rebel
  without a pause.''

  The name of the classic movie is \emph{Rebel Without A Cause}. Starring
  James{\ldots} Dean.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 174/131\,] }}
 Song Titles.

  `Don't Tread On My New Blue Boots' is Carl Perkins' `Blue Suede Shoes',
  `Good Gracious Miss Polly' is Little Richard's `Good Golly Miss Molly'
  and `Sto Helit Lace' is the Big Bopper's `Chantilly Lace'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 174/131\,] }}
 ``\,`That bit where you said ``hello, baby'',' he said. `Why'd
  you do that?'\,''

  `Chantilly Lace' begins with The Big Bopper treating us to his half of a
  telephone conversation with the young lady in question. It starts: Helll-
  (then drop about an octave) -lllllo (then up a little bit) ba- (huge
  glissando up the scale, beyond where he started) aaaaaaaaaaybeeeee!

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 183/138\,] }}
 [{\ldots}] LIVE FATS DIE YO GNU [{\ldots}]

  After James Dean's legendary motto: ``Live fast, die young, leave a good
  looking corpse.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 184/139\,] }}
 ``\,`Adrian Turnipseed, Archchancellor.'\,''

  This is probably just a coincidence, but Donald Turnupseed was the driver
  of the car that collided with James Dean in the crash that killed him.
  Donald was only slightly hurt.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 188/141\,] }}
 ``It took him and Gibbsson, the apprentice, [{\ldots}]''

  That's of course Gibson, of guitar-building fame.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 190/144\,] }}
 ``\,`I'll throw in the space between the strings for free,
  OK?'\,''

  Another Blues Brothers reference. When Elwood and Jake are buying their
  instruments from `Ray's Music Exchange', Ray Charles makes the comment
  about the electric piano that he'll ``throw in the black notes for free''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 192/144\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] if anyone comes in and tries to play [{\ldots}] Pathway
  to Paradise [{\ldots}] he's to pull their head off.''

  `Pathway to Paradise' is the Discworld version of Led Zeppelin's rock
  anthem `Stairway to Heaven'.

  The song's characteristic guitar riff is so often played in music shops
  that the patrons get really fed up with it, so it's quite common to see
  ``No Stairway'' signs, or in the case of one particular shop in Denmark
  Street, London, a sign saying: ``Anyone who uses the instruments here to
  play `Stairway To Heaven', `Paranoid' or `Smoke On The Water' should
  seriously consider whether they have a future in rock and roll.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/145\,] }}
 ``\,`They say there's a background noise to the universe? A
  sort of echo of some sound? [{\ldots}] It wouldn't have to be very loud. It'd
  just have to be everywhere, all at once.'\,''

  What Ponder tries to describe corresponds to our universe's cosmic
  blackbody microwave radiation, which is indeed a uniform background
  radiation, spanning all frequencies and coming with the same intensity
  from every part of the sky at every time of the day in every season. The
  explanation for this phenomenon is that it is radiation originating with
  the Big Bang that started our universe.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 196/147\,] }}
 ``\emph{This} scene took place in Crash's father's coach house,
  but it was an echo of a scene evolving all around the city.''

  Placing them in the coach house is a reference to the ``garage band''
  phenomenon.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 198/149\,] }}
 ``\,`The Cavern!'\,''

  The Cavern was the name of the night club in Liverpool where the Beatles
  played their first performance. It is worth noting that in \emph{The Streets
  of Ankh-Morpork} we can see that The Cavern is located on Quarry Lane.
  This not only recalls `Penny Lane', but before the Beatles became the
  Beatles, they called themselves the Quarrymen.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 198/149\,] }}
 ``Gorlick and Hammerjug were songwriters, [{\ldots}]''

  A reference to the musical composers Rogers and Hammerstein, who wrote
  the songs for \emph{The Sound of Music} (amongst many other musical scores).

  Note also that `stein' is a word the English (not the Germans) use for
  `jug'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 198/150\,] }}
 ``Except the one about Hiho.''

  The Hiho song is first mentioned in \emph{Moving Pictures}; see the annotation
  for p.~88/73 of that book.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 199/150\,] }}
 ``\,`And me an' my friends can walk towards you with our hats
  on backwards in a menacing way, Yo!'\,''

  Rat music = rap music.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 200/151\,] }}
 ``Troll gambling is even simpler than Australian gambling.
  One of the most popular games is One Up, [{\ldots}]''

  Two-up is an Australian form of gambling played extensively by Australian
  soldiers during both World Wars. Although generally illegal outside of
  licensed casinos, it can now be played in country towns during some local
  festivals.

  Professional games are controlled by at least one `boxer', who collects a
  `rake-off' or commission from all winners. Bets may be placed either
  between players, or to cover the `centre', representing the `spinner's'
  stake. The spinner must back heads, and other players must back tails.
  Side bets may back either.

  Two coins are placed on a `kip' (a flat piece of wood), and the spinner
  tosses them in the air. If the coins don't spin properly or if they land
  one head and one tail, it is classed a `no-throw' and all bets stand. If
  both coins land heads or both tails, bets are resolved. Players take
  turns as spinner and may continue to throw so long as they show heads.
  The spinner begins to collect winnings only after throwing three heads;
  subsequently, he may retire or place more bets. However, if the spinner
  `dooks them' by throwing three \emph{successive} heads, the boxer takes a
  percentage (usually about 10\%).

  There are a bunch of other conventions, such as calling ``Come in,
  spinner'' before each throw, and variations in the betting between
  casinos. I'm told that although the odds favour the house (as usual), the
  spinner's odds are better than other players'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 201/152\,] }}
 ``\,`I hired you a helper. [{\ldots}] Meet Asphalt.'\,''

  In the music scene, the person performing the same tasks for a band as
  Asphalt does is called a roadie. His name is therefore quite appropriate.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 205/154\,] }}
 ``\,`Bee There Orr Bee A Rectangular Thyng', said Cliff.''

  The phrase is, of course: Be There Or Be Square.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 207/156\,] }}
 ``\,`'S called Insanity,' said Asphalt.''

  Puns on the name of the British pop group Madness.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 208/157\,] }}
 ``\,`It says B{\smaller{ORN TO RUNE}},' said Crash, [{\ldots}]''

  A combination of the `Born to Rule' slogan, and Bruce Springsteen's
  anthem `Born to Run'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 209/157\,] }}
 ``\,`That's a bodacious audience,' said Jimbo.''

  This may well be a reference to the movie \emph{Bill \& Ted's Excellent
  Adventure}, where the two protagonists use this word repeatedly. Later
  on, Crash also says `Excellent!', another catchphrase from the movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 219/165\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] would they remember some felonious monk or shout for
  Glod Glodsson?'\,''

  One of my favourite Pratchett puns ever. Thelonious Monk is one of our
  world's most highly regarded jazz musicians (though he played the piano,
  not the horn --- you'd want Miles Davis for that).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 220/166\,] }}
 ``\,`Cavern Deep, Mountain High?' said Glod.''

  `River Deep Mountain High', by many considered Phil Spector's last Great
  Production, for Ike and Tina Turner.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 222/167\,] }}
 ``\,`It's the Gritz for \emph{you}!'\,''

  That's the Ritz in our world.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 233/175\,] }}
 ``Si non confectus, non reficiat.''

  ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' See the annotation for the Discworld
  mottos in \emph{The Discworld Companion}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 235/177\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a small, greyish-brown mongrel dog [{\ldots}] sat peering
  into the box for a while.''

  A reference to the famous `His Master's Voice' logo for the RCA records.
  The dog is probably Gaspode.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 237/178\,] }}
 ``\,`You tellin' me ants can count?' `Oh, no. Not individual
  ants{\ldots}'\,''

  An excellent explanation of the anthill as a metaphor for intelligence
  can be found in Douglas R. Hofstadter's \emph{G\"{o}del, Escher, Bach}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 239/180\,] }}
 ``\,`I know a golem. Mr Dorfl down in Long Hogmeat.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~234/204 of \emph{Reaper Man}. Incidentally, `long
  pig' is a name for human meat (we are supposed to taste like pork).

  Dorfl will turn up later in \emph{Feet of Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 242/182\,] }}
 ``\,`Are you the Watch?' Glod bowed. `No, ma'am. We're
  musicians.'\,''

  The \emph{Blues Brothers} again. See the annotation for p.~122/107 of \emph{Witches
  Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 243/183\,] }}
 ``\,`And this one?' he said. `It'll make the world end and the
  sky fall on me if I give it a tootle, will it?' `Interesting you should
  say that,' said the old lady'.''

  In other words, the untarnished trumpet is actually the biblical last
  trump, which signals the end of the world.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 245/184\,] }}
 ``\,`There were eight of them, led by{\ldots} um{\ldots} Cantaloupe.'\,''

  That's Calliope. A cantaloupe is a kind of melon. Note that in our
  world's classical mythology there were \emph{nine} muses. On the Discworld,
  this of course becomes eight. For another example of this mechanism in
  action, see the annotation for p.~122/101 of \emph{Eric}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 252/190\,] }}
 ``\,`That's mexical, that is. They put the worm in to show how
  strong it is.'\,''

  A piece of typical Discworld lexical confusion here: the name of the
  drink (and of the associated drug) is \emph{mescal}, the country it comes from
  is Mexico. And yes, mescal is the original drink that has a worm at the
  bottom of the bottle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 254/191\,] }}
 ``\,`A-wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong, a-do-wrong-wrong,' said the
  other two maids.''

  The maids' chorus and the beehives are like those of the girl groups of
  the sixties; this quote itself is similar to the background vocals in the
  Crystals' `Da Doo Ron Ron'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 258/194\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] someone who sat on a wall and required royal
  assistance to be put together again.''

  Terry means Humpty Dumpty, from the famous children's rhyme (``All the
  king's horses and all the king's men / Couldn't put Humpty together
  again.''). From the description he gives it is clear that he is
  specifically referring to Humpty as he was portrayed by Tenniel in the
  illustrations for Lewis Carroll's \emph{Through The Looking Glass}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 263/198\,] }}
 ``\,`So you want to be Music With Rocks In stars, do you?'
  `Yes, sir!' `Then listen here to what I say{\ldots}'\,''

  From The Byrds' `So You Want to be a Rock `n' Roll Star':

\begin{verse}\textit{So you want to be a rock and roll star? \\Then listen now to what I say. \\Just get an electric guitar \\Then take some time \\And learn how to play. \\And with your hair swung right, \\And your pants too tight \\It's gonna be all right. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 264/199\,] }}
 ``\,`We're Certainly Dwarfs', said Dibbler. `Yes, that might
  work.'\,''

  Terry is a fan of a fairly obscure band (in Europe at least --- in America
  they are a bit better known) called They Might Be Giants (he has
  mentioned on a.f.p.\ that their `Where your Eyes don't Go' is the scariest
  song he's ever heard --- not that scary is a word I'd normally associate
  with TMBG, mind you, but then I don't know that particular song).

  Anyway, `We're Certainly Dwarfs' appears to be the Discworld answer to
  this group, or at least to their name, and it may be amusing to know that
  the name was first suggested to Terry by a.f.p.\ reader Mike Berzonsky,
  during an early discussion about Discworld popular music. Mike wrote, way
  back in february 1993:

  ``Totally off the subject, this came to me last night. Terry's covered
  tons of stuff, but other than metamorphizing tapes in \emph{Good Omens},
  little on Rock n Roll. Since he's a fan of TMBG, maybe a dwarvish rock
  band, `No, We Really Are Dwarves'. Since rock is so central to dwarf
  life, it makes sense to me that they'd have a band, although I understand
  that rich dwarves hire trolls to bang on anvils, so maybe Detritus could
  be the percussion section. And Dibbler could be their manager. No,
  better, Gaspode the Wonder Dog. And finding the references to the last
  forty years of music could be a blast. Just an idea.''

  Was this guy a prophet, or what? Terry replied:

  ``I've occasionally toyed with the Ankh music business. And I can promise
  you that if it ever happens, there'll be a group called `We Really Are
  Dwarfs' :--)\,''

  The rest is history.

  The song mentioned later on in the text, `Something's gotten into my
  beard' is not directly traceable to They Might Be Giants, or it would
  have to be to the track `Fingertips' on \emph{Apollo 18}, which features the
  line ``Something grabbed a hold of my hand''. Most people figure it is
  simply a reference to an entirely different song: Gene Pitney's
  `Something's gotten hold of my Heart'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 264/199\,] }}
 ``\,`But you've got to spell it with a Z. Trollz.''

  In the sixties it was common for bands to get their names from
  intentional misspellings of common words. The best-known examples of this
  trend are probably the Byrds and Led Zeppelin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 265/199\,] }}
 ``\,`So now we're Suck,' said Crash.''

  Suck $\rightarrow$ KISS.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 270/203\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a name like J{\smaller{OE'S LIVERY STABLE}}, [{\ldots}]''

  So what we have here is the Discworld version of Joe's Garage, another
  well-known rock {\textquoteright}n roll concept.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 270/204\,] }}
 ``Buddy sighed. `You had a great house there, I expect?' said
  the troll. `Just a shack,' said Buddy. `Made of earth and wood. Well, mud
  and wood really.'\,''

  `Johnny B. Goode' again. See the annotation for p.~14/11.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 272/204\,] }}
 ``And the one they called the Duck Man had a duck on his
  head.''

  In Daniel Pinkwater's book \emph{Lizard Music} a major character is the
  Chicken Man, an apparently homeless man who walks around with a chicken
  perched on his head (under a hat). The Chicken Man is a lot more together
  than The Duck Man --- he periodically does little street shows featuring
  the chicken, who does tricks. According to Pinkwater, the Chicken Man was
  based on a real person who lived in Chicago.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 278/209\,] }}
 ``\,`They follow actors and musicians around,' he said,
  `because of, you know, the glamour and everything ---'\,''

  While it is obvious that Buddy is talking about the phenomenon of
  groupies, it is also interesting to note that the word `glamour' is
  sometimes used to mean magic spell or enchantment, making this sentence
  tie in nicely with the wizard's earlier beliefs that Music With Rocks In
  is somehow magical.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 282/212\,] }}
 ``\,`The Surreptitious Fabric', said Jimbo.''

  The Discworld version of the legendary Velvet Underground.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 284/214\,] }}
 ``\,`It's sort of deaf.''

  So, in effect they bought a Def Leppard, get it?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/214\,] }}
 More band names.

   The Whom are The Who, The Blots are The Inkspots, and Lead Balloon are
   of course Led Zeppelin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/215\,] }}
 ``\,`Yes, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, my father says,'
  said Crash.''

  Notice how when the opportunity presents itself for the group to pick one
  of the most influential rock {\textquoteright}n roll group names imaginable, Crash and
  friends totally and utterly fail to see it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 285/215\,] }}
 ``T{\smaller{HANK YOU}}, said the grateful Death.''

  A straightforward reference to the band The Grateful Dead. I didn't
  really think this was worth annotating, but people kept sending me mail
  about it, so{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 290/218\,] }}
 ``\,`Nice curtains, by the way.'\,''

  This is a reference to rock bands `redecorating their hotel rooms', i.e.\ 
  thrashing it beyond all recognition. Glod interprets the phrase more
  literally.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 290/218\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] I'm going to put my rock kit on my back and take a
  long walk, and the first time someone says to me, ``What are dem things on
  your back?'' dat's where I'm gonna settle down.'\,''

  In Homer's \emph{Odyssey}, Odysseus was told by the spirit of Tiresias that if
  he ever made it back to Ithaca, he was to put one oar on his shoulder and
  walk inland, until he reached a people who knew nothing of sailing.
  There, he was to offer a sacrifice to Poseidon, after which he would be
  allowed to die after a happy old age, far from the sea.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 298/225\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] somewhere where no one remembers your name.''

  Since Death has actually gone to the Mended Drum, it's not too
  far-fetched to assume this is a nod to the theme song of \emph{Cheers}, the
  bar ``where everybody knows your name''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 299/225\,] }}
 ``\emph{He built me a swing}, Susan remembered.''

  Death's attempts to build a swing for Susan are a Discworld version of a
  cartoon that has been doing the rounds in offices all over the world.
  Usually the cartoon depicts `swing-building' as an increasingly complex
  series of `logical' steps representing an abstract process such as ``the
  software life cycle''. The finished item, looking somewhat like Death's
  completed swing, is typically followed by a final picture showing ``what
  the customer wanted'', namely, a tire hanging from a branch by a single
  rope.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 300/226\,] }}
 ``\,`In like Flint, eh?'\,''

  ``In like Flynn'' is the normal expression, going back to Errol Flynn's
  sexual transgressions --- at one point he was even charged with statutory
  rape, arrested and brought to trial, then acquitted.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 306/231\,] }}
 ``\emph{I can feel it. Every day. It's getting closer{\ldots}}''

  This is part of the lyrics to Buddy Holly's `Everyday':

\begin{verse}\textit{Everyday, it's a-gettin' closer, \\Goin' faster than a roller coaster, \\Love like yours will surely come my way, (hey hey hey) \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 306/231\,] }}
 More song names.

  `There's A Great Deal Of Shaking Happening' is Jerry Lee Lewis' `Whole
  Lot of Shakin' Goin' On'. `Give Me That Music With Rocks In' is Leiber
  and Stoller's `Rock and Roll Music'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/231\,] }}
 ``\,`Hah. That'll be the day.'\,''

  The title of one of Buddy Holly's greatest hits.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/232\,] }}
 ``\,`I'd like a quarry,' said the troll. `Yeah?' `Yeah.
  Heart-shaped.'\,''

  A reference to the strange-shaped swimming pools rock and movie stars are
  supposed to have built for themselves.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 313/236\,] }}
 ``It was called Hide Park [{\ldots}]''

  A `hide' is in fact an Old English measure of land. The definition
  varies, but it is usually the amount considered adequate for the support
  of one free family with its dependants, and at an earlier time this in
  turn was defined as being as much land as could be tilled with one plough
  in a year.

  Hyde park is also the name of a largish open space in the centre of
  London where, sometime around 1970, the Rolling Stones played a massive
  free concert.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 314/237\,] }}
 ``\,`Whoever heard of a serious musician with a glove?'\,''

  Part of Michael Jackson's image is his always wearing one glove on stage.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 315/237\,] }}
 ``\,`Dwarfs With Altitude'\,''

  Reference to the gangster rap group Niggaz With Attitude (NWA), and the
  general concept of ``having an attitude''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 323/244\,] }}
 More band names.

  Boyz from the Wood are Boyz {\textquoteright}n the Hood (which is a movie, not a band,
  incidentally), and \&U are U2.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 324/244\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] proper music with real words{\ldots} `Summer is icumen
  in, lewdly sing cuckoo,' that sort of thing.'\,''

  One of the oldest (if not the oldest) known songs in the English language
  is the `Cuckoo Song': ``Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu''. `Lhude'
  means `loud', not `lewd'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 324/244\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, it's got a beat and you can dance to it,' [{\ldots}]''

  This, usually followed by something like ``I'll give it a 92'', is a clich\'{e}
  made famous by the TV music show \emph{American Bandstand}, hosted by Dick
  Clark in the 50s and 60s. \emph{American Bandstand} was televised daily in the
  afternoon (weekly, in later years) and helped introduce such stars of the
  era as Chubby Checker, Paul Anka and Frankie Avalon.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 326/245\,] }}
 ``\,`I{\ldots} won this,' said Buddy, in a small distant world of
  his own. `With a song. \emph{Sioni Bod Da}, it was.'\,''

  `Bod Da' is Welsh for `be good'. Ergo, `Sioni Bod Da' = `Johnny B.
  Goode'. See also the annotation for p.~270/204.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 327/244\,] }}
 ``The right kind of name for musicians ought to be something
  like Blondie and His Merry Troubadours.''

  `Blondie' was the name of the band fronted by Debbie Harrie in the late
  seventies and early eighties. Blondel was the name of the troubadour who,
  according to legend, went around singing at castles in search of King
  Richard Lionheart.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 327/247\,] }}
 ``Anyone else fancy a hot dog? Hot dog? [{\ldots}] Hot dog? Right.
  That's three hot d---''

  Another replaying of a Blues Brothers scene, only they did it with orange
  whip instead of hot dogs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 330/249\,] }}
 ``\,`Cwm on?'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~117/89. `Cwm' is Welsh for valley. (Note that
  the Discworld has a Koom Valley{\ldots})

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 340/256\,] }}
 ``\,`We \emph{could} do `Anarchy in Ankh-Morpork',' said Jimbo
  doubtfully.''

  Puns on the punk anthem `Anarchy in the UK', by the Sex Pistols.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 348/263\,] }}
 ``\,`It's a masterpiece,' said the Dean. `A triumph!'\,''

  Triumph is a British make of motorcycle, comparable in quality and
  history to the Harley Davidson.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 350/264\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ NEED YOUR CLOTHES.}} [{\ldots}] G{\smaller{IVE ME YOUR COAT.}}''

  Death is paraphrasing lines made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger in his
  role as the Terminator. Interestingly enough, the music accompanying the
  scene in question in \emph{Terminator II} is the song `Bad to the Bone'{\ldots}

  There is an even more subtle reference hidden here, however. After this
  scene, Death will be riding towards the site of the crash in ``a coat he
  borrowed from [the] Dean'', and that is another line from Don McLean's
  `American Pie' (see the annotation for p.~173/130). Terry has confirmed
  on a.f.p.\ that the reference is indeed intentional.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 350/264\,] }}
 ``The flower-bed erupted.'\,''

  This is the written counterpart to Josh Kirby's cover painting, and
  likewise a Discworld version of Meatloaf's \emph{Bat out of Hell}, both the
  album sleeve and the song.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 352/266\,] }}
 ``\,`He{\ldots} he had a rose in his teeth, sarge.'\,''

  A reference to the Skull and Roses motifs used for many of the Grateful
  Dead's album covers and concert posters.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 363/274\,] }}
 ``He held up a hand. It was transparent.''

  Another resonance with the first \emph{Back to the Future} movie. When the
  timelines start to converge, and Marty is also on the verge of being
  erased from the one he's currently in, his hand becomes transparent, just
  as he's playing (wait for it){\ldots} `Johnny B. Goode'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 363/274\,] }}
 ``There was a roar like the scream of a camel who has just
  seen two bricks.''

  See the annotation for p.~221 of \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 364/275\,] }}
 ``A small fingerbone rolled across the stones until it came
  up against another, slightly larger bone.''

  In light of the earlier Terminator references, most of my correspondents
  think this scene replays the one in \emph{Terminator II} where the T--1000
  model Terminator, after having been frozen by liquid nitrogen and then
  shattered, slowly starts to reassemble itself.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 366/276\,] }}
 ``\,`Please!' she shouted. `Don't fade away!'\,''

  `Not Fade Away' is the title of one of Buddy Holly's songs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 277\,] }}
 ``\,`This is your brain on drugs{\ldots}', said Jimbo.''

  An American anti-drugs television campaign in 1987 used the text ``This
  is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?'' voiced
  over the image of a whole egg followed by one of a scrambled egg
  sizzling in a frying pan. The phrase immediately entered popular
  culture and has since been parodied or referred to many, many times.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 376/284\,] }}
 ``Gloria sighed. `Sometimes it's hard to be a woman,' she
  said.''

  The opening line from Tammy Wynette's torch song `Stand By Your Man'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 376/284\,] }}
 ``\,`I'd \emph{swear} he's elvish.'\,''

  This paragraph is the culmination of the Elvis running gag (see the
  annotation for p.~30/22), but in order to appreciate it you have to know
  that Kirsty MacColl had a big hit a decade or so ago with a song called:
  ``There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 378/285\,] }}
 ``So you're a rebel, little Death? Against what? Death
  thought about it. If there was a snappy answer, he couldn't think of
  one.''

  See the annotation for p.~173/130.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Interesting Times}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Interesting Times}

  One remarkable thing about this book's title is that it changed at least
  twice since Terry began working on it. It started out as \emph{Unclear
  Physics}, then became \emph{Imperial Wizard} for a few days, and finally ended
  up as \emph{Interesting Times}:

  ``Rincewind and Cohen are having such fun --- that is to say, death and
  terror attend them at every step --- on the Counterweight Continent and
  the Forbidden City of the Agatean Empire that it might well end up being
  called: \emph{Imperial Wizard} {\ldots}which ought to sell well in the US\@. In some
  States, anyway.''

  ``The editor and my main beta-test reader have raised objections to the
  title \emph{Unclear Physics}. They think it's a lovely title but they don't
  think it's a good one for this book. Nor do I, because I've got a better
  use for it --- I've realised how to utilize the squash court in UU{\ldots} So
  it will be the original working title: \emph{Interesting Times}. At least for
  this week.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/7\,] }}
 ``\,`I accuse the High Priest of the Green Robe in the library with
  the double-handed axe.'\,''

  Fate and the other Gods are playing the Discworld variant of the board
  game \emph{Clue} (known as \emph{Cluedo} outside North America).

  The object of this game is to deduce not only which of several suspects
  has murdered the unfortunate `Mr X', but also what weapon was used, and
  in which room of the mansion the murder took place. Once you think you've
  figured it out you have to publicly `accuse' the murderer, just as Fate
  does, and if you're right you win the game.

  Although a Reverend Green is one of the suspects, and the Library is one
  of the possible rooms, the game does not feature a double-handed axe,
  last time I looked.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 10/8\,] }}
 ``Let a game begin,' said the Lady.''

  I'm a bit surprised at having to annotate this, but apparently not
  everyone recognises just who the Lady is. She is of course none other
  than Lady Luck, who was first introduced in \emph{The Colour of Magic}, and
  who has always had a soft spot for Rincewind, possibly because he never
  relies on her.

  Note that green is a colour often associated with luck (e.g.\  Irish
  leprechauns).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/8\,] }}
 ``The Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys and the
  Fangs.''

  The presence of the McSweeney name (``very old established family'') in
  this list is used as a running gag throughout the book. It also reminded
  me of James Clavell's Hong Kong novels (\emph{Tai-Pan}, \emph{Noble House} and
  \emph{Gai-Jin}), which chronicle the Asian business empire founded and headed
  by various generations of the Scottish Struan family.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/10\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the mandelbrot patterns on the wings are of
  considerable interest.''

  Benoit Mandelbrot is the discoverer of the Mandelbrot Set, a famous
  `fractal', first plotted in 1980. Mandelbrot sets are rather difficult to
  describe in words (actually, they are very simple to describe in words
  only not in a way that most people will understand{\ldots}), but what it boils
  down to is that a picture of the Mandelbrot set is a kind of mathematical
  painting with many swirling colours interspersed by strange, heart-shaped
  clusters of black. Most people will probably have seen Mandelbrot sets on
  computer screens or screensavers or wall posters. If not, all you need to
  do is catch yourself a Quantum Weather Butterfly and study its wings.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 18/14\,] }}
 The Agatean Empire.

  There's a nice extra resonance with China here: Agate is a semi-precious
  gemstone, originally used in the Orient to make dinnerware.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 36/29\,] }}
 ``\,`Curiouser and curiouser,' said the Senior Wrangler.''

  A famous quote from \emph{Alice in Wonderland}. Not surprisingly, it merely
  confuses the other wizards.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/35\,] }}
 ``\,`To answer such questions Hex had been built, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  That a hex is a spell or a curse is well-known, but it may be less
  obvious to non-computer types that `hex' is also short for `hexadecimal',
  a common number base used by programmers.

  To belabour the obvious, this conjunction of meanings produces the
  perfect name for a computer designed to analyse magic.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/35\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he was pretty sure no one had designed the Phase of the
  Moon Generator.''

  The phase of the moon, besides being undoubtedly very handy when it comes
  to magical calculations, is used in our world's computer jargon to
  humorously indicate a random parameter on which something is supposed to
  depend.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/36\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the ants rode up and down on a little paternoster
  [{\ldots}]''

  A paternoster (in this context) is a closed-loop elevator of linked
  carriages, somewhat like the bucket chain principle applied to people ---
  or in this case, ants.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 45/36\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the aquarium had been lowered on its davits so that the
  operator would have something to watch during the long hours{\ldots} [{\ldots}]''

  A reference to the screensaver programs often found running on personal
  computers to prevent phosphor burn-in of the monitor. One popular
  screensaver module turns the screen into an aquarium of animated,
  swimming fish.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/37\,] }}
 ``+++++ Redo From Start +++++''

  A typically obtuse error message of the type that is thankfully going out
  of fashion.

  `Redo from start' is a bona fide error message for the BASIC programming
  language, caused by incorrect responses to an INPUT command.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/38\,] }}
 ``The Unreal Time Clock ticked sideways.''

  All computers have a real time clock, but, one assumes, an unreal time
  clock measures imaginary time, which explains why it ticks sideways: the
  imaginary numbers are at 90 degrees to the real numbers on the Complex
  Plane.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 47/38\,] }}
 ```Out of Cheese Error'\,''

  In computing, you regularly encounter ``out of memory'' or ``out of paper''
  errors. Presumably hex needs the cheese for its mouse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 49/39\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Bursar, still happily living in the valley of the
  dried frogs.''

  The `dolls' in the movie title \emph{Valley of the Dolls} refers to the pills
  to which the starlets were addicted.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 51/41\,] }}
 ``\,`Wardrobe? Er{\ldots} Er{\ldots} Isn't this the Magic Kingdom of
  Scrumptiousness?' [{\ldots}]''

  A reference to the Kingdom of Narnia, from C.~S.~Lewis' series of books.
  See the annotation for p.~22/22 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 54/43\,] }}
 ``\,`We must storm the Winter Palace! [{\ldots}] Then we can storm the
  Summer Palace!'\,''

  The Russian Revolutionary army stormed the Winter Palace in St
  Petersburg, but less well known is that the Summer Palace of the Chinese
  royal family was indeed pillaged and destroyed by the British and the
  French during the Taiping Rebellion of 1860. Terry acknowledges:

  ``I had `storming the winter palace' in mind because, yes, the events of
  the Russian revolution are more familiar to us --- and then I came across
  the storming of the summer palace while reading up on Chinese torture. It
  took me some effort not to find some joke about the Taiping Rebellion, I
  have to say{\ldots} and as for the Boxer Rising{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 56/45\,] }}
 ``\,`Your Wife is a big hippo'\,''

  In \emph{Interesting Times}, much is made of similar sounding words having
  totally different meanings. Languages such as Chinese and Japanese pay
  great attention to the pitch and intonation of words, and the same word
  with a different intonation can indeed have radically different meanings.
  (Of course not all different meanings are due to intonation --- there are
  other possibilities, such as vowel lengths, and some words just naturally
  have many different meanings).

  Just in case you think Terry is overstating things for comic effect,
  there is an anecdote told by linguist David Moser, who was learning
  Chinese, and was practising with some Chinese friends. He was tired, and
  said ``I want to go to sleep now'', but got the intonation wrong, and what
  he actually said was ``I stand by where the elephant urinates''.

  Similarly, I am told that the Chinese glyph `sento' can alternatively
  mean `public bath', `residence of a retired emperor', `first scaling the
  wall of a besieged castle', `fighting together' or `scissors', while the
  Japanese `kansen' can mean any of `main-line', `warship', `sweat-gland',
  `infection', `government', `appointed' and `witnessing a battle'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 60/48\,] }}
 ``\,`Be afraid. Be very afraid.'\,''

  A famous line from the 1986 remake of \emph{The Fly}, starring Jeff Goldblum
  and Geena Davis, also used as a tagline to promote the movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 61/48\,] }}
 ``{\ldots} \emph{possibly} the finest lager in the world.''

  In our world, the advertising slogan of Carlsberg is: ``Probably the best
  lager in the world''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 63\,] }}
 ``The Art of War was the ultimate basis of diplomacy in the
  Empire. [{\ldots}] No one remembered the author. Some said it was One Tzu
  Sung, some claimed it was Three Sun Sung.''

  In our world, Sun Tzu's \emph{The Art of War} is the oldest known military
  treatise (around 400 BC). ``Know the enemy, and know yourself'' is a
  straight quote from the chapter on Offensive Strategy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 88/70\,] }}
 ``\,`The Silver Horde,' said Cohen, with a touch of pride.''

  Derived from the `Golden Horde', one of the successor states to the
  Mongol Empire, based in the steppes of Southern Russia and the Ukraine,
  and ruled by descendants of Genghiz Khan. There was even a movie, \emph{The
  Golden Horde}, starring John Wayne as Genghiz Khan. As my correspondent
  puts it: ``Disbelief suspended by the neck until dead, dead, dead.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 72\,] }}
 ``\,`And I was very interested in Auriental studies.'\,''

  `Aurum' is Latin for `gold'. This is also why `gold' is signified by
  the symbol `Au' in the Periodic Table of Elements.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 107/85\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a complicated pile of ivory tiles, playing \emph{Shibo
  Yangcong-san}.''

  In our world the Chinese game of Mahjongg is played with ivory tiles, and
  its rules have many similarities to certain types of western card games.
  It shouldn't come as a big surprise, therefore, that `Shibo Yangcong-san'
  is actually Japanese for `Cripple Mr Onion'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 111/88\,] }}
 ``\,`Where's the pork?'\,''

  In the early 80s there was an American TV commercial for the \emph{Wendy's}
  chain of restaurants, featuring an irate old lady looking at her
  hamburger and ranting ``Where's the beef?!''. This became a national
  catchphrase for a while, and then permanently entered the language when
  it was used in the 1984 Presidential campaign by Vice President Walter
  Mondale and directed towards Senator Gary Hart as an implication that the
  latter's promises had no substance.

  Terry says: ``See? This is probably a genuine joke that Americans \emph{will}
  get and most Europeans won't. Hah! and they said it couldn't be done!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 120/96\,] }}
 ``\,`Excuse me, what is your name?' Rincewind said. `Pretty
  Butterfly.'\,''

  Apart from her ability to cause as many problems for Rincewind as the
  Quantum Weather Butterfly, Pretty Butterfly's name also resonates with
  that of the operatic Madame Butterfly.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/113\,] }}
 ``Bruce the Hoon''

  Hoon is New Zealand/Australian slang for a lout or hooligan. `Hooning
  around' describes the act of driving around wildly in one's car, spinning
  the wheels and so forth.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 156/125\,] }}
 ``There was a corral, for the Luggages.''

  It is obvious that Luggages are fairly common in the Agatean Empire, yet
  in \emph{The Light Fantastic} Twoflower explains that he got his Luggage from
  one of those mysterious magic shops. Terry says:

  ``That was a long time ago{\ldots} think of how it's all progressed. They've
  got real clocks in Ankh-Morpork now, people wear spectacles{\ldots} you might
  as well say home computers were rare and special things in 1980 so how
  come there were so many of them in 1990? What makes \emph{the} Luggage special
  is its peculiarly endearing character{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 172/138\,] }}
 ``Then he tugged the sword free and inspected the steaming
  blade. `Hmm,' he said. `Interesting{\ldots}'\,''

  Lord Hong finds the blade interesting because he has just discovered a
  way to quench red-hot sword blades without oxidising them.

  I am told that traditional Japanese sword makers did actually use
  condemned prisoners, but that was for testing purposes only, not for the
  actual forging process. Apparently, sword quality was sometimes measured
  in terms of the number of bodies the sword could cut through with a
  single blow.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 221/177\,] }}
 ``History told of a runner who'd run forty miles after a
  battle to report its successful outcome to those at home.''

  After a successful naval battle at the town of Marathon in Greece, a man
  reportedly ran all the way to Athens, 42 kilometres away, to inform his
  leader of the victory. He is also reported to have died on the spot from
  the strain after announcing their win. This is how the running event of
  the same name was born.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 230/184\,] }}
 ``\,`Why're their feet so small?' said Cohen.''

  Foot binding was a very common practice in China among women of the upper
  classes. As young girls, their feet would be wrapped in painfully tight
  bandages. When the girls grew, their feet did not. By adulthood the feet
  were barely half their proper length, which was considered attractive.
  Thankfully the procedure has almost died out.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 236/189\,] }}
 ``\,`So there was only blue left. Well, he'd show them{\ldots}'
  [{\ldots}] He had to simplify it a bit, of course.''

  Three Solid Frogs is inventing the Willow Pattern Plate, the well-known
  blue oriental picture of a maiden standing on a bridge.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 291/233\,] }}
 ``\,`How lucky do you feel, my lords?'\,''

  Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry. See the annotation for p.~136/124 of
  \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 296/238\,] }}
 ``A seven foot warrior smiled at him.''

  In 1974, thousands of terracotta warriors (no two faces alike!) were
  discovered around the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi at Mount Li, in the Shaanxi
  Province. Huangdi was the first emperor of a unified China (221--207 BC),
  famed for being harsh, autocratic, and intolerant of criticism.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 303/243\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Orrrrr! Itiyorshu! Yutimishu!}'\,''

  Terry writes:

  ``During WWII Hollywood obviously made a lot of gung-ho war movies. But{\ldots}
  who could play the Japanese? The Japanese in the US were banged up in
  holiday camps in Death Valley or someplace. So the producers roped in
  anyone who `looked Japanese' --- mainly Koreans, the story runs. The
  actors didn't really have lines since their job was, basically, to be
  shot by John Wayne. In order to give them something `Japanese sounding'
  to say, some genius suggested they shout, very fast, ``I tie your shoe,
  you tie my shoe''{\ldots}

  I've never dared check by watching the actual movies{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/246\,] }}
 ``It was a grainy picture, and it was in shades of green
  rather than proper colours, [{\ldots}]''

  Rincewind is wearing the Discworld equivalent of a Virtual Reality
  helmet.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 307/246\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a row of little pictures lit up on the wide cuff.
  They showed soldiers. Soldiers digging, soldiers fighting, soldiers
  climbing{\ldots}''

  The icons for controlling the Red Clay Army are immediately familiar to
  anyone who has ever played the computer game \emph{Lemmings}, in which you
  have to use similar controls to guide a group of brainlessly wandering
  lemmings across intricate and dangerous underground labyrinths.

  When this was first remarked upon by readers in a.f.p, Terry wrote:

  ``What? Lemmings? Merely because the red army can fight, dig, march and
  climb and is controlled by little icons? Can't imagine how anyone thought
  that{\ldots}

  Not only did I wipe Lemmings from my hard disc, I overwrote it so's I
  couldn't get it back.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 329/264\,] }}
 ``\,`Friendly stab', as it is formally known.''

  The Discworld version of our world's military euphemistic language, in
  which ``friendly fire'' stands for weaponry accidentally fired at own
  troops, ``permanent pre-hostility'' means `peace', and ``collateral damage''
  refers to civilians killed.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 350/281\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a calendar for the year surmounted by a rather
  angular picture of a beagle, standing on its hind legs.''

  One of the classic computer programs that circulated in the seventies
  used ASCII characters to `draw' a picture of Snoopy from \emph{Peanuts},
  followed by the year's calendar.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 351/282\,] }}
 ``The old blokes say that sort of thing used to happen all
  the time, back in the Dream.''

  For an explanation of where exactly Rincewind has landed see the
  annotation for p.~149/132 of \emph{Reaper Man} (just in case the significance
  of the word ``kangaroo'' escaped your attention).

  The Dream is a reference to the Aboriginal Dreamtime religion.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Maskerade}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{Maskerade}, as a parody of \emph{The Phantom of the Opera}, is based largely
  upon the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, but makes the events and
  characters more realistic. Hence, in \emph{Phantom}, Christine is the
  beautiful, slim, new star, with a good voice that needs training, holding
  back and reluctant to take her rightful place in the opera. Carlotta is
  the jealous prima donna, with a classical voice on the verge of
  decreptitude, and large lungs. The Phantom wants Christine to sing, and
  the owners would be happy to oblige, but for the need to keep Carlotta's
  ego assuaged.

  In \emph{Maskerade}, Christine can't sing, but looks pretty, so both the
  owners and the Phantom fall for her. Agnes, with the voice, is merely
  utilised.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11\,] }}
 ``\,`We're going to have to get Mr Cripslock to engrave page 11
  again,' he said mournfully. `He's spelt ``famine'' with seven letters ---'\,''

  A reference to the celebrated `famine' error in the Corgi paperback
  edition of \emph{Good Omens}. See the annotation for p.~154/98 of \emph{Good
  Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, my old granny used to make Spotted Dick ---'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~88/77 of \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Cosi fan Hita},' she read. `\emph{Die Meistersinger von Scrote}.'\,''

  I am almost completely ignorant on the subject of operas, but the titles
  Terry parodies in \emph{Maskerade} are so well-known that even I had no
  problem figuring out the originals. With that in mind I really didn't
  intend to annotate them, but so far nearly everybody who has sent in
  annotations for \emph{Maskerade} has mentioned the opera titles, and I fear
  very much that if I don't include them now I will continue to get tons of
  mail about it.

  So: \emph{Cosi fan Hita} is Mozart's \emph{Cosi fan tutte}, and \emph{Die Meistersinger
  von Scrote} is Richard Wagner's \emph{Die Meistersinger von N\"{u}rnberg}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 32\,] }}
 ``She at least respected anyone's right to recreate themselves.''

  As does Terry himself --- see the annotation for p.~20/15 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 36\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{The Joye of Snacks},' she read out loud.''

  The pun on \emph{The Joy of Sex} is obvious, but what not everybody may know
  is that the title of \emph{that} book, in turn, was inspired by an earlier
  popular book called \emph{The Joy of Cooking}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 42\,] }}
 ``\,`That's why they never sell tickets for Box Eight, didn't you
  know?!'\,''

  In the \emph{Phantom}, the Phantom's box is Box Five, and it's out of fear
  that they don't sell tickets for it. On the Discworld we have seen before
  that important numbers tend to gravitate towards 8, and it's luck (far
  more appropriate in opera) that prevents the sale of tickets.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 43\,] }}
 ``\,`That looks like an accident waiting to happen if I ever saw
  one,' she mumbled.''

  In the \emph{Phantom}, one of the most spectacular and well-publicised special
  effects is the crashing of the chandelier onto the stage, at the end of
  act~1. This occurs when Christine and Raoul secretly pledge their love
  for each other, which the Phantom overhears.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47\,] }}
 ``\,`It's white bone! He has no nose!' [{\ldots}] `Then how does he ---'
  Agnes began.''

  From the old joke, made famous by Monty Python's ``The funniest joke in
  the world'' sketch:

\begin{quote}{--- My dog has no nose. \\--- How does he smell? \\--- Terrible. \\
}\end{quote}

  And yes, I know this joke isn't the one that the sketch is named after.
  The funniest joke in the world (which, in the German translation,
  eventually enabled the British to win World War II) goes: ``Wenn ist das
  Nunstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt
  gersput!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 56\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Schneide meinen eigenen Hals} ---'\,''

  German for: ``Cut My Own Throat''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 92\,] }}
 ``\,`At least stand on tiptoe!' he shouted. `You probably cost me a
  dollar just running up here!'\,''

  It is precisely standing on tiptoe that wears out ballet shoes so
  quickly.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 93\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] flush him out, chase him through the city, catch him and
  beat him to a pulp, and then throw what's left into the river. It's the
  only way to be sure.'\,''

  Resonates with the famous murder of Rasputin, as well as with the scene
  in the movie \emph{Aliens}, where Ripley says: ``I say we take off and nuke the
  site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] tonight's production of \emph{La Triviata}.''

  Verdi's \emph{La Traviata}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 97\,] }}
 ``\,`What in fact we would like you to do{\ldots} Perdita{\ldots} is \emph{sing}
  the role, indeed, but not, in fact{\ldots} \emph{play} the role.'\,''

  This will sound familiar to anyone who has ever seen \emph{Singing in the
  Rain}, or knows any of the many other stories where this plot device is
  used. Terry says:

  ``The idea of an understudy doing all the work for the star is probably a
  common film clich\'{e}. I don't recall it in any film about music, but now I
  come to think of it there was a Fred Astaire film where he \emph{dances}
  instead of the star of the show (wearing a mask{\ldots} I didn't say it was a
  good movie). But the basis of the Agnes/Christine thing lies not in any
  movie but in real life. It has happened. My sources tell me that stars
  have gone on stage jetlagged or stricken with a sore throat and someone
  has been put behind them in the chorus to sing the role. I believe there
  has even been at least one case where the prompter (in the box in front
  of the stage) has tried to jump-start the dumbstruck star with the first
  few words of the song and ended up singing it all the way through. It's
  not a big step to go from that to the setup in \emph{Maskerade}.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 98\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a revival of \emph{The Ring of the Nibelungingung}''

  Wagner's opera is called `The Ring of the Nibelung', or in German: `Der
  Ring des Nibelungen'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``\,`Hello Colette,' said Granny. `What fascinatin' earrings you are
  wearing.'\,''

  Now this is an annotation that is going to need some explaining. The
  short version of the story is as follows:

  Colette is Colette Reap, a long-time a.f.p.\ regular, who impressed Terry
  by attending a book signing wearing earrings made out of Clarecraft's
  anorankhs.

  The longer version goes as follows:

  Clarecraft is a company that sells highly popular handcrafted Discworld
  miniatures and jewellery. Information on Clarecraft can be found in the
  \emph{Discworld Merchandise FAQ}, available from the Pratchett Archives.

  One particular item of jewellery they sell is the \emph{anorankh}, a small
  model of an Egyptian cross wearing an anorak. (Don't ask --- but in case
  you think you want to know: the precise story of how the anorankh came
  into existence can be found in the \emph{Holy Anorankh} file, also available
  from the Pratchett Archives.)

  Meanwhile, over on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}, it became, for some reason,
  standard practice for the male readers of the group to propose marriage
  (often all of them at the same time) to female readers. Colette, our
  resident {\smaller \texttt{net.goddess}} and therefore one of the most `visible' females on
  the group, was one of the most popular proposal targets. (For more
  detailed information about marriage proposals and other characteristic
  a.f.p.\ habits, see the \emph{A.f.p.\  Timeline} file, also available from --- you
  guessed it --- the Pratchett Archives.)

  With all this background information in mind, I'll let Colette herself
  tell the rest of the story:

  ``The interesting earrings thing comes from when I went to the \emph{Discworld
  Companion} signing in central London in May 1994. The signing was at
  lunch-time on a weekday and I was going to see our main computer supplier
  in the afternoon so I was fairly smartly dressed, but I was wearing my
  anorankh earrings, which Terry suddenly noticed while I was standing in
  front of him getting my book signed, and it was the first time he'd seen
  them made into earrings.

  On 31st December 1994, completely out of the blue, I got an email from
  Terry. In it he said he was doing the polishing draft of \emph{Maskerade} and
  which of the following two characters would I like to be called Colette
  --- the make-up girl at the Opera House, or one of the `young ladies' at
  Mrs. Palm's and that mention might be made of her interesting earrings.
  When I had picked myself up off the floor, and being the mischievous soul
  that I am, I wrote back to Terry and asked if Colette could be one of the
  `young ladies' at Mrs. Palm's, explaining that I felt that such a `young
  lady' would be much more likely not only to wear interesting earrings,
  but also to receive lots of marriage proposals from men she hardly knew.

  When I got my copy of \emph{Maskerade} signed, Terry wrote in it `What's a
  nice girl like you doing in a book like this?' --- a dedication in the
  same league as that which he wrote when he signed my Discworld game
  booklet, which was `To Colette, Will you marry me?'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``\,`What? You've been here before?' said Nanny, [{\ldots}]''

  Granny met Mrs Palm during her earlier stay in Ankh-Morpork. See the
  annotation for p.~121/119 in \emph{Equal Rites}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 123\,] }}
 ``\,`They beat him to death!' [{\ldots}] `And they throw him into the
  river!'\,''

  This is how the silent movie version of \emph{The Phantom of the Opera} ends.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 126\,] }}
 ``\,`Walter's your son?' said Granny. `Wears a beret?'\,''

  A nice bit of foreshadowing here: `Walter Plinge' is a generic
  pseudonym often used in the theatre world by an actor who has two
  different roles in the same play.

  Many people have also spotted that the description Terry gives of Walter
  Plinge --- beret, brown coat, nervousness, clumsy --- is very similar to
  that of Frank Spencer, the lead character in the British television
  comedy \emph{Some Mothers Do {\textquoteright}Ave {\textquoteright}Em}. Frank Spencer was played by Michael
  Crawford, who went on to become truly famous as the original{\ldots} Phantom
  of the Opera in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. When asked about this,
  Terry said:

  ``I certainly wanted Walter to be a superficially Frank Spencer character,
  although he's a lot sadder and clearly a few bricks short of a shilling,
  as Nanny Ogg would say.

  I was just amused at the way Michael Crawford, a man known to the UK as
  someone who played a hapless berk in a black beret, suddenly emerged as
  the suave Phantom.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 138\,] }}
 Grand Guignol

  See the annotation for p.~239/172 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 149\,] }}
 ``Let us examine the role of Laura in \emph{Il Truccatore} --- ``The
  Master Of Disguise'', also sometimes vulgarly known as ``The Man with a
  Thousand Faces''{\ldots}'\,''

  The Man with a Thousand Faces was the nickname given to Lon Chaney, the
  actor who played the Phantom of the Opera in the original silent
  Hollywood production.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 165\,] }}
 ``\,`Madam has \emph{marvellous} hair,' said the hairdresser. `What is
  the secret?' `You've got to make sure there's no newts in the water,'
  said Granny.''

  This echoes back to the quote in \emph{Reaper Man}:

  ``People have believed for hundreds of years that newts in a well mean
  that the water's fresh and drinkable, and \emph{in all that time} never asked
  themselves whether the newts got out to go to the lavatory.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 225\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] while muttering, `Rhubarb, rhubarb.'\,''

  Apparently, this is something actors traditionally mutter on stage when
  they are meant to appear to be talking amongst themselves in the
  background.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 231\,] }}
 ``\,`Well \emph{I} think,' said Nobby, `that when you have ruled out the
  impossible, what is left, however improbable, ain't worth hanging around
  on a cold night wonderin' about when you could be getting on the outside
  of a big drink.'\,''

  Sherlock Holmes. See the annotation for p.~118/108 of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 232\,] }}
 Opera names.

\begin{verse}\textit{The Barber of Pseudopolis = The Barber of Seville \\The Enchanted Piccolo = The Magic Flute \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 233\,] }}
 Musical names.

  `Guys and Trolls' is `Guys and Dolls', `Hubwards Side Story' is `West
  Side Story', `Miserable Les' is `Les Miserables', and `Seven Dwarfs for
  Seven Other Dwarfs' is `Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'.

  Note how the last name harks back to Terry's earlier comments on the
  difficulties of dwarf mating.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 247\,] }}
 ``\,`Says here ``Cable Street Particulars''{\ldots}'\,''

  A reference to Conan Doyle's Baker Street Irregulars. See also the entry
  for the City Watch in \emph{The Discworld Companion}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 257\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] as the opening bars of the duet began, opened her mouth
  --- `Stop right there!'\,''

  A strong resonance with Ellen Foley's character refusing to continue the
  duet `Paradise by the Dashboard Light' with Meatloaf halfway through the
  song:

\begin{verse}\textit{Stop right there! \\I gotta know right now \\Before we go any further \\Do you love me? Will you love me forever? \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 270\,] }}
 ``\,`Don't cry for me, Genua.'\,''

  `Don't cry for me, Argentina', is the famous ballad from the musical
  \emph{Evita}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 276\,] }}
 ``Nanny grinned. `Ah,' she said, `\emph{Now} the opera's over.'\,''

  Because, as the saying goes, the opera ain't over until the fat lady
  sings{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 276\,] }}
 ``He wore red: a red suit with red lace, a red cloak, [{\ldots}]''

  Death dressing up for Salzella makes a nice finishing touch to the
  whole `masquerade' theme of the book. It resonates with the \emph{Phantom
  of the Opera} musical where the Phantom gatecrashes a party ``dressed
  all in crimson, with a death's head visible inside the hood of his
  robe'', and both scenes in turn evoke Edgar Allan Poe's \emph{The Masque of
  the Red Death} (see also the annotation for p.~26/26 of \emph{The Light
  Fantastic}).

\vspace{4ex}\section{Feet of Clay}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Feet of Clay}

  The original working title for this book was \emph{Words in the Head}.

  ``Feet of Clay'' is a biblical reference. The Babylonian king
  Nebuchadnezzar had a dream in which he saw a statue whose head was made
  of gold, but lower down the statue the materials got progressively more
  base, until the feet were ``part of iron, part of clay''; the statue was
  shattered and destroyed by being struck on the feet, its weakest point.
  Hence, colloquially, the expression ``feet of clay'' has come to mean that
  someone regarded as an idol has a hidden weakness.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [frontispiece\,] }}
 The mottoes and crests are mostly explained in the book,
  but for completeness they are:

\begin{verse}\textit{Edward St John de Nobbes: ``capite omnia'' --- ``take it all'' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Gerhardt Sock (butcher): ``futurus meus est in visceris'' --- ``my future is in the entrails''\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Vetinari: ``si non confectus non reficiat'' --- ``if it ain't broke, don't fix it'' (a saying popularised by Lyndon B Johnson,          though possibly older)\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Assassins Guild: ``nil mortifice sine lucre'' --- ``no killing without payment''\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Rudolph Potts (baker): ``quod subigo farinam'' --- ``because I knead the dough''\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Thieves' Guild: ``acutus id verberat'' --- ``sharp's the word'' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Vimes family: ``protego et servio'' --- ``I protect and serve''. In the centre of the crest is the number 177, which --- we learnt in \emph{Men          at Arms} --- is Vimes' own badge number.\\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 7\,] }}
 ``W{\smaller{E HEAR YOU WANT A GOLEM.}}''

  The font used by the golems in the UK editions is clearly designed to
  look like Hebrew lettering. For some reason, the font used in the
  American editions is not.

  The golem itself is a creature from Jewish mythology, a man made of clay
  and animated by Kabbalistic magic. The one thing it cannot do is speak,
  because only God can grant the power of speech. There is a brief summary
  of the legend at \url{http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6960/golem.htm}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 8\,] }}
 ``\,`Yeah, right, but you hear stories {\ldots} Going mad and making
  too many things, and that.'\,''

  One episode in the life of the golem of Prague --- the best known of the
  mythical creatures --- tells that the golem was ordered to fetch water,
  but never told to stop, thus causing a flood. This is very similar to
  (and may be borrowed from) the classic children's story \emph{The Sorcerer's
  Apprentice} (\emph{Der Zauberlehrling}, a German poem by Goethe), also used in
  Disney's classic animated film \emph{Fantasia}. A spell used to animate a
  broom to speed housework gets out of control, leading to a frightening
  procession of hundreds of brooms bringing water from the well. The French
  composer Paul Dukas based the music on Goethe's poem. A more direct
  reference appears on p.~99, and elsewhere as a sort of running joke.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 17\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}], he says Mrs Colon wants him to buy a farm, [{\ldots}]''

  `Buy the farm' is military slang for `die'

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 17\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] I am sure I have told you about the Cable Street
  Particulars, [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~247 of \emph{Maskerade}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ AM DEATH, NOT TAXES.}}''

  It is said (after Benjamin Franklin) that in life only two things are
  certain: Death and taxes. However, the line before this kicks off a
  running gag that demonstrates than this is really one certainty too many.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 22\,] }}
 ``\,`Cheery, eh? Good to see the old naming traditions kept up.'\,''

  `Cheery' would fit in very well with the names of the Seven Dwarfs in the
  Disney Snow White film. Grumpy, Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful, Happy, Doc and
  Sneezy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 23\,] }}
 ``\,`I want someone who can look at the ashtray and tell me what
  kind of cigars I smoke.'\,''

  One of the first things Sherlock Holmes tells Watson, when they first
  meet, is that he has written a treatise on this subject. This contrasts
  oddly with Vimes' distrust of `clues' in general (see the annotation for
  p.~142).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 24\,] }}
 ``\,`Where the sun doesn't shine'\,''

  A running gag from \emph{Lords and Ladies}: the place where the sun does not
  shine, on the Discworld, is a valley in Slice, near Lancre.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 25\,] }}
 ``Clinkerbell''

  Tinkerbell via `clinker', which is one type of mining by-product.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 26\,] }}
 ``Slab: Jus' say `AarrghaarrghpleeassennononoUGH''

  Echoes the anti-drugs campaign slogan `Just say no', championed most
  famously by Nancy Reagan in America.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 26\,] }}
 ``T'Bread Wi' T'Edge''

  A long-running series of British commercials for a certain brand of bread
  emphasised the Yorkshire origins of the manufacturer. This slogan is in a
  parody of a Yorkshire accent, presumably for similar reasons.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30\,] }}
 The shield design described is the Ankh-Morpork coat of arms, not
  shown in the front of the book (but on the cover of \emph{Streets of
  Ankh-Morpork}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 27\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] he's got a loaded wolf.'\,''

  Possibly a reference to the Australian story of \emph{The Loaded Dog}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 `Daphne's ancestors came all the way from some islands on the
  other side of the Hub.'

  See the annotation for p.~9/9 of \emph{The Colour Of Magic}, but specifically
  referring to the brown owls of New Zealand, which, to a British
  viewpoint, are `some islands on the other side of the world'. Thus the
  morpork could be compared to the New Zealand brown owl.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30\,] }}
 ``\,`Croissant Rouge Pursuivant'\,''

  The names of the heralds are adapted from terms used in English heraldry.
  `Pursuivant' is simply the title for an assistant herald. English
  pursuivants include the Rouge Croix (cf. Terry's Croissant Rouge) and
  Bluemantle (Terry gives us the `Pardessus Chatain' or `Brown Overcoat').

  Senior to the pursuivants are the kings of arms, although none really
  corresponds to `Dragon'. This has been linked with `Dracula' --- the most
  famous vampire of all --- which is itself a title meaning `little dragon'.
  It also harks back to \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}, in which a dragon actually
  \emph{became} king of Ankh-Morpork, albeit briefly.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`There are plenty of kosher butchers down in Long Hogmeat.'\,''

  Kosher butchering involves a special method of bleeding the animal, which
  would ensure that there was plenty of spare blood around. The name `Long
  Hogmeat', however, is a bit more disturbing: apart from the question of
  how `hogmeat' could be kosher, it also sounds suspiciously like `long
  pig', which is pidgin for `human flesh'. (See also the annotation for p.~239/180 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 36\,] }}
 ``Commander of the City Watch in 1688''

  1688 AD in England was the date of the `Glorious [bloodless] Revolution'
  when the Catholic James II was deposed in favour of the Protestant Willem
  van Oranje, Stadholder of the Netherlands. He married Mary Stuart and
  became William III. ``Old Stoneface'', on the other hand, is clearly
  modelled on Oliver Cromwell, who ruled the Commonwealth (Republic) of
  England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland from 1652 to 1658, at one point
  refusing Parliament's offer of the crown. Among his many reforms, he
  championed religious freedom and tolerance, extending even to Jews, who
  were welcome in England for the first time since 1290.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 36\,] }}
 More Latatian.

  ``Excretus Est Ex Altitudine'' --- Shat On From a Great Height; ``Depositatum
  De Latrina'' --- Chucked Down The Toilet.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 38\,] }}
 ``\,`The butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker.'\,''

  From an old nursery rhyme:

\begin{verse}\textit{Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub \\And who do you think they were? \\The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker{\ldots} \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``Commander Vimes, on the other hand, was all for giving criminals
  a short, sharp shock.''

  ``Short sharp shock'' was coined in Gilbert \& Sullivan's \emph{The Mikado} as a
  euphemism for `execution'. In 1980s Britain, Tory home secretaries used
  the phrase to refer to the brief-but-harsh imprisonment of young
  offenders.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 44\,] }}
 ``\,`Delphine Angua von Uberwald,' read the Dragon aloud.''

  Uberwald (on \emph{The Discworld Mapp} spelled with an umlaut over the U) is
  `Over/beyond the forest' in German. In Latin, that's ``Transylvania'' --- a
  part of Romania traditionally associated with the undead (most
  prominently, Count Dracula).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 45\,] }}
 ``Men said things like `peace in our time' or `an empire that
  will last a thousand years,' [{\ldots}]''

  ``peace in our time'' --- Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, in
  1938.

  ``an empire that will last a thousand years'' --- Adolf Hitler, on the Third
  Reich.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 46\,] }}
 ``Constable Visit was an Omnian, [{\ldots}]''

  Read \emph{Small Gods} for much more information about Omnia. Brutha seems to
  have taken a religion devoted to violent conquest and turned it into
  something closely akin to modern evangelical Christianity.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 54\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,' said
  the imp proudly.''

  The original Apple Newton was the first PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)
  capable of doing this, and was even supposed to improve its recognition
  of the individual owner's writing with practice. In practice, it didn't
  work too well. Hence the joke:

\begin{quote}{Q. How many Newton users does it take to change a lightbulb? \\A. Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup. \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``Lord Vetinari had always said that punctuality was the
  politeness of princes.''

  In our world, the \emph{Oxford Dictionary of Quotations} attributes this
  saying to Louis XVIII.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``It is a pervasive and beguiling myth that the people who design
  instruments of death end up being killed by them.''

  This myth may have been started by William Makepeace Thackery, who asked
  in his novel \emph{The Adventures of Philip on His Way Through the World}:
  ``Was not good Dr Guillotin executed by his own neat invention?''. As Terry
  notes, he was not.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 56\,] }}
 ``\,`Can you paint a picture of his eye, Sydney?' [{\ldots}] `As big
  as you can.'\,''

  This idea has been used in many detective stories, but most famously in
  \emph{Blade Runner}, where the main character is able to blow up a reflection
  in a photograph far beyond plausible limits.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 63\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}], or dribble some in their ear while they slept.''

  A curious method of administering poison, most famously mentioned in
  \emph{Hamlet}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 64\,] }}
 ``\,`Crushed diamonds used to be in vogue for hundreds of years,
  despite the fact that they never worked.'\,''

  Crushed glass would theoretically work as a means of killing someone,
  because it forms jagged edges, but in practice the pieces are always
  either too big to go unnoticed or too small to have any effect. Aqua
  fortis is nitric acid, a \emph{very} fast-acting poison if ingested{\ldots}
  Cantharides is Spanish Fly, better known as an aphrodisiac, but quite
  poisonous in large doses.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 65\,] }}
 ``And that seemed about it, short of stripping the wallpaper off
  the wall.''

  The most obvious red herring. One of the most popular theories regarding
  Napoleon Bonaparte's death is that he suffered arsenic poisoning from the
  green colouration in the wallpaper of the bedroom of the place in which
  he was being held. It has been suggested that microbes, present in the
  humid conditions of St Helena, could absorb the poison from the
  wallpaper, then be inhaled by the prisoner, giving him a small dose every
  day. The wallpaper is green, and the pigment involved is copper arsenite,
  known in Napoleon's day as ``Paris Green''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 68\,] }}
 ``\,`But{\ldots} you know I'm in the Peeled Nuts, sir{\ldots}'\,''

  The equivalent in England today is called the Sealed Knot.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 70\,] }}
 ``Vimes's Ironheads \emph{won}.''

  A conflation of ``Roundheads'' and ``Ironsides'', two names for the
  Parliamentarian soldiers of Oliver Cromwell, clearly the model for
  Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 71\,] }}
 ``\emph{Twurp's Peerage}''

  See the annotation for p.~191/138 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 72\,] }}
 ``But kill one wretched king and everyone calls you a regicide.''

  There's an old joke about Abdul, who builds roads, raises cities,
  conquers nations, but is forever remembered as Abdul the Goat Fucker as a
  result of a youthful indiscretion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 73\,] }}
 ``Vimes put the disorganized organizer back in his pocket.''

  Posts made to USENET have a header field labelled `Organization:'. Terry
  Pratchett's own posts give this as `Disorganized'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 75\,] }}
 ``{\ldots} when I took you to see the Boomerang Biscuit exhibition.''

  Curiously, Carrot seems to have taken Vimes to the Dwarf Bread museum
  before treating Angua to it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 77\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah, h'druk g'har dWatch, Sh'rt'azs!' said Carrot.''

  Littlebottom, in dwarfish, is ``Sh'rt'azs''. In British slang, `shortarse'
  is a vaguely affectionate term for the vertically challenged.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 81\,] }}
 ``Igneous the troll backed away until he was up against his
  potter's wheel.''

  Igneous' shop has several parallels with a shop in the Sherlock Holmes
  story of \emph{The Six Napoleons}.

  Holmes encounters a pottery/stonework shop staffed mainly by Italians,
  who were also hiding out from the law and various other enemies, and is
  eventually asked to leave by the back door to avoid bothering the staff,
  which is locked with a large padlock. The figurines were also being used
  to conceal contraband.

  Terry comments: ``My flabber is ghasted. I really did think I made that
  one up. I mean{\ldots} I had the pottery already in existence from previous
  books, and I knew I'd want to bring it in later so I needed a pottery
  scene now to introduce it, and Igneous already had a rep as an `ask no
  questions' type of merchant, and I needed somewhere clay could be stolen
  and the golems would have had to break in, the padlock replacing the lock
  they'd busted. And I knew that I'd need a way for the Watch to put
  pressure on Igneous; `hollow items' for drugs and other contraband is a
  clich\'{e}, which ought to mean that his staff are somewhat outside the law.
  In other words the scene is quite a complex little jigsaw piece which
  slots into this plot and the ongoing DW saga in various places. I'll just
  have to pretend I knew what I was doing{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 84\,] }}
 ``\,`It hasn't really got a name', said Angua, `but sometimes we
  call it Biers.'\,''

  The perfect name for an undead bar. Puns on ``beer'', which you would
  normally associate with a tavern, and on ``bier'', which you would normally
  associate with being dead. Also puns on \emph{Cheers}, the fictional Boston
  tavern in the long-running US TV comedy of the same name.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 85\,] }}
 ``\,`But sometimes it's good to go where everybody knows your
  shape.'\,''

  The theme song of \emph{Cheers} contains the line ``sometimes you want to go
  where everybody knows your name''. See the annotation for p.~84, and the
  annotation for p.~298/225 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 86\,] }}
 ``\,`That's Old Man Trouble,' said Angua. `If you know what's good
  for you, you \emph{don't} mind him.'\,''

  From the Gershwin song `I Got Rhythm': ``Old Man Trouble, I don't mind
  him''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 89\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] sunglasses tester for Argus Opticians{\ldots} [{\ldots}]'\,''

  A very appropriate name. Argus ``the all-seeing'' was the name of the
  many-eyed watchman from Greek mythology, who was tasked by Hera to
  keep an eye (so to speak) on Io, a human priestess who, after her
  seduction by Zeus, had been transformed into a cow in an attempt to
  keep Hera from getting suspicious. No such luck.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 90\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{These} words are from the Cenotine \emph{Book of Truth}, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  There have been a number of suggestions for the derivation of this name.
  The root ``ken'' in Hebrew means ``honest, truthful, correct''. ``Cenogenesis''
  is a biological term meaning the development of an individual that is
  notably different from its group (such as happens to Dorfl in the book).
  Alternatively, for the atheists, there's the ``ceno'' in ``cenotaph'', from
  the Greek ``kenos'', meaning ``empty''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 91\,] }}
 Magazine titles.

  \emph{Unadorned Facts} and \emph{Battle Call} are plays on \emph{The Plain Truth},
  published by the Worldwide Church of God, and \emph{War Cry}, published by the
  Salvation Army.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 92\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] Mr Dorfl.'\,''

  All he golems' names are Yiddish, and Dorfl is no exception, although I'm
  not too sure what his means. It could be a pun on ``Stedtl'', which means
  ``ghetto'' --- Stadt is German for ``town'', Dorf for ``village''. In Austria,
  `Dorfl' is indeed a word used to denote a small village.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 93\,] }}
 ``\,`Feeding the yudasgoat?'\,''

  Or in English, `Judas goat', named after the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

  Judas goats are used by slaughterhouses to lead sheep to the killing
  floor. The sheep cannot easily be driven, but the herding instinct will
  make them follow the goat.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 94\,] }}
 ``\,`I'm going to read your chem, Dorfl.'\,''

  ``Chem'', pronounced ``shem'', is Hebrew for ``name''.

  One common euphemism used by Orthodox Jews for ``God'' is ``Ha-Shem'',
  literally: ``The Name'', which ties in to that part of the Golem legend
  which involves writing the name of God on the Golem's forehead (the other
  variant has the vivifying word being ``Emet'' (Truth)).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 95\,] }}
 ``N{\smaller{OW THREE HUNDRED DAYS ALREADY.}} [{\ldots}] W{\smaller{HAT WOULD I DO WITH TIME
  OFF?}}''

  Ending sentences with ``already'' is a common mannerism among
  Yiddish-speaking Jews in Anglophone countries. Rhetorical questions
  are another mainstay of Yiddish conversational style.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``H{\smaller{OLY DAY STARTS AT SUNSET.}}''

  Jewish holy days do, indeed, run from sunset to sunset. Cf.\  Genesis 1:5:
  ``The evening and the morning were the first day.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 109\,] }}
 ``\emph{The Rites of Man}''

  Thomas Paine wrote a justification of the French Revolution entitled \emph{The
  Rights of Man}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 110\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}], licking his fingers delicately to turn the thin pages.''

  Another red herring. Putting poison on the pages of a book, so that it is
  self-administered to the reader in this way, is an idea famously used in
  Umberto Eco's medieval mystery \emph{The Name of the Rose}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 115\,] }}
 ``You came with me when they had that course at the YMPA.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~88/88 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}. The YMCA runs
  summer courses for children, and presumably for adults as well.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 120\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Nobblyesse obligay},' [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~235/206 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 123\,] }}
 ``\,`It's ``a mess of pottage'', [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Another Old Testament reference.

  Esau sold his status as Abraham's firstborn son to his brother Jacob
  (Genesis 25:29--34) for a bowl of stew (pottage). Hence, a mess of
  pottage is the proverbial price of a birthright. This phrase was
  parodied by CS Lewis, who accused H.~G.~Wells of selling his
  birthright for ``a pot of message'' (that is, abandoning the purely
  imaginative books he did so well to push his political ideas).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 123\,] }}
  ``\,`Who streals my prurse streals trasph, right?'\,''

  Iago would rather be robbed than slandered in \emph{Othello}, act~3, scene~3:

\begin{verse}\textit{Who steals my purse steals trash; `tis something, nothing; \\`Twas mine, `tis his, and has been slave to thousands: \\But he that filches from me my good name \\Robs me of that which not enriches him \\And makes me poor indeed. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 124\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he had got only six weeks to retirement [{\ldots}]''

  The copper within days or hours of retirement has become a police movie
  clich\'{e}; traditionally, anyone who starts talking like this is likely to
  die within the short time left. Two examples occur in the films \emph{Lethal
  Weapon 2} and \emph{Falling Down}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 129\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] ole Zhlob just used to plod along, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Another golem name: ``Zhlob'' is Yiddish for ``boorish glutton'' (or
  gluttonous boor). Probably Slavic in origin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 130\,] }}
 ``As her tutors had said, there were two signs of a good
  alchemist: the Athletic and the Intellectual.''

  Terry used this joke in a talk at the Australian National University in
  Canberra in 1994, but he was talking about a shift charge engineer in a
  nuclear power plant{\ldots}

  The standard analytical technique to prove arsenic in chemical mixtures
  involves mixing the sample with zinc and adding sulphuric acid. If
  arsenic is present, this produces arsenic hydride as a gas; burning the
  gas, and holding the flame against a cool porcelain surface, leaves a
  black precipitation of metallic arsenic.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 132\,] }}
 ``\,`It's nine of the clock,' said the organizer, poking its
  head out of Vimes's pocket. ```I was unhappy because I had no shoes until
  I met a man with no feet.''\,'\,''

  Refers to the regrettable trend among software producers to inflict a
  happy Thought For The Day on their users each time they open the
  software.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 135\,] }}
 ``One had a duck on his head, [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~272/204 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 136\,] }}
 ``\,`Buggrit, millennium hand and shrimp!'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~324/233 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 138\,] }}
 ``\,`Dibbuk? Where the hell are you?'\,''

  A dybbuk, in Jewish mythology, is a demonic spirit that possess the body
  of someone living.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 140\,] }}
 ``\,`We're all lyin' in the gutter, Fred. But some of us're lookin'
  at the stars{\ldots}'\,''

  From Oscar Wilde, \emph{Lady Windermere's Fan}, Act 3. Although it can't be
  easy to see the stars through all that fog.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 142\,] }}
 ``He distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at
  another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion{\ldots}''

  Terry is challenging the Sherlock Holmes school of detection as being ``an
  insult to the glorious variety of human life.'' P G Wodehouse does the
  same in one of his PSmith stories, in which Psmith observes the local
  plumber sitting in his garden, dressed well because it's Sunday and
  reading Shakespeare because he likes it, while Psmith is studying the
  ``How To Detect'' booklet that says a plumber is unlikely to dress
  well/read Shakespeare.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``It wasn't by eliminating the impossible that you got at the
  truth, however improbable{\ldots}''

  Another dig at Holmes, who said precisely this.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 145\,] }}
 The description of Vetinari's drawing matches the cover of the
  original publication of Thomas Hobbes' \emph{Leviathan}, possibly \emph{the} most
  influential work of mainstream political theory.

  The book argues that for people to come together in a society, they
  cannot help but create a structure larger than themselves, which must
  have a controlling intelligence of its own, i.e.\  some sort of governing
  body. Hence, although political power derives from the common people, it
  must be superior to them.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 147\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] you might as well accuse the wallpaper of driving him
  mad. Mind you, that horrible green colour would drive anyone insane{\ldots}''

  See the annotation for p.~65.

  A number of people also wrote to say that they were reminded of Charlotte
  Perkins Gilman's story \emph{The Yellow Wallpaper} (1892), about a woman who
  is indeed driven mad by wallpaper.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 148\,] }}
 ``\,`We're known for rings, sir.'\,''

  Alberich the dwarf forges the Ring that is the centrepiece of Wagner's
  interminable Ring Cycle, based on Norse legend. Tolkien uses the same
  source, and his One Ring is not unlike Alberich's.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 150\,] }}
 ``Drumknott delicately licked his finger and turned a page.''

  See the note for p.~110.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 153\,] }}
 ``It was called the Rats Chamber.''

  This is another multidirectional pun. First, in German, the word for
  `council chamber' is Ratskammer. Second, it's an anagram of Star Chamber,
  a special civil and criminal court in England. Created by Henry VII in
  1487, abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641 following abuses under
  James I and Charles~I. The court took its name from a star-shaped
  decoration in the ceiling.

  The decoration in the ceiling of the Rats Chamber --- a group of rats with
  their tails tied together --- is called a rat king. According to Maarten
  `t Hart, in \emph{Rats} (translated from the Dutch), some 57 rat kings have
  been found since the 17th century, although several are of dubious
  authenticity. They are often found alive, and can contain as few as three
  or as many as 32 members, although seven is the commonest number. Members
  are of both sexes, and almost always of the same age group, which may be
  young or adult. Rat kings are generally formed of black rats (Rattus
  rattus), although there is one occurrence of field rats (found in Java)
  and several of squirrels. No-one knows quite why they form, although one
  theory is that black rats (which have longer and more pliable tails than
  other breeds) get something sticky on their tails, and get tangled up
  when they groom each other, or while playing or fighting.

  Apparently, a modern artist decided to make a work of art depicting a
  rat-king, and even put it on the internet. See Katharina Fritsch:
  Rat-King (Rattenkoenig), 1993
  \url{http://www.diacenter.org/exhibs/fritsch/ratking/} (which also has an
  essay on the rat king through history).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. {???}\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Mrs Rosemary Palm, head of the Guild of Seamstresses
  [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~121/119 of \emph{Equal Rites}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 155\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember when he made his horse a city councillor?'\,''

  Caligula, Emperor of Rome from 37 to 41 AD, famously appointed his horse
  Incitatus as Consul to show his contempt for the Senate.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 158\,] }}
 ``\,`Genua wrote to Ankh-Morpork and asked to be sent one of our
  generals to be their king [{\ldots}] The history books say that we sent our
  loyal General Tacticus, whose first act after obtaining the crown was to
  declare war on Ankh-Morpork.'\,''

  Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, 1763--1844, was a French general who
  became King Karl XIV John of Sweden and Norway. The youngest son of a
  French lawyer, Bernadotte joined the French army in 1780, becoming an
  officer in 1792, during the French Revolution. Recognising his brilliance
  in the field, the Emperor Napoleon eventually elevated him to the rank of
  prince. In Sweden, where Gustav IV had abdicated (1809) and been
  succeeded by the childless Karl XIII, Napoleon supported Bernadotte as
  heir to the throne. In August 1810, he was elected crown prince as Karl
  John. In 1813 he joined the allies against Napoleon.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 162\,] }}
 ``Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit [the
  world], [{\ldots}]''

  Another parallel between Omnianism and Christianity. See Matthew 5:5.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 165\,] }}
 ``\,`you've got to have the noses poking through the pastry{\ldots}'\,''

  Similar to Stargazy pie, a Cornish dish that has fish heads poking
  through the pastry all around the edge of the dish.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 177\,] }}
 ``\,`{\ldots} push off back to the Yard, job done and dusted.'\,''

  This phrase relates to the act of distempering a wall --- another oblique
  hint at the wallpaper theory.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 181\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Now} we're cooking with charcoal!'\,''

  The expression ``cooking with gas'' dates back to an advertising campaign
  designed to persuade people of the advantages of gas over electricity.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 189\,] }}
 ``*'She feels the need,' [{\ldots}] `Yeah, the need to feed.'*''

  In the movie \emph{Top Gun}, the pilots boast that they `feel the need; the
  need for speed.'

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 190\,] }}
 ``That horrible green wallpaper.''

  By the time Vimes has this idea (see the annotation for p.~65), he
  already knows enough to dismiss it in fairly short order.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 195\,] }}
 ``\,`Then there's this one about the Klatchian who walks into a
  pub with a tiny piano --- `''

  The joke as adapted by thee goode folkes of {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} goes like
  this:

  This Klatchian walked into a pub carrying a small piano. He puts in on
  the bar and has a few drinks. When it comes time to pay up he says to
  the publican, ``I bet you double or nothing I can show you the most
  amazing thing you ever saw.''

  ``Okay, but I warn you, I've seen some weird stuff.''

  The Klatchian takes out a tiny stool, which he sits in front of the
  piano. He then reaches into his robes and pulls out a box, about a
  foot long, with tiny air-holes in it. He takes off the lid and inside
  is a tiny man, fast asleep. As the lid opens he wakes up. Instantly he
  jumps to the piano and plays a perfect rendition of `The Shades of
  Ankh-Morpork'! Then, as everyone in the bar is clapping, he jumps back
  into the box and closes the lid.

  ``Wow!'' The publican says, and wipes the slate clean. ``If I give you
  another drink, could you do it again?'' The Klatchian agrees. This time
  the little man plays the Hedgehog song, to thunderous applause.

  ``I gotta ask, where did you get that?''

  ``Well, a few months ago I was travelling across the deserts of Klatch,
  when I suddenly came across a glass bottle. I picked it up and rubbed
  it and lo and behold, out popped a Genie. For some reason it was
  holding a curved bone to his ear and talking to it.''

  ``\,`Genie,' I said to him, `I have freed you, and in return I ask only
  three wishes.'\,''

  ``\,`Huh?' The genie said, looking at me for the first time. `Oh, OK, three,
  whatever.' He then started talking to the bone again.''

  ``\,`Genie, I would like a million bucks!' I said to him.''

  ``Did you get it?''

  ``Not exactly. The genie kept talking to the bone and he waved one of his
  hands. Instantly, I was surrounded by a million ducks. Then they flew
  away.''

  ``What was your second wish?''

  ``I said to him: `I want to be the ruler the world!' the Genie was still
  talking to his bone, but he waved his free hand and a piece of wood
  appeared, with inches marked on it.''

  ``Oh, a ruler. It sounds like the genie wasn't paying much attention. Did
  you get your third wish?''

  ``Let me put it like this: do you really think I asked for a twelve-inch
  pianist?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 196\,] }}
 ``\,`Send Meshugah after him, ah-ha.'\,''

  Another Yiddish name, from Hebrew, meaning `crazy'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 196\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] sometimes people inconsiderately throw their enemies
  into rooms entirely bereft of nails, handy bits of sharp stone,
  sharp-edged shards of glass or even, in extreme cases, enough pieces
  of old junk and tools to make a fully functional armoured car.''

  Most correspondent feel that the ``extreme cases'' are exactly the kind
  that the heroes of the television series \emph{The A-Team} for years
  encountered on an almost weekly basis.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 203\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the crowd opened up like a watercourse in front of
  the better class of prophet.''

  Moses parted the sea to allow the Israelites to escape the pursuing
  Egyptian army, who were then all killed when the seas collapsed on top of
  them{\ldots} (Exodus 14:21--30)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 217\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``My name is Sam and I'm a really suspicious bastard.''\,'\,''

  Parodies how people introduce themselves at meetings of Alcoholics
  Anonymous.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 222\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought the damn thing smashed up{\ldots}' [{\ldots}] `Well, it's
  putting itself together.'\,''

  The monster breaking into pieces and then reassembling itself is probably
  best known from \emph{Terminator 2} (see also the annotation for p.~364/275 of
  \emph{Soul Music}), but there are earlier references. In \emph{The Iron Man} by Ted
  Hughes (1968) the iron man/robot falls over the edge of a cliff and
  breaks into many pieces. The fingers put the hands together then they
  pick up an eye and start putting the rest of the body together.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 226\,] }}
 ``It is not a good idea to spray finest brandy across the room,
  especially when your lighted cigar is in the way.''

  {\ldots}unless, of course, you \emph{want} a small fireball. This trick is used in
  the 1959 film \emph{The League of Gentlemen}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 230\,] }}
 ``\,`I wanted to buy a farm!' moaned Colon. `Could be,' said
  Arthur.''

  See the annotation for p.~17.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 234\,] }}
 ``\,`This candle even weighs slightly more than the other candles!''

  Although there are a few fictional uses of this method of poisoning,
  Terry himself explains that his source was an ``attempt on the life of
  Leopold I, Emperor of Austria, in 1671, which was foiled when the
  alchemist Francesco Borri checked up on the candles. He found the candles
  in the bedchamber were heavier than similar candles elsewhere and found
  that two and a half pounds of arsenic has been added to the batch.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 236\,] }}
 ``\,`Hello hello hello, what's all this, then?'\,''

  Catchphrase from the \emph{Dixon of Dock Green} TV series. See the annotation
  for p.~60/55 of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 245\,] }}
 ``\,`That's Mr Catterail, sir.''

  {\ldots} whose letter Carrot read way back on p.~108, where he gives his
  address as Park Lane. Kings Down is a short walk away along Long Wall.
  Presumably they are on the same beat.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 252\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!''\,'\,''

  Contrary to popular belief, the saying ``Today is a good day to die!''
  was not invented by Klingons. It's a traditional Siouxan/Lacotah
  battle-cry.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 258\,] }}
 ``He landed on the king's back, flung one arm around its neck,
  and began to pound on its head with the hilt of his sword. It staggered
  and tried to reach up to pull him off.''

  In \emph{Robocop 2}, our hero (Robo) jumped on the back of the `Robocop 2' and
  tried to open its head.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 260\,] }}
 ``\,`They gave their own golem too many, I can see that.''

  The way the king golem is driven mad by the number of rules in its head
  reminded many people of a scene in \emph{Robocop 2}, where Robocop is rendered
  useless by programming with several, partly conflicting rules. This
  slightly tenuous connection is reinforced by several further similarities
  between Dorfl and Robocop.

  Never mind Robocop, however: one correspondent has posited that the
  entire candle factory sequence is a clever amalgam of the endings to
  \emph{both} \emph{Terminator} movies. I will let him explain this to you in his
  own words --- I couldn't bring myself to paraphrase or edit it down:

  ``The candle factory itself, with all the candle production lines is
  reminiscent of the robotics in the automated factory that Reese
  activates to confuse the Terminator. Throughout the candle factory
  scene, Carrot is Reese, Angua is Sarah Connor, the king switches
  between the original T--800 when fighting Carrot and the T--1000 from T2
  when fighting Dorfl, who is the `good' Terminator from T2.

  Carrot is shot early on and has to be dragged around initially by
  Angua, much like the injured Reese has to be supported by Sarah. The
  following fight between Dorfl and the king is similar to the big T2
  confrontation between the two Terminators, in which one of the
  combatants is able to `repair' himself and thus has an advantage. When
  Dorfl is `killed', his red eyes fade out just like a T--800s, but he is
  later able to come back to life. The T--800 achieves this by rerouting
  power through undamaged circuitry; Dorfl does it by getting the words
  from elsewhere (heart as opposed to head).

  In T1, Reese finds a metal bar and tries to fight an opponent he can't
  possibly beat --- exactly as Carrot does. When Angua finds herself
  facing the injured king, it is similar to the scene in T1 after
  Reese's death, when the torso of the Terminator pulls itself along
  after the injured Sarah, grabbing at her legs (which the king also
  does to Angua). Then, Detritus' shot at the king, which has no effect,
  is like Sarah's last stand against the T--1000, when she runs out of
  ammo just at the crucial point. When it appears that the seemingly
  invincible king has survived everything and is about to finish the job
  and kill Carrot, the thought-to-be-dead Dorfl makes a last-gasp
  interjection which finally kills the king --- much like the resurrected
  Arnie appears just in time to kill the T--1000 in T2. Oh, and finally,
  the molten tallow that Cheery almost falls into is, of course, the
  molten metal at the end of T2.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 260\,] }}
 ``\,`We can rebuild him,' said Carrot hoarsely. `We have the
  pottery.'\,''

  From the 70s TV series \emph{The Six Million Dollar Man}: ``We can rebuild him.
  We have the technology.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 272\,] }}
 ``\,`Undead Or Alive, You Are Coming With Me!'\,''

  Another echo of Robocop.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 278\,] }}
 ``\,`He's just made of clay, Vimes.' `Aren't we all, sir?
  According to them pamphlets Constable Visit keeps handing out.'\,''

  Another parallel between Omnianism and Christianity. See Genesis 2:7. (In
  fact, the idea of God as a potter and humans as clay is a recurring
  metaphor in the Bible. See, e.g., Job 33:6, Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18:6.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 279\,] }}
 ``\,`The thought occurs, sir, that if Commander Vimes did not
  exist you would have had to invent him.'\,''

  Parallels a famous saying of Voltaire (1694--1778): ``If God did not exist,
  it would be necessary to invent him.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 280\,] }}
 ``\,`To Serve The Public Trust, Protect The Innocent, And
  Seriously Prod Buttock.'\,''

  The first two of these were also the first two of Robocop's prime
  directives.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 283\,] }}
 Dorfl's plan to liberate his fellow golems seems to take a lot
  for granted (e.g.\  that they will all decide, once free, to join him).

  Terry himself describes what he envisages happening next:

  ``While I wasn't planning to feature this in another book, I suspect the
  sequence of events, given Dorfl's character, would run like this:

\begin{quote}{1 Dorfl saves up to buy the next golem \\2 Golems suddenly become very pricey \\3 Dorfl does extra shifts and go on saving \\4 Price of golems goes up \\5 Several merchants recieved a friendly visit from the Commander of the Watch to discuss matters of common interest\\6 Golems available to Dorfl at very reasonable prices. \\
}\end{quote}

  I want more golems on the city payroll. How else can they resurrect the
  fire service?''

  The names of the golems, again, are Yiddish. ``Klutz'' --- a clumsy clod or
  bungler (from German); ``Bobkes'' --- beans, but only metaphorically;
  something worthless or nonsensical (from Russian); ``Shmata'' --- a rag, or
  piece of cloth; used both literally and to describe a person of weak
  character (from Polish).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 285\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Not} a problem, me old china,' he said.''

  Rhyming slang: china plate --- mate, friend.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 285\,] }}
 ``\,`Somewhere, A Crime Is Happening,' said Dorfl.''

  Another Robocop line.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 285\,] }}
 ``\,`But When I Am Off Duty I Will Gladly Dispute With The Priest
  Of The Most Worthy God.'\,''

  However, Dorfl has just told Vimes that he will never \emph{be} off duty{\ldots}

\vspace{4ex}\section{Hogfather}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [dedication\,] }}
 ``To the guerilla bookshop manager known to friends as
  `ppint' [{\ldots}]''

  The bookshop in question is \emph{Interstellar Master Traders} in Lancaster\@. ppint is a longtime contributor to {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}, well-known for,
  amongst many other things, maintaining a number of that group's
  ``Frequently Asked Questions'' documents.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [dedication\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the question Susan asks in this book.''

  Many people have found it difficult to determine just what this question
  is. Perhaps this is because the Oh God of Hangovers asks it first, on p.~153, after which Susan turns to the Death of Raths and relays the
  question to him: ``\,`Actually{\ldots} where \emph{do} [the Tooth Fairies] take the
  teeth?'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
When \emph{Hogfather} was being written, Terry answered the question what it
  was going to be about as follows:

  ``Let's see, now{\ldots}in \emph{Hogfather} there are a number of stabbings,
  someone's killed by a man made of knives, someone's killed by the dark,
  and someone just been killed by a wardrobe.

  It's a book about the magic of childhood. You can tell.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 7\,] }}
 ``Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.''

  Most physicists believe the universe started with a `big bang.' The
  contrary view is that the universe is essentially a `steady state'
  system, though this is difficult to reconcile with the available
  evidence. See also the annotation for p.~8/8 of \emph{The Colour of Magic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 8\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Verruca Gnome is running around [{\ldots}]''

  A verruca is a large wart that appears on the sole of the foot, also
  called a plantar wart. Apparently the word is not commonly used in
  America.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 13\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] a stiff brandy before bedtime quite does away with the
  need for the Sandman.'\,''

  The Sandman supposedly sends children to sleep by throwing sand in their
  eyes, although we have found out (in \emph{Soul Music}) that, on the
  Discworld, he doesn't bother to take the sand out of the sack first.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 13\,] }}
 ``\,`And, since I can carry a tune quite well, I suspect I'm not
  likely to attract the attention of Old Man Trouble.'\,''

  A character from the Gershwin song `I've Got Rhythm'. See also the
  annotation for p.~86 of \emph{Feet of Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 16\,] }}
 ``\,`Let us call him the Fat Man.'\,''

  This nickname has an honourable history, dating back at least as far as
  the 1941 classic film \emph{The Maltese Falcon}. It was also the codename of
  the second (and, so far, the last) atomic bomb ever used in war, which
  was dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 24\,] }}
 ``She'd got Gawain on the military campaigns of General Tacticus,
  [{\ldots}]''

  We learn a lot more about this character in \emph{Jingo}. The name seems to be
  a conflation of the word `tactics' with the Roman historian Tacitus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 25\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops
  with chimney sweeps [{\ldots}]''

  A famous scene from the 1964 film \emph{Mary Poppins}. Miss Poppins used her
  umbrella as a sort of magic wand to grant wishes for the children in her
  charge. See also the annotation for p.~56.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 26\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the hope that some god or other would take their soul if
  they died while they were asleep [{\ldots}]''

  Susan is thinking of an 18th-century prayer still popular in parts of
  America:

\begin{verse}\textit{Now I lay me down to sleep, \\I pray the Lord my soul to keep. \\If I should die before I wake, \\I pray the Lord my soul to take. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 26\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] \emph{yes}, Twyla: there \emph{is} a Hogfather.'\,''

  Susan's response to Twyla's question loosely parodies a delightfully
  sentimental editorial that first appeared in \emph{The New York Sun} in
  December 1897. The editorial \emph{Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus},
  appropriately enough, uses the ideas of `deeper truths' and `values' to
  demonstrate that Santa \emph{must} exist.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 Medium Dave and Banjo Lilywhite.

  From the Trad.\  song `Green grow the rushes, O': ``Two, two the Lilywhite
  boys, clothed all in green, O''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 34\,] }}
 ``Deaths's destination was a slight rise in the trench floor.''

  The environment Death visits is called ``Black Smokes''. It is a lifeform
  that is not based on photosynthesis in any way.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``The omnipotent eyesight of various supernatural entities is
  often remarked upon. It is said they can see the fall of every sparrow.''

  Matthew 10:29, for instance: ``Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?
  and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39--40\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Oh, there might be some temp'ry inconvenience now, my good
  man, but just come back in fifty thousand years.''\,'\,''

  There is very often a clear parallel between Discworld magic and our
  world's nuclear power. This is the sort of timescale it takes for
  plutonium waste to decay to a `harmless' state. Given Terry's background
  in the nuclear industry, and his comments since, there's no doubt that
  these parallels are intended.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 42\,] }}
 ``\,`Give me a child until he seven and he is mine for life.'\,''

  A Jesuit maxim. See the annotation for p.~12/10 of \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 44\,] }}
 ``It was the night before Hogwatch. All through the house{\ldots}
  {\ldots}one creature stirred. It was a mouse.''

  In Clement Clarke Moore's poem \emph{The Night Before Christmas}, ``not a
  creature was stirring, not even a mouse''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 47\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, `Possibly the
  gods exist and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any
  case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if
  it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?'\,''

  This is a rephrasing of Pascal's Wager: ``If you believe in God and turn
  out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing --- but if you don't believe in
  God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is
  foolish to be an atheist.'' (Formulation quoted from the {\smaller \texttt{alt.atheism}}
  ``Common Arguments'' webpage,
  \url{http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/arguments.html\#pascal})

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 47\,] }}
 ``\,`You could try ``Pig-hooey!''\,'\,''

  In P.~G.~Wodehouse's \emph{Blandings Castle}, this cry was recommended to
  Clarence, Earl of Emsworth, as an all-purpose call to food, and used in
  the enforced absence of his pig man to get the mighty Empress back to the
  trough. As such it is perhaps not surprising that Gouger, Rooter, Tusker
  and Snouter did not accelerate away at the sound --- they were presumably
  waiting for Albert to produce the nosebags.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 48\,] }}
 ``\,`Look at robins, now. [{\ldots}] all they got to do is go
  bob-bob-bobbing along [{\ldots}]'\,''

  From the song ``When the red, red robin comes bob-bob-bobbing along{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 49\,] }}
 ``In Biers no one took any notice.''

  The bar ``Cheers'', from the TV show of the same name, has often been
  parodied as ``Beers''. See also the annotation for p.~84 of \emph{Feet of
  Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 50\,] }}
 ``\,`Now then, Shlimazel'\,''

  ``Shlimazel'' is a Yiddish word meaning someone who always has bad luck, a
  sad sack, a terminally unsuccessful person. (From German ``schlimm'',
  meaning ``bad'', and the Hebrew ``mazal'', meaning ``luck'' --- or
  ``constellation'', as in ``ill-starred''.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 54\,] }}
 ``\,`Did you check the list?' Y{\smaller{ES, TWICE.}} A{\smaller{RE YOU SURE THAT'S
  ENOUGH?}}''

  This is the first of many references to the song `Santa Claus is coming
  to town'. ``He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find
  out who's naughty and nice{\ldots}'' Other references are on p.~60 and p.~84.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 54\,] }}
 ``Here we are, here we are,'' said Albert. ``James Riddle, aged
  eight.''

  Jimmy Riddle is rhyming slang for ``piddle''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 56\,] }}
 ``the window opened into the branches of a cherry tree.''

  Possibly another echo of \emph{Mary Poppins} (see the annotation for p.~25), who lived at 10 Cherry Tree Road. The raven's constant harping on
  about robins also echoes the movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``\,`The rat says: you'd better watch out{\ldots}'\,''

  The song ``Santa Claus is coming to town'' takes on a whole new meaning on
  the Discworld. See also the annotation for p.~69/52 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 66\,] }}
 ``She'd never looked for eggs laid by the Soul Cake Duck.''

  The Discworld equivalent of the Easter Bunny. See also the annotation
  for p.~193/139 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 67\,] }}
 ``\,`I happen to like fern patterns,' said Jack Frost coldly.''

  A Tom Swiftie, followed by another one on the next page: ``\,`I don't
  sleep,' said Frost icily, [{\ldots}]''. See the annotation for p.~26/26 of \emph{The
  Light Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 73\,] }}
 ``In general outline, at least. But with more of a PG rating.''

  PG = Parental Guidance suggested --- a film classification used in the USA
  and the UK, meaning that ``some material may not be suitable for
  children''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 74\,] }}
 ``Between every rational moment were a billion irrational ones.''

  In mathematics, between every rational number there are an infinite
  number of irrational numbers. A rational number is a number that can be
  expressed in the form of \emph{p/q} where \emph{p} and \emph{q} are integers. Irrational
  numbers are ones that can't, such as \emph{pi} or the square root of 2.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 77\,] }}
 ``A man might spend his life peering at the private life of
  elementary particles and then find he either knew who he was or where he
  was, but not both.''

  A lovely reference to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (see the
  annotation for p.~178/171 of \emph{Pyramids}). Also plays on the stereotype of
  the absent-minded old scientist.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 79\,] }}
 ``\,`Archchancellor Weatherwax only used it once [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Archchancellor Weatherwax was in charge of UU in the time of \emph{The Light
  Fantastic}, estimated (by some deeply contorted calculation) to be set
  about 25 years before the time of \emph{Hogfather}. See also the annotation
  for p.~8/8 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 82\,] }}
 `Old Faithful' is the name of the famous big regular geyser in
  Yellowstone Park. No wonder Ridcully feels `clean'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 83\,] }}
 ``\emph{On the second day of Hogswatch I{\ldots} sent my true love back A
  nasty little letter, hah, yes, indeed, and a partridge in a pear tree.}''

  Clearly the Discworld version of ``The twelve days of Christmas'' is rather
  less, umm, unilateral.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 83\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{--- the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer ---}'\,''

  The song is `The Holly and the Ivy':

\begin{verse}\textit{The Holly and the Ivy, when they are both full grown, \\Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Oh, the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer, \\The playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Holly bears a berry, as red as any blood, \\And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ to do poor sinners good{\ldots} \\
}\end{verse}

  etc.\ 

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 84\,] }}
 ``I{\smaller{ KNOW IF THEY ARE PEEPING}}, Death added proudly.''

  Another echo of `Santa Claus is coming to town': ``He sees you when you're
  peeping''. See the annotations for p.~54 and p.~60.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 86\,] }}
 ``\,`I mean, tooth fairies, yes, and them little buggers that live
  in flowers, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Flower fairies are a Victorian invention, often illustrated in
  sickeningly cute pictures and still widely popular in America. See also
  \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 86\,] }}
 ``Oh, how the money was coming in.''

  This has been tentatively linked to a famous parody song, to the tune of
  of `My Bonnie lies over the ocean': ``My father makes counterfeit money,
  my mother brews synthetic gin, my sister makes loves to the sailors: my
  God, how the money rolls in!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 92\,] }}
 ``Many people are aware of the Weak and Strong Anthropic
  Principles.''

  Physicists have discovered that there are a large number of
  `coincidences' inherent in the fundamental laws and constants of nature,
  seemingly \emph{designed} or `tuned' to lead to the development of intelligent
  life. Every one of these coincidences or specific relationships between
  fundamental physical parameters is needed, or the evolution of life and
  consciousness as we know it could not have happened. This set of
  coincidences is known collectively as the ``Anthropic Principle.''

  The `Weak Anthropic Principle' states, roughly, that ``since we are here,
  the universe must have the properties that make it possible for us to
  exist, so the coincidences are not surprising''.

  The `Strong Anthropic Principle' says that ``the universe \emph{can} only exist
  at all because it has these properties --- it would be impossible for it
  to develop any other way.''

  In some quarters, the idea has re-ignited the old `argument-from-design'
  for the existence of God.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 94\,] }}
 ``\,`Sufficiently \emph{advanced} magic.'\,''

  A perfect inversion of Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that ``any sufficiently
  advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 94\,] }}
 ``\,`Interesting. Saves all that punching holes in bits of card and
  hitting keys you lads are forever doing, then ---'\,''

  Holes punched in cards were used to input programs and data to computers
  up until roughly the early 1970s, when keyboards became standard.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 95\,] }}
 ``+++ Why Do You Think You Are A Tickler? +++''

  The conversation between the Bursar and Hex is reminiscent of the \emph{Eliza}
  program.

  \emph{Eliza} is a program written in the dark ages of computer science by
  Joseph Weizenbaum to simulate an indirect psychiatrist. It works by
  transforming whatever the human says into a question using a few very
  simple rules. To his grave concern, Weizenbaum discovered that people
  took his simple program for real and demanded to be left alone while
  `conversing' with it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 95\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Hex's `Anthill Inside' sticker [{\ldots}]''

  Refers to a marketing campaign launched by semiconductor manufacturer
  Intel in the 1990s.

  Intel's problem was that, although it has almost all of the market for
  personal computer chips, its lawyers couldn't stop rival manufacturers
  from making chips that were technically identical --- or, very often,
  better and cheaper. Its response was to launch the `Intel Inside'
  sticker, to attach to a computer's case in the hope of persuading end
  customers that this made it better.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``You know there's some people up on the Ramtops who kill a wren
  at Hogswatch and walk around from house to house singing about it?''

  There is a folksong about the hunting of the wren:

\begin{verse}\textit{Oh where are you going, says Milder to Maulder \\Oh we may not tell you, says Festle to Fose \\We're off to the woods, says John the red nose \\We're off to the woods, says John the red nose \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And what will you do there{\ldots} \\We'll hunt the cutty wren{\ldots} \\
}\end{verse}

  In Ireland until quite recently, the hunting of the wren on St. Stephen's
  day --- Dec. 26th --- was a very real tradition. People did kill a wren and
  hang it on a branch of a holly tree, taking it from house to house rather
  like children trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 100\,] }}
 ``Blind Io the Thunder God used to have these myffic ravens that
  flew anywhere and told him everything that was going on.''

  The main Viking god Odin, although not a thunder god, had two ravens,
  Hugin and Munin, who did this. He also had only one eye.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 100\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] he'd go to the Castle of Bones.'\,''

  King Arthur visited this place of horror with a bunch (24? 49? 144?) of
  his trusted knights and re-emerged with only seven left alive. No one
  ever told what they had encountered there. I believe it was a faerie
  castle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 104\,] }}
 ``The Aurora Corealis''

  See the annotation for p.~85/69 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 118\,] }}
 ``Y{\smaller{ES INDEED, HELLO, SMALL CHILD CALLED VERRUCA LUMPY}}, [{\ldots}]''

  Confirms Ridcully's remark on p.~86 that the word can be used as a name.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 119\,] }}
 ``\,`Willow bark', said the Bursar.''

  Willow bark contains aspirin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 121\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] that drink, you know, there's a worm in the bottle{\ldots}'\,''

  Mescal. See also the annotation for p.~252/190 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 121\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] surrounded by naked maenads.'\,''

  Maenads are from Greek mythology and were tied up with Dionysus, God of
  Wine. They were beautiful, nude and indeed maniacal, possessed of an
  unfortunate tendency to tear apart anyone they met, especially if it was
  male.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 123\,] }}
 TINKLE\@. TINKLE\@. \emph{FIZZ}.

  An old advertising campaign for Alka-Seltzer (a medicine often used as a
  hangover cure), used the line ``Plop, plop, fizz, fizz'' to describe the
  sound of the pills dropping into water and dissolving.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 126\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{I saw this in }Bows and Ammo\emph{!}'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~328/236 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 132\,] }}
 ``While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good
  intentions, [{\ldots}]''

  This is confirmed by the eyewitness testimony of Rincewind and Eric (in
  \emph{Eric}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 134\,] }}
 ``\,`Sarah the little match girl, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The little match girl dying of hypothermia on Christmas eve is a
  traditional fairy tale, best known in the version written by Hans
  Christian Anderson.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 135\,] }}
 ``\,`You're for life, not just for Hogswatch,' prompted Albert.''

  Plays on an old advertising slogan intended to discourage giving puppies
  as Christmas presents without thinking about how they'll be cared for the
  rest of their lives.

  Compare also the motto for Lady Sybil's Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick
  Dragons: ``Remember, A Dragon is For Life, Not Just for Hogswatchnight''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 139\,] }}
 ``Hex worried Ponder Stibbons.''

  The present incarnation of Hex has a lot of in-jokes about modern
  (mid--90s) personal computers.

  The computer business is littered with TLAs (three-letter abbreviations),
  such as CPU, RAM, VDU, FTP; Hex has its CWL (clothes wringer from the
  laundry), FTB (fluffy teddy bear), GBL (great big lever). ``Small
  religious pictures'' are icons, and they are used with a mouse. Ram skulls
  are an echo of RAM (random-access memory).

  The beehive long-term storage is a little more obscure, but in the 1980s
  some mainframes had a mass storage system that involved data stored on
  tapes wound onto cylinders. The cylinders of tape were stored in a set of
  hexagonal pigeon holes, and retrieved automatically by the computer as
  needed; systems diagrams always depicted this part of the computer as a
  honeycomb pattern. And then there's of course the fact that `beehive'
  rhymes with `B-drive', which is how one usually refers to the secondary
  floppy drive in a personal computer.

  Interestingly, Douglas R. Hofstader's \emph{G\"{o}del, Escher, Bach: an Eternal
  Golden Braid} contains a chapter in which one of the characters (the
  Anteater) describes how an anthill can be viewed as a brain, in which the
  movements of ants are the thoughts of the heap.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 141\,] }}
 ``+++ Error at Address:14, Treacle Mine Road, Ankh-Morpork +++''

  A common error message on many types of computer tells you that there is
  an error at a certain memory address, expressed as a number. This
  information is completely useless to anyone except a programmer.

  Based on \emph{The Streets of Ankh-Morpork}, it has been suggested that this
  may be the address of CMOT Dibbler's cellar, mentioned in \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 141\,] }}
 ``\,`I know it sounds stupid, Archchancellor, but we think it might
  have caught something off the Bursar.'\,''

  Possibly Hex has caught a virus. On the Discworld, there's no obvious
  reason why a virus shouldn't be transmittable from human to computer or
  vice-versa.

  In the early 1970s there appeared a sort of proto-virus called the
  `Cookie Monster', which cropped up on a number of computers --- notably
  Multics-based machines. What would happen is that unsuspecting users
  would suddenly find messages demanding cookies on their terminals, and
  they would not be able to proceed until they typed `COOKIE' or
  `HAVECOOKIE', etc.\  --- in much the same way as Hex is `cured' by typing
  `DRYDFRORGPILLS'.

  For more details see: \url{http://www.multicians.org/cookie.html}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``\,`You don't have to shout, Archchancellor,' said Ponder.''

  In on-line conversations, a common error among newcomers is typing
  everything in block capital letters, known colloquially as `shouting'.
  This causes varying degrees of irritation among readers. There are also
  some people with vision impairments who use software that purposely uses
  capital letters, as they are easier to read, but fortunately this
  software is improving.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``Then it wrote: +++ Good Evening, Archchancellor. I Am Fully
  Recovered And Enthusiastic About My Tasks +++''

  Hex's polite phrasing here parodies that of the famous computer HAL from
  Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's movie \emph{2001: A Space Odyssey} (and
  the sequel \emph{2010}), who said things like: ``Good afternoon, gentlemen. I
  am a HAL 9000 computer'' and ``I am completely operational and all my
  systems are functioning perfectly''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 144\,] }}
 ``What does `divide by cucumber' mean?'' ``Oh, Hex just says that
  if it comes up with an answer that it knows can't possibly be real.''

  The real-world version of this is is known as a ``Divide by Zero'' error.
  Dividing by zero is an operation not allowed by the rules of mathematics,
  and computers will generate an error when asked to perform it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 150\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] I can T{\smaller{ALK THAT TALK}} and stalk that stalk [{\ldots}]''

  The usual phrase is, of course, ``talk the talk and walk the walk'',
  meaning to both say and do the right thing. If anyone can definitively
  point to the origin of this phrase, I'd be interested to know it ---
  possibly from the US civil rights movement of the 1960s.

  It's been mentioned more than once that the Stanley Kubrick movie \emph{Full
  Metal Jacket}, the character Joker bandies words with a marine called
  Animal Mother, who answers: ``You talk the talk but do you walk the walk?''
  This encounter may be significant purely because Animal Mother's helmet
  bears the text ``I AM BECOME DEATH''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 154\,] }}
 ``There are those who believe that [{\ldots}] there was some Golden
  Age [{\ldots}] when [{\ldots}] the stones fit together so you could hardly put a
  knife between them, you know, and it's obvious they had flying machines,
  right, because of the way the earthworks can only be seen from above,
  yeah?''

  This speculation has been advanced in the context of, e.g., the ancient
  pyramids of Peru, where the stones really do fit together almost
  perfectly, and where the Kuta Lines really can only be seen from above.

  Apparently the part of Peru where the Inca lived is rather prone to
  earthquakes, and not wanting their perfectly fitting stones to fall over
  and break into little pieces when the earth moved, the Inca built all
  their major buildings with the walls sloping inwards. Many Inca buildings
  are still standing (less a roof or two, of course), in sharp contrast
  with California, where modern buildings fall over with distressing
  regularity.

  Britain has things called leylines --- ancient sites so arranged that they
  draw a perfectly straight line across a map, allegedly impossible to
  trace without modern cartographical techniques.

  For the most bizarre extrapolation of this belief, see Erich von Daniken,
  \emph{Chariots of the Gods}, which claims not only that aliens visited the
  earth in ancient times, but also that they actually started human
  civilisation.

  The footnote ties together a number of modern myths about aliens, ending
  with the ``The truth may be out there{\ldots}'', the catchphrase of the 90s TV
  series \emph{The X-Files}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 155\,] }}
 ``\,`Lares and Penates? What were they when they were at home?'
  said Ridcully.''

  They were Roman household gods.

  There are many beautiful shrines to them --- there was at least one in
  every well-to-do ancient Roman house. The god that saw to it ``that the
  bread rose'' was called Priapus, a god of fertility, who was
  conventionally represented by or with a huge phallus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 155\,] }}
 ``\,`Careless talk creates lives!'\,''

  A propaganda poster first used in the First World War bore the slogan
  ``Careless talk costs lives'' as an admonition against saying anything, to
  anyone, about (for instance) where your loved ones were currently
  serving, in case a spy was listening. (Also: loose lips sink ships.)

  Interestingly, the Auditors also feel that there is no difference between
  creating and costing lives.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 157\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, what fun,' muttered Albert.''

  Once again Terry completely inverts the meaning of a song lyric without
  changing a single word (see the annotation for p.~60). The original song
  here is `Jingle Bells': ``Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open
  sleigh''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 162\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] they say you can Earn \$\$\$ in Your Spare Time [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Refers to the nuisance phenomenon on the Internet called `spam'. Email
  with subject lines resembling the above are mass-mailed out to thousands
  of people in the hope that a small fraction of them will fall for it, and
  be persuaded to perpetuate what was, in essence, a pyramid scheme, and
  highly illegal in most countries. This sort of `Make Money Fast' spam is
  growing rarer these days, being replaced with unsolicited ads for
  too-good-to-be-true credit cards, mass-email programs and cheap
  long-distance phone calls.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 165\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}], would even now be tiring of painting naked young ladies
  on some tropical island somewhere''

  A reference to the painter Paul Gaugin, who spent his most productive
  years in the South Pacific doing just this.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 166\,] }}
 ``The old man in the hovel looked uncertainly at the feast [{\ldots}]''

  The episode of the king and the old man is based on the story of Good
  King Wenceslas. Of course, Terry doesn't quite see it the way of the
  Christmas carol.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 177\,] }}
 ``It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or
  perhaps not.''

  A common device to help visualise the effect of gravity on the fabric of
  the universe, similarly useless beyond a certain point. See also the
  annotation for p.~230/207 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 177\,] }}
 ``\,`It's brass monkeys out here.'\,''

  The full expression is ``cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass
  monkey''.

  The expression supposedly dates back to a time when cannon balls were
  stored on the decks of ships in pyramid-shaped stacks held in place by a
  brass frame around the base. This frame was called a `monkey', and when
  it got very cold, the brass monkey would contract, causing the stacks of
  cannon balls to collapse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 181\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] O{\smaller{THER PEOPLE HAVE NO HOMES.}} I{\smaller{S THIS FAIR?}} `Well, of
  course, that's the big issue ---' Albert began.''

  In the UK and Australia, \emph{The Big Issue} is a magazine sold by the
  homeless. In many cities all over the world similar projects have been
  started.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 184\,] }}
 ``A large hourglass came down on the spring.''

  Ever since the Apple Macintosh, graphical user interfaces for computers
  have used a special cursor shape to indicate that a lengthy operation is
  in progress. The Windows hourglass cursor is Microsoft's version Apple's
  original wristwatch.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 185\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember when we had all that life force all over the place? A
  man couldn't call his trousers his own!'\,''

  For the details of the time Ridcully is referring to, read \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 190\,] }}
 ``\,`Excuse me madam' said Ridcully. `But is that a chicken on your
  shoulder?' `It's, er, it's, er, it's the Blue Bird of Happiness' said the
  Cheerful Fairy.''

  In \emph{The Blue Bird} by Maurice Maeterlinck, published in German in 1909,
  two children set off on a long journey to find the Blue Bird of
  Happiness, only to learn that it was in their own back garden all along.

  There's also a Far Side cartoon wherein ``Ned, the Bluebird of Happiness
  long absent from his life, is visited by the Chicken of Depression''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 192\,] }}
 ``According to my theory it is cladisticaly associated with the
  Krullian pipefish, sir, which is also yellow and goes around in bunches
  or shoals.''

  Normally, cladists are those who try to classify organisms in such a way
  that related species are placed in the same family, not in a family with
  other species that look the same. This is quite the opposite to Ponder's
  cladism. This method of classification is called ``dichotomous key
  classification'': unfortunately Ponder has left out the conventional first
  step in this kind of identification, which is something along the lines
  of ``can it move unassisted?'' --- if so, go to animal, if not, go to
  plants.

  In our world, there is also some classificational confusion concerning
  bananas, since the so-called banana tree is technically a banana \emph{plant}
  (its stem does not contain actual wood tissue), which would make the
  banana (so the argument goes) a herb instead of a fruit. This is one
  those arguments that never really gets resolved, because the `answer' can
  simply go either way depending on what definitions you use in which
  contexts.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 193\,] }}
 ``Sometimes a chicken is nothing but a bird.''

  Freud once said ``Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'', for much the same
  reason.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 195\,] }}
 ``\,`Hogswatch is coming, The pig is getting fat, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  There is a song that goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat \\Won't you put a penny in the old man's hat? \\If you haven't got a penny a ha'penny will do \\And if you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 195\,] }}
 ``\,`--- nobody knows how good we can live, on boots three times a
  day{\ldots}'\,''

  A standard children's song, once (apparently) popular at Girl Guide
  camps, went:

\begin{verse}\textit{Everybody hates me, nobody loves me, \\Think I'll go and eat worms. \\Long thin slimy ones, short fat stubby ones, \\Juicy, juicy, juicy, juicy worms. \\Bite their heads off, suck their juice out, \\Throw their skins away. \\Nobody knows how good we can live \\On worms three times a day. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 195\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah, Humbugs?' he said.''

  In Charles Dickens' \emph{A Christmas Carol}, Scrooge has the catchphrase
  ``Bah! Humbug!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 208\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] letting me hire a boat and sail around to the islands of
  ---'\,''

  Darwin gathered much of the data for his version of evolutionary theory
  while in the Galapagos Islands, which he visited on HMS \emph{Beagle}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 212\,] }}
 ``\,`You know what happens to kids who suck their thumbs, there's
  this big monster with scissors all ---'\,''

  There is a classic set of children's stories called (in English)
  \emph{Slovenly Peter}, by Heinrich Hoffman, originally written in German circa
  1840. One of the stories is about the scissor man, who comes in and cuts
  the thumbs off of a little girl who refuses to stop sucking her thumbs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 213\,] }}
 ``But she was used to the idea of buildings that were bigger on
  the inside than on the outside. Her grandfather had never been able to
  get a handle on dimensions.''

  In the legendary BBC TV series \emph{Dr Who}, the Tardis is famous for being
  ``bigger on the inside than on the outside''. When the series began in
  1963, the Doctor was accompanied by his ``granddaughter'', Susan.

  However, before jumping to any conclusions, see the annotation for p.~20/15 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 219\,] }}
 ``\,`You could get them to open Dad's wallet and post the contents
  to some address?'\,''

  A US television presenter named Soupy Sales was hosting a children's TV
  show in 1965, and in one famous live episode ad-libbed:

  ``Hey kids, last night was New Year's Eve, and your mother and dad were
  out having a great time. They are probably still sleeping and what I want
  you to do is tiptoe in their bedroom and go in your mom's pocketbook and
  your dad's pants, which are probably on the floor. You'll see a lot of
  green pieces of paper with pictures of guys in beards. Put them in an
  envelope and send them to me at Soupy Sales, Channel 5, New York, New
  York. And you know what I'm going to send you? A post card from Puerto
  Rico!''

  That the station subsequently got \$80,000 in the mail appears to be a bit
  of an urban legend, but Soupy's show did get pulled for two weeks before
  he was allowed back on the air again.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 229\,] }}
 ``I know I made that mistake with little William Rubin [{\ldots}]''

  Bilirubin is formed when haemoglobin is broken down, and is basically the
  the pigment that makes faeces brown.

  In \emph{The Silence of the Lambs}, by Thomas Harris, Hannible Lecter at one
  point says that the killer `Buffalo Bill' is a former patient of his
  named Bill Rubin. In Harris' previous book \emph{Red Dragon} the killer
  Francis Dolorhyde had no teeth and was known as the Tooth Fairy.

  Terry explains the name as follows:

  ``Oh, lor'. Billy Rubim is an old medical student joke{\ldots}''

  ``Like most really stupid jokes, it's one that you won't spot unless you
  have the right background. Others on here will doubtless explain, but
  according to one of my informants, a nurse, every batch of medical
  students learns it anew and Mr Rubin's name turns up in various places to
  general sniggering.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 229\,] }}
 ``They don't think twice about pushing off for a month as a big
  white bull or a swan or something [{\ldots}]''

  The Greek gods, particularly Zeus, were fond of incarnating themselves as
  animals of this sort, usually as part of a scheme to seduce or ravish
  some unsuspecting young woman. On the Discworld, Om used to do the same
  sort of thing. See \emph{Small Gods} for details.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 232\,] }}
 ``\,`There \emph{are} magic wardrobes,' said Violet nervously. `If
  you go into them, you come out in a magic land.'\,''

  A land such as Narnia. See the annotation for p.~22/22 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 235\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought you had to clap your hands and say you believed in
  {\textquoteright}em,' [{\ldots}] `That's just for the little shiny ones,' [{\ldots}]''

  The fairies in J M Barrie's \emph{Peter Pan}, Tinkerbell in particular, are
  generally kept happy (and alive) in this fashion. I don't know if there's
  an earlier reference.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 236\,] }}
 ``The Dean took a small glass cube from his pocket and ran it
  over the corpse.''

  A scene familiar to anyone who's ever watched an episode of \emph{Star Trek}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 236\,] }}
 ``+++ Big Red Lever Time +++ Query +++''

  Old IBM mainframes (as well as, later, the first IBM PCs), had large,
  bright red, power switches, causing the phrase ``big red switch'' (often
  abbreviated as BRS) to enter the hacker's jargon.

  Hex, after seeing Death enter the laboratory, is in fact asking if Death
  has come for him, which (a) throws an interesting light on Hex's own
  feelings about his sentience, and (b) explains why Death's reply to Hex
  starts with the word ``No''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 237\,] }}
 ``+++ Yes. I Am Preparing An Area Of Write-Only Memory +++''

  `Write-Only Memory' is a curious, but pointless concept, since the data
  stored there can presumably never be retrieved. Real computers do have a
  type of storage called `Read-Only Memory', or ROM, which contains
  information that can never be erased or overwritten.

  Write-Only memory has a real world precedence in a practical joke
  perpetrated by an engineer working for Signetics corporation. The joke
  was eventually given a wider audience in the April 1972 issue of
  \emph{Electronics} magazine.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 239\,] }}
 ``Family motto \emph{Non timetis messor}''

  This translates to ``Don't fear the reaper'', the title of a well-known
  song by Blue \"{O}yster Cult.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 258\,] }}
 ``\,`I didn't even \emph{have} any of that salmon mousse!'\,''

  In \emph{Monty Python's The Meaning of Life}, a dinner party is rather spoiled
  when Death visits (a Death not entirely unlike the Discworld's). The
  visit is occasioned by the hostess serving tinned salmon mousse, and the
  American guest complains that he didn't have any salmon mousse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 265\,] }}
 ``\,`What are you waiting for? Hogswatch?'\,''

  ``What are you waiting for? Christmas?'' is a mild taunt used to encourage
  someone to start doing something. It is, for instance, what Duke Nukem in
  the computer game \emph{Duke Nukem 3D} says after the player has been inactive
  for a while. Given Terry Pratchett's love of other games in that genre
  (such as \emph{Doom} and \emph{Tombraider}) a familiarity with Duke Nukem may
  perhaps have contributed to his use of the phrase here.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 267\,] }}
 ``The man was tattooed. Blue whorls and spirals haunted his
  skin{\ldots}''

  The ancient Celts painted blue patterns on their skin using the woad
  plant, possibly as a means of setting the warriors apart from civilians.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 269\,] }}
 ``\,`I remember hearing,' said Susan distantly, `that the idea of
  the Hogfather wearing a red and white outfit was invented quite
  recently.' N{\smaller{O}}. I{\smaller{T WAS REMEMBERED.}}''

  The whole concept of the modern Santa Claus is commonly ascribed to a
  Coca Cola promotion. However, the idea was around long before then. See
  \url{http://www.urbanlegends.com/} for details.

  The modern red-and-white image of Santa derives from the poem \emph{The Night
  Before Christmas} (see the annotation for p.~44), first published in
  1822. Coca-Cola adopted him as an advertising symbol in the 1920s, and
  only since then have the colours become `fixed'. However, it is worth
  mentioning that St Nicholas was a 4th century bishop, who would have worn
  red and white robes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 270\,] }}
 ``T{\smaller{O BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.}}''

  Desmond Morris, in \emph{The Naked Ape}: ``I viewed my fellow man not as a
  fallen angel, but as a risen ape.'' However, Terry says that he was
  unaware of this prior use.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 272\,] }}
 ``{\ldots}pictures of rabbits in waistcoats, among other fauna.''

  An echo of Beatrix Potter's nursery stories and their illustrations, most
  obviously Peter Rabbit. The ``gold watches and top hats'' suggests the
  White Rabbit from \emph{Alice's Adventures in Wonderland}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 277\,] }}
 ``A{\smaller{ND GOODNIGHT, CHILDREN{\ldots}}} EVERYWHERE.''

  ``Uncle Mac'', the BBC presenter of the popular 1950 radio programme
  ``Children's Hour'', always used this phrase to sign off his show.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 281\,] }}
 ``One foot kicked the `Afterburner' lever and the other spun the
  valve of the nitrous oxide cylinder.''

  An afterburner helps jet aircraft gain speed by using exhaust gases for
  additional combustion. Nitrous oxide (aka laughing gas) is used as a
  combustion-enhancing speed fuel in e.g.\  drag-racing cars. Also, nitrous
  oxide, when added to water, becomes nitrous acid.

  All of which might throw light on the oft-asked question: ``what precisely
  happened to Ridcully in the bath?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 283\,] }}
 ``\,`as they say, ``better a meal of old boots where friendship is,
  than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.''\,'\,''

  From the Bible: ``Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a
  stalled ox and hatred therewith.'' (Proverbs 15:17)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 284\,] }}
 ``\,`And god bless us, every one,' said Arnold Sideways.''

  This is the last line of Dickens' \emph{A Christmas Carol}, spoken by Tiny
  Tim, who also had something wrong with his legs.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Jingo}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Jingo}

  ``By jingo!'' is an archaic, jocular oath, of obscure origin, used in
  Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. The word --- with derived forms
  such as `jingoism' and `jingoistic' --- became associated with aggressive,
  militaristic nationalism as a result of a popular song dating from the
  Turko-Russian war of 1877--78, which began:

\begin{verse}\textit{We don't want to have to fight, \\but by Jingo if we do \\We've got the ships, we've got the men, \\we've got the money too. \\
}\end{verse}

  Interestingly (in the light of the circumstances of this particular war),
  it is also the name of a warlike Japanese empress of the 2nd/3rd
  centuries, credited by legend with the power of controlling the tides.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 8\,] }}
 ``\,`Whose squid \emph{are} they, dad?'\,''

  Fishing rights have been a frequent cause of dispute between the UK and
  neighbours, most dramatically in the `Cod Wars' between the UK and
  Iceland (1958, 1973, 1975), in which ships from the two countries
  sabotaged each other's nets.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 11\,] }}
 ``There was a tradition of soap-box speaking in Sator Square.''

  London's Hyde Park Corner has a very similar tradition.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 11\,] }}
 ``\,`Who's going to \emph{know}, dad?'\,''

  In the 1963 comedy \emph{Mouse on the Moon}, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick
  competes with the USA and USSR to put the first human on the moon. The
  Fenwick rocket gets there first, but someone points out that this doesn't
  matter --- the glory will go to whoever gets \emph{home} first. The Americans
  and Russians quickly make their excuses and leave, pausing only to enter
  the wrong capsules before sorting themselves out.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 13\,] }}
 ``\,`His ship is the \emph{Milka}, I believe.'\,''

  One of Christopher Columbus' ships was named the \emph{Pinta}. A UK
  milk-marketing slogan from the 1980s exhorted people to `Drinka pinta
  milka day'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 16\,] }}
 ``\,`I believe the word ``assassin'' actually comes from Klatch?'\,''

  In our world, it does. See the annotation for p.~126/114 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 17\,] }}
 ``\,`Have you ever heard of the D'regs, my lord?'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~109/82 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``\,`It's about time Johnny Klatchian was taught a lesson,'\,''

  ``Johnny Foreigner'' is a generic, disparaging term used by Britons of ---
  well, foreigners. During the First World War, the more specific term
  ``Johnny Turk'' appeared.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 20\,] }}
 ``\,`It is no longer considered{\ldots} \emph{nice}{\ldots} to send a warship over
  there to, as you put it, show Johnny Foreigner the error of his ways. For
  one thing, we haven't had any warships since the \emph{Mary-Jane} sank four
  hundred years ago.'\,''

  In the latter part of the 19th century, the phrase ``gunboat diplomacy''
  was coined to describe this British method of negotiating with uppity
  colonials. The gunboat in question would not normally be expected to \emph{do}
  anything, merely to ``show the flag'' as a reminder that, however
  vulnerable it might appear on land, Britannia still Ruled the Waves, and
  could make life very difficult for anyone who got too obstreperous.

  The \emph{Mary-Jane} is a reference to Henry VIII's flagship, the \emph{Mary Rose},
  which (most embarrassingly) sank, in calm seas, immediately after being
  launched from Portsmouth in 1545. The ship was recovered in the 1980s,
  and is now a tourist attraction.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 ``\,`Very well then, by jingo!'\,''

  See this book's title annotation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 22\,] }}
 ``\,`We have no ships. We have no men. We have no money, too.'\,''

  See this book's title annotation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 22\,] }}
 ``\,`Unfortunately, the right words are more readily listened to if
  you also have a sharp stick.'\,''

  Theodore Roosevelt famously summarised his foreign policy as ``Speak
  softly, and carry a big stick.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 23\,] }}
 ``\,`Let's have no fighting, please. This is, after all, a council
  of war.'\,''

  Echoes the movie \emph{Dr Strangelove}. See also the annotation for p.156
  of \emph{The Colour of Magic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 25\,] }}
 ``The Artful Nudger scowled.''

  A character in Dickens' \emph{Oliver Twist} is called the Artful Dodger.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 26\,] }}
 ``\,`Wib wib wib.' `Wob wob wob.'\,''

  Carrot has formed Ankh-Morpork's first scout troop. This salute parodies
  the traditional (but now discontinued) Cub Scout exchange ``Dyb dyb dyb.''
  ``Dob dob dob.''. The `dyb' in the challenge supposedly stands for ``do your
  best'', the `dob' in the scouts' response for ``do our best''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 27\,] }}
 ``\,`I had this book about this little kid, he turned into a
  mermaid,'\,''

  This sounds very much like the story of young Tom the chimney sweep's
  transformation, told in moralistic Victorian children's tale \emph{The Water
  Babies}, written in 1863 by Charles Kingsley.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``\,`But after the big plague, he got press-ganged.'\,''

  Press-ganging was the 18th-century equivalent of conscription. A ship's
  captain, finding himself short-handed while in a home port, would send a
  gang of his men round the port, enlisting anyone they could find who
  looked like a sailor. Often this involved simply picking up drunks, but
  it was not unheard-of for men to be taken by force.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``\,`They invented all the words starting with ``al''.'\,''

  In Arabic, ``al'' is the definite article, and it is joined to the word
  that it defines.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the Klatchians invented nothing. [{\ldots}] they came up with
  zero.'\,''

  The idea of treating zero as a number was one of several major
  contributions that Western mathematics adopted from the Arabs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{[{\ldots}] it is even better than Ironcrufts (`T'Bread Wi' T'Edge')
  [{\ldots}]}'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~26 of \emph{Feet of Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 31\,] }}
 ``\,`This \emph{is} all right, Reg? It's not coercion, is it?'\,''

  Carrot's apparently uncharacteristic (dishonest) behaviour in this scene
  has caused a lot of comment on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}. Terry explains it thus:

  ``I assume when I wrote this that everyone concerned would know what was
  going on. The thieves have taken a Watchman hostage, a big no-no. Coppers
  the world over find their normally sunny dispositions cloud over when
  faced with this sort of thing, and with people aiming things at them, and
  perpetrators later tend to fall down cell stairs a lot. So Carrot is
  going to make them suffer. They're going to admit to all kinds of things,
  including things that everyone knows they could not possibly have done.

  What'll happen next? Vetinari won't mind. Vimes will throw out half of
  the charges at least, and the rest will become TICs and probably will not
  hugely affect the sentencing. The thieves will be glad to get out of it
  alive. Other thieves will be warned. By the rough and ready local
  standards, justice will have been served.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 34\,] }}
 ``\,`Hey, that's Reg Shoe! He's a zombie! He falls to bits all the
  time!' `Very big man in the undead community, sir.'\,''

  Reg Shoe first appeared in \emph{Reaper Man} as the founder of the Campaign
  for Dead Rights (slogans included ``Undead, yes! Unperson, no!''). Possibly
  Vimes has forgotten that he personally ordered zombies to be recruited
  into the Watch, towards the end of \emph{Feet of Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`That's Probationary Constable Buggy Swires, sir.'\,''

  Swires was the name of the gnome Rincewind and Twoflower encountered in
  \emph{The Light Fantastic}. Given that gnome lives are described in that book
  as `nasty, brutish and short', it seems unlikely that this is the same
  gnome. Possibly a relative, though.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the long and the short and the tall.''

  A popular song from the Second World War had the lyric:

\begin{verse}\textit{Bless `em all, bless `em all! \\Bless the long and the short and the tall! \\Bless all the sergeants and double-you o-ones, \\Bless all the corporals and their blinkin' sons. \\
}\end{verse}

  The phrase was also used as the title of a stage play (filmed in 1960) by
  Willis Hall, describing the plight and fate of a squad of British
  soldiers in Burma.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 40\,] }}
 ``Right now he couldn't remember what the occasional dead dog had
  been. Some kind of siege weapon, possibly.''

  In the Good Old Days$^{TM}$, besieging armies would sometimes hurl the
  rotting corpses of dead animals over the city walls by catapult, with the
  aim of spreading disease and making the city uninhabitable. So in a
  sense, a dead dog \emph{could} be a siege weapon{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 44\,] }}
 ``It looked as if people had once tried to add human touches to
  structures that were already ancient{\ldots}''

  Leshp bears a resemblance to H.~P.~Lovecraft's similarly strange-sounding
  creation, R'lyeh --- an ancient, now submerged island in the Pacific,
  inhabited by alien Things with strange architecture, which rises at very
  long intervals and sends people mad all over the world. For full details,
  see Lovecraft's \emph{The Call of Cthulhu}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 47\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, Lord Venturi says it'll all be over by Hogswatch, sir.'\,''

  ``It'll all be over by Christmas'' was said of the First World War by
  armchair strategists, in August 1914. Ironically, the phrase has become a
  popular reassurance: more recently, President Clinton promised the
  American public in 1996 that US troops in Bosnia would be ``home for
  Christmas''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``\,`I go, I \emph{h}come back.'\,''

  Ahmed's catchphrase is borrowed from Signior So-So, a comic Italian
  character in the famous wartime radio series \emph{It's That Man Again}
  (ITMA).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``\,`Doctor of Sweet \emph{F}anny Adams'\,''

  The original Fanny Adams was an eight-year-old girl in Alton, Hampshire,
  whose dismembered body was discovered in 1867. About the same time,
  tinned mutton was first introduced in the Royal Navy, and the sailors ---
  not noted for their sensitivity --- took to calling the (rather
  disgusting) meat ``Sweet Fanny Adams''. Hence the term came to mean
  something worthless, and finally to mean ``nothing at all''.

  Many correspondents point out that these days ``Sweet Fanny Adams'' is also
  used as a euphemism for ``Sweet Fuck All'' (still meaning: absolutely
  nothing), but that is definitely not the original meaning of the phrase.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``The Convivium was Unseen University's Big Day.''

  Oxford University has a ceremony called the Encaenia, which also involves
  lots of old men in silly costumes and a procession ending in the
  Sheldonian Theatre.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 56\,] }}
 ``It was an almost Pavlovian response.''

  The Pavlovian experiment in \emph{our} world involved ringing a bell before
  and during the feeding of a group of dogs. After a while the dogs learned
  to associate the ringing of the bell with food. A part of them was
  essentially programmed to think that the bell was the same thing as food.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 61\,] }}
 ``\,`And many of them could give him a decent shave and a haircut,
  too.'\,''

  Refers to the fact that, for many years, surgeons used to double as
  barbers, or vice versa.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 61\,] }}
 ``\,`The keystones of the Watch.'\,''

  The Keystone Cops were a squad of frantically bumbling comedy policemen
  from the silent movie era.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 62\,] }}
 ``\,`A lone bowman.'\,''

  The ``lone gunman'' theory is still the official explanation of John F.
  Kennedy's assassination, despite four decades of frenzied speculation.
  Conspiracy theorists like to claim that Someone, Somewhere is covering up
  the truth, in much the same way as Vimes and Vetinari are conspiring to
  cover it up here.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 62\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] it is still law that every citizen should do one hour's
  archery practice every day. Apparently the law was made in 1356 and it's
  never been ---'\,''

  In 1363, in England, Edward III --- then in the early stages of the
  Hundred Years' War with France --- ordered that all men should practise
  archery on Sundays and holidays; this law remained technically in force
  for some time after the longbow was effectively obsolete as a weapon of
  war.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 65\,] }}
 ``\,`An experimental device for turning chemical energy into rotary
  motion,' said Leonard. `The problem, you see, is getting the little
  pellets of black powder into the combustion chamber at exactly the right
  speed and one at a time.'\,''

  In our world, an early attempt at an internal combustion engine used
  pellets of gunpowder, stuck to a strip of paper (rather like the roll of
  caps for a cap pistol). I understand that the attempt was just as
  successful as Leonard's.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 70\,] }}
 ``\,`I have run out of Burnt Umber.'\,''

  Burnt umber is a dark, cool-toned brown colour. Umber is an earth pigment
  containing manganese and iron oxides, used in paints, pastels and
  pencils. The name comes from Umbria, the region where it was originally
  mined and adopted as a pigment for art.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 71\,] }}
 ``\,`So he was shot in the back by a man in front of him who could
  not possibly have used the bow that he didn't shoot him with from the
  wrong direction{\ldots}'\,''

  The live film of JFK's assassination, allegedly, shows similar
  inconsistencies with the official account.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 72\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] he thinks it'll magically improve his shot.'\,''

  The official account of JFK's assassination describes how a bullet moved
  in some \emph{very} strange ways through his body. Conspiracy theorists
  disparage this as the ``magic bullet theory''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 76\,] }}
 ``\,`It looks like a complete run of \emph{Bows and Ammo}!'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~126 of \emph{Hogfather}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 77\,] }}
 ``\,`Bugger all else but sand in Klatch. Still got some in his
  sandals.'\,''

  When the First World War broke out, Britons were much comforted by the
  fact that the supposedly unstoppable ``steamroller'' of the Russian army
  was on their side. Rumours spread that Russian troops were landing in
  Scotland to reinforce the British army, and these troops could be
  recognised by the snow on their boots. Ever since, the story has been a
  standard joke about the gullibility of people in wartime.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 79\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] that business with the barber in Gleam Street.' `Sweeney
  Jones,'\,''

  Legend tells of Sweeney Todd, a barber in Fleet Street, London, who would
  rob and kill (not necessarily in that order) solitary customers,
  disposing of their bodies via a meat-pie shop next door. The story is
  celebrated in a popular Victorian melodrama, in a 1936 film, in a musical
  by Stephen Sondheim (1979), and in rhyming slang (``Sweeney Todd'' =
  ``Flying Squad'', an elite unit of the Metropolitan Police).

  The story was the most successful of a spate of such shockers dating from
  the early 19th century. \emph{Sawney Bean, the Man-Eater of Midlothian} was
  supposedly based on a real 13th-century Scottish legal case; also
  published about this time were two French versions, both set in Paris.
  All of these were claimed to be based on true stories --- but then, this
  pretence was standard practice for novelists at the time. The ``original''
  version of Sweeney Todd was written by Edward Lloyd under the title of
  \emph{The String of Pearls}, published around 1840.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 81\,] }}
 ``\,`He was shot from the University?' `Looks like the library
  building,'\,''

  Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas Schools Book Depository, on
  the fifth floor.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 82\,] }}
 ``\,`Carrot, it's got ``Mr Spuddy Face'' on it.'\,''

  Mr Potato Head is a child's toy based on putting facial features on a
  potato. Nowadays, Mr Potato Head, produced by Hasbro Inc, has a plastic
  body and has achieved great fame by starring in the \emph{Toy Story} films.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 85\,] }}
 ``\,`He just kills people for money. Snowy can't read and write.'\,''

  In later editions of the book, this sentence was altered to `Snowy can
  barely read and write' --- presumably for consistency with the Clue about
  the notebook (p.~106).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 87\,] }}
 ``\,`Dis is der Riot Act.'\,''

  The Riot Act was an old British law that allowed the authorities to use
  deadly force to break up crowds who were gathered for subversive
  purposes, such as trade unionists or Chartists. It was an unusual law in
  that it had to be read out to the crowd before it came into force ---
  hence the significance of Detritus' attempt to read it --- and the crowd
  was then supposed to be given a reasonable time to disperse. However, it
  was wide open to abuse, and was associated with some very nasty
  incidents, such as the Peterloo Massacre in 1818. It was not finally
  abolished in the UK until the mid--20th century, when the government
  decided that it would not be an acceptable way to deal with the regular
  riots then taking place in Northern Ireland.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 93\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Testing the Locksley Reflex 7: A Whole Lotta Bow''\,'\,''

  Named after the most famous archer of English mythology: Robin of
  Locksley, AKA Robin Hood.

  In our world, there really do exist `reflex bows': they are a type of
  bow that will curve away from the archer when unstrung.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 98\,] }}
 ``\,`Good evening, Stoolie.'\,''

  ``Stoolie'' is sometimes an abbreviation for ``stoolpigeon'', a police
  informant. Of course, a stool is also something you might find in an
  Ankh-Morpork street{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``\,`That one had plants growing on him!'\,''

  It has been pointed out --- and I feel bound to inflict the thought on
  others --- that Stoolie is technically a grassy gnoll. (And if \emph{that}
  doesn't mean anything to you in the context of political assassinations
  --- be thankful.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 100\,] }}
 \emph{'Rinse `n' Run Scalp Tonic'}[{\ldots}] ``Snowy had cleaned, washed
  and gone.''

  Two references to the shampoo `Wash and Go', a trademark of Vidal
  Sassoon.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 104\,] }}
 ``\,`Hah,' said the Dis-organizer.''

  See the annotation for p.~73 of \emph{Feet of Clay}. According to legend, Dis
  is also the name of a city in Hell --- particularly appropriate to a
  demon-powered organiser.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 111\,] }}
 ``\,`Apparently it's over a word in their holy book, [{\ldots}] The
  Elharibians say it translates as ``God'' and the Smalies say it's ``Man''.'\,''

  One of the most intractable disputes in the early Christian church was
  over the nature of Christ --- to what extent he was God or man. In 325,
  the Council of Nicea tried to settle the question with the Nicean Creed,
  but the dispute immediately re-emerged over a single word of the creed:
  one school said that it was ``homoousios'' (of one substance), the other
  that it should be ``homoiousios'' (of similar substance). The difference in
  the words is a single iota --- the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet
  --- and the schism (between Eastern and Western churches) continues to
  this day.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 115\,] }}
 ``Why play cards with a shaved deck?''

  ``Shaving'' is a method of marking cards by trimming a very, very thin
  slice from one edge, perceptible only if you know what to look for.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 118\,] }}
 ``\,`Prince Kalif. He's the deputy ambassador.'\,''

  Caliph was the title of the leader of the Muslim world, from the death of
  the Prophet in 632 onward; although the title has been divided and
  weakened since the 10th century, it was only officially abolished by the
  newly-formed Republic of Turkey as recently as 1924.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 119\,] }}
 ``\,`War, Vimes, is a continuation of diplomacy by other means.'\,''

  Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780--1831), a Prussian general who
  fought against Napoleon, wrote a standard textbook \emph{On War} (\emph{Vom
  Kriege}, first published 1833), in which he said that ``war is simply a
  continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means''.
  If you want to understand Lord Rust's mindset as expressed by someone
  with a working brain, read Clausewitz.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 119\,] }}
 ``\,`You've all got Foaming Sheep Disease.'\,''

  When \emph{Jingo} was being written, there was much speculation about whether
  ``mad cow disease'' had first been transmitted from sheep to cattle, and
  whether it could be transmitted from cattle to humans. Both ideas are now
  widely accepted.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 120\,] }}
 ``\,`The Pheasant Pluckers.' [{\ldots}.] `We even had a marching song,'
  he said. `Mind you, it was quite hard to sing right.'\,''

  Many British army regiments have, or had, nicknames of this sort, based
  either on some historical event or on some idiosyncrasy of their
  uniforms. The marching song is a famous old tongue-twister: ``I'm not a
  pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's mate/ I'm only plucking
  pheasants since the pheasant plucker's late.'' (Another variant
  substitutes ``son/come'' for ``mate/late''.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 121/122\,] }}
 ``\,`he stuck it in the top pocket of his jerkin [{\ldots}] whoosh,
  this arrow came out of nowhere, wham, straight into this book and it went
  all the way through to the last page before stopping, look.'\,''

  Apparently there are ``well-documented'' cases of this sort of miraculous
  escape, but it has become a much-parodied staple of \emph{Boys' Own}-style
  fiction. One well-known occurrence comes at the very end of the
  \emph{Blackadder III} television series. Another can be found in the 1975
  movie \emph{The Man Who Would Be King}, starring Sean Connery and Michael
  Caine.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 126\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the moon rising over the Mountains of the Sun'\,''

  Medieval Arab legend identifies the source of the Nile as being in ``the
  Mountains of the Moon''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 128\,] }}
 ``\,`My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is
  pure.'\,''

  A direct quote from Tennyson's poem \emph{Sir Galahad}:

\begin{verse}\textit{My good blade carves the casques of men, \\My tough lance thrusteth sure, \\My strength is as the strength of ten, \\Because my heart is pure. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 130\,] }}
 ``\,`The Klatchian's Head. My grandad said \emph{his} grandad remembered
  when it was still a real one.'\,''

  There's a pub in Bath called ``The Saracen's Head'', which supposedly has a
  similarly colourful history.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 138\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{VENI VIDI VICI: A Soldier's Life} by Gen. A. Tacticus'\,''

  `Veni vidi vici' (`I came, I saw, I conquered') is a quotation attributed
  to Julius Caesar, one of several great generals who contributed to the
  composite figure of Tacticus. For more on Tacticus, see the annotation
  for p.~158 of \emph{Feet of Clay}.

  There are similarities between Tacticus' book, as expounded later in
  \emph{Jingo}, and \emph{The Art of War} by the Chinese general Sun Tzu.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 142\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die
  for his country},' he read. `\emph{This means that both you and he have
  exactly the same aim in mind}.'\,''

  General Patton, addressing his troops in 1942: ``No bastard ever won a war
  by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard
  die for his country.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] this note will self-destruct in five seconds[{\ldots}]'\,''

  From the beginning of every episode of the television series \emph{Mission:
  Impossible}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] extending from the cylinder for all the world like the
  horn of a unicorn [{\ldots}]''

  Historically, the tusk of the narwhal has sometimes been taken for that
  of a unicorn.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 145\,] }}
 ``\,`But usually I just think of it as the Boat.'\,''

  \emph{Das Boot} (The Boat) was an epic German film, made by Wolfgang Petersen
  in 1981, telling the story of a German submarine in 1941.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 150\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] which kills people but leaves buildings standing.'\,''

  Said of the neutron bomb, which delivers a very heavy dose of radiation
  but relatively small explosive power or fallout. Mind you, it could
  fairly be said of most crossbows.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 152\,] }}
 ``\,`Just me and Foul Ole Ron and the Duck Man and Blind Hugh
  [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Inconsistency alert: on p.~74, Carrot told Vimes that Blind Hugh had
  `passed away last month'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 154\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought that was for drillin' into the bottom of enemy ships
  ---'\,''

  The first working submarine was a one-man, hand-propelled vessel called
  the Turtle, designed to use an augur to attach explosive charges to the
  hulls of enemy ships, the enemy in this case being the British during the
  American War of Independence. The Turtle attacked HMS \emph{Eagle} in New York
  Harbor on 6 September 1776, but the hull was lined with copper and the
  screw failed to pierce it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 158\,] }}
 ``D'reg wasn't their name for themselves, although they tended to
  adopt it now out of pride.''

  This has several parallels in our own world, most notably the Sioux, who
  adopted that name from their neighbours and habitual enemies the Ojibwa.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 165\,] }}
 ``\,`That's St Ungulant's Fire, that is!'\,''

  The description matches St Elmo's Fire, a corona discharge of static
  electricity sometimes seen on highly exposed surfaces (such as ships)
  during thunderstorms. In our world, it's supposed to be a good omen. For
  more on St Ungulant, see \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 167\,] }}
 ``\,`According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fisherman Nonpo
  spent four days in the belly of a giant fish.'\,''

  According to the Bible, the prophet Jonah did much the same (Jonah 1:17).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 174\,] }}
 ``\,`The Sykoolites when being pursued in the wilderness [{\ldots}] were
  sustained by a rain of celestial biscuits, sir.'\,''

  The Israelites, while fleeing from Egypt, were sustained by a divinely
  provided rain of bread (Exodus 16:4).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 175\,] }}
 ``\,`Fortune favours the brave, sir,' said Carrot cheerfully.''

  Another Roman saying, coined by Terence (c.190--159 BC): ``Fortune aids the
  brave.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 180\,] }}
 ``The motor of his cooling helmet sounded harsh for a moment
  [{\ldots}]''

  For the story of Detritus' helmet, read \emph{Men at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 181\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on
  fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.''\,'\,''

  The original proverb is ``Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day,
  teach him to fish and he can eat for the rest of his life.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 183\,] }}
 ``\,`those nautical stories about giant turtles that sleep on the
  surface, thus causing sailors to think they are an island.'\,''

  One of the many adventures of Sinbad, in \emph{The Thousand and One Nights}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 192\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``If you would seek peace, prepare for war.''\,'\,''

  From the 4th/5th century Roman writer Vegetius: ``Qui desiderat pacem,
  praeparet bellum'' --- ``Let him who desires peace, prepare for war.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 204\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Gulli, Gulli and Beti''\,'\,''

  The troop of entertainers that our heroes become is modelled on the old
  time Music-Hall team of Wilson, Kepple and Betty, whose act included `The
  Sand Dance'. There's also a nice resonance of names with the Paul Simon
  song `Call Me Al':

\begin{verse}\textit{And if you'll be my bodyguard, \\I can be your long lost pal, \\And I can call you Betty, \\and Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 210\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] I thought that a flying column of guerrilla soldiers
  ---'\,''

  Since getting into his flowing white robes, Carrot appears to be fast
  turning into Lawrence of Arabia. See also the annotations for pp. 259 and
  264.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 215\,] }}
 ``\,`Egg, melon! Melon, egg!'\,''

  Vetinari's patter seems to be based on that of the fez-wearing British
  comedian Tommy Cooper.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 223\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{En al Sams la Laisa}'\,''

  This is, as Vetinari later translates, almost-Arabic for ``where the sun
  shines not''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 224\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, I've got a thousand and one of `em.'\,''

  One of the best-known (in the west, at least) works of Arabic literature
  is \emph{The Thousand and One Nights}. Several classics of children's
  literature --- including Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor --- appear in this
  collection. Nobby's version would appear to be rather more PG-rated.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 224\,] }}
 ``\,`Especially the one about the man who went into the tavern with
  the very small musician.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~195 of \emph{Feet of Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 227\,] }}
 ``\,`Donkey, minaret,' said Lord Vetinari. `Minaret, donkey.' `Just
  like that?'\,''

  Another Tommy Cooper reference (see also the annotation for p.~215).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 229\,] }}
 ``\,`He had a city named after him{\ldots}'\,''

  The most famous example in our world is Alexandria, built by Alexander
  the Great.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 230\,] }}
 ``A statue must have stood here [{\ldots}] Now it had gone, and there
  were just feet, broken off at the ankles.''

  A reference to Shelley's sonnet \emph{Ozymandias}. See the annotation for p.~271/259 of \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 243\,] }}
 ``We were going to sail into Klatch and be in Al-Khali by
  teatime, drinking sherbet with pliant young women in the Rhoxi.''

  British officers in the First World War, when encouraging their men to go
  over the top, would quip that ``We'll be eating tea and cakes in Berlin at
  teatime.'' (Captain Blackadder observed irritably that ``Everyone wants to
  eat out as soon as they get there''.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 245\,] }}
 ``\,`That's ``Evil Brother-in-Law of a Jackal'',' said Ahmed.''

  See \emph{Pyramids} for the Discworld convention on the naming of camels.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 246\,] }}
 ``\,`That is a reason to field such a contemptible little army?'\,''

  In 1914, the Kaiser apparently made a similar observation of the British
  Expeditionary Force sent to oppose the German advance through Belgium.
  The soldiers later proudly adopted the name `Old Contemptibles'.

  See also the annotation for p.~158.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 249\,] }}
 ``\,`That's a Make-Things-Bigger device, isn't it? [{\ldots}] They were
  invented only last year.'\,''

  Judging from the name, this could be one of Leonard's creations --- but
  actually we've learned in \emph{Soul Music} (p.~137) that this particular
  invention was the work of Ponder Stibbons at Unseen University.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 257\,] }}
 ``\,`And Captain Carrot is organizing a football match.'\,''

  There's a famous but true story of how, on Christmas Day 1914, troops
  from British and German units came out of the trenches and played
  football in No-Man's Land.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 259\,] }}
 ``\,`Why don't you take some well-earned rest, Sir Samuel? You are
  [{\ldots}] a man of action. You deal in swords and chases, and facts. Now,
  alas, it is the time for the men or words, who deal in promises and
  mistrust and opinions. For you the war is over. Enjoy the sunshine. I
  trust we shall all be returning home shortly.'\,''

  This speech is very similar to the end of the film \emph{Lawrence of Arabia}
  (David Lean, 1962). Prince Feisal tells Lawrence: ``There's nothing
  further here, for a warrior. We drive bargains, old men's work. Young men
  makes wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage
  and hope for the future. Old men make the peace and the vices of peace
  are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 264\,] }}
 ``\,`The trick is not to mind that it hurts.'\,''

  Early in the film \emph{Lawrence of Arabia}, Lawrence is sitting in an office
  drawing maps and talking to his compatriot about the Bedouin attacking
  the Turks. Another man joins them and Lawrence lights a cigarette,
  putting the match out with his fingers. The newcomer tries the same
  trick, but drops the match with a shout of ``it hurts.'' To which Lawrence
  replies: ``The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 268\,] }}
 ``\,`Say it ain't so, Mr Vimes!'\,''

  `Shoeless' Joe Jackson was the star player of the Chicago White Sox
  during the 1919 World Series. When it emerged that he had (allegedly)
  accepted bribes to throw the series, the fans' collective reaction was
  of shocked incredulity: the line ``Say it ain't so, Joe!'' became the
  canonical form of begging someone to deny an allegation that is too
  shocking to accept, but too convincing to disbelieve.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 282\,] }}
 ``\,`It is a far, far better thing I do now [{\ldots}]'\,''

  At the end of Dickens' \emph{A Tale of Two Cities}, Sydney Carton,
  good-natured layabout and occasional drunk, goes to the guillotine in the
  place of his beloved's beloved.

  The book's famous last line is not a direct quote from Sydney (since he's
  already dead by then), but rather what the narrator feels he \emph{might} have
  said: ``If he had given any utterance to his [thoughts], and they were
  prophetic, they would have been these: `[{\ldots}] It is a far, far better
  thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that
  I go to than I have ever known.'\,''.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Last Continent}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{The Last Continent}

  The title puns on ``The Lost Continent'', a literary phrase associated with
  vanished worlds, both literal (e.g.\  Col James Churchward's 1931 \emph{The Lost
  Continent of Mu}) as well as metaphorical (Bill Bryson's 1990 \emph{The Lost
  Continent}, about his rediscovery of and journey through the lesser known
  parts of his native USA).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 9\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] one particular planet whose inhabitants watched, with mild
  interest, huge continent-wrecking slabs of ice slap into another world
  which was, in astronomical terms, right next door --- \emph{and then did
  nothing about it} because that sort of thing only happens in Outer
  Space.''

  This is pretty much what happened in 1994 when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
  slammed into Jupiter.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 10\,] }}
 ``It is a general test of the omnipotence of a god that they can
  see the fall of a tiny bird.''

  Matthew 10:29. Terry has referred to this ``test'' before, see e.g.\  the
  annotation for p.~35 of \emph{Hogfather}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 11\,] }}
 ``\,`The Archchancellor's Keys!'\,''

  This ceremony spoofs a ritual conducted at the Tower of London, where
  ``The Queen's Keys'' are used to lock up every day.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 16\,] }}
 ``\,`Grubs! That's what we're going to eat!'\,''

  Witchety grubs, a traditional Aboriginal food. Taste a bit like nuts,
  apparently.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 17\,] }}
 ``\,`Strewth!'\,''

  Exclamation, archaic in Britain but much more current in Australia.
  Shortened form of ``God's truth!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem
  Playgroup Association.''

  Matthew 2:16: ``Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise
  men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that
  were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and
  under, [{\ldots}]''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 22\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] trying to teach Hex to sing `Lydia the Tattooed Lady',
  [{\ldots}]''

  `Lydia the Tattooed Lady' is one of Groucho Marx' most famous songs,
  originally performed in the 1939 Marx Brothers movie \emph{At the Circus}.
  Kermit the Frog did a great cover of `Lydia' on the Connie Stevens
  episode of \emph{The Muppet Show}.

\begin{verse}\textit{Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia? \\Lydia The Tattooed Lady. \\She has eyes that folks adore so, \\And a torso even more so. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia, \\Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo. \\On her back is the Battle of Waterloo. \\Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus, too. \\And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue, \\You can learn a lot from Lydia! \\
}\end{verse}

  Teaching artifical intelligences to sing songs, recite poetry, or tell
  jokes is a well-established science fiction theme, with probably the most
  famous example being HAL in the movie \emph{2001: A Space Odyssey} reverting
  back to his `childhood' and singing `Daisy' for Bowman. Possibly, that
  scene might not have been \emph{quite} as poignant had HAL sung `Lydia',
  instead{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 23\,] }}
 ``A man sits in some museum somewhere and writes a harmless book
  about political economy [{\ldots}]''

  Karl Marx spent a lot of time in the old Reading Room of the British
  Museum when he was writing \emph{Das Kapital}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``\,`You see, we think he's on EcksEcksEcksEcks, Archchancellor,'
  said Ponder.''

  See the annotation for p.~149/132 of \emph{Reaper Man} for much more
  information on why the Last Continent is called `Xxxx'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 31\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography'',' he
  said.''

  `Egregrious' originally meant ``distinguished, eminent'', but is now a term
  of abuse. It also puns on the regis (meaning: ``sponsored by the crown'')
  professors at some UK universities.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 34\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Little is known about it save that it is girt by sea.''\,'\,''

  One of the few lines of the Australian national anthem that most
  Australians actually know is ``Our home is girt by sea''. Possibly it
  sticks in the memory because, at the age when kids first learn it, nobody
  knows what ``girt'' means. (It means ``encircled, enclosed''.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`Sir Roderick Purdeigh spent many years looking for the alleged
  continent and was very emphatic that it didn't exist.'\,''

  \emph{The Discworld Mapp} chronicles Sir Roderick's career in some detail, his
  principal achievement being three epic voyages of discovery around the
  Disc, during which he completely failed to find XXXX, the Counterweight
  Continent, or indeed any land of any consequence at all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] in that country the bark fell off the trees in the winter
  and the leaves stayed on.'\,''

  This is what happens with Australian gum trees, such as the coolabah.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] men who go around on one big foot'\,''

  C.~S.~Lewis' \emph{The Voyage of the Dawn Treader}, book three of the Narnia
  series, features the island of the Dufflepuds, who do this. Terry himself
  traces the story back much further:

  ``Two things influenced this. One is that, in accounts of very early
  long-distance voyages, `people who go around on one foot' are among the
  usual freaks encountered (memory creaks, and recalls some about them in
  The Saga of Eirik the Red{\ldots}). The other is that, when I was a kid, I'll
  swear we had a class reader of Robinson Crusoe and a pic showed him in
  his goat skins marvelling at the \emph{one footprint} he'd found in the sand.
  The illustrator had obviously been told to draw the picture of RC finding
  `a footprint' and had done just that.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`It says the continent has very few poisonous snakes{\ldots}'\,''

  In fact, the snakes of Australia are noted for their lethality. According
  to one source, 14 of the world's top 15 poisonous snakes are Australian.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 37\,] }}
 ``If you made a hole in the soles and threaded the twine through
  it [{\ldots}]''

  {\ldots} you'd have a thong sandal. Pretty much acceptable as footwear in most
  of tropical Oz, although not in most restaurants.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] expanding circles of dim white light.''

  In Aboriginal art, a waterhole is generally shown radiating concentric
  circles outwards into the desert.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``\,`Many a poor sailorman has washed up on them fatal shores rather
  than get carried right over the Rim,'\,''

  \emph{The Fatal Shore}, by Robert Hughes, is one of the seminal history texts
  concerning the British colonisation of Australia and the transportation
  of convicts.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 46\,] }}
 ``Ridcully's own eyes were burning bright.[{\ldots}] `Tigers, eh?' he
  said.''

  The first stanza of William Blake's famous poem `The Tyger':

\begin{verse}\textit{Tyger! Tyger! burning bright \\In the forests of the night, \\What immortal hand or eye \\Could frame thy fearful symmetry? \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 48\,] }}
 ``\,`Turned out nice again,' he said.''

  ``Turned out nice again'' was the catchphrase of the 1940s/50s British
  comedian George Formby. In his films, he invariably said this just as he
  realised that he was in trouble and a split second before he started
  running.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 52\,] }}
 ``Some of the trees lining the beach looked hauntingly familiar,
  and spoke to the Librarian of home. This was strange, because he had been
  born in Moon Pond Lane, Ankh-Morpork, next to the saddle-makers.''

  This name may be related to the famous Australian suburb of Moonee Ponds,
  which gave the world Dame Edna Everage and Tina Arena.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh that means ``come quick, someone's fallen down a deep hole''\,'\,''

  Scrappy the Kangaroo parodies \emph{Skippy the Bush Kangaroo}, an Australian
  children's television series. See also the annotation for p.~91/83 of
  \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``It looked as though the artist hadn't just wanted to draw a
  kangaroo from the outside but had wanted to show the inside as well.''

  A characteristic of Aboriginal art, sometimes known as ``X-Ray painting''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 61\,] }}
 ``What it showed, outlined in red ochre, were dozens of hands.''

  Important Aboriginal tribe members often had their handprint put on a
  rock face by having the artist fill their mouth with water and ochre, and
  then squirt the ``paint'' over the hand leaving the silhouette on the rock.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 68\,] }}
 ``\,`I don't mind putting my hand up to killing a few spiders,'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~99.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 75\,] }}
 ``\,`Are you coming the raw prawn?'\,''

  Australian for lying or pulling someone's leg. See also the annotation
  for p.~149/132 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 81\,] }}
 ``\,`There's only one of everything.'\,''

  In \emph{Hobbyist}, a short story by science fiction writer Eric Frank
  Russell, the hero finds a planet where there is, indeed, only one of
  every kind of animal and plant. It turns out to be run by an alien
  super-being who creates life forms.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 87\,] }}
 ``\,`Most people call me Mad.'\,''

  Refers to Mad Max, eponymous hero of the classic Australian film series
  that made Mel Gibson a star. Max drove the V8 Interceptor (matching Mad's
  eight horses), with a supercharger (which Mad also engages, although
  Max's version didn't involve feedbags). The description of the pursuing
  road gang certainly looks as if it might have been inspired by a scene
  from the movie \emph{Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 91\,] }}
 ``\,`Mental as anything'\,''

  The name of a well known Australian rock band.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 97\,] }}
 ``[..] The Small Boring Group of Faint Stars [{\ldots}]''

  Appropriately enough, Rincewind's birth sign, according to \emph{The Light
  Fantastic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 98\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the important thing is not to kill your own
  grandfather.'\,''

  The ``grandfather paradox'' is a common philosophical objection to time
  travel. Science fiction writers have developed numerous ways of dealing
  with it, of which what Terry calls ``the trousers of time'' is only one.
  This scene looks at a couple of others (see also the annotations for pp.
  99, 101).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``\,`You might {\ldots} tread on an ant now and it might entirely prevent
  someone from being born in the future!'\,''

  In Ray Bradbury's short story \emph{A Sound of Thunder}, the killing of a
  butterfly in the distant past completely changes history. See also the
  annotation for p.~118/86 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 101\,] }}
 ``\,`Because, in fact, history already \emph{depends} on your treading
  on any ants that you happen to step on.'\,''

  The ``closed loop'' theory of time travel --- that all the loose ends \emph{will}
  be tied up, even if it's not immediately obvious how --- contrasts with
  the ``trousers of time'' model. It was well expressed in the film \emph{The
  Terminator}, although the sequel promptly abandoned the idea.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 104\,] }}
 ``\,`Dijabringabeeralong: Check your Weapons.'\,''

  You can actually get doormats and house name plates with the inscription
  ``didjabringabeeralong''. The first description of the town, including the
  sign, is similar to Bartertown in the movie \emph{Mad Max 3: Beyond
  Thunderdome}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 104\,] }}
 ``It's run by Crocodile.'\,''

  Signals a shift in the films being parodied, from the \emph{Mad Max} series to
  \emph{Crocodile Dundee}. (In the film, Crocodile was a human, nicknamed for
  his prowess at wrestling or otherwise dealing with crocs.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 105\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] one day he found a footprint in the sand. There was a
  woodcut.'\,''

  The book the Chair is talking about is known, in our world, as \emph{Robinson
  Crusoe}, by Daniel Defoe. See the annotation for p.~35.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 106\,] }}
 ``\,`If you were marooned on a desert island, eh Dean{\ldots} what kind
  of music would you like to listen to, eh?'\,''

  \emph{Desert Island Discs} is a long-running BBC radio programme, in which
  celebrity guests are asked to pick eight records to be stuck with on a
  hypothetical desert island.

  Terry was himself a guest on 9 September 1997, and chose the following
  list:

\begin{quote}{- `Symphonie Fantastique: Dream of a Witches' Sabbath' --- Berlioz, London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Eugene Goossens.\\- `Thomas the Rhymer' --- Steeleye Span. \\- `The Race for the Rheingold Stakes' --- Bernard Miles. \\- `The Marriage of Figaro: Voi che sapete' --- Mozart, Petra Lang, ms; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/Nikolaus Harnoncourt.\\- `Bat out of Hell' --- Meatloaf. \\- `Silk Road Theme' --- Kitaro. \\- `Great Southern Land' --- Icehouse. \\- `Four Seasons: Summer' --- Vivaldi, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra/Itzhak Perlman, v.\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 109\,] }}
 ``\,`An' I expect you don't even know that we happen to produce
  some partic'ly fine wines [{\ldots}] yew \emph{bastard}?'\,''

  Expresses a phenomenon known in Australia as `cultural cringe' --- a
  nagging inferiority complex, based on a deep-seated suspicion that
  perhaps the country isn't quite on a par with Britain or even America
  when it comes to ``culture'' --- with the result that the cultural ``high
  points'' get aggressively promoted, while the regular beer and suchlike
  are regarded with something close to embarrassment.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 109\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{This} is what I call a knife!' [{\ldots}] `No worries. \emph{This}
  [{\ldots}] is what I call a crossbow.'\,''

  Two film references for the price of one. The competitive knife-sizing is
  straight out of \emph{Crocodile Dundee}; Mad's move of trumping the whole
  issue by pulling a crossbow comes from \emph{Raiders of the Lost Ark}, where
  Harrison Ford pulls a revolver on a show-off swordsman.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 112\,] }}
 ``\,`Er{\ldots} there's a great big spider on the toilet seat.'\,''

  Spiders on the toilet are a big problem in Australia --- it's always worth
  having a good look before you sit. A small number of people per year,
  apparently, suffer nasty bites from redbacks (a kind of black widow) when
  sitting on the toilet. A mid--90s UK TV commercial for Carling Black Label
  (a brand of beer) showed an English tourist in Australia faced with this
  problem.

  There is also a well-known Australian folk song that goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{There was a redback on the toilet seat \\when I was there last night \\I didn't see him in the dark \\but boy I felt his bite \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And now I am in hospital \\a sad and sorry plight \\I curse the redback spider \\on the toilet seat last night \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 124\,] }}
 ``\,`Everything is so completely \emph{selfish} about it.'\,''

  Possibly a reference to \emph{The Selfish Gene}, a book on evolution by
  Richard Dawkins. The term has stuck in the current consensus about the
  mechanics of evolution.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 129\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Tie my kangaroo up''. Bloody good fong.'\,''

  Rincewind's version of the famous Rolf Harris song `Tie me kangaroo
  down'. Of course, in Rincewind's case, what he really wants is for
  someone to keep Scrappy \emph{away} from him{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 129\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] playing Two Up. [{\ldots}] Kept bettin' they wouldn't come
  down at all.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~200/151 of \emph{Soul Music}. Back in \emph{The Colour of
  Magic}, Rincewind witnessed a coin being tossed in the air and not coming
  down at all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 131\,] }}
 ``The purple cart rumbled off. Painted crudely on the back were
  the words: Petunia, The Desert Princess.''

  The scenes with Letitia, Darleen and Neilette resonate with \emph{The
  Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert}, the 1994 movie about two
  transvestites and a transsexual crossing Australia in a bus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 133\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] enquiries as to whether it required something for the
  weekend [{\ldots}]''

  ``Something for the weekend'', in barber's shops up until the mid--20th
  century, meant `condoms'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 136\,] }}
 ``\,`You're not going to say anything about woolly jumpers, are
  you?'\,''

  The punchline to an ancient joke about crossing a kangaroo with a sheep.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 137\,] }}
 ``\,`Why Snowy? That's an odd name for a horse.'\,''

  Because Banjo Patterson, poet and author of many fine Australian tales,
  wrote a narrative poem called \emph{The Man from Snowy River}, telling of a
  man who rode a creature ``something like a racehorse undersized''.

  Patterson's other writing credits include the lyrics to `Waltzing
  Matilda', which gives him a strong claim to have invented the idea of the
  Australian hero, which is what the old man is trying to turn Rincewind
  into. See also the annotations for pp. 145, 146, 148, 170.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 137\,] }}
 ``\,`Why din't you tell him about the drop-bears over that way?'\,''

  Drop-bears are the standard story to tell gullible foreigners. Basically
  a sort of predatory koala that has evolved to drop, leopard-like, out of
  trees onto unwary (non-native) bushwalkers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 145\,] }}
 ``\,`Old Remorse says [{\ldots}]'\,''

  \emph{The Man from Snowy River} (see annotation for p.~137) describes the
  pursuit of a horse identified as ``the colt from old Regret''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 146\,] }}
 ``Snowy's nostrils flared and, without even pausing, he continued
  down the slope.''

  Rincewind's ride across the canyon, while the rest of the gang can't
  follow, again echoes \emph{The Man from Snowy River}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 148\,] }}
 ``\,`Where was it he wanted to go, Clancy?'\,''

  \emph{Clancy of the Overflow} was another poem by Banjo Patterson, and Clancy
  also plays a major role in \emph{The Man from Snowy River}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 154\,] }}
 ``It was the front half of an elephant.''

  In the early 1990s, the British artist Damien Hirst caused much
  controversy by exhibiting animals cut in half and preserved in
  formaldehyde.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 155\,] }}
 ``\,`Beetles?' said Ponder.''

  There are over 400,000 distinct, named species of beetle in the world,
  and possibly twice as many unnamed ones.

  When asked what his studies of Creation had revealed to him about the
  nature of God, the Scottish geneticist J.~B.~S. Haldane (1892--1964)
  supposedly answered: ``He seems to have had an inordinate fondness for
  beetles.''

  (According to science writer Stephen Jay Gould, the quip is undeniably
  Haldane's, who often repeated it, but the story of it being a riposte to
  an actual theological question cannot be verified.)

  Haldane was also the author of a children's book, \emph{My Friend Mr Leakey},
  which has a very Pratchettian tone, and is strongly recommended.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 157\,] }}
 ``\,`Big bills, short bills, bills for winkling insects out of bark
  [{\ldots}]'\,''

  One of the key things Darwin noticed, which led him to his detailed
  theory of evolution, was the slight differences in bills between finches
  on different islands in the Galapagos group.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 161\,] }}
 ``Embarrassment filled the air, huge and pink. If it were rock,
  you could have carved great hidden rose-red cities in it.''

  `Petra' (a Greek word meaning `stone') is the name of an ancient
  pre-Roman city in Jordan. Victorian traveler and poet John William Burgon
  describes the city in his poem \emph{Petra}, ending with the line: ``A rose-red
  city, `half as old as Time!'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 170\,] }}
 ``Once a moderately jolly wizard camped by a waterhole under the
  shade of a tree that he was completely unable to identify.''

  Banjo Patterson's (see the annotation for p.~137) best-known work, by
  some margin, is `Waltzing Matilda'. Unfortunately, his words are not the
  same as those sung to the world-renowned tune. Even more unfortunately,
  although every Australian knows this song, no two of them seem to agree
  on all the lyrics, so this version should not be taken as authoritative:

\begin{verse}\textit{Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, \\Under the shade of a coolabah tree, \\And he sang as he watched and waited for his billy boil, \\`Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{CHORUS: \\Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, \\Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me? \\And he sang as he watched and waited for the billy boil, \\Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me? \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong, \\Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee, \\And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tuckerbag, \\`You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Down came the squatter, a-riding on his thoroughbred, \\Down came the troopers, one, two, three. \\`Whose is the jumbuck you've got in your tuckerbag? \\You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me.' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Up jumped the swagman and leapt into the billabong, \\`You'll never take me alive,' said he, \\And his ghost may be heard as you pass beside the billabong, \\`You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me.' \\
}\end{verse}

  The astute reader will have noticed that the last sentence of Terry's
  paragraph (``And he swore as he hacked and hacked at a can of beer, saying
  `What kind of \emph{idiots} put beer in \emph{tins}?'\,'') fits both the tune and the
  structure of the song. The expression ``waltzing Matilda'' existed before
  the song, meaning to hump or carry one's belongings with one, like a
  tramp.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 174\,] }}
 ``No, what you got was salty-tasting beery brown gunk.''

  Rincewind has invented Marmite, close cousin to the milder Vegemite.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 184\,] }}
 ``\,`It even does \emph{me} good to have a proper criminal in the cells
  for once, instead of all these bloody politicians.'\,''

  Politicians in Australia have an even worse reputation than those
  elsewhere in the Anglophone world, but in fact their rate of conviction
  is not all that high. There was a particularly notorious scandal in the
  late 80s involving Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson, premier of Queensland;
  several of his associates were jailed, and the premier himself was
  accused and (briefly) tried on charges of perjury. The trial was aborted.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 185\,] }}
 ``\,`Only it'd help me if it was a name with three syllables.'\,''

  The balladeer is in luck. See the annotation for p.~170.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 185\,] }}
 ``\,`Reckon you might be as famous as Tinhead Ned, mate.'\,''

  Ned Kelly was a legendary Australian bushranger of the 1870s who, at his
  famous last stand, wore a suit of armour to stop bullets. Unfortunately
  for him, the police noticed that he didn't have armour on his legs{\ldots}
  Famous also for his reputed last words: ``Such is life.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 187\,] }}
 ``\,`Meat pie floater.'\,''

  As Terry later explains, this is a Regional Delicacy found specifically
  in South Australia.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 194\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember old ``Dicky'' Bird'?''

  Terry suggests that everyone named Bird probably attracts the nickname
  ``Dicky'' at some point in their lives, but the most famous (and
  appropriate, in this context) is a legendary, now retired, cricket
  umpire.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 197\,] }}
 ``\,`Dibbler's Caf\'{e} de Feet'\,''

  There is a place in Adelaide called the Caf\'{e} de Wheels, which is famous
  for its meat pie floaters (see annotation for p.~187). Dibbler's version
  also puns on `defeat', which seems appropriate to his general attitude.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 197\,] }}
 ``\,`I just came up Berk Street.'\,''

  The main shopping street in central Melbourne is called Bourke Street.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 198\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Hill's Clothesline Co.''\,'\,''

  Real Australian company that makes the world famous Hill's Hoist
  clothesline.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 199\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] `cos Duncan's me mate.'\,''

  From the Australian song `Duncan', which was a big hit for singer Slim
  Dusty in 1958: ``I love to have a beer with Duncan, `cos Duncan's me
  mate.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 199\,] }}
 ``\,`The way I see it, I'm more indigenous than them.'\,''

  It has been suggested that Dibbler's politics are inspired by those of
  the radical Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who also came from the
  fast-food industry.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 202\,] }}
 ``\,`That's going to make the one about the land of the giant
  walking plum puddings look \emph{very} tame.'\,''

  There's a famous Australian children's story called ``The Magic Pudding''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 203\,] }}
 ``well, it had to be a building. No one could have left an open
  box of tissues that big. [{\ldots}] a building that looked about to set sail
  [{\ldots}]''

  Both descriptions have been applied, at various times, to Sydney Opera
  House --- which is, indeed, on the waterfront.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 213\,] }}
 ``\,`She's{\ldots} her name's{\ldots} Dame Nellie{\ldots} Butt.'\,''

  Dame Nellie Butt has two aspects: Dame Nellie Melba, of Peach Melba fame,
  and Dame Clara Butt, an English singer who moved to Australia.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 215\,] }}
 ``\,`I give you{\ldots} the Peach \emph{Nellie}.'\,''

  Rincewind has invented the Peach Melba, named in our world for Dame
  Nellie Melba, a famous Australian contralto.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 218\,] }}
 ``\,`You mean this whole place is a \emph{prison}?'\,''

  It's often said --- not least by Australians --- that they are the
  descendants of British convicts who were sentenced to ``transportation'' as
  a penalty only slightly preferable to death, and indeed the earliest
  European settlements, from 1788 onwards, were penal colonies. However,
  separate ``free colonies'' were established not long afterwards, and the
  transportation of prisoners stopped in the mid 19th century.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 219\,] }}
 ``\,`This is the Galah they keep talking about.'\,''

  Rincewind seems to have stumbled into the world-famous Sydney Gay and
  Lesbian Mardi Gras. A galah is also a small pink parrot with a grey head.
  They are apparently very gentle and inoffensive birds, which makes it
  harder to understand why ``galah'' is also a Australian slang term of
  derision meaning ``likeable fool'' or ``simpleton''. Apparently,
  transvestites are not entirely welcome in the Sydney Mardi Gras.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 223\,] }}
 ``Rincewind leapt from the cart, landed on someone's shoulder,
  jumped again very briefly on to someone's head.''

  At the end of the movie \emph{Crocodile Dundee}, our Australian hero makes his
  way across a packed New York subway station platform in this fashion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 233\,] }}
 ``\,`A sarong.' `Looks right enough to me, haha.'\,''

  The Dean is trying, with rather too much desperation, to make a joke that
  requires him to have a pseudo-Italian accent for it to work. If Chico
  Marx were to say ``That's wrong'', it would sound something like ``a
  sarong''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 239\,] }}
 ``\,`When Darleen sings ``Prancing Queen'' [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The heroines of the film \emph{The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the
  Desert} perform (well, playback to) a repertoire of Abba songs. See the
  annotation for p.~131.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 240\,] }}
 ``\,`Look, it's the new brewery because we built it to replace the
  one over the river.'\,''

  The Old Brewery in WA is situated by the Swan River, on or near a sacred
  site (depending on who you ask). Neilette's brewery is positioned on
  possibly the most definitively \emph{un}sacred site in the continent{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 241\,] }}
 ``\,`My dad lost nearly all his money.'\,''

  Brewing is a financially dangerous business. Alan Bond (see the
  annotation for p.~266) lost a fortune in the 1990s, when lessees of his
  pubs objected to his plan to sell them all off for a quick return.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 247\,] }}
 ``\,`Now look,' said Ridcully. `I'm a man who knows his ducks, and
  what you've got there is laughable.'\,''

  It's been said, cruelly, that a platypus is what a duck would look like
  if it was designed by a committee.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 248\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``\emph{Nulli Sheilae sanguineae}''\,'\,''

  ``No bloody Sheilas''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 249\,] }}
 ``\,`Er, I had an assisted passage.'\,''

  ``Assisted passage'' was the term for the financial support given to
  British immigrants during the 1960s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 252\,] }}
 ``\,`We used to call them bullroarers when I was a kid,'\,''

  Bullroars were apparently used traditionally by the aborigines as a means
  of communicating and signalling over distances of several miles. Its use
  is demonstrated in the movie \emph{Crocodile Dundee II}, where he uses one to
  call for help from nearby Aborigines.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 253\,] }}
 ``\,`You're trying to tell me you've got a tower that's taller at
  the top than it is at the \emph{bottom}?'\,''

  Once again, a nod to the classic BBC TV series \emph{Dr Who} --- characters
  were forever remarking on how the Doctor's ship, the Tardis, was bigger
  on the inside than it was on the outside. Given that the outside was the
  size of a large phone box, this was just as well.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 253\,] }}
 ``\,`We're a clever country ---'\,''

  Australia once tried to sell itself to the world as ``the clever country'',
  to attract the right kind of immigrants.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 254\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Funnelweb''? `s a funny name for a beer.'\,''

  It is, of course, the name of a spider. One of Terry's favourite
  Australian beers is ``Redback'', another spider. Probably best not to
  inquire too closely as to the recipe.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 263\,] }}
 ``He sloshed wildly at the stone, humming under his breath.
  `Anyone guess what it is yet?' he said over his shoulder.''

  Rincewind is imitating Rolf Harris, a scruffily-bearded Australian singer
  and artist who used to present kids' cartoon programmes on UK TV\@. Before
  each cartoon, he'd demonstrate how to draw the leading characters,
  humming as he sketched and often asking `Can you guess what it is yet?'
  over his shoulder.

  See also the annotation for p.~129.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 266\,] }}
 ``There were more important questions as they sat round the table
  in BU.''

  The natural assumption that BU stands for ``Bugarup University'' is
  entirely logical, but the fact that it's not spelt out gives us license
  to speculate wildly about many alternative resonances{\ldots}

  First, it's worth noting that there really \emph{is} a BU in Australia: Bond
  University, in the Gold Coast, was financed and named after Alan Bond,
  the well-known Americas Cup winner, colourful businessman and
  ex-gaolbird. His principal business interest was in brewing: he owned the
  Castlemaine Tooheys brand, before running into trouble in the late 80s.
  (see also the annotation for p.~241).

  Adding a second dimension to the name, one could note that "b\^{u}" is the
  past participle of the French ``boire'', to drink. Third, there's the
  well-known drinking expression ``bottoms up!'' --- an exhortation to fellow
  drinkers to quaff harder. Even more improbably, there's the notion that
  never fails to raise a laugh in primary schools in the UK that
  Australians, being upside-down, all walk on their heads, i.e.\  with their
  bums uppermost. Of course, most likely BU \emph{does} stand for Bugarup
  University. But all that was worth thinking about, wasn't it?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 267\,] }}
 ``The Librarian sneezed. `{\ldots}awk{\ldots}' `Er{\ldots} now you're some sort
  of large bird{\ldots}' said Rincewind.''

  Possibly a Great Auk (an extinct species of flightless, penguin-like sea
  bird).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 268\,] }}
 ``He could save up and buy a farm on the Never-Never.''

  Puns on the ``Never-Never'' (a name for Outback Australia) and ``buying on
  the never-never'' (i.e.\  on hire-purchase).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 269\,] }}
 ``\,`If we could get to the Hub we could cut loose a big iceberg
  and tow it here and that'd give us plenty of water{\ldots}''

  This has been seriously suggested as a way of supplying more water for
  Australia.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 271\,] }}
 ``There were classes for boats [{\ldots}] propelled by the simple
  expedient of the crew cutting the bottoms out, gripping the sides and
  running like hell.''

  At Henley-on-Todd, Alice Springs, there is an annual regatta on these
  lines. This event usually has about twenty teams that take part in a race
  up and down the Todd river bed. The teams are sponsored by local
  businesses and they are normally made up of people that work for the
  company that sponsors them plus other family members. Team members run up
  and down the river bed carrying a cardboard cut out of a boat with sails
  and masts. This looks quite a sight when you see boats on a dry river and
  all these hairy legs sticking out of the bottom of the boats. The final
  race is between two large boats on tractor bodies. These boats have
  cannons fastened onto the side of them and large fire hoses joined to
  water tanks on board these are used to fire flour at the other teams and
  the crowd. Mix this with water, and it makes a lot of mess and a great
  deal of fun for all.

  Once every seven years or so, it rains, and the event has to be cancelled
  because the river is full of water.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 272\,] }}
 ``\,`One spell, one bucket of seawater, no more problem{\ldots}'\,''

  Desalinated seawater plays an important part in the water supply of many
  desert countries. However, it is (as Ponder objects) very
  energy-intensive.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 274\,] }}
 ``\,`Can you hear that thunder? [{\ldots}] We'd better take cover.'\,''

  From the Aussie group Men at Work's 1983 hit `Down Under': ``Can you hear
  that thunder? You'd better run, you'd better take cover.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 280\,] }}
 ``Near the centre of the last continent, where waterfalls
  streamed down the flanks of a great red rock[{\ldots}]''

  Uluru, or Ayer's Rock, is regarded as sacred by the Aborigines so they
  never climb the rock, although many tourists do.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Carpe Jugulum}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 6\,] }}
 ``\,`Nac mac Feegle!'\,''

  The Feegles speak a version of Scots. In theory this is closely related
  to English, and an English speaker can usually understand Scots with a
  bit of effort, but this very thick dialect is largely incomprehensible to
  most English speakers. Terry himself warns against trying to decode all
  of their sayings --- the important thing is the impression you get, not
  the exact words --- but some of them are straightforward enough.

  Of the `battle cries', `Bigjobs!' is the catchphrase of Mek-Quake, one of
  the `ABC Warriors' in the cult comic \emph{2000 AD}; `Dere c'n onlie be whin
  t'ousand!' seems to be based on the tagline of the film \emph{Highlander}:
  `There can be only one!'; and `Nac mac Feegle wha hae!' echoes Robert
  Burns's `Scots wha hae' --- although this makes little sense on its own{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 8\,] }}
 ``Do they \emph{really} think that spelling their name backwards fools
  anyone?''

  There are many vampire movies in which this trick works remarkably well:
  in \emph{Son of Dracula} (1943), Count `Alucard' travels to the southern USA
  to marry a disturbed woman who wants to be immortal; in \emph{Dracula's Last
  Rites} (1979), vampire Dr A. Lucard runs a mortuary, which keeps him
  well-stocked with fresh bodies. The same trick occurs in \emph{Dracula: the
  Series} (1990), and the films \emph{Dr Terror's Galaxy of Horrors} (1966) and
  \emph{Dracula: the Dirty Old Man} (1969).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 11\,] }}
 ``Not, of course, with her reflection in the glass, because \emph{that}
  kind of heroine will sooner or later end up singing a duet with Mr Blue
  Bird and other forest creatures [{\ldots}]''

  Various Disney heroines have done this: Snow White was the first, but
  Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty perpetrated similar offences. In the film
  \emph{Mary Poppins}, Julie Andrews sings in harmony with her own reflection
  (`A Spoonful of Sugar') and does indeed go on to sing with other
  creatures. `Mr Blue Bird' comes into the song `Zippedy Doo-Dah', from the
  Disney film \emph{Song of the South}, although there may be some older
  reference.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 13\,] }}
 ``If you needed to boil an egg, you sang fifteen verses of `Where
  Has All The Custard Gone?' under your breath.''

  Possibly the Lancrastrian version of `Where Have All The Flowers Gone?',
  which can also be used for egg-timing purposes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 14\,] }}
 ``\,`You got to come to Mrs Ivy and her baby missus!'\,''

  Ivy is an evergreen plant that continues growing even on dead trees;
  hence it is sometimes a symbol of immortality, persistence of life.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 15\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought old Mrs Patternoster was seeing to her.'\,''

  Paternoster (Latin for `Our Father') generally refers to the Lord's
  Prayer in Latin, as said by Roman Catholics until the 1960s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``W{\smaller{ELL, I HAVE A SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY.}} A couple of coins landed
  on the frosty road.''

  See the annotation for p.~30/25 of \emph{Mort}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``Later on, there'd be a command performance by that man who put
  weasels down his trousers,''

  A traditional stunt act in Yorkshire, only with ferrets rather than
  weasels.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 ``Now the Quite Reverend Oats looked at himself in the mirror.''

  In the Anglican church, a priest is known as `Reverend', a dean is `Very
  Reverend', a bishop is `Right Reverend', an archbishop `Most Reverend'.

  Oats's name may be a reference to Titus Oates, a 17th-century English
  clergyman who in 1678 alleged that Jesuits were planning to assassinate
  Charles~II and place his Roman Catholic brother James, Duke of York
  (later James II), on the throne. In the subsequent wave of anti-Catholic
  hysteria, Oates was gratefully rewarded, and about 35 innocent people
  were executed. In 1685, after James acceded to the throne, Oates was
  convicted of perjury, flogged, and imprisoned. He was released and given
  a pension after James was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 27\,] }}
 ``Lancre people didn't bother much with letterboxes.''

  All the same, it seems that arrangements have moved on since \emph{Lords and
  Ladies}, in which the mail was left hanging in a sack in the town for
  people to collect in their own time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] an' it's bein' used up on der Copperhead road tonight.'\,''

  The name is Terry's tribute to Steve Earle, a large, `new country' singer
  who recorded a song called `Copperhead Road'. A copperhead is a poisonous
  snake native to parts of the eastern and southern USA.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 32\,] }}
 ``\,`It is as well to remember that your ancestors [{\ldots}] firmly
  believed that they couldn't cross a stream.'\,''

  Some vampire stories include a prohibition against crossing running
  water. Although it's worth mentioning that this only ever prevented them
  from crossing streams under their own propulsion --- they could still be
  \emph{carried} across it, e.g.\  in a coach.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 38\,] }}
 ``\,`the worst she can put her hand up to at her age is a few grubby
  nappies and keepin' you awake at night. That's hardly \emph{sinful}, to my
  mind.'\,''

  St Augustine, in his \emph{Confessions}, pointed to the attention-seeking
  behaviour of babies as evidence that even the most innocent are selfish,
  because of original sin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``\,`If Klatch sneezes, Ankh-Morpork catches a cold.'\,''

  `If ``foo'' sneezes, ``bar'' catches a cold' has become a clich\'{e} in
  economics. ``foo'' and ``bar'' may be pretty much any combination of America,
  Japan, Europe and Asia.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``\,`The ``werewolf economies'', as the Patrician in Ankh-Morpork
  calls them.'\,''

  The East Asian economies of South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand
  and others that grew outstandingly fast throughout the 1980s and 90s are
  sometimes collectively called the `Tiger Economies'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``shave and a haircut, no legs''\,'\,''

  The usual tune is `Shave and a haircut, two pence'. See also the
  annotation for p.~47/36 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 51\,] }}
 ``\,`We eat only fish this month. [{\ldots}] Because the prophet Brutha
  eschewed meat, um, while he was wandering in the desert, see.'\,''

  The Christian fast of Lent, originally a period of abstaining from all
  `rich food', commemorates Christ's time spent fasting in the wilderness,
  during which Satan tempted him with bread. See Matthew 4:1--11 and Luke
  4:1--14. For the full story of Brutha, read \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 52\,] }}
 ``\,`Wstfgl?' said Agnes.''

  The earliest occurrence of this non-word that anyone has yet reported is
  in \emph{Asterix the Legionary}, when Obelix catches sight of the beautiful
  Fabella. Terry says: ``You've got me there{\ldots} I thought I'd just strung
  together some letters!''

  But there's something about this set of letters, because Ptraci says the
  same thing in \emph{Pyramids}, and in \emph{Feet of Clay}, in her sleep, Sybil says
  `wsfgl'. There's also Astfgl, the `villain' of \emph{Eric}. More
  significantly, if you search for ``wstfgl'' on the Web, you'll find it
  cropping up in all sorts of apparently unrelated stories in a similar
  context --- the noise people make when they're either asleep or lost for
  words.

  We may be witnessing the birth of a new word.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 54\,] }}
 ``\,`I do not drink{\ldots} wine,' said Igor haughtily.''

  This line, with the dramatic pause before the word `wine', appears in
  many different movie versions of \emph{Dracula}, starting with Bela Lugosi's
  1931 classic version, down to the Francis Ford Coppola 1992 remake \emph{Bram
  Stoker's Dracula}.

  The line itself does not occur in the book, but originated in the
  Hamilton Deane stage-play \emph{Dracula}, which was hugely successful in New
  York in the 1920s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 55\,] }}
 ``\,`There wath none of thith fumble-finger thtuff and then pinching
  a brain out of the ``Really Inthane'' jar and hopin' no one'd notithe.'\,''

  At least one of the early Frankenstein films (which are clearly the main
  inspiration for Igor) involves the servant being sent to steal the brain
  of a famous scientist from a medical lab, but he drops that one and
  substitutes one labelled `Abnormal', which is then transplanted into the
  monster.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 59\,] }}
 ``\,`Vlad de Magpyr,' said Vlad, bowing.''

  Bram Stoker borrowed the name `Dracula' from Vlad Dracula, `the Impaler',
  1431--1476, prince of Wallachia. This Vlad was as brutal and psychopathic
  a ruler as you could ever hope to avoid, but there is no historical
  evidence that he either drank blood or dabbled in sorcery.

  The name `Magpyr' puns both on magpie and Magyar, an equestrian tribe who
  settled in what is now Hungary and parts of Romania during the 9th
  century. Dracula would have been a Magyar. Nowadays, the word is more or
  less synonymous with `Hungarian'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 59\,] }}
 ``\,`Or, we prefer, vampyres. With a ``y''. It's more modern.'\,''

  This spelling has a very old pedigree, but has become a hallmark of
  certain modern-day vampire fans who, like the Count, want to distance
  themselves from traditional beliefs about vampires. I blame Anne Rice.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``\,`And this is my daughter, Lacrimosa.'\,''

  `Lacrimosa' is Latin for `tearful one', which seems appropriate to
  Lacci's whiney personality. It's also the first word of the traditional
  Latin requiem mass:

\begin{verse}\textit{Lacrymosa dies illa \\quae resurget ex favilla \\judicandus homo reus. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Huic ergo parce, Deus, \\pie Jesu, Jesu Domine, \\dona eis requiem. \\
}\end{verse}

  Which translates approximately to:

\begin{verse}\textit{O tearful the day \\when from the ashes rises \\the guilty to be judged. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Therefore spare him, God, \\Good Jesus, Jesus Lord, \\give them rest. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 62\,] }}
 ``\,`The Queen makes up some sort of headache pills out of willow
  bark.''

  As previously noted (see the annotation for p.~119 of \emph{Hogfather}),
  willow bark contains aspirin.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 63\,] }}
 ``Agnes's left arm twitched [{\ldots}] as if guided by a mind of its
  own.''

  The hero of the cult horror parody \emph{Evil Dead II} has a similar problem,
  which he eventually resolves by cutting off his own hand; this scene
  could well be partly inspired by the film.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 72\,] }}
 ``national anthems [{\ldots}] all have the same second verse, which
  goes `nur{\ldots} hnur{\ldots} mur{\ldots} nur nur, hnur{\ldots} nur{\ldots} nur, hnur' at some
  length, until everyone remembers the last line of the first verse and
  sings it as loudly as they can.''

  Not long after the publication of \emph{Carpe Jugulum}, Terry wrote the
  Ankh-Morpork national anthem along these lines, set to original music by
  Carl Davis.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 75\,] }}
 ``\,`The trolls are stupid, the dwarfs are devious, the pixies are
  evil and the gnomes stick in your teeth.'\,''

  Later in the book, it appears that gnomes and pixies are the same thing,
  but Vlad seems to think differently.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 82\,] }}
 ``\,`Good morning, Mister Magpie,' said Agnes automatically.''

  As Agnes and Nanny go on to discuss, there are many different counting
  rhymes for magpies, but they generally agree that a single magpie is
  unlucky. Some people believe that one can avert the bad luck by being
  polite, or even downright flattering, to the magpie in this manner.

  The rhyme Agnes repeats over the next few pages is similar to the one
  Mike learned as a child:

\begin{verse}\textit{One for sorrow, two for joy, \\Three for a girl, four for a boy, \\Five for silver, six for gold, \\Seven for a secret never to be told. \\
}\end{verse}

  Nanny's version seems closer to the Scots version given in \emph{Brewer's
  Dictionary of Phrase \& Fable}:

\begin{verse}\textit{One's sorrow, two's mirth, \\Three's a wedding, four's a birth, \\Five's a christening, six a dearth, \\Seven's heaven, eight is hell, \\And nine's the devil his ane sel'. \\
}\end{verse}

  --- although Nanny's also varies noticeably from this, which just goes to
  prove what she says about there being lots of different rhymes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 90\,] }}
 ``\,`Lady Strigoiul said her daughter has taken to calling herself
  Wendy,' [{\ldots}] `Maladora Krvoijac does,' said Vlad.''

  In Romanian, `strigoi' or `strigoiaca' is the modern form of the ancient
  Roman `stryx', a type of shape-changing, bloodsucking witch. `Krvopijac'
  is either Bulgarian or Croatian for `blood-drinker'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 91\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Le sang nouveau est arrive},' said Vlad.''

  Every year, towards the end of October, the first press of the year's
  Beaujolais wine is marketed as `Beaujolais nouveau', announced with the
  slogan `Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrive.' The wine is generally quite
  strong, both in alcohol content and flavour, and not highly regarded by
  connoisseurs. After a few months it becomes undrinkable, owing to the
  accelerated fermentation process.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 91\,] }}
 ``\,`That is the double snake symbol of the Djelibeybian water
  cult,' he said calmly.''

  In \emph{Pyramids}, the Djelibeybian high priest Dios had a staff with two
  serpents entwined around it --- possibly the same symbol. There are at
  least three distinct theories about why holy symbols repel vampires. The
  Catholic theory is that the repelling force is the faith of the holder,
  and the symbol merely focuses that faith --- so a symbol on its own, or in
  the hands of a non-believer, is useless. (This has produced some
  interesting interpretations of what a `holy symbol' could be --- one film
  shows a yuppie repelling a vampire with his wallet.) The Orthodox theory
  is that faith is irrelevant --- it's God who is performing the miracle,
  not the wielder. The psychological theory, which Terry seems to be
  subscribing to here, is that the effect is entirely in the mind of the
  vampire.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 98\,] }}
 ``\,`Although having studied the passage in question in the original
  Second Omnian IV text, I have advanced the rather daring theory that the
  word in question translates more accurately as
  ``cockroaches''.'\,''

  Exodus 22:18: ``Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'' It is often
  suggested that the Hebrew word used here should be translated `poisoner',
  but the case for this is unconvincing and based mainly on the flawed
  Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. Modern
  translations of the Bible still say `witch'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 99--100\,] }}
 ``\,`Look, there was this donkey, and it stopped in the middle
  of the river, and it wouldn't go backwards or forwards, [{\ldots}] Bad Ass.
  See?'\,''

  This is slightly reminiscent of the Biblical story of Balaam's ass
  (Numbers 22:1--41).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 100\,] }}
 ``Agnes had seen pictures of an ostrich. So{\ldots} start with one of
  them, but make the head and neck in violent yellow, and give the head a
  huge ruff of red and purple feathers and two big round eyes, the pupils
  of which jiggled drunkenly as the head moved back and forth{\ldots}''

  The description may be modelled on `Emu', property of Rod Hull; their
  double act was very popular on UK TV in the 1970s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 100\,] }}
 ``\,`Take that thing out of your mouth,' said Agnes. `You sound
  like Mr Punch.'\,''

  Mr Punch is the lead character in a Punch-and-Judy show, a traditional
  British children's entertainment featuring theft, extreme violence,
  wife-beating and multiple murders, using glove puppets. The performer
  would use a special throat-whistle, called a swozzle, to produce the
  character's squeaky voice. See also the Discworld short story \emph{Theatre of
  Cruelty}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 103\,] }}
 ``A huge gilded china beer stein that played `Ich Bin Ein
  Rattarsedschwein' from \emph{The Student Horse} [{\ldots}]''

  `Ich Bin Ein Rattarsedschwein' means `I am a Drunken Pig', rat-arsed
  being British slang for very drunk. \emph{The Student Horse} refers to \emph{The
  Student Prince}, an operetta by Romberg about a prince who studies at
  Heidelberg and falls for a barmaid. In the film, allegedly, Mario Lanza
  was supposed to play the part of the prince, but got too fat, so his
  voice is just dubbed over the lead actor's when singing. Songs include
  the `Drinking Song' and the unfortunately titled `Come Boys, Let's All Be
  Gay Boys'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 104\,] }}
 ``\,`Why did you bring Soapy Sam back with you?'\,''

  The original `Soapy Sam' was Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford from
  1845 to 1869, best remembered today for his diehard opposition to the
  theory of evolution. The name is occasionally applied today as a generic
  insult to any churchman who holds an opinion contrary to one's own.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 106\,] }}
 ``\,`I believe that in Glitz you have to fill their mouth with
  salt, hammer a carrot into both ears, and then cut off their head.' `I
  can see it must've been fun finding that out.'\,''

  Terry is here parodying, but not even slightly exaggerating, the
  bewildering variety of ways of dealing with vampires in earth mythology.
  To give a taste of how abstruse these beliefs could become, here is a
  quotation from the {\smaller \texttt{alt.vampyres}} FAQ (held on
  \url{http://www.altvampyres.net/}:

  ``Some Gypsies in Kosova once believed that a brother and sister born
  together as twins on a Saturday could see a vampiric mulo if they wore
  their underwear and shirts inside out. The mulo would flee as soon as it
  was seen by the twins.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 120\,] }}
 ``\,`You were so successful in Escrow, I know.'\,''

  Escrow is a legal term for a formal contract or agreement to do
  something, where the document is held by a trusted third party until its
  conditions are satisfied.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 121\,] }}
 ``\,`Every day, in every way, we get better and better,'\,''

  One of the very first positive-thinking mantras, coined by Emile Coue
  (1857--1926), French psychotherapist and pharmacist. Coue's study of
  hypnotism convinced him that auto-suggestion could cure anything.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 123\,] }}
 ``They stared into the abyss, which didn't stare back.''

  A famous quotation from Nietzsche: ``If you gaze for long into an abyss,
  the abyss gazes also into you.'' (From \emph{Beyond Good and Evil}.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 126\,] }}
 ``She pushed gently until her toes were pointed at the sky and
  she was doing a handstand on the edge.''

  Agnes is imitating Lara Croft, hero of the hugely successful \emph{Tomb
  Raider} series of video games. Terry admits to being a Lara fan.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 128\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, that's the witch,' said Nanny. `She's not a problem.'\,''

  There's a cave in Somerset, near where Terry lives, with a similar
  feature outside it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 138\,] }}
 ``\,`Like the hero in Tsort or wherever it was, who was completely
  invincible except for his heel [{\ldots}]'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~274/241 of \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 139\,] }}
 ``The man lowered the thimble. `Pictsies!'\,''

  Puns on `pixie' and `Picts' (inhabitants of Scotland in Iron Age times).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 141\,] }}
 ``Hundreds of pixies had simply appeared among the ornaments.
  Most of them wore pointed hats that curved so that the point was
  practically pointing down.''

  Combined with the blue skin, this suggests a decidedly Smurf-like quality
  to the Feegles. Terry says:

  ``1 I wanted some background to Wee Mad Arthur, of \emph{Feet of Clay} and so
  they'd be small. 2 I'd been listening to Laureena McKennitt singing `The
  Stolen Child'. 3 Since (see 1) the tribe would be cod-Scottish, then
  \emph{Braveheart} and \emph{Rob Roy} (``let's bash the English'' movies made by
  people sitting on the biggest piece of land ever stolen from its owners
  by trickery, genocide and war) were natural targets{\ldots} which meant that
  the NmF would be blue{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Yez lukin' at a faceful o'heid!}'\,''

  Typical Glaswegian greeting. See also p.~169 ``\,`What ya' lookin a', chymie
  (Jimmy)?'\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 148\,] }}
 ``\,`You mean vampirism is like{\ldots} pyramid selling?'\,''

  Pyramid selling is when each of your customers goes out and sells to a
  number of other customers, and you get a share of the profits from them;
  then each of those other customers goes out and tries the same trick, and
  so on until everyone in the world is a customer. Of course, if you're one
  of the last generation to be recruited, you're stuffed. Most
  pyramid-selling schemes are illegal in most countries. The scam is a
  common nuisance phenomenon on the Internet.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 150\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah{\ldots} Aunt Carmilla{\ldots}'\,''

  \emph{Carmilla}, by J. Sheridan LeFanu, was one of the earliest literary
  vampire stories, published in 1872, a good quarter of a century before
  \emph{Dracula}. The story about bathing in the blood of virgins is told of
  Erzsebet Bathory (1560--1614), a Hungarian princess who believed that it
  would keep her young; her name is often associated with vampire stories.

  The beaked, hunched figure that Vlad calls `a distant ancestor' is a
  reference to the stryx, a creature from Roman mythology that stabbed and
  drank blood through its beak.

  Terry explains: ``What Agnes is shown is the `evolution' of vampires ---
  harpy, hairy monster, Lugosi/Lee and Byronic bastard. And what better way
  to demonstrate this that a succession of family portraits?''

  ``As an aside, very little vampiric legend and folklore in CJ is made up
  --- even the vampire tools and watermelons are real world beliefs.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 154\,] }}
 ``\,`{\ldots} \emph{The blood is the life [{\ldots}] porphyria, lack of?}'\,''

  Oats has crammed an impressive collection of vampire stories into one
  page of notes. ``The blood is the life'' is a catchphrase from \emph{Dracula};
  it is closely associated with the Christian view of the vampire --- just
  as the Christian gains eternal life through the sacrament of Christ's
  blood, so the vampire earns a perverted version of the same.

  Porphyria is a very rare, genetic blood disorder, one form of which
  includes the symptoms of severe light sensitivity, reddish-brown urine
  and teeth, deformation of the nose, ears, eyelids, and fingers, an excess
  of body hair, and anaemia. It has been suggested that it explains some
  aspects of both vampire and werewolf legends.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 155\,] }}
 ``On one shelf alone he found forty-three remarkably similar
  accounts of a great flood, [{\ldots}]''

  The Biblical version is the story of Noah (Genesis 6--8). Many myth cycles
  have a similar story of how humanity was \emph{almost} wiped out by a flood,
  but saved by one good person building a boat.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 159\,] }}
 ``\,`This is from Ossory's \emph{Malleus Maleficarum},'\,''

  The \emph{Malleus Maleficarum} (usually translated \emph{Hammer of Witches}) was
  written by two Dominican monks in the 15th century as a manual for
  dealing with witches and possessing spirits. Many of the popular myths
  about medieval treatment of witches, including many of the various tests
  by ordeal, first appeared in this book. See also the annotation for p.~375/262 of \emph{Good Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 168\,] }}
 ``\,`yin, tan, TETRA!'\,''

  This is an old northern English (\emph{not} Scots) dialect, used for counting
  sheep in Yorkshire and Cumbria. `Yan, tan, tethera, methera, pip,
  sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick.'

  According to one correspondent, the folklorist A.~L.~Lloyd traced the
  words to a group of Romanian shepherds brought to England early in the
  19th century to teach the locals something about increase in flocks. The
  words were thought very Occult and Mysterious, until it was explained
  that they were just counting.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 169\,] }}
 ``\,`Well done,' Verence murmured. `How long have you been a
  hallucination? \emph{Jolly} good.'\,''

  Verence's side of the dialogue seems to be modelled on the sorts of
  things the British royal family, most particularly Prince Charles, say
  when they are meeting The People. Verence's general earnest and well
  meaning --- but unappreciated --- interest in the welfare of his subjects
  is strongly reminiscent of Charles.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 180\,] }}
 ``Up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen ran the Nac mac
  Feegle,''

  From \emph{The Fairies}, by William Allingham:

\begin{verse}\textit{Up the airy mountain \\Down the rushy glen, \\We daren't go a-hunting, \\For fear of little men; \\
}\end{verse}

  See also the annotation for p.287/207 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 180\,] }}
 ``\,`Hakkis lugs awa'!'\,''

  `Hack his lugs away' --- cut his ears off.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 180\,] }}
 ``\,`An' b'side, she'll gi'us uskabarch muckell.'\,''

  Just to make their dialect even more confusing, the Feegles throw in
  words of Gaelic. `Uskabarch' is `uisge beatha', `water of life' ---
  whisky.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 193\,] }}
 ``\,`Will ye no' have a huge dram and a burned bannock while yer
  waiting?'\,''

  The usual offering is a `wee dram', but to the Feegles it would, of
  course, appear huge. A bannock is a well known Scottish bread
  product. The fact that it's burned could be a reference to the Battle of
  Bannockburn, a famous Scots victory.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 195\,] }}
 ``\,`I've read about the phoenix. It's a mythical creature, a
  symbol, a ---'\,''

  The phoenix as described by the Greek historian Herodotus was an
  eagle-like bird, with red and gold plumage, that was sacred to the
  sun-god in ancient Egypt. The bird lived for 500 years, at the end of
  which it built its own funeral pyre and was consumed to ashes, from which
  another phoenix would then rise. Allegedly symbolic of the rising and
  setting of the sun, it was adopted by medieval Christianity as a symbol
  of death and resurrection.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 199\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh, yes, sir, `cos of when the other side are yelling ``We're
  gonna cut yer tonk--- yer \emph{tongue} off,''\,'\,''

  In \emph{Interesting Times} we learned that, on the Disc, `psychological
  warfare' is defined as drumming on your shield and shouting ``We're gonna
  cut yer \emph{tonkers} off.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 205\,] }}
 ``\,`Aye, mucken! Born sicky, imhoe!'\,''

  A common abbreviation used on parts of the Internet is IMHO, meaning `in
  my humble opinion'. Terry seems to have a particular dislike for this
  phrase, which in practice often translates to ``and anyone who disagrees
  with me is patently a moron''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 205\,] }}
 ``\,`Ach, I wouldna' gi'ye skeppens for him ---'\,''

  This is very similar to a recurrent line ``I wadna gie a button for her'',
  in Robert Burns's poem \emph{Sic a Wife as Willie's Wife}. The poem describes
  the vile, vile looking wife of a wee `greasy weaver' (no Adonis himself),
  and when performed usually has the audience in stitches when the
  descriptions of the wife are mimed. It is a good party piece for a Burns
  Supper on 25 January.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 206\,] }}
 ``\,`So she's made up some brose for ye{\ldots}'\,''

  Brose is a famous Scottish pick-me-up, made with oats, whisky, cream
  and{\ldots} herbs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 206\,] }}
 ``\,`I thought you turned into bats!' she shouted to Vlad.''

  Discworld vampires used to do this (in \emph{Reaper Man} and \emph{Witches Abroad},
  for instance), but more recently they have taken to flying without
  changing form. Presumably it's another aspect of being a Modern vampire.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 209\,] }}
 ``\,`It's called ``Om Is In His Holy Temple''.'\,''

  `God is in His Holy Temple' was a popular Victorian hymn.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 213\,] }}
 ``\,`{\ldots} \emph{and Brutha said to Simony, ``Where there is darkness we
  will make a great light}{\ldots}''\,'\,''

  Isaiah 9:2: ``The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
  they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the
  light shined.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 223\,] }}
 ``It read: `H{\smaller{LISTEN TO ZEE CHILDREN OFF DER NIGHT{\ldots}}} {\smaller{VOT
  VONDERFUL MHUSICK DEY MAKE.}} Mnftrd.\  by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson,
  Ankh-Morpork.' `It's a Johnson,' she breathed. `I haven't got my hands on
  a Johnson for ages{\ldots}'\,''

  Combined with Igor's previous comment that `the Century of the Fruitbat
  has its compensations', this suggests that B.~S.~Johnson was active
  within the past hundred years --- the first solid clue we've had about his
  lifetime. The `children of the night' quote is one of the most famous
  lines from the original 1931 \emph{Dracula} movie.

  `Johnson' is American slang for a penis, so this single entendre is quite
  an admission from Nanny.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 223\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Thunderclap 14''? ``Wolf Howl 5''?'\,''

  Organ registers are named after the sound they make, and the height of
  tone they produce. Owing to the nature of sound, however, 14 is very
  rarely found in real life; it would be 1. out of tune; most registers are
  powers of two, or three times powers of two for quints; and 2. pretty
  low.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 242\,] }}
 ``No, thought Agnes. It'll take the nightmares away.''

  There is a quotation, attributed to G.~K.~Chesterton: ``Fairy tales do not
  tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons
  exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.'' This seems
  to chime remarkably well with Terry's own attitude to children's stories.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 247\,] }}
 ``\,`Do you remember Mr and Mrs Harker?'\,''

  Jonathan and Mina Harker are two of the leading characters in \emph{Dracula}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 247\,] }}
 ``\,`Do onions hurt us? Are we frightened of shallots? No.'\,''

  The hero of the classic 1954 novel \emph{I am Legend}, the last living human
  on an earth where everyone else has become a vampire, actually
  experiments with this possibility.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 248\,] }}
 ``Greebo sheathed his claws and went back to sleep.''

  This is the second time Greebo has taken out a vampire --- he ate a bat in
  \emph{Witches Abroad} --- which suggests that there \emph{are} other ways of killing
  them than those sophisticated methods prescribed by folklore.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 249\,] }}
 ``\,`--- burn, with a clear bright light ---'\,''

  A very tame, sweet, modern children's hymn (see the annotation for p.~279):

\begin{verse}\textit{Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light \\Like a little candle, burning in the night. \\In this world of darkness so we must shine, \\You in your small corner and I in mine. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 255\,] }}
 ``\,`Remember --- that which does not kill us can only make us
  stronger.''

  ``That which does not kill me, makes me stronger'' --- popular saying,
  attributed to Nietzsche, whose morality would certainly have appealed to
  the Count.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 256\,] }}
 ``\,`Lines and crosses and circles{\ldots} oh, my{\ldots}'\,''

  Echoes `Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!' from \emph{The Wizard of Oz}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 257\,] }}
 ``\,`And I'd watch that bloke with the stake. He's altogether too
  keen on it. I reckon there's some psychology there ---'\,''

  It's become a commonplace observation, about \emph{Dracula}, that a man
  driving a stake into a female vampire is about as strong a sexual image
  as it was possible to publish in Victorian times{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 261\,] }}
 ``\,`They've killed Thcrapth! The bathtardth!'\,''

  A running joke in the adult cartoon \emph{South Park} is how the character
  Kenny is killed, in some deeply implausible way, in every episode,
  whereupon Kyle and Stan exchange the comments ``Oh my god! They've killed
  Kenny!'' ``You bastards!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 266\,] }}
 ``\,`Griminir the Impaler, she was.'\,''

  Grimnir the Impaler (1514--1553, 1553--1557, 1557--1562, 1562--1567 and
  1568--1573) is mentioned in \emph{Wyrd Sisters}. The difference in spelling is
  presumably a typo.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 268\,] }}
 ``\,`Old Red Eyeth ith back!'\,''

  One of Frank Sinatra's later albums bore the title `Old Blue Eyes is
  Back'. `Old Red Eyes is Back' is also the title of a song by Beautiful
  South.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 275\,] }}
 ``Oats's gaze went out across the haze, and the forest, and the
  purple mountains.''

  For some reason, mountains often seem to be described as `purple' in the
  context of noble or uplifting thoughts. Compare the song `America the
  Beautiful', by Katharine Lee Bates:

\begin{verse}\textit{O beautiful for spacious skies, \\For amber waves of grain, \\For purple mountain majesties \\Above the fruited plain! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 279\,] }}
 ``The singing wasn't very enthusiastic, though, until Oats tossed
  aside the noisome songbook and taught them some of the songs he
  remembered from his grandmother, full of fire and thunder and death and
  justice and tunes you could actually whistle, with titles like `Om Shall
  Trample The Ungodly' and `Lift Me To The Skies' and `Light The Good
  Light'.''

  Many modern churches have sanitised their official hymnbooks, leaving
  many of their worshippers complaining vigorously about the insipidness of
  the new hymns. `Light The Good Light' is presumably the Omnian version of
  `Fight the Good Fight'; `Om Shall Trample The Ungodly' is less clear, but
  it could scan to the tune of `The Battle-Hymn of the Republic.'

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Fifth Elephant}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 20\,] }}
 ``\,`The crowning of the Low King,' said Carrot.''

  Resonates with the semi-mythical High Kings of Ireland and Britain in our
  world's history, who ruled over autonomous lesser kingdoms. As Dwarf
  kingdoms are underground, with the most important bits being deepest, it
  makes sense for their king of kings to be set \emph{under} his subjects,
  rather than above.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] Uberwald remains a mystery inside a riddle wrapped in an
  enigma.'\,''

  A slight paraphrase of what Churchill originally said about Russia. See
  also the annotation for p.~176/133 of \emph{Men At Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``\,`The Scone of Stone. A replica, of course.'\,''

  The Stone of Scone, aka The Stone of Destiny, aka Jacob's Pillow or
  Pillar, is the coronation stone that Scottish kings were crowned on. The
  stone was moved to England by Edward I after he defeated the Scots in
  1296, and has since then been part of the English monarchy's coronation
  chair (except for the 4 months after Christmas Day 1950, when the Stone
  was stolen by Scots Nationalists before being recovered at Arbroath Abbey
  on April 11, 1951).

  Currently, the Stone (although rumours of it being a fake one abound) is
  ``on loan'' to Scotland, and can be seen in Edinburgh Castle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] all the Low Kings have done that ever since B'hrian
  Bloodaxe, fifteen hundred years ago.'\,''

  Brian Boru (c.940--1014) was the most famous of the Irish High Kings.

  Brian Bloodaxe, on the other hand, was the name of a platforms {\textquoteright}n ladders
  style computer game for the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC,
  etc.\  in the mid--1980s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Ping said, `It's a dialect word meaning ``watermeadow'',
  sir.'\,''

  According to Terry, `ping' \emph{is} in fact a Cornish dialect word meaning
  `watermeadow'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 42\,] }}
 ``\,`They act as if B'hrian Bloodaxe was still alive. That's why we
  call them \emph{drudak'ak}.'\,''

  Echoes of Chassidic Jews, the Amish, or basically any traditional,
  ultra-orthodox movement in Roundworld religions.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 49\,] }}
 ``\,`Inigo Skimmer, sir. Mhm-mhm.'\,''

  People tried to read a reference to \emph{The Princess Bride}'s Inigo Montoya
  character in the name, but Terry said:

  ``Inigo is just a name. So is Skimmer. It's not an intentional reference
  to anything. [{\ldots}] if you are a certain age, were brought up in the UK
  and were taught history in a certain way, you recalled Inigo Jones as a
  famous 17th Century architect --- mostly remembered because he had a
  memorable name.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 56\,] }}
 ``\,`Very \emph{fast} coffee. I rather think you will like it.'\,''

  Espresso. Duh.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``The first page showed the crest of the Unholy Empire [{\ldots}]''

  Shades of both Holy Russia and the Holy Roman Empire.

  Tsar Ivan ``the Terrible'' nailed some visiting Turkish ambassadors'
  turbans to their heads when he felt they did not show him the proper
  respect.

  (But the same story is also told of Vlad `Dracula': supposedly, the
  Venetian ambassadors failed to take their skullcaps off before him,
  explaining that they had special dispensation saying that they were
  allowed to keep their heads covered even in the presence of the Pope,
  whereupon Uncle Vlad had the caps nailed to their heads.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``The crest was altogether too florid for Vimes's taste, and was
  dominated by a double-headed bat.''

  The coat of arms of the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, sported the
  black double-headed eagle, which also crops up in different colours in
  other Eastern European heraldry, such as the Austria-Hungary coat of
  arms. It also crops up (very batlike --- black on red) in the Albanian
  flag.

  Apparently the double-headed eagle specifically came to symbolise
  Imperial power in heraldry, as opposed to the single-headed eagles, which
  were more generally used for conventional royalty and kingdoms in that
  area of the world.

  Going back further in time, the Holy Roman Empire (see the previous
  annotation) also used a double-headed eagle in the 15th century.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 61\,] }}
 ``\,`Silver has not been mined in Uberwald since the Diet of Bugs in
  A{\smaller{M 1880}} [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The Diet of Worms (or \emph{Reichstag zu Worms} as the Germans refer to it)
  was a political council (influenced by the Roman Catholic church) that
  took place in the town of Worms in 1521. It was during this session that
  Martin Luther was called upon to defend his Reformist teachings against
  Pope Leo X's threat of excommunication. When he refused to recant, he was
  ordered to leave and declared to be an outlaw as per the Edict of Worms.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 65\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a production of \emph{Chicken Lake}.''

  Chicken Lake -$>$ Swan Lake.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 66\,] }}
 ``\,`And you shall have some corn, provided locally by Josiah
  Frument and Sons [{\ldots}]'\,''

  `Frument' means grain (from the Latin `frumentum'). Frumenty (porridge
  made from wheat) was an important medieval and Renaissance peasant
  staple.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 86\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he was making headway with the religious instruction of
  the pigeons.''

  Overtones of St. Francis of Assisi, who famously preached to the birds.
  See also the annotation for p.~68/40 of \emph{Good Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 174\,] }}
 ``\,`Sybil wants to go to take the waters at Bad Heisses Bad----''

  ``Heisses Bad'' is German for Hot Bath.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 226\,] }}
 ``\,`How beautiful the snow is, sisters{\ldots}'\,''

  This whole section is a riff on Chekhov's 1901 play \emph{Three Sisters},
  complete with Chekhovian misunderstandings and pauses.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 227\,] }}
 ``\,`If we moved to Bonk [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The three provincial sisters in the Chekhov play are always remembering
  their past in Moscow, but only the younger sister is the one with the
  idea and desire to get out.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 228\,] }}
 ``\,`We have the gloomy and purposeless trousers of Uncle Vanya,'
  said one, doubtfully.''

  \emph{Uncle Vanya} is the other great Chekhov play. ``Gloomy and purposeless''
  sums up much Chekhovian drama quite accurately. The Russian word is
  ``toska'' --- a sort of weary, faded ennui.

  Uncle Vanya's trousers, interestingly enough, are not actually featured
  in either of Chekhov's plays. As Terry pointed out on afp: ``Well, yes.
  Vimes got them.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 253\,] }}
 ``She'd called them `sub-human'\,''

  A literal translation of the Nazi term `Untermensch', used to describe
  all non-Aryan people.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 255\,] }}
 ``Blow the bloody doors off!''

  Intentional or not, this piece has resonances with the UK classic cult
  movie \emph{The Italian Job}. One character is instructed by another to open a
  safe and ends up blowing up the entire van, thus leading to the famous
  line ``You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!''. Detritus
  exhibits a similar amount of overkill here.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 278\,] }}
 ``\,`Ah, yes{\ldots} ``joy through strength''.'\,''

  Slogans like these resonate strongly with the slogans used by Nazi
  Germany, such as ``Arbeit Macht Frei'' (``Work Brings Freedom''), infamously
  used above the entrances of various Nazi concentration camps.

  ``Strength through Joy'' (``Kraft durch Freude'') was the name of a large
  German National Socialist labour organisation, which provided affordable
  leisure activities for its members such as concerts and cruises. Early
  prototypes of the Volkswagen Beetle were in fact known as \emph{KdF-Wagen}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 310\,] }}
 ``\,`Is that why he's got human ears all over his back?' `Early
  experiment, thur.'\,''

  There was a famous tissue engineering experiment done at the University
  of Massachusetts (MIT), in which a biodegradable, ear-shaped scaffold was
  impregnated with human cartilage cells, and then successfully grafted
  onto the back of a mouse.

  The resulting picture of the living mouse with the ear-like structure on
  his back became very well known, although the story is often misconstrued
  as involving genetic engineering or the transplantation of an actual
  human ear, neither of which was the case.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Truth}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 11\,] }}
 ``Then the two watchmen trailed through the slush and muck to the
  Water Gate, [{\ldots}]''

  Pin and Tulip enter Ankh-Morpork via the Water Gate, which is oddly
  appropriate, considering both Gaspode's later pseudonym (see the
  annotation for p.~190) and the name of the organisation that hires Pin
  and Tulip (see the annotation for p.~68).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 13\,] }}
 ``\,`I could've done all right with the Fung Shooey, though.'\,''

  Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese design philosophy in which the
  positioning and physical characteristics of the items within a residence
  are believed to affect the fortunes of the owner.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 15\,] }}
 ``Two men were bent over the oars.''

  The characters of Pin and Tulip are somewhat frustrating for Terry in the
  sense that many, many people feel that they are `obviously' based on Mr
  Croup and Mr Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's \emph{Neverwhere} (who refer to
  themselves as the Old Firm, and call each other `Mr'). Or `obviously'
  based on the thugs Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega from the 1994 movie
  \emph{Pulp Fiction} (and there are a good number of \emph{Pulp Fiction} references
  in \emph{The Truth}). Or obviously based on Mr Wint and Mr Kidd from the James
  Bond movie \emph{Diamonds are Forever}. Or obviously based on the two Rons
  (who called themselves `The Management') from the BBC \emph{Hale and Pace}
  series. Or{\ldots}

  Terry himself had this to say:

  ``1. The term `The Old Firm' certainly wasn't invented by Neil. I think it
  first turned up amongst bookies, but I've even seen the Kray Brothers
  referred to that way. Since the sixties at least the `the firm' has
  tended to mean `criminal gang.' And, indeed, the term turned up in DW
  long before \emph{Neverwhere}.

  2. Fiction and movies are full of pairs of bad guys that pretty much
  equate to Pin and Tulip. They go back a long way. That's why I used {\textquoteright}em,
  and probably why Neil did too. You can have a trio of bad guys (who fill
  roles that can be abbreviated to `the big thick one, the little scrawny
  one and The Boss') but the dynamic is different. With two guys, one can
  always explain the plot to the other{\ldots}''

  ``A point worth mentioning, ref other threads I've seen: Hale and Pace's
  `Ron and Ron' worked precisely because people already knew the
  archetype.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``\,`Are you Gunilla Goodmountain?'\,''

  Goodmountain -$>$ Gutenberg. Johann Gutenberg is the German (claimed)
  inventor of movable type in the 1450s, most famously responsible for the
  Gutenberg Bibles.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``\,`Just give me a ninety-six-point lower-case h, will you,
  Caslong? Thank you,'\,''

  Caslon is a well-known typeface named after its creator William Caslon,
  who released it in the 1730s. It was a highly successful and popular
  typeface throughout Europe and America: the first printings of the
  American Declaration of Independence and Constitution were set in Caslon.
  See also the annotations for p.~47 and p.~160.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 22\,] }}
 ``\,`We are a bodyguard of lies, gentlemen.'\,''.

  Winston Churchill said ``In war-time, truth is so precious that she should
  always be attended by a bodyguard of lies''. Any book called \emph{The Truth}
  should therefore have one.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 27\,] }}
 ``And then there had been the war against Klatch{\ldots}''

  The story of this particular war has been told in great detail in
  \emph{Jingo}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 ``\,`M-a-k-e-\$-\$-\$-I-n-n-Y-o-u-r-e-S-p-a-r-e-T-y-m---' he murmured.''

  A development of the chain letter, `Make money fast'-pyramid schemes
  (often literally with that title, and with the `\$\$\$' spelling) formed a
  major part of the first waves of Internet spam (or unsolicited bulk
  messages).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 34\,] }}
 ``\,`Have you heard of c-commerce?'\,''

  C-commerce resonates with e-commerce, or doing business electronically,
  e.g.\  over the Internet.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``\,`A thousand years ago we thought the world was a bowl,' he said.
  `Five hundred years ago we knew it was a globe. Today we know it is flat
  and round and carried through space on the back of a turtle.' He turned
  and gave the High Priest another smile. `Don't you wonder what shape it
  will turn out to be tomorrow?'\,''

  In the 1997 movie \emph{Men in Black}, Tommy Lee Jones' character says: ``1500
  years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the centre of the universe.
  500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes
  ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll
  know{\ldots} tomorrow.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 40\,] }}
 ``For that matter, what would it do to the pie?''

  As well as referring to the cooking in the previous sentence, this also
  refers to Printer Pie, a term for jumbled-up type, which will be sorted
  for the next job or recast into new type --- very much in context.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] that Holy Wood moving picture fiasco a few years ago{\ldots}''

  This fiasco is detailed in \emph{Moving Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] that Music with Rocks In business a few years after{\ldots}''

  And this story is told in \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] when the late Mr Hong chose to open his Three Jolly Luck
  Take-Away Fish Bar in Dagon Street during the lunar eclipse.'\,''

  An H.~P.~Lovecraft reference. See also the annotation for p.~197/149 of
  \emph{Men at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 47\,] }}
 ``Boddony, who seemed to be second in command of the print room,
  [{\ldots}]''

  Another very aptly named dwarf: Bodoni is a well-known typeface designed
  at the end of the eighteenth century by Italian printer Giambattista
  Bodoni, who became the director of the press for the Duke of Parma, and
  who seems to have a reputation for elegance rather than accuracy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 51\,] }}
 ``\,`Gottle o' geer, gottle o' geer,' said Ron mysteriously.''

  A reference to the old ventriloquist ``bottle of beer'' routine. See the
  annotation for p.~64/62 of \emph{Pyramids} for a full explanation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``The \emph{tons} acted like society lords.''

  The tons are troll heavies, the equivalent of Mafia capos or dons. But
  they are also trying to join \emph{The Ton}, an eighteenth century term for
  leaders of fashion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 61\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the P'gi Su dynasty?''

  `Peggy Sue' is the title of one of Buddy Holly's many hit songs.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 68\,] }}
 ``\,`And now{\ldots} this meeting of the Committee to Unelect the
  Patrician is declared closed.'\,''

  The Watergate scandal break-in at the offices of the Democratic National
  Committee in 1972 was eventually traced back to the Committee to Re-Elect
  the President. Nixon denied any personal involvement, but tape recordings
  proved otherwise.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 79\,] }}
 ``\,`Do you know what they called a sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm?' said
  Mr Pin, [{\ldots}]''

  Riffs on the famous ``Quarter Pounder with Cheese'' dialogue from \emph{Pulp
  Fiction}:

\begin{quote}{Vincent: ``And you know what they call a{\ldots} a{\ldots} a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?''\\Jules:   ``They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?'' \\Vincent: ``No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.''\\Jules:   ``Then what do they call it?'' \\Vincent: ``They call it a `Royale' with cheese.'' \\Jules:   ``A `Royale' with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?'' \\Vincent: ``Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it `le Big-Mac'.''\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 88\,] }}
 ``\,`'m Rocky,' he mumbled, looking down.''

  A boxing troll called Rocky, who keeps getting knocked down{\ldots} It's
  really astonishing that it took Terry so long to come up with this
  particular troll name. The reference is, of course, to Sylvester
  Stallone's \emph{Rocky} movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 90\,] }}
 ``The Truth Shall Make Ye Free''

  A famous bible quote, from John 8:32: ``And ye shall know the truth, and
  the truth shall make you free.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 97\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh? You've signed the pledge?' said Sacharissa.''

  ``Taking the pledge'' is what one used to do when joining Alcoholics
  Anonymous (or any other temperance movement / Methodist tea-total
  congregation).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 101\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] lies could run round the world before the truth could get
  its boots on.''

  A saying attributed to Mark Twain, as well as to James Watt, the Scottish
  inventor.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 113\,] }}
 ``\,`Carpet dust got mixed in, I expect.' said Otto.''

  People have been speculating that this may be a reference to various
  earlier occurrences of a similar theme (in H.~P.~Lovecraft's work, for
  instance), but Terry said:

  ``AFP, eh? Look, some ideas are just so damn obvious no one has probably
  lifted them from \emph{anyone}. Vampire crumbles to dust, you sweep up the
  dust, you get the vampire back --- mixed up with all the cat hairs and
  breadcrumbs, maybe.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 142\,] }}
 ``Ankh-Morpork Inquirer''

  Equivalent to the National Enquirer in its coverage of highly inventive
  news.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 144\,] }}
 ``\,`Yeah, King of the Golden River,' said the dwarf.''

  `The King of the Golden River' is a classic fairy tale written in 1842 by
  John Ruskin.

  Terry adds:

  ``And let me say right now that practically everything in the career of
  Harry King is fairly based on fact (except for the trolls).''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 147\,] }}
 ``\,`A dog has got personality. Personality counts for a lot.'\,''

  Another \emph{Pulp Fiction} quote from Jules: ``I wouldn't go so far as to call
  a dog filthy, but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality.
  Personality goes a long way.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 147\,] }}
 ``\,`In the history of this city, gentlemen, we have put on trial
  at various times seven pigs, a tribe of rats, four horses, one flea and a
  swarm of bees.'\,''

  This has many Roundworld counterparts; see also the annotation for p.~289/262 of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 149\,] }}
 ``\,`An' then{\ldots} then I'm gonna get \emph{medieval} on his arse.'\,''

  A quote from \emph{Pulp Fiction}, spoken by Marcellus Wallace as an indication
  of his intended course of action concerning the person who had, um,
  displeased him.

  When asked why he changed the original word `ass' to the more British
  `arse', but kept the American spelling of `medieval', Terry replied:

  ``Because I prefer it, and it's optional. But ass is a weak, sad word.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 160\,] }}
 ``\,`You get them right now, Gowdie,' snapped Boddony.''

  This dwarf brings to mind Frederic William Goudy, the American type
  designer who designed several Goudy fonts, as well as Berkeley Old Style.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 169\,] }}
 ``\,`Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill
  and every time he got it to the top it rolled down again?'\,''

  A reference to Sisyphus from Greek mythology. See also annotation for p.~132/108 of \emph{Eric}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 176\,] }}
 ``\,`Have you still got the box it came in?' said Mr Tulip, turning
  the candlestick over and over in his hands.''

  This scene spoofs the \emph{Antiques Roadshow} type television programs, where
  people bring their old items to be identified and appraised by experts.

  When asked if the reference was deliberate, Terry said:

  ``My god, I don't think I could have made it more obvious{\ldots} `You'd get
  more if you had a pair' and `have you still got the box it came in?' and
  the piggy little gleam the owners get when they realise that it's worth a
  wad. Except on ARS the owner isn't clubbed to the ground at the end,
  which I often think is a shame.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 188\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}], H{\smaller{ALF MAN HALF MOTH?}}''

  The ``Mothman'' was a large creature (man-sized, but with wings) seen by
  several people in West Virginia in the second half of the 1960s, and
  reported on extensively by the regular newspapers at the time as well as
  by the Fortean Times (see also the annotation for p.~155/99 of \emph{Good
  Omens}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 189\,] }}
 ``Hobson's Livery Stable''

  Clearly, Willie Hobson has built the Disc's equivalent of a multi-storey
  car park.

  This becomes especially significant (as confirmed by Terry himself) in
  light of the fact the original Watergate Deep Throat used to deliver his
  information in a{\ldots} multi-storey car park.

  Also, Thomas Hobson (1544--1630) was the Cambridge stable manager after
  whom the concept of ``Hobson's choice'' (the appearance of giving someone a
  choice, when actually there is but a single option) was named. People
  renting horses from him would be shown all available horses, but in the
  end they always had to take the one nearest the door, so that all his
  horses were exercised.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 190\,] }}
 ``\,`You can call me{\ldots} Deep Bone.'\,''

  Deep Bone -$>$ Deep Throat, the named used by the Watergate informant. See
  also the annotation for p.~68.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 210\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] back in Sch\"{u}schien.'\,''

  Sch\"{u}schien -$>$ Shoe Shine.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 275\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Not A Very Nice Person At All'',' she read. `I wonder what
  kind of person would put \emph{that} on a wallet?'\,''

  A person such as Jules from \emph{Pulp Fiction} might. Only his wallet read
  \emph{Bad Motherfucker}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 279\,] }}
 ``\,`Let us use your ``ing'' presses or I'll ``ing'' shoot your ``ing''
  head ``ing'' off!' she screamed.''

  Very reminiscent of Honey Bunny's sudden and unexpected yelling at the
  cafe denizens in \emph{Pulp Fiction}: ``Any of you fuckin' pricks move and I'll
  execute every motherfuckin' last one of ya!''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 289\,] }}
 ``W{\smaller{HO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?}}''

  \emph{The Shadow Knows!}

  This question and answer made up the opening lines from one of the most
  popular radio shows in history, \emph{Detective Story} (later quickly renamed
  to \emph{The Shadow}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 296\,] }}
 ``\,`Every day, in every vay, ve get better and better.'\,''

  ``Every day, in every way, I am becoming better and better'' was the mantra
  introduced as a form of auto-suggestion psychotherapy by Emile Coue in
  the 1920s.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 310\,] }}
 ``\,`Have you locked him up,' said Sacharissa suspiciously, `in a
  deep cell, and made him wear a mask all the time [{\ldots}]''

  Reference to Alexandre Dumas' 1846 novel \emph{The Man in the Iron Mask}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Thief of Time}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
Terry comments on the inspiration for \emph{Thief of Time}:

  ``The genesis for ToT, for me, was an article I read a few years ago about
  a genuine glass clock, with one metal component (the image of it
  shattering in slow motion tends to stick in the mind) and I believe it
  was made in Germany. The idea of a perfect clock stopping Time seemed an
  inevitable next step. This made it a `Susan' book, because she's not a
  creature of time{\ldots} which brought in Death and the Auditors, with their
  known animosity to life{\ldots} and so it went.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 ``\emph{Thief of Time}''

  From the old saying: Procrastination is the thief of time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 7\,] }}
 ``an enthusiasm for healthy sports [footnote: Mostly involving big,
  big beachballs]''

  A clich\'{e} of 50's ``naturist'' films was a group of women throwing around a
  large beachball.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 7\,] }}
 ``Tragedy loomed in the shape of thousands of tons of unaccountably
  floating iron and an exciting soundtrack{\ldots}''

  A reference to the 1997 movie \emph{Titanic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 15\,] }}
 ``There were snatches of sound, too, of laughter, tears, screams
  and for some reason a brief burst of xylophone music, which caused him to
  pause for a moment.''

  Refers back to the conversation Susan had with Albert back in \emph{Soul
  Music}:

\begin{quote}{Susan:  ``I mean I'm an ordinary kid!'' \\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{Albert: ``Listen, ordinary kids get a xylophone. They don't just ask their granddad to take his shirt off!''\\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``\,`We are Myria LeJean. \emph{Lady} Myria LeJean.'\,''

  The name ``Myria'' resonated with the English word ``myriad'', meaning ``a
  vast number'' or ``comprised of a large number of things''.

  In the Bible, Mark 5, Jesus encounters a man in the country of the
  Gadarenes who is possessed by not one, but a multitude of unclean
  spirits: ``And [Jesus] asked him, What is thy name? And he answered,
  saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.'' (Jesus allows the spirits to
  leave the man, and enter a herd of swine instead.)

  In other words (and as Susan will also explain later), Myria(d)
  LeJean/legion is a perfectly appropriate name for a large group of (evil)
  spirits controlling a human body.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 ``\,`It's Xeno's Paradox.'\,''

  We've encountered Xeno the philosopher and his paradoxes before, in
  \emph{Pyramids}. See the various `philosopher' annotations for that book.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Grim Fairy Tales}?' he said.''

  Reference to our world's \emph{Grimm's Fairy Tales}, after the influential
  volumes of folk and fairy tales collected and published in the nineteenth
  century by the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``[footnote: There may, as the philosopher says, be no spoon,
  although this begs the question of why there is the idea of soup.]''

  I don't think there has ever been a philosopher who has made
  pronouncements about spoons, but ``There is no spoon'' is of course one of
  the better-known metaphysical mumbo-jumbo quotes from the original \emph{The
  Matrix} movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 ``\,`Master Soto sent him. You know?'\,''

  `Soto' is the last name of Marco Soto, who won a charity auction for the
  right to appear as a character in a Discworld novel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 31\,] }}
 ``\,`Soto said he saw him perform the Stance of the Coyote!'\,''

  Echoes of the `Crane' technique' made famous by the \emph{The Karate Kid}
  movies. Martial Arts in general, and Kung Fu in particular, have many
  techniques and styles named after animals, e.g.\  `Stance of Horse'.

  There's of course also Wile E. Coyote's `stance' --- suspended in mid-air
  for seconds before dropping into the ravine --- from the Roadrunner
  cartoons.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a crowbar dropped out and onto the street with a clang.''

  Later in the book (p.~138) Lobsang says building a clock that would tick
  with the universe would be impossible because ``it would be like opening a
  box with the crowbar that's inside'', but that's just what happens here
  because Jeremy has some help. A nice little precursor.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 60\,] }}
 ``The abbot had never mastered the art of circular ageing.''

  Circular \emph{breathing} is the technique of breathing in through the nose
  while simultaneously breathing out through the mouth. This allows
  musicians playing a wind instrument to hold a single note for minutes at
  a time, if necessary.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 70\,] }}
 ``\,`It is the Way of Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite, 3 Quirm Street,
  Ankh-Morpork, Rooms For Rent, Very Reasonable.'\,''

  We have met Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite in several previous books starting
  from \emph{Moving Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 72\,] }}
 ``\,`Word one is, you don't call me ``master'' and I don't name you
  after some damn insect.'\,''

  A reference to the `grasshopper' nickname from the \emph{Kung Fu} television
  series (see also the annotation for p.~165/107 of \emph{Good Omens}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 110\,] }}
 ``Oh, maybe fishermen would start to dredge up strange whiskery
  fish that they'd only ever seen before as fossils [{\ldots}]''

  Coelacanths are the oldest living fish known to date. In 1938, a
  Coelacanth was found off the east coast of South Africa. Up to then,
  these animals were considered to have been extinct since the end of the
  Cretaceous era.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 121\,] }}
 ``\,`You've disobeyed my \emph{baababa} orders before, though. In Omnia,
  I remember.'\,''

  Indeed he has. This story is told in greater detail in \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 124\,] }}
 ``\,`Qu's having fun, I see,' said Lu-Tze.''

  Qu is of course the Discworld version of Q, head of the technical branch
  of the British Secret Service in the James Bond movies, who was played by
  Desmond Llewellyn until his death in 1999.

  This entire scene is written in the style of the classic James Bond / Q
  dialogues. Terry says:

  ``As I wrote it I could [hear Llewellyn's voice], too. Qu will be back ---
  unlike, alas, Desmond Llewellyn.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 124\,] }}
 ``\,`Bang, instant karma!'\,''

  `Instant Karma!' is the title of a well-known John Lennon track.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 130\,] }}
 ``He found himself thinking of his new master as the tick-tock
  man.''

  `Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man' is the title of a classic
  science-fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. It describes a dystopian
  society, ruled and time-regulated down to the microsecond by the Master
  Timekeeper, aka the Ticktock Man. The Timekeeper is challenged by the
  free-spirited Harlequin (who is never on time --- a crime punishable by
  death in that society).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 136\,] }}
 ``[footnote: `\emph{We} belong dead? Ecthcuthe me? Where doeth it thay
  ``we''?']''

  From the \emph{Bride of Frankenstein} movie. See also the annotation for p.~305/255 of \emph{Moving Pictures}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 150\,] }}
 ``\,`Is it a book?' said one who was slightly intellectual. `How
  many words?'\,''

  Reference to the game `charades'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 159\,] }}
 ``Given that she'd met the Tooth Fairy, the Soul Cake Duck and
  Old Man Trouble, it amazed Susan that she had grown up to be mostly
  human, nearly normal.''

  Susan met the Tooth Fairy in \emph{Hogfather}. For the Soul Cake Duck see the
  annotation for p.~75/57 of \emph{Soul Music}, and for Old Man Trouble see the
  annotation for p.~86 of \emph{Feet of Clay}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 188\,] }}
 ``\,`Mr Black. Mr Green. Miss Brown. Miss White. Miss{\ldots} Yellow.
  And Mr Blue.'\,''

  Reminiscent of the criminal protagonists in Quentin Tarantino's 1992
  movie \emph{Reservoir Dogs} (Mr White, Mr Orange, Mr Blonde, Mr Pink, Mr Brown
  and Mr Blue). Note how `Mr Blonde' maps to `Miss{\ldots} Yellow'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 274\,] }}
 ``The idea was strangely attractive.''

  Strange attractors are a concept from mathematics, specifically the study
  of chaos theory and dynamical systems.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 275\,] }}
 ``The Fifth Horseman rode out, and a faint smell of cheese
  followed him''

  The Bible, Revelation 6:7: ``And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its
  rider's name was Death, and Hades followed with him''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 283\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Oh, my paws and whiskers''?'\,''

  The White Rabbit in \emph{Alice's Adventures in Wonderland} is always late
  (i.e.\  having trouble with time) and anxious: ``Oh my ears and whiskers,
  how late it's getting!''. See also the annotation for p.~46/35 of \emph{Soul
  Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 289\,] }}
 ``The Death of Rats had scurried up the side of the clock [{\ldots}]''

  As the nursery rhyme goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{Hickory Dickory Dock, \\The mouse ran up the clock \\The clock struck one, \\The mouse ran down, \\Hickory Dickory Dock \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Last Hero}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 The hardcover version of \emph{The Last Hero} shows Cohen in typical
  Conan pose, but the softcover version (``16 pages of all-new
  illustrations!'') has Rincewind doing his rendition of Edvard Munch's
  painting \emph{The Scream}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title page\,] }}
 The tapestry depicted on the title pages (and on pp. 152--3)
  not only tells the story of Cohen and the Silver Horde, but is also a
  pretty awesome parody (down to the positioning of the characters at the
  beginning) of the \emph{Bayeux Tapestry}, a 230 feet long embroidery telling
  the story of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 8\,] }}
 The circular illustration of Fingers Mazda, Io and the eagle is
  drawn in the style of Etruscan ceramics of pre-Roman Italy, in black and
  cream (actually terracotta). The style was revived in Europe in the
  eighteenth century as part of the Neo-Classical style of art, design and
  architecture.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 12\,] }}
 One of the birds Leonardo is feeding in the picture is a parrot
  with ``dog'' written on its body.

  Back in \emph{The Truth}, William de Worde offered a \$25 reward to anybody who
  could find the Patrician's dog. This lead to Sacharissa having to explain
  to an enterprising citizen of Ankh-Morpork: ``---- no, that's not it. No,
  sir, I \emph{know} that's not it. Because it's a parrot, that's why. You've
  taught it to bark and you've painted ``DoG'' on the side of it but it's
  still a parrot ---''

  Evidently the parrot escaped{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 14\,] }}
 ``Lord Vetinari gave him a severe look, but essayed a little wave.
  `Oh. How curious.'\,''

  To spell it out: instead of seeing his reflection waving back, Vetinari
  sees himself waving the `wrong' hand, making him realise he is watching
  an \emph{image}, not a reflection.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``Who wins with the most believers, lives.''

  From the sarcastic saying: ``he who dies with the most toys, wins''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``They sometimes forgot what happened if you let a pawn get all
  the way up the board.''

  On the surface, this appears to be a simple chess or checkers reference,
  but is also likely to be deeper foreshadowing of Them not knowing exactly
  what to do when humans (i.e.\  the Horde) make it all the way up the
  mountain and actually enter the city of Cori Celesti.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 Ponder Stibbons looks a bit like Harry Potter.

  Or so people keep saying, which is a bit unfortunate, because ever since
  the success of the Harry Potter books, Terry is hearing increasingly more
  often from people who ask if (or sometimes even demand he acknowledge
  that) he `got' Unseen University from Hogwarts, etcetera, etcetera.

  In this case, the first drawing of Ponder Stibbons (looking exactly as he
  does here) appeared in the 1996 \emph{Discworld Portfolio}, whereas the first
  Harry Potter novel was not published until 1997{\ldots}

  Terry says:

  ``Ponder Stibbons was indeed first drawn in 1996. I, of course, used a
  time machine to `get the idea' of Unseen University from Hogwarts; I
  don't know what Paul used in this case. Obviously he must have used
  \emph{something.}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 ``\,`That's what heroes want, isn't it? To crush the thrones of the
  world beneath their sandalled feet, as the poet puts it?'\,''

  Every issue of the classic \emph{Conan the Barbarian} comic series from Marvel
  Comics used to start out with the following quote:

  ``Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis
  and the gleaming cities, and in the years of the rise of the sons of
  Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread
  across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars --- Nemedia, Ophir,
  Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of
  spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on
  the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs,
  Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest
  kingdom was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came
  Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief,
  a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the
  jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.''

  I have not been able to determine with certainty who actually wrote this
  quote, but if it is attributed at all, it is usually to Robert E Howard,
  author of the original Conan books.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 31\,] }}
 ``\,`I recall an old story about a ship that was pulled by swans and
  flew all the way to ---''

  In 1638, Bishop Francis Godwin of Hereford wrote \emph{The Man In The Moone},
  in which a Spaniard travels to the moon in a chariot drawn by swans. It
  is one of the earliest published accounts of space travel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 36\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] poems longer'n seventeen syllables.''

  Seventeen syllables (5+7+5) is the length that English-language haiku
  poems are supposed to have.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 36\,] }}
 ``\,`And also, if you recall{\ldots} the \emph{Maria Pesto}?''

  This name echoes that of the mysteriously lost Roundworld ship \emph{Marie
  Celeste} (see also the annotation for p.~204/195 of \emph{Pyramids}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 36\,] }}
 ``\,`My God, it's full of elephants!'\,''

  This parallels Dave Bowman's famous line, ``My God, it's full of stars!''
  at the end of the movie \emph{2001: A Space Odyssey}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 37\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he could paint pictures that didn't just follow you around
  the room but went home with you [{\ldots}]''

  Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is said to have eyes that follow one around the
  room. See also the annotation for p.~137/104 of \emph{Men At Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 38\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}], Leonard had drawn a perfect circle.''

  The story goes that the Pope was requesting Leonardo da Vinci to submit
  some of his work for a competition for a new commission. Leonardo kept
  putting him off, saying he was too busy, as the requests grew more and
  more insistent. In the end, to avoid the Pope having him arrested, he
  drew, freehand, at arms length, a perfect circle on a sheet of paper and
  sent it to the Pope, who promptly gave him the commission. The reason for
  this is that to draw a perfect circle, freehand and unsupported is one of
  the hardest things possible to draw, achieved by few artists, usually
  only after much practice and was for a long time considered to be the
  pinnacle of artistic achievement.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 40\,] }}
 ``Vena the Raven-Haired''

  Both name and behaviour echo that of the main character in the \emph{Xena:
  Warrior Princess} television series, and Paul Kidby has drawn her armour
  to look \emph{very} similar to what Xena typically wears (although it's
  difficult to tell whether that's a deliberate likeness or just your
  generic fantasy female warrior outfit in both cases)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 69\,] }}
 ``Morituri Nolumus Mori''

  As explained later on, this is dog-Latin for ``We who are about to die
  don't want to''. The original quote is of course ``Morituri Te Salutant'' ---
  ``We who are about to die salute you'', said in Roman amphitheatres by the
  gladiators to the Emperor.

  Also, the mission badge bears a striking resemblance to the NASA badges
  worn by astronauts and to the NASA logo itself, down to the oval path
  around the central object.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 76\,] }}
 ``With your sword{\ldots} like Carelinus untied the Tsortean Knot?''

  In our world's mythology it was Alexander the Great who `untied' the
  Gordian Knot this way.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 82\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] like who leaves all the weapons and keys and medicine
  kits lying around in the unexplored dungeons.'\,''

  That you can find such valuable items in unexplored dungeons is known to
  everybody who has ever played a computer game of e.g.\  the `first-person
  shooter' type.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 83\,] }}
 Rincewind is shown as Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, drawn in 1490 in
  venice.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 84\,] }}
 Rincewind's dragon pack has resonances of both James Bond's NASA
  rocket pack from 1964, and the EMU (Extravehicular Mobility Unit) that
  shuttle astronauts use to manoeuvre outside.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 93\,] }}
 ``\,`I think there's a catch there,' said the wizard, knowing that
  he'd lost.''

  And the catch is, of course, nothing other than Catch--22, made famous by
  Joseph Heller's book of the same name.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 94\,] }}
 The sign: ``No handball playing allowed''.

  Before the launch, John Glenn pasted a small sign saying ``No handball
  playing here'' to the instrument panel of the `Freedom 7' Mercury flight
  that was to make Alan Shepard the first American in space.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 98\,] }}
 ``The \emph{Kite} rose from the splintering barge.''

  Terry says:

  ``As far as I know, Paul designed the Kite (Leonardo Da Vinci's `Great
  Bird') from first principles, bearing in mind we wanted to use a sea
  eagle design to allow it to `realistically' hold the huge `salmon'. Then
  we had a model made up from his original sketches, for him to use as a
  drawing aid. If you want something that can do the things the Kite does,
  you end up with a design pretty much like that!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 100\,] }}
 ``\,`Think of it as a sort of{\ldots} well, a magic carpet ride{\ldots}'\,''

  Steppenwolf's song `Magic Carpet Ride' is featured on the soundtrack of
  many genre films. Amongst others, it can be heard in \emph{Apollo 13}, \emph{Austin
  Powers 2}, \emph{Coneheads}, \emph{The Dish}, \emph{Jay and Silent Bob strike Back}, and
  \emph{Star Trek: First Contact}.

  Terry says:

  ``It tends to turn up a lot in SF movies, to the extent that I think
  directors do it deliberately. I just added to the list.''

  ``I'd swear that it was in \emph{My Stepmother Was An Alien}, too{\ldots}''

  ``Anyway, Magic Carpet Ride is definitely a movie tradition. I'm just
  wondering how many directors put it in because they'd seen it on the
  other movies{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 101\,] }}
 ``\,`I've got to get one of these,' he murmured.''

  Rincewind is saying the same thing Will Smith's character's says in the
  1996 movie \emph{Independence Day} upon admiring a new piece of technology,
  after having just blasted off into space.

  As an afper put it: ``The contrast between Will Smith (``I've got to get
  one of these so I can fly around blowing up aliens for God, motherhood \&
  apple pie'') and Rincewind (``I've got to get one of these so I can run
  away more efficiently'') says (to me at least) that this has just \emph{got} to
  be deliberate.''

  Terry later confirmed that it was, indeed, a deliberate reference.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 105\,] }}
 ``\,`Leonard took a deep breath. `Ankh-Morpork, we have an
  orangutan{\ldots}'\,''

  ``Houston, we have a problem'' was what was supposedly said by the crew of
  Apollo 13, after one of their oxygen tanks blew a leak.

  As far as I've been able to ascertain, what astronaut Jack Swigert
  literally said was first: ``Hey, we've got a problem here.'', followed
  (after Mission Control asked him to repeat) by: ``Houston, we've had a
  problem. We've had a Main B bus undervolt.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 144\,] }}
 Cohen and Io are drawn as Adam and Gof, from the roof of the
  Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo Buonarotti in 1509--1512.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 156\,] }}
 I can't find a source for this particular picture, but the
  illustration depicts the minstrel as Orpheus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 157\,] }}
 ``\,`Second star to the left and straight on `til morning?'\,''

  Those are the directions to Never-Never Land in \emph{Peter Pan}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 159\,] }}
 The spiraling machine that Leonard is using in this illustration
  is actually based on a drawing of a helicopter designed by Leonardo da
  Vinci.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
\emph{The Amazing Maurice} presents a new take on the old fairy tale of \emph{The
  Pied Piper of Hamelin}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 9\,] }}
 ``\emph{Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure}''

  Mr Bunnsy's adventures are a parody of the Beatrix Potter \emph{Peter Rabbit}
  children's stories, most of which concern fluffy animals being rather
  nice to each other.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 9\,] }}
 ``Rats! They chased the dogs and bit the cats, they ---''

  An allusion to Robert Browning's well known 1842 version of \emph{The Pied
  Piper of Hamelin}:

\begin{verse}\textit{Rats! \\They fought the dogs and killed the cats, \\And bit the babies in the cradles, \\And ate the cheeses out of the vats, \\And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles, \\Split open the kegs of salted sprats, \\Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, \\And even spoiled the women's chats \\By drowning their speaking \\With shrieking and squeaking \\In fifty different sharps and flats. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 58\,] }}
 ``The thick line, where she'd pressed heavily, had to mean `no'.''

  I have no idea if this is what Terry had in mind, but in formal logic one
  of the possible ways to indicate the negation of a proposition `p' (i.e.\ 
  turn it into the opposite statement ``\emph{not} `p'\,'') is indeed to write `p'
  with a horizontal bar on top of it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 69\,] }}
 ``Of all the kitchens in all the town he could turn up in, he's
  turned up in this one.''

  \emph{Casablanca} reference. See the annotation for p.~51/48 of \emph{Sourcery}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 77\,] }}
 ``\,`Haven't you heard of the Sisters Grim? Agoniza and Eviscera
  Grim? [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The Discworld versions of our Brothers Grimm. See also the annotation for
  p.~21 of \emph{Thief of Time}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 87\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] four children and a dog, which is the right number for an
  adventure, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  A reference to Enid Blyton's \emph{Famous Five} stories. See also the
  annotation for p.~127/80 of \emph{Good Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 90\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the doubting rat, who was called Tomato.''

  Note that `Tomato' is about as close as you can get to `Thomas' (i.e.\  the
  proverbial `Doubting Thomas') when you choose your name from food
  labels{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 106\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the Acme Poison Company [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The Acme company rears its head again. See the annotation for p.~14/10 of
  \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 182\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] of course everyone knows about Dick Livingstone and his
  wonderful cat, don't they?'\,''

  Dick Livingstone is an amalgam of Dick Whittington and Ken Livingstone.

  Dick Whittington is a character in British pantomime, loosely based on
  the real-life Richard Whittington. Dick is a boy from a poor family who
  sets out for London to make his fortune, accompanied by his cat. At one
  point he loses heart and turns to go back home, but then he hears the
  bells of London ringing out, saying: ``Turn again, Dick Whittington, three
  times Lord Mayor of London.'' The real Richard Whittington was mayor of
  London under Richard II in the late 14th century.

  One of Ken Livingstone's first acts as new mayor of London after being
  elected in 2000, was to get rid of the famous pigeons from Trafalgar
  Square. He did not get his cat to eat them (at least not as far as is
  known), but he just removed the street-traders who sold bags of bird-feed
  to tourists there --- if pigeons don't get limitless food, you stop
  getting huge flocks in one place.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 226\,] }}
 ``Sergeant Doppelpunkt [{\ldots}]''

  Translated back from German to English, `Doppelpunkt' means `Colon' (as
  in the punctuation, not the digestive tract). Corporal Knopf, who makes
  his appearance on the next page has a name that translates back to
  `Knob'. So, it appears we are dealing with the Uberwald equivalents of
  Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 227\,] }}
 ``\,`We fight dogs and we chase cats{\ldots}'\,''

  A singing cadence call-and-response song in the time-honoured military
  tradition. Also another reference to Browning's poem (see the annotation
  for p.~9).

\vspace{4ex}\section{Night Watch}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
\emph{Night Watch} has a number of influences from the book and musical \emph{Les
  Miserables}, but these are a lot less obvious than e.g.\  the usage of \emph{The
  Phantom of the Opera} in \emph{Maskerade} (sometimes they are mirror
  inversions of themes rather than straight references).

  Some of the parallels include the fact that in \emph{Les Miserables} the plot
  concerns Jean Valjean, who is being pursued by an officer of the law many
  years before the start of the book/musical, which mirrors what happens to
  Carcer in \emph{Night Watch}.

  In LM, Jean Valjean is essentially a good man whose crime is the theft of
  a loaf of bread. Carcer is a murdererous murderous psychopath (who later
  claims that his original crime was stealing a loaf of bread).

  Javert, the policeman in LM, is concerned only with justice, which he
  defines as the punishment of the guilty. Vimes, the policeman in NW, is
  equally obsessed by justice, but \emph{he} defines it as the protection of the
  innocent.

  In LM, Javert attempts to join the revolutionaries on the barricades as a
  means to betray and defeat them. Vimes organises the building of the
  barricades as a means of protecting the people.

  Valjean tries to save a prostitute, Fantine, and when she dies he
  promises to take care of her daughter. Vimes is saved by a prostitute,
  Rosie Palm (who will later become famous for having ``daughters'').

  In both LM and NW, a street urchin plays a role in the rebellion. LM's
  Gavroche dies, while Nobby survives.

  Both rebellions (certainly in the musical version of LM) are ``led'' by
  impassioned revolutionaries in frilly shirts who take a long time to die.

  Having said all that, it is of course eminently possible that Terry never
  intended any of these specific references --- his sources of inspiration
  can just as easily have been other revolutionary settings, from Charles
  Dickens' \emph{A Tale of Two Cities} to the actual Paris Commune of 1871, and
  everything in between.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Night Watch}

  The working title for this book was \emph{The Nature of the Beast}, but this
  was discarded when Frances Fyfield published a book with exactly that
  title in the UK in late 2001.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 Paul Kidby's cover parodies the famous Rembrandt painting
  commonly known as \emph{The Night Watch}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 16\,] }}
 ``Sammies, they were called, [{\ldots}]''

  Sir Robert Peel, British Prime Minister in the 1830s and 1840s, is best
  remembered for the organisation of a metropolitan police force in London,
  operating out of Scotland Yard. The colloquial term for police in
  Britain, `bobbies', is taken from Peel's name, as is `Peelers', an older
  nickname.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 22\,] }}
 ``\,`None of that ``comic gravedigger'' stuff.'\,''

  A nod to Shakespeare's gravediggers in \emph{Hamlet}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 26\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the only species I've heard of there in any numbers are
  the kvetch, sir.'\,''

  Kvetch is a Yiddish verb meaning to complain or gripe.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 40\,] }}
 ``They said afterwards that the bolt of lightning hit a
  clockmaker's shop in the Street of Cunning Artificers, stopping all the
  clocks at that instant.''

  Refers to the events in \emph{Thief of Time}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 82\,] }}
 ``The Abbot of the History Monks (the Men In Saffron, No Such
  Monastery{\ldots} they had many names) [{\ldots}]''

  ``Men In Saffron'' is a reference to the ``Men in Black'', possibly inspired
  by the movie of that name (which Terry has expressed a liking for), but
  more likely directly referring to the original, mythical federal hush-up
  agents the movie is named after. ``No Such Agency'' is how in our world the
  American NSA (National Security Agency) is jokingly referred to, because
  of their reputation for extreme secrecy and paranoia.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 85\,] }}
 ``\,`The man couldn't talk and chew gum at the same time.'\,''

  Supposedly Lyndon Johnson once said that President Ford couldn't fart and
  chew gum at the same time, after which the bowdlerised version of the
  phrase became common, but I am not sure if the saying originates with
  him, or if, in fact, he ever actually said it.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 131\,] }}
 ``\emph{Morphic Street, 9 o'clock tonight. Password: swordfish.}
  Swordfish? \emph{Every} password was swordfish!''

  A reference to the 1932 Marx Brothers' movie \emph{Horsefeathers}, in which
  `Swordfish' was the password for entering the speakeasy, and passed into
  history as the archetypical password.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 148\,] }}
 ``For a moment, the tiger burned brightly.''

  A passing reference to William Blake's poem `The Tyger' (see the
  annotation for p.~46 of \emph{The Last Continent}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 156\,] }}
 ``\,`Turned out he didn't know the ginger beer trick.'\,''

  There has been much confusion on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} concerning what
  exactly constitutes the `ginger beer trick', and which bodily orifices
  are involved. Terry says:

  ``To save debate running wild: I've heard this attributed to the Mexican
  police as a cheap way of getting a suspect to talk and which, happily,
  does not leave a mark. The carbonated beverage of choice was Coca-Cola.
  Hint: expanding bubbles, and the sensitivity of the sinuses.

  I seem to recall a brief shot of something very like this in the movie
  \emph{Traffic}.''

  Both Amnesty Internation and Human Rights Watch confirm that this kind of
  torture is regularly reported as being used by the Mexican police.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 165\,] }}
 ``The Dolly Sisters Massacre''

  Reminiscent of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which a cavalry charge
  into a crowd killed eleven people and injured over 400 others, including
  many women and children. Local magistrates had been afraid the meeting
  organised by people asking for repeal of the Corn Laws (which had led to
  high bread prices) would turn into a riot, and prematurely sent in the
  cavalry --- led by a nincompoop --- with drawn sabres to break up the
  meeting.

  Terry says:

  ``It was Peterloo that I had in mind, as discussed here some time ago. But
  as a general rule, when things look bad there's always some dickhead who
  can make them worse.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 209\,] }}
 ``Leggy Gaskin''

  This is actually Herbert Gaskin, whose funeral occurs just before the
  start of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}: ``It had been a hard day for the Watch. There
  had been the funeral of Herbert Gaskin, for one thing.''

  It is also mentioned he died because he ran too fast and actually caught
  up with the criminal he was chasing --- hence, presumably, the nickname
  `Leggy'. His widow also gets a mention in \emph{Men at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 224\,] }}
 ``Dark sarcasm ought to be taught in schools, he thought.''

  From the lyrics to Pink Floyd's classic hit `Another Brick in the Wall':

\begin{verse}\textit{We don't need no education \\We don't need no thought control \\No dark sarcasm in the classroom \\Teachers, leave them kids alone \\Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 229\,] }}
 ``\,`I regret that I have only one life to lay down for Whalebone
  Lane!'\,''

  From a famous quote attributed to American revolutionary Nathan Hale
  before he was executed as a spy by the British army in 1776: ``I only
  regret that I have but one life to lose for my country''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 230\,] }}
 ``Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men? A copper,
  that's who.''

  Another reference to the question made famous by the \emph{The Shadow} radio
  series. See also the annotation for p.~289 of \emph{The Truth}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 243\,] }}
 ``\,`That's right!' he said. `The people are the sea in which the
  revolutionary swims!'\,''

  This is in fact one of the sayings of Chairman Mao.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 359\,] }}
 ``\,`Carcer, we'll take you to the Tanty, one gallows, no waiting,
  and you can dance the hemp fandango.'\,''

  Vimes' speech here resonates with the kind of speech Judge Roy Bean used
  to make. Bean was a barkeeper turned hanging judge and self-proclaimed
  ``Law West of the Pecos'', who set up court in Texas, and was known for his
  colourful (`dubious' and `arbitrary' would also be good words here{\ldots})
  judgements. He famously fined a corpse \$40 for carrying a concealed
  weapon, for instance.

  When asked if Vimes' speech was inspired by Roy Bean, Terry said:

  ``I've seen several variations on the quote, but I was certainly after the
  same general cadence, yes.

  To the best of my recollection the quote does not appear in The Life and
  Times of JRB movie (1972) but may have turned up somewhere else.

  [later] Ah{\ldots}the only version of the quote I can find in my books here is
  different in details and rather more poetic. It's also on the Web:

  `You have been tried by twelve good men and true, not of your peers but
  as high above you as heaven is of hell, and they have said you are
  guilty. Time will pass and seasons will come and go. Spring with its
  wavin' green grass and heaps of sweet-smellin' flowers on every hill and
  in every dale. Then sultry Summer, with her shimmerin' heat-waves on the
  baked horizon. And Fall, with her yeller harvest moon and the hills
  growin' brown and golden under a sinkin' sun. And finally Winter, with
  its bitin', whinin' wind, and all the land will be mantled with snow. But
  you won't be here to see any of `em; not by a damn sight, because it's
  the order of this court that you be took to the nearest tree and hanged
  by the neck til you're dead, dead, dead, you olive-colored son of a billy
  goat.' ''

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Wee Free Men}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 The working title of this book was \emph{For Fear of Little Men}. See
  also the annotation for p.~287/207 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
The Nac Mac Feegle appear to be very Scottish in nature. Terry says:

  ``Um. The Nac Mac Feegle are not Scottish. There is no Scotland on
  Discworld. They may, in subtle ways, suggest some aspects of the Scottish
  character as filtered through the media, but that's because of quantum.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 15\,] }}
 ``They call it the Chalk.''

  The Chalk has many similarities to the English Wiltshire region, where
  Terry himself comes from. He says:

  ``[It's] based wherever there was something I wanted. But probably mostly
  on the southern Chalk, it's true. It's what I know.

  The term `the Chalk', by the way, is not from Kipling as suggested
  elsewhere. It used to be, and may still be, a general term for, well, the
  chalk country. I actually do have a copy of an old book called \emph{Wild
  Flowers of the Chalk}{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 24\,] }}
 ``\,`I can't \emph{do},' said Miss Tick, straightening up. `But I \emph{can}
  teach!'\,''

  As the old insult says: ``Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach''. The
  UK government at one time used ``Those who can, teach.'' as an advertising
  slogan to try and get people to train as teachers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 29\,] }}
 ``Jenny Green-Teeth.''

  Lancashire folk stories tell of a kind of spirit or boggart who lived
  underwater named ``Jenny Green-Teeth''. Her presence was indicated by the
  growth of duckweed, which thrives in still fresh water.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 32\,] }}
 ``\,`You're very yellow for a toad.' `I've been a bit ill,' said the
  toad.''

  So, clearly, what we have here is a yellow sick toad. See also the
  annotation for p.~159/132 of \emph{Moving Pictures}.

  Terry says: ``I just happened to note a toad had a skin which had had
  unfortunately gone a bit yellow because it had been ill, Far be it from
  me to make a pun. \emph{You} did that:--)\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 41\,] }}
 ``\emph{Yan Tan Tethera}''

  This is indeed the ancient counting language of shepherds in Northern
  England. It was also used by the Nac Mac Feegle themselves in \emph{Carpe
  Jugulum}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 42\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] especially ones strong enough to withstand falling
  farmhouses.''

  A \emph{Wizard of Oz} reference. See also the annotation for p.~139/122 of
  \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 51\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] she climbed to the top of Arken Hill [{\ldots}]''

  The legends concerning Arken Hill are similar to those of Dragon Hill,
  Oxfordshire (where some people claim St George fought the dragon) and
  Silbury Hill, Wiltshire (alleged burial of a knight in gold armour, or
  possibly the forgotten King Sil, whoever he might be). Both hills are
  flat topped, like Arken Hill, and believed to be artificial.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 67\,] }}
 ``\,`It's a' gang agley.'\,''

  ``It's all gone wahoonie-shaped''. One of the best known bits of Scots, due
  to it being what the best laid plans o' mice and men do in the poem ``To a
  mouse'' by Robert Burns.

\begin{verse}\textit{But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane, \\In proving foresight may be vain: \\The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, \\Gang aft agley, \\An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, \\For promis'd joy! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 74\,] }}
 ``The headless man would catch her on the flat.''

  From \emph{The Legend of Sleepy Hollow} by Washington Irving --- and many other
  similar folk tales.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 75\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] yer bogle [{\ldots}]'\,''

  `bogle' is Scots for ghost or apparition.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 75\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] courtesy of Big Yan!'\,''

  Glaswegian comedian Billy Connolly (who, at least to my Dutch ears,
  speaks very much as I imagine a Nac Mac Feegle would) is known as ``The
  Big Yin''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 83\,] }}
 ``\,`Ach, see you, pussycat, scunner that y'are!' he yelled. `Here's
  a giftie from the t' wee burdies, yah schemie!'\,''

  `Scunner' is a Scots word for something or someone to which/whom you've
  taken a strong dislike. A `schemie' is a pejorative Scots term for
  someone who lives in a Housing Scheme, i.e.\  a nasty concrete housing
  estate built as replacement for slums, but rapidly becoming slums
  themselves.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 92\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] it means our kelda is weakenin' fast, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  `Kelda' is a Scots word derived from the Old Norse `kelda', meaning
  origin or source (in the spring/well sense).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 93\,] }}
 ``\,`See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.'\,''

  In the \emph{The Lord of The Rings} books, various weapons glow blue in the
  presence of Orcs and other evil creatures.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 107\,] }}
 ``There were odd carvings in the chalk, too [{\ldots}]''

  Chalk figures like the Rude Man of Cerne or the horses (such as the
  Uffington White Horse) that you find all over the chalk areas of Britain.
  See also the annotation for p.~302/217 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 113\,] }}
 ``\,`Onna black horse.'\,''

  The Elf Queen rides a black steed in the ballad of `Tam Lin'. See also
  the annotation for p.~141/103 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 116\,] }}
 ``Grimhounds!''

  There are various Hellhound/Devil Dog legends in Britain. Specifically,
  the ``grim'' part of the name and the reference to them haunting graveyards
  suggests the Kirk Grim, which hangs around churchyards to protect the
  dead buried there from evil spirits or the devil.

  There are many Devil Dog legends in Sussex, most of them on, yes, the
  Downs. Most of these creatures are described much as the grimhounds, and
  to see them is a portent of death: presumably if they're visible to you,
  then you need their protection (and so are or will soon be dead).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 123\,] }}
 ``\,`You live in one of the mounds?' Tiffany asked. `I thought they
  were, you know, the graves of ancient chieftains?'\,''

  In folklore, Bronze Age Burial Mounds are supposed to be the homes of
  fairy folk. On the Disc, of course, they're both.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 135\,] }}
 ``When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears
  explode.''

  A reference to William Topaz McGonagall, Scotland's Worst Poet (he was to
  rhyme and meter what B.S. Johnson was to bricks and mortar, as my
  correspondent puts it), and also a \emph{slight} exaggeration of the abilities
  accredited to bards in Celtic tradition. Note that the gonnagle turns out
  to be called William.

  William McGonagall's most famous poem is probably \emph{The Tay Bridge
  Disaster} which recounts the events of the evening of 28 December 1879,
  when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge near Dundee collapsed as
  a train was passing over it. The first verse reads:

\begin{verse}\textit{Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay! \\Alas! I am very sorry to say \\That ninety lives have been taken away \\On the last Sabbath day of 1879, \\Which will be remember'd for a very long time. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 138\,] }}
 Tir-far-Thi\'{o}nn

  In actual Gaelic, I am told that this means ``Land over word that does not
  exist''. ``Land Under Wave'' would be ``T\'{\i}r-fa-Tonn'', and there is in fact
  such a place in Irish mythology, a sort of Gaelic Atlantis.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 149\,] }}
 ``He's got a bo-ut for chasin' the great white whale fish on the
  salt sea. He's always chasing it, all round the world. It's called
  Mopey.''

  Puns on the classic ``Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' (this is in fact its
  original title) by Herman Melville.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 152\,] }}
 ``He spoke differently too, [{\ldots}]''

  While the other Nac Mac Feegle sound like people doing Rab C Nesbitt
  impressions (Nesbitt is a well-known Scots character (of the dirty,
  foul-mouthed, sexist drunkard kind) from a BBC comedy series), William
  has the sort of exaggerated Ayrshire burr you might hear folk put on when
  reciting Robert Burns (the famous Scots poet, who wrote `Auld Lang
  Syne').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 153\,] }}
 ``\,`We'll dance the FiveHundredAndTwelvesome Reel to the tune o'
  ``The Devil Among The Lawyers''\,'\,''

  There are Foursome, Eightsome and Twelvesome Reels, which involve
  exchanges of partners between two, four or six couples. 512 is eight
  cubed, so presumably it's more complicated, but basically the same. ``The
  Devil Among The Lawyers'' is possibly a reference to Burns' ``The Deil's
  Awa' Wi' The Exciseman'', or to `The Devil Among The Tailors', a
  well-known folk-dance tune (which is in fact, I'm told, the original tune
  for an Eightsome Reel).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 159\,] }}
 ``Trilithons, they were called, [{\ldots}]''

  `Trilithon' is the technical term for any group of three stones arranged
  so that one sits flat atop the other two.

  The mention of stones arranged in circles suggests Stonehenge and the
  Avebury circle (which isn't far from Silbury Hill; see the annotation for
  p.~51). Although they seem to have been erected for much the same reason
  as the Dancers in Lancre, there is no mention of them being magnetic,
  certainly the frying pan gets through without trouble.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 168\,] }}
 Nac Mac Feegle battlecries

  ``They can tak' oour lives, but they cannae tak' oour troousers!'' This is
  ``They can take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom'', from the
  movie \emph{Braveheart}.

  ``Bang went saxpence!'' is of those punchlines everyone's forgotten the
  joke to, reflecting the alleged meanness of the Scots. It comes from a
  Punch cartoon in which a Scotsman complains about the expense of London.
  ``Mun, a had na' been the-erre abune Twa Hoours when- Bang went
  Saxpence!!!''

  ``Ye'll tak' the high road an' I'll tak' yer wallet!'' is based on the
  refrain of `The Bonny, Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond': ``Ye tak' the high
  road, and I'll tak' the low road''.

  ``There can only be one t'ousand!'' is still based on the ``There can be
  only one'' quote from Highlander, as already seen in \emph{Carpe Jugulum}.

  ``Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!''
  echoes the sentiments of The Who's song `Won't get fooled again'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 173\,] }}
 ``\,`Cloggets are a trembling of the greebs in hoggets,' [{\ldots}]''

  I have no idea what cloggets and greebs (`grebes' are a particular type
  of 9 inch long duck --- I doubt whether Terry had them in mind) are, but a
  hogget is the term used to describe an adult female sheep before she has
  had any offspring.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 180\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``The King Underrrr Waterrrr''\,'\,''

  Possibly a reference to the Jacobite toast ``The King Over the Water''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 192\,] }}
 ``\,`If ye eats anythin' in the dream, ye'll never wanta' leave
  it.'\,''

  Various legends (including Childe Rowland and Burd Helen, see below)
  mention that eating fairy food is a sure way to get trapped in
  Elfhame/Fairyland.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 199\,] }}
 ``\,`..oooooiiiiiit \emph{is} with grreat lamentation and much worrying
  dismay, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  \emph{Exactly} the sort of thing McGonagall wrote. Although the ``oooooo'' bit
  seems to have crept in from Spike Milligan's \emph{William McGonagall: The
  Truth At Last}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 204\,] }}
 ``Tiffany looked up at a white horse. [{\ldots}] And there was a boy
  on it.''

  In the ballad of `Tam Lin', Fair Janet is told she can recognise Tam when
  she goes to rescue him, as he is the only rider on a white horse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 204\,] }}
 ``\,`This is \emph{my} forest!,' said the boy. `I command you to do what
  I say!'\,''

  More `Tam Lin': see the annotation for p.~141/103 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 204\,] }}
 ``\,`Your name is Roland, isn't it?' she said.''

  Roland's name suggests the ballad `Childe Rowland and Burd Ellen', about
  a young boy who has to rescue his sister (and the brothers who had
  previously failed) from the King of Elfland. Of course, the DW version is
  worse than useless.

  Terry had no connection in mind, however:

  ``I chose Roland because it's a) old b) a solid kind of name, suggesting
  the kind of boy he is and c) probably, because I used to live next door
  to a Roland when I was a kid.''

  ``['Childe Rowland and Burd Ellen'] doesn't mean anything to me, I'm
  afraid, but it's eerie, innit? I think I might start pretending I had
  that in mind all along:--)\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 206\,] }}
 The ballroom scene reminded many people of a similar scene in
  the movie `Labyrinth'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 210\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] pretend ye're enjoying the cailey.'\,''

  Usually spelt ``ceilidh'' , this is the Scots Gaelic word for a party.
  These days used almost exclusively to signify Scottish Folk Music
  Festivals.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 212\,] }}
 ``She cut Roland's head off.''

  Rowland had to cut off everybody's head but Ellen's in order to break the
  spell on her.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 215\,] }}
 ``\,`Crivens!' (She was sure it was a swear word.)''

  Like Truckle the Uncivil, it's possible that, in the mouth of a Mac
  Feegle, \emph{anything}'s a swear word, but in fact ``crivvens!'' translates
  into Sassanach roughly as ``good grief!''. It's now a bit of a joke, used
  only by Sunday Post cartoon characters ``Oor Wullie'' and ``The Broons'', and
  ``I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue''\,'s Hamish and Dougal.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 225\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, there was this fine lady on a horse with bells all over
  its harness and she galloped past me when I was out hunting and she was
  laughing, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Tam Lin was captured while hunting, although the circumstances were
  different. When Thomas the Rhymer (see the annotation for p.~174/126 of
  \emph{Lords and Ladies}] met the Queen ``At ilka tett of her horse's mane/Hung
  fifty siller bells and nine''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 285\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] ye bloustie ol' callyack that ye are!'\,''

  ``Callyack'' is probably meant to represent the Gaelic `cailleach', old
  woman, which is actually pronounced `kyle-yak' (with a good hard cough on
  the k).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 287\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] once I was a lawyer.'\,''

  As has been strongly foreshadowed throughout the book. In addition, once
  you \emph{know}, a glance at the cover shows the swords of the Feegle
  immediately surrounding him are glowing blue{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 287\,] }}
 ``\,`Potest-ne mater tua suere, amice.'\,''

  ``Vis-ne faciem capite repleta'' (``Would you like a face that is full of
  head?'') is translated on p.~289. Similarly, this means ``Does your mother
  have the ability to sew, friend?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 289\,] }}
 Nac Mac Feegle legal battlecries.

  ``Twelve hundred angry men!'' comes from the film title \emph{Twelve Angry Men}.

  ``We ha' the law on oour side!'' \emph{This} phrase, OTOH, has been used so
  often that if there was ever an original source (which there probably
  wasn't), it's long gone. Chalk it up as a clich\'{e}.

  ``The law's made to tak' care o' raskills!'' is an almost verbatim quote
  from \emph{The Mill on the Floss} by George Elliot, who spelt ``rascals'' like
  that all the time. Note that in \emph{that} book ``take care of'' means ``deal
  with''. The Feegles seem to be using it to mean ``protect''{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 292\,] }}
 ``The Queen{\ldots} changed shape madly in Tiffany's arms.''

  Another commonplace of folk tales, where the hero(ine) has to keep a
  tight grip on the villain(ess) whatever (s)he becomes. In particular,
  there's Tam Lin again, and the battle between the Queen of Elfland and
  Fair Janet although in that case it was Tam himself Janet had to keep
  hold of.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 298\,] }}
 ``The broomsticks descended.''

  There was some confusion on afp as to the place where \emph{The Wee Free Men}
  fits in the Discworld chronology. With Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg
  flying to the Chalk, is the third witch left holding the fort in Lancre
  Magrat or Agnes?

  Terry says:

  ``As for the chronology, it's `now' --- or at least, after \emph{Carpe Jugulum}.
  Since \emph{Carpe Jugulum} \emph{a} clan of NMF have been living in Lancre, too.''

  ``\emph{The Wee Free Men} was doodled around the time of \emph{Carpe Jugulum}, but
  with a young male hero and set in Lancre. It evolved for all kinds of
  good and vindicated reasons, but among them was the realisation that it'd
  be too damn hard to keep the witches from taking a major role.

  That's one of the constrictions to writing a long-term series like this.
  If something big, bad and public happens in Ankh-Morpork now, it will
  have a terrible tendency to become a Watch book. It's not inevitable,
  given the palette I've got to play with, but it \emph{is} a consideration.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 317\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] that big heap o' jobbies that just left [{\ldots}]'\,''

  `Jobbies' is a modern Scots word for solid excrement.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 318\,] }}
 ``For ever and ever, wold without end.''

  From the Christian prayer `Gloria Patri': ``As it was in the beginning, is
  now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.''

  Note that the `wold' in the text is not a misprint --- a wold is an area
  of high, open, uncultivated land or moor.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Monstrous Regiment}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Monstrous Regiment}

  The title of this book is a reference to the pamphlet \emph{The First Blast of
  the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women}, written by John
  Knox in 1558, complaining about the sudden appearance of female monarchs
  such as Elizabeth of England and Mary of Scotland pre-empting the natural
  position and authority of men.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 9\,] }}
 ``In Borogravia, [{\ldots}]''

  The name `Borogravia' invokes the made-up word `borogove' (often
  misprinted as `borogrove') from the poem `Jabberwocky' in Lewis Carroll's
  \emph{Through the Looking Glass}:

\begin{verse}\textit{Twas brillig, and the slithy toves \\Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; \\All mimsy were the borogoves, \\And the mome raths outgrabe. \\
}\end{verse}

  Carroll described borogoves as an extinct variety of wingless parrot with
  an upturned beak, which nested on sundials and lived on veal. Terry's
  dislike of the Alice books has been previously noted (see the \emph{Words From
  The Master} section).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 13\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] if you had a billygoat.''

  A reference to the ``The Three Billygoats Gruff'' fairy tale. See also the
  annotation for p.~193/140 of \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 14\,] }}
 ``The songs had been part of her childhood.''

  Many, if not all, of the songs listed here are actual folk songs. You can
  find the full lyrics using on-line resources such as the Digital
  Tradition Archive (\url{http://www.mudcat.org/}), but I'll reproduce a couple
  of verses here to give an indication of the flavour.

  Tradition says `The World Turned Upside Down' was played at Cornwallis'
  surrender to Washington during the American Revolution:

\begin{verse}\textit{If buttercups buzz'd after the bee, \\If boats were on land, churches on sea, \\If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows, \\And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse, \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{If the mamas sold their babies \\To the gypsies for half a crown; \\If summer were spring and the other way round, \\Then all the world would be upside down. \\
}\end{verse}

  `The Devil Shall Be My Sergeant' (known as `Rogue's March'):

\begin{verse}\textit{I left my home and I left my job \\Went and joined the army \\If I knew then what I know now \\I wouldn't have been so barmy. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Poor old soldier, poor old soldier \\If I knew then what I know now \\I wouldn't have been so barmy. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{[{\ldots}] \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Fifty I got for selling me coat \\Fifty for me blankets \\If ever I `list for a soldier again \\The devil shall be me sergeant. \\
}\end{verse}

  `Johnny Has Gone For a Soldier' (also known as `Shule Agra', which is
  badly anglicised Irish for ``Walk, My Love''):

\begin{verse}\textit{With fife and drum he marched away \\He would not heed what I did say \\He'll not come back for many a day \\Johnny has gone for a soldier \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Shule shule shule shule agra \\Sure a sure and he loves me \\When he comes back he'll marry me \\Johnny has gone for a soldier \\
}\end{verse}

  `The Girl I Left Behind Me' (many versions exist):

\begin{verse}\textit{I'm lonesome since I cross'd the hills, \\And o'er the moor that's sedgy; \\With heavy thoughts my mind is fill'd, \\Since I parted with my Naggy \\When e'er I return to view the place, \\The tears doth fall and blind me, \\When I think on the charming grace \\Of the girl I left behind me. \\
}\end{verse}

  And finally, `Sweet Polly Oliver' tells the story of a woman who dresses
  as a male soldier in order to follow her true love into the army:

\begin{verse}\textit{As sweet Polly Oliver lay musing in bed, \\A sudden strange fancy came into her head. \\`Nor father nor mother shall make me false prove, \\I'll `list as a soldier, and follow my love.' \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{So early next morning she softly arose, \\And dressed herself up in her dead brother's clothes. \\She cut her hair close, and she stained her face brown, \\And went for a soldier to fair London Town. \\
}\end{verse}

  I've not been able to find real-world equivalents yet for `Colonel
  Crapski' and `I Wish I'd Never Kissed Her' --- any pointers will be most
  welcome.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 15\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the spanking red uniform [{\ldots}]''

  The entire Borogravian army wears a standard red uniform. Both the
  uniform and its standardisation point to the Borogravian army being
  modelled on the English (later British) army, whose soldiers were clad in
  red for nearly 250 years from 1645 onward. Among many other armies, even
  those of major military powers, uniforms didn't truly become `uniform'
  until as late as the First World War.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 16\,] }}
 ``\,`Give him the shilling, corporal.'\,''

  In the English army, taking the King's or Queen's Shilling was a ritual
  of induction; upon taking a shilling coin as enlistment bounty, the
  inductee was legally considered a soldier.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 17\,] }}
 ``\emph{Awake!}''

  The Borogravian national anthem does not seem to parody any specific
  national anthem. However, the line ``Awake, ye sons of the Motherland''
  echoes France's ``Allons, enfants de la Patrie'' (``come, children of the
  Fatherland''); while ``Frustrate the endless wiles of our enemies'' echoes
  the second verse of Britain's ``God Save the Queen'':

\begin{verse}\textit{O Lord our God, arise, \\Scatter our enemies, \\And make them fall; \\Confound their politics, \\Frustrate their knavish tricks; \\On thee our hopes we fix: \\God save us all. \\
}\end{verse}

  For what it's worth, very few national anthems start with `awake',
  although many begin with `arise'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 21\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the \emph{Book of Nuggan}.'\,''

  We have seen Nuggan before, in \emph{The Last Hero}. He is therein depicted as
  short and irritable; perhaps his stature indicates his demise is already
  underway.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 25\,] }}
 ``They're cutting the continent in half''

  The \emph{Discworld Mapp} shows that the location of Borogravia indeed falls
  neatly across Clacks lines between Ankh-Morpork and Genua.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``you can call me Maladict''

  The name is both a play on the name `Benedict' and on the word
  `maledict', which Webster's defines as accursedness or the act of
  bringing a curse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 30\,] }}
 ``\,`I, of course, don't drink{\ldots} horse piss, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Terry loves to play with this famous Dracula ``I don't drink{\ldots} wine''
  line. See also the annotation for p.~54 of \emph{Carpe Jugulum}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 32\,] }}
 ``\,`Don't ask, don't tell.'\,''

  During the early 1990s, the United States military reexamined its
  long-standing prohibition on homosexuals serving in the armed forces.
  Social conservatives strongly opposed the change in policy; the
  compromise eventually reached, which persists to this writing (2004), was
  labelled ``don't ask, don't tell''; the administration of the military was
  not allowed to ask a recruit or soldier his or her sexual orientation,
  but revealing it to be homosexual (or bisexual) was still grounds for
  discharge. The compromise was widely ridiculed by all sides.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 34\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] orders an Electrick Floorbanger, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Carborundum's drink contains silver and copper metal in some kind of
  acidic electrolyte. In such conditions, an electric current can be
  established between the silver and copper, acting as a primitive battery.

  The name `Electric Floorbanger' also resonates with the Harvey
  Wallbanger, a classic 1970s cocktail made of vodka, Galliano and orange.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 37\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] according to Father Jupe [{\ldots}]''

  A running gag is that famous officers lend their names to articles of
  clothing. `Jupe' is French for `skirt'; possibly Father Jupe is a former
  military hero?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, it won't be in front of me for long.'\,''

  A quotation often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, although it may have
  originated with composer Max Reger: ``I am in the smallest room of the
  house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``\,`Hands off --- well, you lot wouldn't be able to find `em{\ldots}'\,''

  ``Hands off cocks, on with socks!'' is the traditional military wake-up
  shout (see also the annotation for p.~317/241 of \emph{Men At Arms}). Does it
  need pointing out that in this particular case, unbeknownst to Strappi,
  there are very \emph{good} reasons why these soldiers wouldn't be able to
  ``find `em''{\ldots}?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 50\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Strappi had written W{\smaller{HAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR}} and down the
  side he had written 1{\smaller{, 2, 3.}}''

  From the Vietnam-era protest song `I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag', by
  Country Joe \& The Fish (famously performed at Woodstock):

\begin{verse}\textit{And it's one, two, three, \\What are we fighting for? \\Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, \\Next stop is Vietnam; \\And it's five, six, seven, \\Open up the pearly gates, \\Well there ain't no time to wonder why, \\Whoopee! we're all gonna die. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 68\,] }}
 ``most of you will almost certainly be pikemen''

  Pikes are used defensively against cavalry charges, or offensively
  against infantry in the following fashion: a rank of pikemen advances on
  a rank of enemy infantry, pikes extended forward, and attempts to jab the
  enemy with their pikes; then draws swords and engages as standard
  infantry while the rank behind them advances with their pikes. The
  Borogravian pike may be the ``tool formerly used for lifting beets''
  referred to in the National Anthem.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 76\,] }}
 ``\emph{The Craft of War}''

  Sun Tzu's \emph{The Art Of War} is the standard text of military philosophy.
  See also the annotation for p.~63 of \emph{Interesting Times}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 85\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a banknote [{\ldots}]''

  Borogravia uses paper currency, while A-M still uses precious-metal
  coins. In a world where coin is the standard of exchange, a country
  operating on paper currency not backed by precious metal (``fiat money'',
  in economic parlance) might see its economy become isolated from the rest
  of the world. The very fact that paper money is being issued indicates
  that Borogravia may have been strapped for hard cash for some time.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 86\,] }}
 ``One shilling extra `per Diem'\,''

  Using this information and UK army pay scales, one can estimate that a
  second lieutenant in the Borogravian army receives approximately 1807
  shillings per year as payment, compared to 2012 shillings per year for a
  first lieutenant; and that there are approximately {\smaller \texttt{11.16}} Borogravian
  shillings to one UK pound.

  As my original afp source for this annotation puts it: ``Working this out
  may be the single geekiest thing I have ever done.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 90\,] }}
 ``They wore dark-blue uniforms, [{\ldots}]''

  The Zlobenian cavalry uniforms hearken to those of Prussia and of the
  United States during the late 19th century.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 92\,] }}
 ``\emph{We have met the enemy and he is nice?}''

  The original quote is: ``We have met the enemy and they are ours --- two
  ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop'', written by Oliver Hazard
  Perry in a Letter to General Harrison. after defeating the British at the
  battle of Lake Erie in a decisive victory.

  These days, however, the better known version is probably Walt Kelly's
  ``We have met the enemy, and they are us'', used in his classic comic strip
  \emph{Pogo}, during the Vietnam years.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 96\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] you bloody beeteater, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Borogravians and Zlobenians derisively refer to each other as `beeteater'
  and `swede-eater'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 101\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] temporary feelings of shock and awe, sir.'\,''

  ``Shock and Awe'' is the name of a military doctrine first coined by the
  USA in its 2003 invasion of Iraq, and immediately became a household
  phrase all over the world.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 103\,] }}
 ``\,`Oh damn', said Maladict''

  Maladict curses; a rather clever Tom Swiftie. (See the annotation for p.~26/26 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 108\,] }}
 ``Road to perdition''

  Albert Einstein: ``The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip
  service to an ideal.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 112\,] }}
 ``\,`So you're not actually waylaying field reports from the
  \emph{Times}, then, sir?' [{\ldots}]''

  During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, both sides relied on television news
  for information; private journalists were often better-informed than
  military intelligence.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 136\,] }}
 ``\emph{I'm lonesome since I crossed the hill}''

  From ``The Girl I Left Behind Me''; see the annotation for p.~14.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 143\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] nothing I do in pursuit of my quest will be held
  Abominable.'\,''

  Soldiers who went on the Crusades were told that in undertaking the
  Crusade they would be absolved of all sins.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 144\,] }}
 ``\,`I am to take command of the Army,' said Wazzer.''

  Jeanne d'Arc, aka Joan of Arc or St. Joan, led the French army against
  the English while dressed as a man, and believed she heard the voice of
  God.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 151\,] }}
 ``Jolly Sailor''

  The same tobacco seen in \emph{The Wee Free Men}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 165\,] }}
 ``Lord Rust's regiment''

  Lord Rust's style of command is described thoroughly in \emph{Jingo} and
  \emph{Night Watch}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 166\,] }}
 ``One, Two, Three! What We Are Fighting For!''

  Another reference to the `I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag' by Country
  Joe and the Fish (see the annotation for p.~50). Maladict, in her coffee
  withdrawal hallucinations, is apparently starting to channel \emph{Apocalypse
  Now} type Vietnam scenes.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 177\,] }}
 ``\,`Our cartoonist Fizz drew this for the special edition.'\,''

  The cartoonist Hablot Knight Browne used the pseudonym `Phiz', and drew
  copperplate illustrations for many Victorian works, especially those of
  Charles Dickens.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 177\,] }}
 ``there was a beet stuck on the end of it''

  See the annotation for p.~68.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 178\,] }}
 ``Morporkia''

  Compare Victorian-era illustrations of Britannia and Columbia, depictions
  of state-gods for the United Kingdom and United States, respectively.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 176\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{Civis Morporkias sum}, sir.'\,''

  It is said that, at the time of the Roman Empire, a person could walk
  anywhere in the Empire protected only by the words ``Civis Romanus sum'' or
  ``I am a Roman citizen'', knowing that the Empire would bring down a
  terrible wrath on anyone who dared harm just one of its people.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 180\,] }}
 ``\,`Have you considered a squeezing algorithm?'\,''

  Blouse is describing an existing data compression technique known as
  Run-length Encoding (RLE). RLE is a simple algorithm that is well-suited
  to compressing graphic images containing limited amounts of (colour)
  information (such as the military maps containing mostly white space
  Blouse mentions).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 191\,] }}
 ``\,`Charlie's tracking us!'\,''

  Another Vietnam reference from Maladict's parallel universe: during the
  Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were referred to by the abbreviation ``VC'', or
  in radio phonetic alphabet ``Victor Charlie''. This was shortened to
  `Charlie' and the name became a common slang term for the enemy during
  the war.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 192\,] }}
 ``She'd roasted some acorns.''

  During the American Civil War, the Confederacy was blockaded by the Union
  and coffee became almost unobtainable. Soldiers and citizens of the
  Confederacy experimented with, among other things, roasted acorns and
  roasted chicory as substitutes for the beverage.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 222\,] }}
 ``Except my Auntie Parthenope, as I recall.''

  From `parthenos', Greek for `virgin'; Auntie Parthenope is a genuine
  maiden aunt.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 222\,] }}
 ``\emph{'Tis Pity She's A Tree}''

  From John Ford's 1633 \emph{'Tis Pity She's a Whore}, a play with an
  important, sexually-based female role played by a man.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 223\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a stick thicker than the regulation one inch''

  Popular knowledge has it that the expression ``rule of thumb'' comes from
  English common law regarding the diameter of a stick with which one's
  wife could legally be beaten, but this is now generally accepted to be a
  complete myth.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 235\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the job is making some other poor devil die for his.''

  ``Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for
  his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his
  country.'' --- attributed to Gen. George S. Patton.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 240\,] }}
 ``\,`The SoLid DoVes,' Polly read.''

  ``Soiled Doves'' is a euphemism for prostitutes originating in the American
  west during the 19th century.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 284\,] }}
 ``\,`In Klatch, I think, it means ``I hope your donkey explodes''.'\,''

  In Arabia, the thumbs-up gesture does mean something like ``up yours''. On
  occupying Iraq, many American and British soldiers were greeted with
  crowds flashing thumbs-up symbols, and mistakenly believed them to be
  showing approval.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 303\,] }}
 ``\emph{Let's see how that one plays in Pl\"{u}n!}''

  The Americanism ``Let's see how that one plays in Peoria'': ``How will it
  fare when presented to the sensibilities of the rural population?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 309\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the Ins-and-Outs, the Side-to-Sides and the
  Backwards-and-Forwards, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Before the 1881 reforms, there was a British Army regiment, the 69th
  Foot, who were known as the ``Ups-and-Downs'' (because it mostly consisted
  of old veterans and raw recruits).

  Terry says:

  ``Yep. And they --- or in fact, one of them --- is the subject of a folksong
  of a fairly generic kind in which (as an English folk singer once
  observed) a young lady is en route to Maidenhead when she loses her
  Aylesbury.''

  There is for instance the song called `The Ups and Downs', recorded by
  Steeleye Span:

\begin{verse}\textit{As I was going to Aylesbury all on a market day \\A pretty little Aylesbury girl I met upon the way \\Her business was to market with butter, cheese and whey \\And we both jogged on together my boys fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\And we both jogged on together my boys fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{As we jogged on together my boys together side by side \\By chance this fair maid's garter it came untied \\For fear that she might lose it I unto her did say \\Your garter's come untied my love fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\Your garter's come untied my love fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{As we rode on together my boys to the outskirts of the town \\At length this fair young damsel she stopped and looked around \\O since you've been so venturesome pray tie it up for me \\O I will if you go to the apple grove fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\O I will if you go to the apple grove fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And when we got to the apple grove the grass was growing high \\I laid this girl upon her back her garter for to tie \\While tying of her garter such sights I never did see \\And we both jogged on together my boys fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\And we both jogged on together my boys fol-der-o diddle-o-day \\
}\end{verse}

  Etcetera. Note that this is very likely also the same cheese-and-garters
  song that Polly and the others have been discussing earlier.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 312\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] that detachment of Kopelies.'\,''

  `Kopelies' is Greek for `girls'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 314\,] }}
 ``\,`Much ado, in fact, about nothing.'\,''

  A Shakespeare play in which women dress as men, and which includes a
  character named Benedick. See the annotation for p.~28.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 326\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] like an ambassador but without the little gold
  chocolates.'\,''

  Refers to a well-known television advert for Ferrero Rocher chocolates
  (which come individually wrapped in gold foil), which were served at the
  Ambassador's balls.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 328\,] }}
 ``\,`But why did you say you were a cherry pancake?' said Polly.''

  John F. Kennedy, speaking in West Berlin in 1963, famously declared: ``Ich
  bin ein Berliner'' --- ``I am a citizen of Berlin''.

  As a `Berliner' is also a kind of jam-filled pastry, Kennedy's words have
  been interpreted by some people as a language blunder, similar to the one
  Vimes makes here. This is, however, simply nonsense: the meaning Kennedy
  intended is a correct one as well, and was absolutely clear from context.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 341\,] }}
 ``I was part of the Thin Red Line [{\ldots}]''

  The generally-accepted first use of ``Thin Red Line'' was when William
  Russell described in the London Times the 93rd Highlanders at the Battle
  of Balaclava in October 1854. This was then probably picked up by Rudyard
  Kipling for use in his poem `Tommy':

\begin{verse}\textit{Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep \\Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; \\An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit \\Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' ``Tommy, `ow's yer soul?'' \\But it's ``Thin red line of `eroes'' when the drums begin to roll, \\The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, \\O it's ``Thin red line of `eroes'' when the drums begin to roll. \\
}\end{verse}

  The phrase was also used as the title of James Jones' novel (and the 1998
  movie based on it) telling the story of the United States capture of
  Guadalcanal during the Second World War.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 348\,] }}
 ``Generals and majors and captains, oh my.''

  Echoes Dorothy's ``Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!'' in \emph{The Wizard of
  Oz}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{A Hat Full of Sky}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``Miss Tick was a sort of witch-finder''

  A neat reversal of the Roundworld witch-finder concept (in the same vein
  as the Witch Trials). See the annotation for p.~167/109 of \emph{Good Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 39\,] }}
 ``Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the mountains
  --- and they \emph{did} write things down.''

  This could well be the Nac Mac Feegle clan from \emph{Carpe Jugulum}. The lake
  they settled at wasn't actually named but, looking at the \emph{Lancre Mapp},
  it certainly is long. And they do indeed write things down: ``We of the
  Nac Mac Feegle are a simple folk, but we write verra comp-lic-ated
  documents''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 47\,] }}
 ``\,`There can only be one, is that not so?'\,''

  Highlander, again. See the annotation for p.~6 of \emph{Carpe Jugulum}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 52\,] }}
 ``\,`It's a shamble'\,''

  On Roundworld, the word shamble has no magical connotations, as far as I
  know. The thing Miss Tick has created would probably be called a focus,
  or a talisman, or perhaps, somewhat misguidedly, a dream catcher.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 73\,] }}
 ``a dobby stone''

  The idea that stones with holes in them are magical first appeared in
  \emph{Guards!\ Guards!} On the Discworld, they were first called `dobby stones'
  in the \emph{Thieves' Guild Diary}, after a con-man called Dobby Stone.

  Here on Roundworld, ``dobby stones'' are hollow stones with a hole in the
  top, into which are poured offerings of milk to spirits. In Scotland they
  did something similar, offering milk to Gruac, a goddess who watched over
  cattle.

  Stones with holes in are generally considered lucky, and are sometimes
  called hagstones. There are also slightly different stones with holes in
  called brownie stones (a dobby is another name for a brownie). Which
  brings us back to the Nac Mac Feegle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 79\,] }}
 ``Professor Monty Bladder's Three Ring Circus''

  It is difficult to believe that a UK humorist could call a circus owner
  ``Monty'' by coincidence.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 93\,] }}
 ``The ill-fated First Expedition to the Loko Region''

  The story of this expedition is told in \emph{The Science of Discworld}. The
  former inhabitants of Loko seem to have \emph{specialised} in Meddling With
  Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 136\,] }}
 ``Mrs Earwig''

  Mrs Earwig first appeared in the Discworld short story ``The Sea And
  Little Fishes'', where she challenged a centipede to an arse-kick{\ldots}
  sorry, challenged Granny Weatherwax's authority.

  In some ways the second half of \emph{A Hat Full Of Sky} is as much as sequel
  to \emph{The Sea and Little Fishes} as it is to \emph{The Wee Free Men}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 179\,] }}
 ``\,`It's pronounced Ah-wij,' said Mrs Earwig coldly.''

  In the \emph{Keeping Up Appearances} BBC television comedy, the very snobbish
  Mrs-Earwig-like Hyacinth Bucket always insists her name is pronounced
  ``Bouquet''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 185\,] }}
 ``Lovely to look at/Nice to hold/If you drop it/You get torn
  apart by wild horses''

  A sign occasionally seen in gift shops, except the last two lines are
  normally ``If you break it/Consider it sold''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 230\,] }}
 ``\,`What ha' I done to be among this parcel o' rogues?'\,''

  Reference to ``A Parcel O Rogues In A Nation'' by Robert Burns:

\begin{verse}\textit{Fareweel to a' oor Scottish fame \\Fareweel oor ancient glory \\Fareweel even tae oor Scottish name \\Sae famed in martial story \\Noo Sark runs o'er the Solway sands \\Tweed runs tae the ocean \\Tae mark where England's province stands \\Such a parcel o' rogues in a nation \\
}\end{verse}

  Much of the rest of Awf'ly Wee Billy's outburst reflects traditional
  Scottish curses.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 289\,] }}
 ``The Ducking Stool was very popular among young children on such
  a hot day.''

  Ducking stool type things \emph{are} popular at modern fairs, but the
  significance of their presence at Witch Trials goes without saying. (See
  also the annotation for p.~62/54 of \emph{Witches Abroad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 317\,] }}
 ``\,`I'm telling you this as a friend.'\,''

  A phrase Mrs Earwig used to Granny Weatherwax in \emph{The Sea And Little
  Fishes}, prompting Nanny Ogg to think that ``Nobody even remotely friendly
  would say a thing like that.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 323\,] }}
 ``There were no judges, and no prizes.''

  In \emph{The Sea And Little Fishes} Mrs Earwig does set up a judging panel,
  and spends ten dollars on a trophy cup. However, given how that turned
  out it's unsurprising she hasn't tried it again.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 333\,] }}
 ``When I'm old I shall wear midnight, she'd decided.''

  ``When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple'', the opening line of Jenny
  Joseph's 1961 poem `Warning'.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Once More, With Footnotes}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
This collection of short stories and non-fiction is scheduled
  to be released in September 2004.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Going Postal}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
This book is scheduled to be released in November 2004.

  Terry said (in 2001):

  ``Spin-offs aside, and leaving out the two books later this year, I'm
  planning three more novels, one a year, for the next three years --- the
  first coming out in November 2002. Titles and outlines are on the
  computer and the contracts have been signed.''

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Discworld Companion}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``In the bottom-left half two croix d'or on a sable field.''

  People reported on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} that they had found an error in the
  Companion: all the descriptions of the coats of arms appear to have left
  and right reversed when compared to the illustrations.

  But Terry replied: ``No, we're not daft{\ldots} according to Stephen, who
  rather enjoys the byways of heraldry, the designs on the shield were
  traditionally referred to from the knight's point of view, and since he
  was generally \emph{behind} it, everything is reversed. Its makes sense, or at
  least as much sense as many traditional things do. After all, if you're
  left handed you use, from my point of view, your right hand. In the same
  way, an actor exiting `stage left' is walking off to the right from the
  audience's point of view.''

  I can report from my own experience that in the medical world the same
  principle is used. My parents are ophthalmologists, and when they talk
  about a patient's left eye they mean the one that the patient himself
  would call his left eye, i.e.\  the right eye from the doctor's point of
  view. As a kid I found this very illogical, and it used to intrigue me no
  end. But then, as Terry wrote in a subsequent posting: ``Of course it's
  daft, it's traditional''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 179\,] }}
 ``As he wrote in his unpublished MS entitled \emph{The Servant}, a
  sort of handbook for the politically ambitious: [{\ldots}]''

  Lord Vetinari's handbook brings to mind Machiavelli's \emph{The Prince}.

  Alistair McAlpine (one of Mrs Thatcher's closest advisers) has also
  written a book called \emph{The Servant}, subtitled `A New Machiavelli'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 252\,] }}
 ``Wizards of the Disc, known''

  In the list a cross-reference to the name `Catbury' appears, but that
  entry is not present in hardcover nor trade paperback edition of the
  Companion.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 254\,] }}
 ``de Worde, William''

  William de Worde did not appear in an actual Discworld novel until 2000,
  when \emph{The Truth} was released, six years after \emph{The Discworld Companion}
  was written. His name is a composition of the names Wynkyn de Worde and
  William Caxton. In 1474 Caxton printed the first book in the English
  language, a translation of \emph{The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy}. In
  his career he printed more than 70 books, 20 of them his own translations
  from the Latin, French, and Dutch. Wynkyn de Worde was his successor.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{The Discworld Companion} contains neat illustrations and heraldic
  descriptions of all the coats of arms of the various important guilds and
  institutions in Ankh-Morpork. (Note: the Mappe also shows a few, but is
  not complete. The Companion also gives the dog-Latin motto for each of
  them, but unfortunately Terry and Stephen provide a translation in only a
  few cases. {\smaller APF} to the rescue. The combined intellectual efforts of the
  Latinists on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} (Dylan Wright deserves particular mention)
  were put to the task, and we came up with the following list:

\begin{verse}\textit{The Alchemist's Guild: OMNIS QVI CORVSCAT EST OR --- All That Glitters Is Gold\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The City of Ankh-Morpork: MERVS IN PECTVM ET IN AQVAM --- Pure In Heart And In Water QVANTI CANICVLA ILLA IN FENESTRA --- How Much          Is That Doggy In The Window?\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Assassin's Guild: NIL MORTIFII SINE LVCRE --- No Killing Without Pay\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Beggar's Guild: MONETA SVPERVACANEA, MAGISTER --- Spare Change, Guv'?\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Conjuror's Guild: NVNC ILLE EST MAGICVS --- Now \emph{That's} Magic (Catch-phrase of British magician Paul Daniels)\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Embalmer's Guild: FARCIMINI --- Stuff It! \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Engraver's Guild: NON QVOD MANEAT, SED QVOD ADIMIMVS --- Not What Remains, But What We Take Away\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Fools' Guild (The Guild of Fools and Joculators and College of \\Clowns): DICO, DICO, DICO --- I Say, I Say, I Say \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Gambler's Guild: EXCRETVS EX FORTVNA --- Shit Out Of Luck. (\emph{The Discworld Companion}: ``Loosely speaking: `Really out of luck'\,'')\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Klatchian Foreign Legion: OBLIVISCOR --- I forget \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Merchant's Guild: VILIS AD BIS PRETII --- Cheap At Twice The Price\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Mort, Duke of Sto Helit: NON TIMETIS MESSOR --- Don't Fear The Reaper (see also the annotation for p.~239 of \emph{Hogfather})\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Musician's Guild: ID MVRMVRATIS, ID LVDAMVS --- You Hum It, We'll Play It\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Patrician (Lord Havelock Vetinari): SI NON CONFECTVS NON REFICIAT --- If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Plumber's Guild (Fully: The Guild of Plumbers and Dunnikindivers): NON ANTE SEPTEM DIES PROXIMA, SQVIRI --- Not          Before Next Week, Squire\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Lady Sybil Deirdre Olgivanna Ramkin: NON SVMET NVLLVS PRO RESPONSO --- She Won't Take No For An Answer\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Seamstresses' Guild: NIL VOLVPTI, SINE LVCRE --- No Pleasure Without Pay\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Duke of Sto Helit (Mort's predecessor): FABER EST QVISQVE FORTVNAE SVAE --- Every Man Is The Maker Of His Own Fortune\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Stripper's Guild: NVNQVAM VESTIMVS --- We Never Clothe \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The Thieves' Guild: ACVTVS ID VERBERAT --- Whip it Quick \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Unseen University: NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES --- Now You See it, Now You Don't\\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The City Watch: FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC --- Make My Day, Punk (\emph{Guards!\ Guards!}: ``To Protect and Serve'')\\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Science of Discworld}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 The cover of the book is a Discworld version of the 1768 painting
  \emph{An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump} by Joseph Wright, depicting the
  formation of a vacuum by withdrawing air from a glass bowl containing a
  white cockatoo.

  Note that in Paul Kidby's version the bowl contains the Roundworld, with
  the Librarian taking the place of the frightened child.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 19\,] }}
 ``\,`Lots of centaurs and fauns and other curiously shaped magical
  whatnots are there, [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Centaurs first appeared in \emph{Carpe Jugulum}, and are now being mentioned
  again in the very next book. Apparently they're regarded as some sort of
  magical mutation, rather than as part of the original Creation. Would
  that account for more of the denizens of Uberwald?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 43\,] }}
 ``\,`Well, sir, you could ask what use is a new-born child{\ldots}'\,''

  This was the alleged reply of Michael Faraday to the question ``What use
  is electricity?'', but probably also attributed to other scientists.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 45\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the ancient principle of WYGIWYGAINGW.''

  In the Enlightenment, most thinkers had pretty much unbounded faith that
  science would eventually answer every conceivable question. This led to a
  parallel philosophical movement based on a variant of predestination ---
  if the whole universe runs on Rules, then everything \emph{must} be as it is
  and it's no good wishing it were otherwise. Most famously parodied by
  Voltaire in `Candide', through the character of Pangloss.

  `WYGIWYGAINGW' is of course also a pun on `WYSIWYG', the technology
  principle that What You See Is What You Get (originally used in the
  context of an image on the screen in e.g.\  a word processor corresponding
  exactly to a printed version).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 57\,] }}
 ``It was the second day{\ldots}''

  On the second day, God separated Heaven from Earth. The Roundworld
  chooses this day to develop its first planets.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 61\,] }}
 ```As Above, So Below'','

  This was the theoretical basis of late medieval/Renaissance magical
  theory, including traditional alchemy.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 99\,] }}
 ``It was day four.''

  On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon and stars. Ridcully et al
  try to do the same thing.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 101\,] }}
 ``Things fall apart, but centres hold.''

  Plays on a well-known quote from W.~B.~Yeats's poem `The Second Coming'
  (see also the annotation for p.~383/268 of \emph{Good Omens} for another
  mention of this poem):

\begin{verse}\textit{Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; \\Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, \\The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere \\The ceremony of innocence is drowned. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 121\,] }}
 ``\,`Days and nights!' said Ponder. `Seasons, too, if we do it
  right!'\,''

  Still on the fourth day of Genesis (1:14): And God said, Let there be
  lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;
  and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days, and years:

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 152\,] }}
 ``In April 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped down on top the surface
  of the Moon, [{\ldots}]''

  I am not sure if this error has been fixed in later printings of the book
  (I have been told that it is still present in the 2002 paperback
  edition), but it definitely needs to be: the first Moon landing was in
  \emph{July} 1969.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 207\,] }}
 ``\,`Sniffleheim,' said the Dean, [{\ldots}]''

  In Norse mythology, Niflheim is one name of the underworld, the domain of
  Hel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 207\,] }}
 `We can get HEX to reverse the thaumic flow in the cthonic
  matrix{\ldots}'

  ``Reversing the polarity'' of the something or other as a last desperate
  measure has become the archetypical example of the kind of meaningless
  technobabble often used in the various \emph{Star Trek} television series.

  Similarly, Dr Who was also often seen ``reversing the polarity of the
  neutron flow'' of something with his sonic screwdriver.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 271\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the big black rectangle looming over them.''

  A reference to the black monolith that teaches the apes in the movie
  \emph{2001: A Space Odyssey}. The subsequent ``throwing the thighbone up into
  the air'' sequence is another. (See also the annotation for p.~259/233 of
  \emph{Sourcery}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 272\,] }}
 ``Rincewind was wandering in the next bay, staring at the
  cliffs.''

  Cliffs were one of the textbook inspirational sights that caused Darwin
  and his contemporaries to think about extinctions and the history of
  life. This is significant because Rincewind's thoughts here are quite
  reminiscent of Darwin's thoughts, when he tried to reconcile his theory
  of evolution with the story of creation.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Science of Discworld II: the Globe}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 12\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the Reader in Slood Dynamics''

  Slood was mentioned first in \emph{The Last Continent}. It is a mysterious
  substance that appears to have not been discovered yet (either on
  Roundworld or on Discworld), so it is an eminently suitable research
  subject for Rincewind. See also the footnote on p.~58.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 64\,] }}
 ``\,`This world is a cheap parody of our own. As Above, So Below and
  all that.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~61 of \emph{The Science Of Discworld}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 126\,] }}
 ``The Shellfish Scene''

  Puns on \emph{The Selfish Gene}, the title of a well-known book by biologist
  Richard Dawkins.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 301\,] }}
 ``Worlds Of If''

  \emph{Worlds of If} was the name of an American pulp science fiction magazine
  published in the 1950s.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
This book is scheduled to be released in 2005.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Streets of Ankh-Morpork}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
B4---D4 Chrononhotonthologos Street.

  \emph{Chrononhotonthologos} is the name of an 18th century burlesque stage
  farce by Henry Carey. I have no idea why there is a Chrononhotonthologos
  Street in Ankh-Morpork --- except that it is one heck of a cool word.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Discworld Mapp}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
``[{\ldots}] XXXX and its companion islands (`Foggy Islands', reputedly the
  place where XXXX kept the lawnmower).''

  The Maori name for New Zealand is `Aotearoa', which means ``land of the
  long white cloud''.

  For the XXXX/Australia connection, see the annotation for p.~149/132 of
  \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{A Tourist Guide to Lancre}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
``A rain-proof, hooded overgarment (Orac Oracssons's outfitters in Ohulan
  Cutash supply the best waterproof clothing. Most seasoned walkers would
  not be seen without their Orac).''

  So you would call one of these garments ``an Orac'', I suppose{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
``Mr Cmot Dibbler sells an excellent compass [{\ldots}] As a means of finding
  your bearings, however, they are totally useless).''

  This may have as much to do with the usual lack of quality associated
  with Dibbler's products, as it does with the fact that Roundworld
  compasses work because of the Earth's magnetic field --- on Discworld the
  equivalent is the enchanted needle that always points to the Hub.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
``[{\ldots}] isolated hamlets with romantic names such as Slippery Hollow, a
  collection of cottages now inevitably connected in the traveller's mind
  with the legend of the headless horse rider.''

  Or the legend of Sleepy Hollow in Roundworld terms.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Death's Domain}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+}}
``[{\ldots}] the dandelion clocks won't strike{\ldots}''

  See the annotation for p.~10/10 of \emph{The Light Fantastic}.

\cleardoublepage\chapter{Other Annotations}

\vspace{4ex}\section{Good Omens}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 The weird blue/red neon thingy surrounding the `666' on the cover
  of the UK hardcover version of \emph{Good Omens} is actually a map of the M25
  London orbital motorway, mentioned in the text as ``evidence for the
  hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man''.

  If you have Internet access, you can get a copy of the \emph{Good Omens} cover
  from the Pratchett Archives.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 9/vii\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the angel, whose name was Aziraphale.''

  On the subject of the correct pronunciation of the name, Terry says:

  ``It \emph{should} be Azz-ear-raf-AE-el, but we got into the habit of
  pronouncing it Azz-ear-raf-ail, so I guess that's the right way now.''

  And about the name's origin:

  ``It was made up but{\ldots} er{\ldots} from real ingredients. [The name] Aziraphale
  could be shoved in a list of `real' angels and would fit right in{\ldots}''

  For instance, Islam recognizes the Archangels Jibril, Mikhail, Azrael
  (see also the annotation for p.~7/9 of \emph{Reaper Man}), and Israfel (whom
  Edgar Allan Poe wrote a well-known poem about), whereas from Christianity
  we get such names as Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/viii\,] }}
 ``It was going to be a dark and stormy night.''

  See the annotation for p.~9/7 of \emph{Soul Music}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 17/1\,] }}
 ``Archbishop James Usher (1581--1656) published \emph{Annales Veteris
  Et Novi Testamenti} in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the
  Earth were created in 4{\smaller{004 BC.}}''

  This is true in spirit, but almost completely wrong in nit-picking
  detail, which leads me to conclude that Terry and Neil used sloppy
  secondary sources for their research.

  The man's name was spelled Ussher, the book's name was actually \emph{Annales
  Veteris Testamenti} (Annals of the \emph{Old} Testament), it was published in
  1650, and it was Ussher himself who pinpointed the time of creation at
  noon, October 23, 4004 BC --- not nine o'clock in the morning.

  For a fascinating explanation of why it would really be very unfair of us
  to ridicule Ussher's findings, I refer the interested reader to the essay
  `Fall in the House of Ussher' by Stephen Jay Gould, which appeared in his
  excellent collection \emph{Eight Little Piggies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/3\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight
  metamorphose into `Best of Queen' albums.''

  In an interview in \emph{Comics Buyer's Guide} with Terry and Neil, shortly
  after the American release of \emph{Good Omens}, Terry proposed the theory
  that, when you're driving through the country late at night, and there's
  nothing on the radio, you find yourself stopping in at an all-night gas
  station and looking through the tape rack; the only thing there remotely
  tolerable is a \emph{Best of Queen}, so you buy that. Two weeks later you
  can't remember how the thing got there, so you get rid of it, only to go
  through the same process again. Neil's theory was that tapes really do
  turn into \emph{Best of Queen} albums.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/3\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon
  were''.

  The Queen song `Killer Queen' contains the line: ``She keeps the Mo\"{e}t et
  Chandon in a pretty cabinet''. Freddie Mercury's pronunciation is indeed
  such that, if you don't already \emph{know} what he's singing, this part of
  the lyrics can be extremely puzzling.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/8\,] }}
 ``{\ldots}I will not let you go (let him go){\ldots}''

  This sentence, and the `scaramouche' line a few paragraphs before, are
  taken from Queen's legendary song `Bohemian Rhapsody'. This line is
  misquoted though. The actual song goes: ``\emph{We} will not let you go (let
  him go)''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 32/13\,] }}
 ``Sister Mary had expected an American diplomat to look like
  Blake Carrington or J.R. Ewing.''

  Leading male characters in the 1980s Power Soaps \emph{Dynasty} (Blake
  Carrington played by John Forsythe) and \emph{Dallas} (J.~R.~Ewing played by
  Larry Hagman). The general image is of somewhat rugged American
  masculinity. In a suit.

  The \emph{Good Omens} paperback replaces ``an American diplomat'' with ``the
  American Cultural Attache''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 33/13\,] }}
 ``With a little old lady as the sleuth, [{\ldots}]''

  Not a reference to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, but rather to Angela
  Landsbury's character in the TV show \emph{Murder, She Wrote} (there are not
  many ``avuncular sheriffs'' in the Miss Marple books).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35/15\,] }}
 ``He'd seen a Ken Russell film once. There had been nuns in
  it.''

  This might have been, for instance, the 1971 film \emph{The Devils}, a study
  of a French nunnery that had supposedly turned to Satanism.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 37/17\,] }}
 ``\,`Wormwood's a nice name,' said the nun, remembering her
  classics. `Or Damien. Damien's very popular.'\,''

  Damien refers to the protagonist of the various \emph{Omen} movies (see the
  annotation for p.~67/40). Wormwood is the name of the junior devil in
  \emph{The Screwtape Letters} by C.~S.~Lewis. This is a series of letters from
  a senior devil (Screwtape) to a junior devil (Wormwood) about Wormwood's
  attempted temptation of a man in war-time London.

  Wormwood is also the plant which according to tradition sprang up from
  the track of the serpent as it writhed along the ground when it was
  driven out of the Garden of Eden.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 41/19\,] }}
 ``\,`Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.'\,''

  A well-known quote from Shakespeare's \emph{The Tempest}, act~1, scene~2.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 41/19\,] }}
 ``That Hieronymus Bosch. What a weirdo.''

  Hieronymus Bosch was a 15th century Dutch painter of religious visions
  that dealt in particular with the torments of Hell and the subjects of
  sin and punishment.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 42/20\,] }}
 ``\,`I don't think there's anything wrong with Errol. \emph{Or}
  Cary.'\,''

  Errol Flynn and Cary Grant.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 50/26\,] }}
 ``And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles,
  individually named from errors in typesetting.''

  There have been many Infamous Bibles, and all of the ones mentioned in
  this paragraph, except for the \emph{Charing Cross Bible} and the \emph{Buggre Alle
  This Bible}, actually did exist.

  As usual, it is Brewer who has all the relevant information. The
  \emph{Unrighteous Bible} and the \emph{Wicked Bible} are as Terry and Neil describe
  them. In addition, there is:

  \emph{Discharge Bible}: An edition printed in 1806 containing ``discharge'' for
  ``charge'' in 1 Timothy 5:21: ``I discharge thee before God [{\ldots}] that thou
  observe these things [{\ldots}]''.

  \emph{Treacle Bible}: A popular name for the Bishops' Bible, 1568 because in
  it, Jeremiah 8:22 reads ``Is there no treacle in Gilead'' instead of ``Is
  there no balm in Gilead''.

  \emph{Standing Fishes Bible}: An edition of 1806 in which Ezekiel 47:10 reads:
  ``And it shall come to pass that the fishes [instead of: fishers] shall
  stand upon it.''

  Also mentioned by Brewer are the \emph{Ears To Ear Bible}, the \emph{Rosin Bible}
  and the \emph{Rebecca's Camels Bible}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 52/28\,] }}
 The three lost Shakespeare plays.

  \emph{The Trapping Of The Mouse} refers to Agatha Christie's \emph{The Mousetrap}
  (which has now been running for more than 42 consecutive years in
  London), who in turn named her play after the play-within-a-play that
  occurs in{\ldots} \emph{Hamlet}.

  \emph{Golde Diggers Of 1589} refers to the series of movie musicals with
  similar names made in 1933, 1935 and 1937.

  \emph{The Comedie Of Robin Hoode, Or The Forest Of Sherwoode} is not directly
  traceable to something specific, but there have been of course many
  famous Robin Hood movies, from the legendary 1938 production with Errol
  Flynn, Basil Rathbone and Olivia de Havilland through the more
  contemporary 1991 \emph{Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves}, starring Kevin
  Costner.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 56/31\,] }}
 ``\,`I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big
  mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every
  thousand years there's this little bird---'\,''

  Crowley's description of eternity is from the hell-and-damnation speech
  in James Joyce's \emph{Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 62/36\,] }}
 ``They were doing drinks in a restaurant called Top of the
  Sixes, on the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, New York.''

  The name and address were real when \emph{Good Omens} was written: there
  actually used to be such a restaurant on top of 666 Fifth Avenue.
  Somewhen in the 90s it was closed and converted to a club.

  The rest of the building is of course also still very much in use. On the
  37th floor, for instance, resides \emph{Demon Internet Inc}, the American arm
  of the well-known British Internet Service Provider, which Terry himself
  uses.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 67/40\,] }}
 ``\,`I am Nanny Astoreth,' she told him.''

  Astoreth or Ashtaroth was the Zidonian goddess-moon in Syrian mythology.
  No, I have no idea who the Zidonians were, but undoubtedly they were
  heathens, and therefore presumably on Evil's side by default.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 67/40\,] }}
 ``\,`What a delightful child,' she said. `He'll be wanting a
  little tricycle soon.'\,''

  The `mother' in the 1976 horror movie \emph{The Omen} (which is all about the
  Antichrist being raised in a normal household) was forced by little
  Damien over the edge of an upstairs railing with his tricycle.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 68/40\,] }}
 The nursery rhyme Nanny Astoreth sings to Warlock:

\begin{verse}\textit{Oh, the grand old Duke of York \\He had ten thousand men \\He marched them up to the top of the hill \\And crushed all the nations of the world and brought them under the rule of Satan our master.\\
}\end{verse}

  is a parody of the English original:

\begin{verse}\textit{The grand old Duke of York, \\He had ten thousand men. \\He marched them up to the top of the hill \\And he marched them down again. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And when they were up they were up. \\And when they were down they were down. \\And when they were only half way up \\They were neither up nor down. \\
}\end{verse}

  Accompanied (in some versions) by fingers marching up the small child as
  appropriate and stopping to tickle for the last line.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 68/40\,] }}
 ``\,`Bwuvver Fwancis the gardener says I mus' selfwesswy pwactise
  virtue an' wuv to all wivving things,' said Warlock.''

  The gardener is none other than Saint Francis of Assisi. Note also the
  ``flocks of birds settled all over him at every opportunity'' bit earlier
  on.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 70/42\,] }}
 ``The message had come during \emph{Cheers}, one of Crowley's
  favourite television programmes. Woody the barman had [{\ldots}]''

  In the American edition of \emph{Good Omens}, this scene was changed to refer
  to the series \emph{The Golden Girls} and the character Rose. (The effect
  remains the same).

  Nobody knows the reason for this change, since both are American sitcoms
  anyway. Speaking personally, I think Crowley is definitely a \emph{Cheers}
  person, and would \emph{not} have liked \emph{The Golden Girls} at all.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 75/43\,] }}
 ``He had attended a class in the 1870s run by John Maskelyne
  [{\ldots}]''

  John Maskelyne was a 19th century stage magician who specialised in
  sleight-of-hand illusions. He is fondly remembered in the illusionist
  community as a mentor to aspiring young magicians. He also gained some
  notoriety for exposing fraudulent spiritualists.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 78/46\,] }}
 ``\,`I-should-be-so-lucky, -lucky-lucky-lucky-lucky,'\,''

  This is the chorus to Kylie Minogue's break-through hit `I should be so
  lucky':

\begin{verse}\textit{I should be so lucky \\Lucky lucky lucky \\I should be so lucky in love \\
}\end{verse}

  Notice that this is yet another misquote: there are only \emph{four}
  successive `lucky's, not five.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 79/46\,] }}
 The scenes of Adam growing up in Tadfield are an affectionate
  parody of the \emph{Just William} books by Richmal Crompton.

  They are a series of books about William Brown (age 11) and his gang of
  Outlaws: Ginger, Douglas and Henry. The Johnsonites in \emph{Good Omens}
  parallel the Laneites in \emph{Just William}, Hubert Lane being a similarly
  lugubrious podgy kid.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 82/49\,] }}
 ``\,`I'll call him Dog,' said his Master, positively.''

  There's a nice resonance here with the biblical Adam giving names to all
  the animals in God's creation (Genesis 2:19).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 87/52\,] }}
 `Another One Bites The Dust', `We Are The Champions', `I Want
  To Break Free' and `Fat-Bottomed Girls' are all songs by Queen (see the
  annotation for p.~20/3).

  Queen fans have pointed out that at the time \emph{Good Omens} was released,
  there was no (or at least no easily available) Queen greatest hits album
  that actually contained all of these songs. A recently released double
  album has remedied this situation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 94/58\,] }}
 ``\,`It's probably compline, unless that's a slimming aid.'\,''

  No, compline is indeed one of the periods of the religious day (around
  {\smaller \texttt{18.00}} h, according to my copy of \emph{The Name of the Rose}). The slimming
  aid is `complan'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/65\,] }}
 ``The contingent from Financial Planning were lying flat on
  their faces in what had once been the haha, although they weren't very
  amused.''

  If you don't know what a haha is, see the annotation for p.~77/58 of \emph{Men
  at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 110/70\,] }}
 ``\emph{{\ldots}Bee-elzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me{\ldots}}''

  Another line from Queen's \emph{Bohemian Rhapsody}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 114/73\,] }}
 ``\emph{The Nice And Accurate Prophecies} made the \emph{Hitler Diaries}
  look like, well, a bunch of forgeries.''

  \emph{Stern} magazine published a series of Hitler's diaries in the mid--80s
  which, in fact, turned out to be forgeries.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 116/75\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 because he was
  too good for this world.''

  Actually, Elvis died in 1977, so perhaps these Space Aliens left a
  doppelg\"{a}nger? Neil and Terry are certainly aware of the correct year,
  because later on (p.~261/177, during the video trivia game scene) there
  is a reference to both Bing Crosby and Marc Bolan dying in 1976. But in
  fact, both died in 1977 as well.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 122/79\,] }}
 ``\,`This wouldn't of happened if we'd of gone to Torremolinos
  like we usually do,' [{\ldots}]''

  Torremolinos is a resort on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, which in
  the past was very popular with the more down-market sort of British
  holiday-maker. In US terms, imagine Atlantic City/Las Vegas. Take it down
  market a bit. A bit more. No, a bit more than that. There. That's
  beginning to get close to Torremolinos. The town has in recent years made
  a great effort to change its image and attract a better class of tourist
  but whether this has worked remains doubtful.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 127/80\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the frequent name changes usually being prompted by
  whatever Adam had happened to have read [{\ldots}]''

  The Hole-in-the-Chalk gang refers to Butch Cassidy's Hole-in-the-Wall
  Gang, The Really Well-Known Four to The Famous Five, The Legion of Really
  Super-Heroes to DC Comics' \emph{Legion of Super-Heroes} series, The Justice
  Society of Tadfield to DC's \emph{Justice Society of America}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 129/81\,] }}
 ``Pepper's given first names were Pippin Galadriel Moonchild.''

  Both Pippin and Galadriel are characters from Tolkien's \emph{The Lord of the
  Rings} (although Pippin is actually a male hobbit). Terry explains that
  Pepper's names are not really a parody of hippie practices:

  ``It's an observation. I have \emph{signed books} for two Galadriels at least
  --- and three Bilboes. Your basic hippy is fairly predictable.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 137/88\,] }}
 ``\,`I bet ole Torturemada dint have to give up jus' when he was
   getting started [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Tom\'{a}s de Torquemada, Spanish inquisitor-general notorious for his
  cruelty. He was largely responsible for the expulsion of the Jews from
  Spain around 1492.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 147/95\,] }}
 ``Where the reactor should have been was an empty space. You
  could have had quite a nice game of squash in it.''

  For the connection between nuclear reactors and squash courts, see the
  annotation for p.~156/138 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/98\,] }}
 ``Sable signed for it, his real name --- one word, seven
  letters. Sounds like examine.''

  But, as many alert readers have noticed, the word `famine' only has six
  letters. Terry says: ``Oh, yeah. The famous seven-lettered six letter
  name. [{\ldots}] It's like this. In the original MS, it was six letters,
  because we can both count. And it was six letters in the Gollancz
  hardcover. And six letters in the Workman US hardcover. And became seven
  in the Corgi edition. No-one knows why.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 155/99\,] }}
 ``\,`An' there was this man called Charles Fort,' he said. `He
  could make it rain fish and frogs and stuff.'\,''

  Charles Fort lived in the first half of this century and made a career
  out of attacking established scientific convictions and practitioners,
  mostly by collecting and publishing book after book of scientifically
  unexplainable occurrences and phenomena such as, indeed, accounts of
  rains of fish, etc.\ 

  Although Fort and his Fortean Society cheerfully collected and proposed
  vast numbers of crackpot theories, Charles Fort was by no means a
  crackpot himself. He just wanted to attack and needle the scientific
  establishment using every possible means at his disposal.

  For more information about Fort I refer the reader to Martin Gardner's
  wonderful book \emph{Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science} (1957), or to
  the Fortean Society's newspaper \emph{The Fortean Times}, still being
  published in both UK and US today.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 156/100\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a highly successful film series with lasers, robots
  and a princess who wore her hair like a pair of stereo headphones$^{TM}$.''

  This is of course the \emph{Star Wars} saga, directed by George Lucas. The
  princess is Princess Leia Organa; and the person with the coal scuttle
  helmet who is allowed to blow up planets is Darth Vader.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 160/103\,] }}
 ``If Cortez, on his peak in Darien, had had slightly damp
  feet [{\ldots}]''

  From \emph{On First Looking into Chapman's Homer} by John Keats, where the
  experience of reading Chapman's translation of Homer is compared to the
  feeling Cortez must have had:

\begin{verse}\textit{Then felt I like some watcher of the skies \\When a new planet swims into his ken \\Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes \\He stared at the Pacific --- and all his men \\Looked at each other with a wild surmise \\Silent, upon a peak in Darien. \\
}\end{verse}

  (Actually, Keats was mixing up Cortez (who conquered Mexico, and was the
  first European to look upon Mexico City) with Balboa (who climbed Darien,
  and was the first European to see the Pacific from the east).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 161/104\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] eight other people [{\ldots}] two of them [{\ldots}] and one of
  the other six [{\ldots}]''

  Or at least, that's what it says in my hardcover version and in the
  American trade paperback. In the English paperback, however, the quote
  says ``one of the other \emph{five}'' (italics mine), which is of course rather
  confusing, since two plus five usually equals seven, not eight.

  Terry says: ``[{\ldots}] we got the \emph{numbers} right --- I checked the original
  MS\@. This is another manifestation of the strange numbers glitch (remember
  \emph{famine}, the seven letter word?)''

  See the annotation for p.~154/98 for the `famine' glitch Terry refers to.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 165/107\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] people called Grasshopper, little old men sitting on
  mountains, other people learning kung-fu in ancient temples [{\ldots}]''

  David Carradine's character Kwai-Chang Caine was given the nickname
  `Grasshopper' by his mentor, Master Po, in the television series \emph{Kung
  Fu}.

  Incidentally, the head of the Shaolin monastery where Caine studied was
  Chen Ming Kan, and the subsidiary monks were the masters Shun, Teh, Yuen,
  Wong, Sun and, already mentioned, Po.

  If you are the kind of person who enjoys learning this type of
  mindboggling trivia, then \emph{run}, don't walk to your bookstore, and buy
  the \emph{Straight Dope} books by Cecil Adams. Your life will be vastly
  enriched. There is even a Pratchett connection as well: Terry uses the
  \emph{Straight Dope} books as reference works.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 167/109\,] }}
 ``There is no longer a real Witchfinder General.''

  Just for the record: the story as Terry and Neil give it in this section
  is entirely true. Matthew Hopkins existed, and was indeed hanged as a
  witch himself. I am told he was portrayed fairly accurately by Vincent
  Price in the film \emph{The Conqueror Worm}, aka \emph{Witchfinder General}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 167/109\,] }}
 ``There is also, now, a Witchfinder Private. His name is
  Newton Pulsifer.''

  The name `Lucifer' means ``bringer of light''. One particular meaning of
  `pulse' is a legume --- a pea or lentil. Therefore, `Pulsifer' means
  ``bringer of peace (peas)''.

  I have no idea if this is truly what Terry and Neil intended, but it is a
  beautifully convoluted pun, regardless.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/112\,] }}
 ``Newt [{\ldots}] blushed crimson as he performed the obligatory
  nipple-count on page three''.

  American readers should be aware that some English tabloid papers
  traditionally showed a photo of a topless girl on page three, although I
  am told these days only \emph{The Sun} still follows this practice.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 172/113\,] }}
 ``\,`Women wi' too many arms.'\,''

  Refers to the Hindu goddess Kali (although quite a few more Hindu gods
  and goddesses have more than the usual allotment of arms --- Shiva comes
  to mind).

  Two lines further down there is a reference to Baron Saturday, who is of
  course our old friend Baron Samedi (see the annotation for p.~179/157 of
  \emph{Witches Abroad}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 188/123\,] }}
 ``Red sky in the morning. It was going to rain.''

  See the annotation for p.~202/197 of \emph{Equal Rites}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 192/126\,] }}
 ``Newt's car was a Wasabi.''

  `Wasabi' is, in fact, a kind of horseradish used in sushi.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 193/127\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the world's only surviving Wasabi agent in
  Nigirizushi, Japan.''

  And `Nigirizushi' \emph{is} a kind of sushi.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 197/129\,] }}
 ``The one that looked like a pepper pot just skidded down it,
  and fell over at the bottom. The other two ignored its frantic beeping
  [{\ldots}]''

  The Daleks in the television series \emph{Dr Who} are robots that look very
  much like pepper pots. They don't beep much, though.

  R2D2 in the movie \emph{Star Wars} (and sequels) is a robot that does a lot of
  frantic beeping. It doesn't look that much like a pepper pot, though.

  (In an earlier release of the {\smaller APF}, this annotation listed only R2D2 as a
  possibility. I received a steady trickle of mail saying: ``no, you're
  wrong, it's a reference to the Daleks''. So I changed the annotation,
  which of course only led to the steady trickle changing into: ``no, you're
  wrong, it's a reference to R2D2''. Clearly, we have a controversy on our
  hands{\ldots})

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 205/136\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a wall clock with a free-swinging pendulum that E. A.
  Poe would cheerfully have strapped someone under.''

  See the annotation for p.~15/16 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 217/144\,] }}
 ``\,`And then giant ants take over the world,' said Wensleydale
  nervously. `I saw this film. Or you go around with sawn-off shotguns and
  everyone's got these cars with, you know, knives and guns stuck on ---'\,''

  The films Wensleydale is referring to are \emph{Them!} (how appropriate{\ldots})
  and the various \emph{Mad Max} movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 227/152\,] }}
 ``The Kappamaki, a whaling research ship, [{\ldots}]''

  `Kappamaki' is a Japanese cucumber roll.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 233/157\,] }}
 ``\,`There doesn't have to be any of that business with one
  third of the seas turning to blood or anything,' said Aziraphale
  happily.''

  To the few particularly befuddled or atheistic readers out there who at
  this point of the book still aren't quite sure what is going on, I can
  only give the advice to take a closer look at Chapter~6 of the biblical
  Book of Revelation.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 235/158\,] }}
 ``Hi. This is Anthony Crowley. Uh. I ---''

  Up to this point in the novel, we have only been told that Crowley's
  first name begins with an `A', leading to the false expectation that his
  name might be Aleister Crowley, as in the famous British mystic,
  theosophist, black-arts practitioner and ``most evil man on Earth''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 246/166\,] }}
 ``\,`This is a Sainsbury's plant-mister, cheapest and most
  efficient plant-mister in the world. It can squirt a fine spray of water
  into the air.'\,''

  Dirty Harry again. See the annotation for p.~136/124 of \emph{Guards!
  Guards!}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 257/174\,] }}
 ``\,`\,``Puppet on a String''! Sandie Shaw! Honest. I'm bleeding
  positive!'\,''

  American readers will probably not realise that this is the answer to the
  question: ``What song by which artist won the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest
  for Britain?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 258/174\,] }}
 ``\,`1666!' `No, you great pillock! That was the fire! The
  Plague was 1665!'\,''

  The Great Fire of London in 1666 helped to wipe out the bubonic plague
  that had been afflicting the city since 1665.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 258/175\,] }}
 ``He had LOVE tattooed on one set of knuckles, HATE on the
  other.''

  Originally, this movie reference dates back to Robert Mitchum in \emph{Night
  of the Hunter}. Later it was used by many, many others, including Marlon
  Brando in \emph{The Wild One}, Meatloaf in \emph{The Rocky Horror Picture Show} (an
  appearance entirely built around Brando's), and more recently by Robert
  de Niro in the remake of \emph{Cape Fear}.

  And then there's \emph{The Blues Brothers}, where Jake has his name tattooed
  across the knuckles of one hand, while Elwood needs both hands to spell
  his name; \emph{The Simpsons}, where Sideshow Bob (who, like most cartoon
  characters has only three fingers and a thumb) has LUV on one set of
  knuckles and HAT (with a line across the A) on the other; and of course
  \emph{The Last Remake of Beau Geste} (see also the annotation for p.~109/82)
  where Peter Ustinov, as the sadistic sergeant, has a scene where he sits
  with one hand partially obscured. We get the impression that he too has
  HATE and LOVE tattooed on his knuckles. Eventually he moves, and reveals
  the tattoos actually read HATE and LOATHE.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 259/175\,] }}
 ``\,`I haven't seen you since Mafeking,' said Red.''

  Mafeking, located near Bophuthatswana in South Africa, was for 80 years
  the administrative headquarters of the British Protectorate of
  Bechuanaland (now Botswana). It was the starting point of the Jameson
  Raid, a disastrous raid into the Boer Republic of the Transvaal in 1895,
  which led to the South African War of 1899.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 263/179\,] }}
 ``\,`Ere, I seen you before,' he said. `You was on the cover of
  that Blue \"{O}yster Cult album.''

  This would be \emph{Some Enchanted Evening} (1978), the Blue \"{O}yster Cult's
  second live album. Death painted by T.~R.~Shorr.

  See also the annotation for p.~239 of \emph{Hogfather}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 265/180\,] }}
 The name Citron Deux-Chevaux refers to the Citroen 2CV, or
  deux-chevaux as it is commonly called in Europe (``chevaux'' means horses
  --- `CV' has a (very loose) connection with horsepower).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 268/182\,] }}
 ``\,`Just phone 0800-CASH and pledge your donation now.'\,''

  A transatlantic amalgamation of British and American telephone number
  formats.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 270/184\,] }}
 ``{\ldots}\emph{All we need is, Radio Gaga}{\ldots} sang Freddie Mercury.''

  Terry and Neil definitely seem to have trouble rendering songs correctly.
  According to my source (I can't \emph{stand} the bloody song myself) the line
  that does appear in the song goes: ``All we \emph{hear} is, Radio Gaga''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 277/189\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] formerly Curl Up and Dye, [{\ldots}]''

  People have noticed that this name also occurs in the \emph{Blues Brothers}
  movie, but Terry assures us that the name goes back much further than
  that, and that there in fact at one time actually existed a hair dresser
  named like this.

  I have subsequently been informed that currently existing `Curl Up and
  Dye' hairdressers can be found in both Birmingham and Chepstow.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 280/191\,] }}
 \emph{Sprechen Sie Deutsch} and \emph{Parlez-vous Francais} are German
  and French respectively for ``do you speak German/French'', but ``Wo bu hui
  jiang zhongwen'' is Chinese for ``I can't speak Chinese''.

  Terry says: ``The bit of Chinese was Neil's. I said, ``Are you sure it
  means `Do you speak Chinese?'\,'' He said yes. I should argue?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 287/196\,] }}
 ``\,`\emph{You're thinking that any second now this head is going to
  go round and round, and I'm going to start vomiting pea soup.}'\,''

  This is an obvious reference to Linda Blair in \emph{The Exorcist}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 288/197\,] }}
 ``Something about sheets of glass falling off lorries and
  slicing people's heads off, as he recalled [{\ldots}]''

  The film referred to is \emph{The Omen}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 296/203\,] }}
 ``\,`Heigh ho,' said Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway.''

  This refers to an old British topical song about the Italian opera-singer
  Antonio Rolli, well-known in London during the Regency. The song was
  called `A Frog He Would-a Wooing Go', and the chorus has the lines:

\begin{verse}\textit{With a rolypoly, gammon and spinach, \\Heigh ho, said Anthony Rowley. \\
}\end{verse}

  This was intended to be a highly amusing satire on the way Italian people
  speak. It has only survived to this day as a children's rhyme because of
  its references to talking animals, and despite a totally confusing
  chorus.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 296/203\,] }}
 ``What she really wanted to be was an internationally
  glamorous jet-setter, but she didn't have the O-levels.''

  This has to do with the British education system. After the 8th grade you
  decide how many two-year O- (Ordinary) level courses you are going to
  take (each with an exam at the end). Most non-minimum wage jobs ask for
  at least 5 O-levels, people in college usually have 7 or 8. After your
  O-levels you can either leave school or go on for A- (Advanced) level
  courses, which take another 2--3 years.

  These days, O-levels are no longer a part of the British education
  system, having been replaced a few years back by the GCSE (General
  Certificate of Secondary Education). A-levels still exist.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 297/204\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] they burrowed into eyes, noses, ears, lights [{\ldots}]''

  `Lights' is colloquial British for `internal organs'. See the annotation
  for p.~64/62 of \emph{Pyramids}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 303/208\,] }}
 ``\,`There's a red sky,' he said [{\ldots}] `Or is it shepherds who
  are delighted at night? I can never remember.'\,''

  See the annotations for p.~202/197 of \emph{Equal Rites} and p.~174/126 of
  \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 310/214\,] }}
 ``There was also a man selling hot dogs.''

  Bet you even money his initials were C.M.O.T{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 326/226\,] }}
 ``\,`Where \emph{is} Armageddon, anyway?'\,''

  One theory holds that `Armageddon' is a Greek translation for a Hebrew
  word that may have meant `the mountain of Megiddo', in reference to Mount
  Carmel, which overlooks the plain of Megiddo, where many Old Testament
  battles were fought.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 334/232\,] }}
 ``\,`Did any of them kids have some space alien with a face
  like a friendly turd in a bike basket?'\,''

  A reference to the telekinetic bike-riding scene at the end of the movie
  \emph{E.T.}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 348/242\,] }}
 ``\,`You think wars get started because some old duke gets
  shot, or someone cuts off someone's ear, or someone's sited their
  missiles in the wrong place.'\,''

  That the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in
  Sarajevo in 1914 sparked the beginning of World War I, and that the
  Soviet placement of missiles on Cuba in 1962 almost led to World War III
  is common knowledge. But to non-Brits the second reference may not be so
  obvious. In 1739 Capt Robert Jenkins, of the brig \emph{Rebecca}, claimed to
  have been attacked by a Spanish ship and to have had his ear cut off. He
  complained to the king on his return to England, the incident was taken
  up by the general public, and the Prime Minister used it as a pretext to
  go to war with Spain to regain control of shipping routes. This war is
  generally referred to as the War of Jenkins' Ear.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 349/243\,] }}
 ``\,`Beelzebub,' Crowley supplied. `He's the Lord of ---'\,''

  Crowley is trying to say `Lord of the Flies', which is the literal
  meaning of the Hebrew word `Beelzebub'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 355/248\,] }}
 Dick Turpin is the name of a famous British highwayman.
  Hence the joke about Newt's car being called `Dick Turpin': ``\,`Because
  everywhere I go, I hold up traffic,' he mumbled wretchedly.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 374/262\,] }}
 ``They went to the Ritz again [{\ldots}]. And, [{\ldots}] for the first
  time ever, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.''

  From the song `A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square':

\begin{verse}\textit{That certain night, the night we met \\There was magic abroad in the air \\There were angels dining at the Ritz \\And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 375/262\,] }}
 The \emph{Necrotelecomnicom} also appears (but spelled
  `Necrotelicomnicom') in the Discworld books.

  See the annotation for p.~111/109 of \emph{Equal Rites}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 375/262\,] }}
 The \emph{Malleus Maleficarum} is the name of an existing 15th
  century guidebook for witch-hunters, written by Heinrich Kramer and
  Joseph Sprenger (one a Dominican Inquisitor, the other the Mayor of
  Cologne), two high-ranking officials of the Catholic church. This book
  apparently became Europe's first best-seller after the invention of the
  printing press, and the (early 20th century) English translation of this
  book, \emph{The Hammer of Witches}, is still in print today.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 377/264\,] }}
 ``It was Sunday afternoon.''

  According to Terry, the U.S. edition of \emph{Good Omens} has about 700 extra
  words in it, because:

  ``After the MS had been accepted and edited by Gollancz, the \emph{American}
  editor at Workman in NY asked for a couple of things for the US edition,
  one of which related to Warlock.

  He was an American boy, you see, and she was certain that Americans would
  want to know what had happened to him. So we said ok, and wrote it. To
  the best of my recollection that was the biggest change, although there
  were other minor additions (some we were able to slip into the Gollancz
  hardcover at proof stage, but the Warlock bit was too long). I have to
  say we also polished things up here and there, too, although I think we
  were able to transfer most of \emph{those} changes to the UK proofs too.

  And then since the one done for Workman was technically the final MS the
  UK paperback was set from it.''

  For the people owning the British hardcover of \emph{Good Omens}, here is the
  text of the added section:

  ``It was Sunday afternoon.

  High over England a 747 droned westwards. In the first-class cabin a boy
  called Warlock put down his comic and stared out of the window.

  It had been a very strange couple of days. He still wasn't certain why
  his father had been called to the Middle East. He was pretty sure that
  his father didn't know, either. It was probably something cultural. All
  that happened was a lot of funny-looking guys with towels on their heads
  and very bad teeth had shown them around some old ruins. As ruins went,
  Warlock had seen better. And then one of the old guys had said to him,
  wasn't there anything he wanted to do? And Warlock said he'd like to
  leave.

  They'd looked very unhappy about that.

  And now he was going back to the States. There had been some sort of
  problem with tickets or flights or airport destinations---boards or
  something. It was weird; he was pretty sure his father had meant to go
  back to England. Warlock liked England. It was a nice country to be an
  American in.

  The plane was at that point passing right above the Lower Tadfield
  bedroom of Greasy Johnson, who was aimlessly leafing through a
  photography magazine that he'd bought merely because it had a rather good
  picture of a tropical fish on the cover.

  A few pages below Greasy's listless finger was a spread on American
  football, and how it was really catching on in Europe. Which was
  odd---because when the magazine had been printed, those pages had been
  about photography in desert conditions.

  It was about to change his life.

  And Warlock flew on to America. He deserved \emph{something} (after all, you
  never forgot the first friends you ever had, even if you were all a few
  hours old at the time) and the power that was controlling the fate of all
  mankind at that precise time was thinking: Well, he's going to \emph{America},
  isn't he? Don't see how you could have anythin' better than going to
  \emph{America}.

  They've got thirty-nine flavors of ice cream there. Maybe even more.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 383/267\,] }}
 ``And if you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot{\ldots}
  no, imagine a trainer, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; [{\ldots}]''

  From George Orwell's \emph{1984}: ``If you want to imagine the future, imagine
  a boot stamping on a human face forever''. A `trainer' is what the British
  call a `sneaker', but I should think that much was clear from context (in
  the paperback, `trainer' has in fact been replaced by `sneaker').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 383/268\,] }}
 ``Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield.''

  From W.~B.~Yeats' poem \emph{The Second Coming}:

\begin{verse}\textit{And what rough beast, its hour come round at last \\Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born? \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman did have the title \emph{668 --- The Neighbour
  of the Beast} on hand for a \emph{Good Omens} sequel, but since Neil Gaiman
  lives in the US now, Terry says: ``I can't see it ever being written''.

  There are many documented occurrences of this joke in other contexts, by
  the way (including a recently released actual novel with this name), some
  of them predating \emph{Good Omens}. Terry again points out that it's only to
  be expected since the joke is so obvious.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
There is a British KitKat chocolate bar TV commercial that predates \emph{Good
  Omens}, and which involves an angel and a devil who are just starting
  their respective coffee breaks. Both exit from separate elevators, the
  angel accompanied by several pure-white animals, while the devil turns
  back into his elevator and screams, in a British accent, ``Shut up!'' to
  whatever demons are causing a ruckus behind him.

  If you are now thinking that this is an extremely unlikely, farfetched
  annotation --- well, so did I, until Terry Pratchett himself gave us the
  following piece of information (when some folks were having further
  discussions on how old this ad exactly was):

  ``I'm pretty sure [this ad] started about the same time as \emph{Good Omens},
  because:

  One night I was sitting there typing away when I looked up and there the
  angel and the devil were, having a teabreak (it's not really a
  particularly \emph{Good Omens} idea, but I know why people like it{\ldots}) And I
  thought, hey, great{\ldots}

  And about half an hour later there was an ad (some UK viewers might
  remember it) for an insurance company which showed a businessman with
  wide angel wings walking down the street{\ldots}

  And then, just when I was doing the bit where Crowley muses that people
  are much better than demons at thinking up horrible things to do to one
  another, I switched on the radio; there was a performance of \emph{The
  Tempest}, and someone said ``Hell is empty and all the devils are here''.
  It was a weird evening, really.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
People have been wondering (a) where the back cover photograph of \emph{Good
  Omens} was taken, and (b) which one of them is Terry Pratchett.

  Terry provides the answer to both questions: ``In Kensal Green Cemetery,
  one frosty January day. Since white clothes tend to be thinner than dark
  clothes, I had to be stood in front of a blowlamp between shots.''

  Kensal Green Cemetery can be found in West London, fairly near to
  Wormwood Scrubs Prison. It is one of the seven or so cemeteries built
  around the edge of central London in the nineteenth century to cope with
  the large cholera outbreaks. They are large purpose-built efforts, and
  are full of the glorious stonemasonry that the Victorians indulged in to
  glorify themselves.

  The photograph of Terry and Neil appears on the back of the UK hardcover,
  and in black and white on the inside of the Corgi paperback. If you have
  Internet access, you can get a copy of the photograph from the Pratchett
  Archives.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Strata}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
The whole book is, in a very general way, modelled on Larry Niven's
  classic \emph{Ringworld} novel: a group of differently-raced beings explore an
  improbable, artificial world and try to find its mysterious builders.

  Terry explains:

  ``I intended Strata to be as much a (pisstake/homage/satire) on Ringworld
  as, say, Bill the Galactic Hero was of Starship Troopers. All Niven's
  heroes are competent and all his technology works for millions of
  years{\ldots} but he's a nice guy and says he enjoyed the book.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/13\,] }}
 ``Her skin was presently midnight-black [{\ldots}]''

  Previous editions of the {\smaller APF} considered this sentence proof of a true
  Josh Kirby goof-up, since he pictured Kin Arad as a Caucasian woman on
  the \emph{Strata} cover.

  However, it had totally escaped my attention that on p.~22/26 we read:
  ``Now her skin was silver [{\ldots}]'', indicating that skin-colour is not a
  permanent attribute for Kin --- by the time the scene from the cover is
  reached she could well have changed her skin colour to white.

  On the other hand, after Kin is captured by the locals, Silver suggests
  that she claim to be an Ethiopian princess, so presumably her skin color
  was dark at the time, and Josh Kirby didn't read carefully enough after
  all{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 21/25\,] }}
 ``Back and forth, crossing and leaping, the robots danced their
  caretaker Morris.''

  I think this is the earliest reference to Morris dancing in a Terry
  Pratchett novel. See also the \emph{{\ldots}and Dance} section in Chapter~5.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 130\,] }}
 ``Kin rose like a well-soaped Venus Anadyomene [{\ldots}]''

  See the annotation for p.~128/127 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/92\,] }}
 ``To introduce phase two Kin began to whistle the old
  robot-Morris tune \emph{Mrs Widgery's Lodger}.''

  `Mrs Widgery's Lodger' is a perfect name for a non-existent Morris tune.
  While not seeming to be a direct takeoff on any actual tune name, it
  calls several to mind: `Blue-Eyed Stranger', `Mrs Casey', and `Old Woman
  Tossed Up in a Blanket', for instance. `Mrs Widgery's Lodger' would also
  resurface later on the Discworld as one of the eight orders of wizardry.
  For more information, see the `Unseen University' entry in the \emph{Discworld
  Companion}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 107/132\,] }}
 ``\,`Cape illud, fracturor', [{\ldots}]''

  Dog-Latin which roughly translates to ``Take this, buster''.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Dark Side of the Sun}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Just as \emph{Strata} borrows from Larry Niven, so does \emph{The Dark Side of the
  Sun} pay homage to the famous SF-writer Isaac Asimov.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 5/5\,] }}
 \emph{The Lights In The Sky Are Photofloods}

   \emph{The Lights in the Sky are Stars} is the title of a science fiction
   novel by Fredric Brown (who was most famous for his `twisted-ending'
   short-short stories, but who is unfortunately almost completely
   forgotten today).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 6/6\,] }}
 The best dagon fishers could ride a shell with their toes.

  For an explanation of the word `dagon' see the annotation for p.~197/149
  of \emph{Men at Arms}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 24/28\,] }}
 ``\,`Probability math predicts the future.'\,''

  A parallel to Asimov's psychohistory in the \emph{Foundation Series}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 27/31\,] }}
 The robot Isaac is obviously modelled on Asimov's well-known
  positronic robots (and less obviously inspired by a similar robot that
  appears in Robert Sheckley's \emph{Dimension of Miracles}). Isaac [the robot]
  follows a more extended version of Asimov's equally famous `Three Laws of
  Robotics', though: on p.~53/62: ``\,`[{\ldots}] Eleventh Law of Robotics, Clause
  C, As Amended,' said the robot firmly.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 42/49\,] }}
 ``\,`Beng take them!'\,''

  Beng is Romany (Gypsy language) for the Devil.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44/52\,] }}
 ``\,`In a few days it'll be Soul Cake Friday, and also the Eve of
  Small Gods,' she said.''

  These are of course religious festivals on the Discworld as well, though
  the Soul Cake festivities moved to a different day there (see the
  annotation for p.~289/262 of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}). Later in the book, on p.~89/106, Hogswatchnight is also mentioned.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 73/87\,] }}
 ``\,`It has been impossible for the Bank to be physically present
  here today, Roche limits being what they are, but [{\ldots}]'\,''

  The Roche limit has to do with tidal pull on an object. It specifies how
  close a satellite can orbit a planet before it's pulled apart by tidal
  forces. It stands to reason that the First Sirian Bank, being a planet
  seven thousand miles in diameter, is a bit wary of Roche limits.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 74/89\,] }}
 ``\,`And I wish to notify the Joker Institute that I have located
  a Joker building, description and position as noted.'\,''

  Absolutely no relation, I'm sure, to Larry Niven's Slavers.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 117/140\,] }}
 ``That was another Joker achievement, the Maze on Minos.''

  Minos was the name of the King of Crete who commissioned Daedalus to
  build the famous Labyrinth to house the Minotaur.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/141\,] }}
 ``\,`Born of the sun, we travel a little way towards the sun,'
  misquoted Isaac, tactlessly.''

  Isaac is misquoting the last two lines of the poem \emph{I Think Continually}
  by the English poet Stephen Spender:

\begin{verse}\textit{Born of the sun, they travelled a short while towards the sun, \\And left the vivid air signed with their honour. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/159\,] }}
 ``It was a skit [{\ldots}] written in early Greek style. [{\ldots}]
  Chorus: `Brekekekex, co-ax, co-axial'\,''

  The play being performed is an updated version of Old Attic Comedy, as
  written by the poet Aristophanes. This section specifically parodies
  Aristophanes' \emph{The Frogs}, in which a chorus of (logically enough) frogs
  sings an onomatopoeic song involving the lyric: ``Brekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax''.

  I am told that Steven Sondheim once wrote a musical version of ``The
  Frogs'', which was performed in a swimming pool at Yale University with
  both Sigourney Weaver and Meryl Streep in the chorus.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Truckers}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [cover\,] }}
 The drawing of the old nome Torrit (the one holding the Thing) in
  Josh Kirby's cover for this book is actually a caricature of Terry
  Pratchett himself.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 12/12\,] }}
 ``Masklin scanned the lorry park.''

  The name Masklin is a pun on the word `masculine'. Duh.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 47/44\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the long argument they'd had about the chicken boxes
  with the pictures of the old man with the big whiskers on them.''

  Refers to Colonel Sanders, symbol for the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of
  fast-food chicken restaurants.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 55/51\,] }}
 ``\,`Life, but not as we know it.'\,''

  Refers to another clich\'{e} \emph{Star Trek} phrase, also parodied in the \emph{Star
  Trekkin'} song by The Firm (see the annotation for p.~84/78 of \emph{Johnny
  and the Dead}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/53\,] }}
 ``\,`Um. It was my idea of what an Outsider would look like, you
  see,' said Dorcas.''

  This whole scene immediately made me think of the American pulp science
  fiction magazines, which would often feature elaborate drawings
  depicting, for example, what a Martian might `scientifically' look like.

  In fact, I have in my possession a 1965 issue of \emph{Fantastic Stories},
  featuring on the cover a reprint of a 1939 painting by Frank R. Paul
  called `The Man from Mars', with an accompanying explanation that Dorcas'
  description of the Outsiders is almost an exact equivalent of. This
  Martian has, for instance, disk-shaped suction feet (because of Mars'
  lesser gravity), very big ears (because of the thin atmosphere making it
  harder to catch sounds), white fur and retractable eyes because of the
  extreme cold, etc.\  etc.\ 

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 76/70\,] }}
 ``\,`Unless you know how to read books properly, they inflame the
  brain, they say.'\,''

  Everything we learn about the Stationeri, from the audience with the
  Abbot to this point about censorship, indicates a fairly obvious parody
  of the Roman Catholic Church during the time that the Holy Office (which
  oversaw censorship) was in power.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 103/94\,] }}
 The Store will be closed down and replaced by ``an Arnco Super
  Saverstore in the Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall''.

  The Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall is also prominently featured as the
  place where Johnny and his friends hang out in the `Johnny' books, thus
  establishing firmly that the Nomes and Johnny inhabit the same universe
  (see also the annotation for p.~191/175).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 130/119\,] }}
 ``\,`Breaker Break Good Buddy. Smoky. Double Egg And Chips And
  Beans. Yorkiebar. Truckers.'\,''

  A `Yorkie Bar' is a brand of chocolate bar sold in England. Very chunky,
  like one of the thick Hershey bars: Solid Chocolate. Due to a series of
  adverts depicting a truck driver carrying on through the night, etc.\ 
  etc., all because he has his chunky milk chocolate to hand, the words
  `Yorkie Bar' instantly summon up `Long Distance Lorry Driver' to any
  Briton.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 132/121\,] }}
 ``\,`Angalo has landed,' he said.''

  Pun on ``The Eagle has landed''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/122\,] }}
 ``\,`It's a small step for a man, but a giant leap for
  nomekind.'\,''

  In the category Bloody Obvious References, this is of course a reference
  to Neil Armstrong's first words on the occasion of being the first man on
  the moon: ``That's one small step for [a] man, but a giant leap for
  mankind''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 145/133\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he walked proudly, with a strange swaying motion,
  like a nome who has boldly gone where no nome has gone before and can't
  wait to be asked about it.''

  \emph{Star Trek} reference. See the annotation for p.~221/191 for \emph{The Colour
  of Magic}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 154/141\,] }}
 ``\,`Amazing things, levers. Give me a lever long enough, and a
  firm enough place to stand, and I could move the Store.'\,''

  Another reference to the famous Archimedes quote. See the annotation for
  p.~139/101 of \emph{Small Gods}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/157\,] }}
 ``He recalled the picture of Gulliver. [{\ldots}] it would be nice
  to think that nomes could agree on something long enough to be like the
  little people in the book{\ldots}''

  If it's been a while since you actually read Swift, the rather bitter
  irony of Masklin's musings may escape you. The point being that the
  Lilliputters in \emph{Gulliver's Travels} were anything but capable of
  ``agreeing on something long enough''; in fact they were waging a
  generation-spanning civil war with each other over the burning question
  of whether one should open one's breakfast egg at the pointy end or at
  the flat end.

  Eventually, the `little-endian' vs.\  `big-endian' feud carried over into
  the world of computing as well, where it refers to the order in which
  bytes in multi-byte numbers should be stored, most-significant first (big
  endian) or least-significant first (little endian).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 191/175\,] }}
 ``\,`--- Anyone seeing the vehicle should contact Grimethorpe
  police on ---'\,''

  Minor inconsistency: by the time we get to the second book in the Nome
  trilogy, the place of action has been retconned from Grimethorpe to
  Blackbury (which is the place where Johnny lives, see the annotation for
  p.~103/94).

  A possible explanation might be that there already \emph{is} a real place
  called Grimethorpe (in Yorkshire), and that Terry'd rather use a
  fictional setting after all.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Diggers}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [title\,] }}
 \emph{Diggers}

  In the Corgi paperback editions I have, \emph{Diggers} and \emph{Wings} are
  subtitled ``The Second [respectively Third] Book Of The Nomes''.

  Apparently, in the first edition(s), the trilogy was called \emph{The
  Bromeliad} (and the last two books accordingly subtitled).

  This refers to the central theme of the frogs living in a bromeliad, but
  is also a pun on \emph{The Belgariad}, a well-known fantasy series by David
  Eddings. And of course both names have their origin in Homer's \emph{Iliad}.

  This subtitle was dropped from the British editions, because the editor
  didn't like it. In the US, there were no objections, so to this day US
  editions of the Nome trilogy are subtitled \emph{The Bromeliad}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
People have commented on the similarity between the Nome trilogy and
  other childrens stories involving ``little people''. In particular, the
  question has arisen a few times whether Terry was inspired by the
  \emph{Borrowers} books.

  Terry answers: ``I know about the \emph{Borrowers}, and read one of the books
  in my teens, but I disliked them; they seemed unreal, with no historical
  background, and it seemed odd that they lived this cosy family life more
  or less without any supporting `civilisation'. The nomes are communal,
  and have to think in terms of nomekind. No. Any influence at all is from
  Swift, in this case.''

  ``I'll pass on whether Truckers is funnier than the Borrowers, but I'll
  defend them as being \emph{more serious} than the Borrowers. It depends on how
  you define `serious'.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
The American version of the Nome trilogy is not word-for-word the same as
  the original one.

  Terry says: ``The Truckers trilogy has a fair amount of changes of a
  `pavement = sidewalk' nature which is understandable in a book which
  should be accessible to kids. They also excised the word `damn' so's not
  to get banned in Alabama, which is a shame because I've always wanted to
  be banned in Alabama, ever since I first heard of the place.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 60/54\,] }}
 ``iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was on it\@. iv. And the Mark
  was Jekub.''

  `Jekub' was the Nomes' attempted pronunciation of JCB, the name of a
  well-known manufacturer of tractors, diggers, and the like, whose logo of
  course appears on all its products. Jekub, incidentally, appears to be a
  thing called a `back-hoe loader'. In the American version of the Nomes
  trilogy `JCB' was changed to `CAT', standing for `Caterpillar'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 82/73\,] }}
 ``\,`We shall fight them in the lane. We shall fight them at the
  gates. We shall fight them in the quarry. And we shall never surrender.'\,''

  Paraphrases one of Winston Churchill's famous WW II speeches. Possibly
  the easiest way to get to hear the original version is to listen to
  Supertramp's `Fool's Overture'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/126\,] }}
 ``\,`Jcb? Jekub? It's got no vowels in it. What sort of name is
  that?'\,''

  This is a play on `YHWH', the classical Hebrew spelling of Yahweh, i.e.\ 
  Jehovah.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Wings}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 135/121\,] }}
 ``\,`The other humans around it are trying to explain to it
  what a planet is' `Doesn't it know?' `Many humans don't.
  Mistervicepresident is one of them.'\,''

  I don't think anybody in the Western world would not have caught this
  reference to Dan Quayle, but let's face it: in twenty years people will
  still be reading Terry Pratchett, and hopefully this {\smaller APF} --- but who'll
  remember Misterexvicepresident?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 150/135\,] }}
 ``The humans below tried shining coloured lights at it, and
  playing tunes at it, and eventually just speaking to it in every language
  known to humans.''

  Refers to the climactic scene of Steven Spielberg's science fiction movie
  \emph{Close Encounters of the Third Kind}, where contact with the aliens is
  indeed established by shining lights and playing tunes at their
  spaceship.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Only You Can Save Mankind}\nopagebreak

In order to fully appreciate this novel it may not be necessary, but I
think it will greatly add to your enjoyment and understanding, if you have
seen at least one of the \emph{Alien} movies, and have played at least one
computer shoot-em-up arcade game.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7/7\,] }}
 ``The Mighty ScreeWee$^{TM}$ Empire$^{TM}$ is poised to attack Earth!''

  A wonderful parody of the way in which the typical computer action game
  is advertised or described on the box. Terry confirms:

  ``Let's say I've played Wing Commander and Elite and X-Wing and loads of
  other games, so writing that first page was easy for me :--)\,''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 9/9\,] }}
 The Hero With A Thousand Extra Lives

  A reference to the title of Joseph Campbell's \emph{The Hero with a Thousand
  Faces}, an anthropological work comparing and contrasting Hero myths from
  different cultures.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/13\,] }}
 ``My dad brought me back `Alabama Smith and the Jewels of Fate'
  from the States.''

  Puns on the movie title \emph{Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom}. Alabama
  and Indiana are both American states.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 19/19\,] }}
 ``Hey, I really need a computer because that way I can play
  `Megasteroids'.''

  `Asteroids' is the name of an ancient, very famous computer game.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 27/27\,] }}
 Johnny's nickname for his friend: `MC Spanner', spoofs our
  world's pop-rap star `MC Hammer' (a spanner is a wrench, and also
  (colloquially) equates as a mild insult to the American English `dork').

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 40/40\,] }}
 This is not really an annotation, because I think it is highly
  improbable that there is an actual link here, but the idea of Terry's
  `Cereal Killers' immediately reminded me of the short science fiction
  stories by Philip K. Dick. Not any particular one, but just the whole
  idea of something horrible masquerading as something ridiculously
  innocent appears again and again in Dick's slightly paranoid oeuvre.

  The serial/cereal pun itself is of course fairly obvious, and can be
  found in many other places, from old Infocom adventure games to Neil
  Gaiman's \emph{Sandman} comics.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 42/42\,] }}
 ``\,`I saw this film once, right, where there were these computer
  games and if you were really good the aliens came and got you and you had
  to fly a spaceship and fight a whole bad alien fleet,' said Bigmac.''

  Bigmac is describing the 1984 science fiction movie \emph{The Last
  Starfighter} here (starring Lance Guest and Robert Preston).

  As a movie this was decidedly a so-so experience (you can take my word
  for it, I have seen it), but it deserves credit for one major
  achievement: after the box-office disaster of \emph{Tron} it was the first
  Hollywood film to make extensive use of computer-generated animation. And
  since \emph{The Last Starfighter} was not a commercial failure, it effectively
  opened the road again for further use of computer graphics in movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 72/72\,] }}
 ``But everyone watched \emph{Cobbers}.''

  `Cobber' is an Australian word meaning `companion' or `friend'; these
  days used more as an informal slang label for addressing someone (as in:
  ``Now look here, cobber, {\ldots}''). Terry's use of this title reflects the
  fact that Australian soap operas (such as e.g.\  \emph{Neighbours}) are
  extremely popular in the UK (as in the rest of Europe, I should add). As
  Terry explained:

  ``Actually, the scene is probably lost on [non-Brits]; you have to
  understand that it is almost impossible to turn on a UK TV at any time
  between 4.30 --- 6pm without hearing the distinctive sound of Australian
  adolescents locked in confrontation.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 109/109\,] }}
 ``What's your game name?' `Sigourney --- \emph{you're laughing!}'\,''

  Sigourney Weaver is the actress who plays the heroine in all three
  \emph{Alien} movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 118/118\,] }}
 ``On Earth, No-one Can Hear You Say `Um'\,''

  The now famous slogan used in the advertising campaigns for the first
  \emph{Alien} movie was: \emph{In Space, No-one Can Hear You Scream}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/133\,] }}
 ``\,`I saw a film where there was an alien crawling around
  inside a spaceship's air ducts and it could come out wherever it liked,'
  said Johnny reproachfully. `Doubtless it had a map,' said the Captain.''

  The movie Johnny refers to is, of course, \emph{Alien}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 147/147\,] }}
 ``\,`Is there anything I can do?' [{\ldots}] `I don't know,' she
  said. `Is there \emph{anything} you can do?'\,''

  The same dialogue occurs between Ripley and Sergeant Apone in the film
  \emph{Aliens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 158/158\,] }}
 ``\,`You're thinking: He'll be in there somewhere, hiding.'\,''

  In \emph{Alien}, the alien creature eventually hid itself in the escape
  capsule Sigourney Weaver tried to get away in at the end.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 162/162\,] }}
 ``\,`If we find a cat I'm going to kick it!'\,''

  In \emph{Alien}, Sigourney goes \emph{back} into the mother ship because she did
  not want to leave the cat behind.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Johnny and the Dead}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 11/10\,] }}
 ``\,`Singing ``Here we go, here we go, here we go''?' said Johnny.
  `And ``Viva a spanner''?'\,''

  For ``here we go, here we go'', see the annotation for p.~76/70 of \emph{Guards!
  Guards!}.

  `Viva a spanner' is Johnny's version of the song `Y Viva Espa\~{n}a', an
  early 70s hit which appeared at about the time that many Brits were first
  going on package tours to Spain (see also the annotation for p.~176/116
  of \emph{Good Omens}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 13/12\,] }}
 ``\,`He said the Council sold it to some big company for
  fivepence because it was costing so much to keep it going.'\,''

  The right-wing Westminster council, headed by Lady Shirley Porter sold
  three cemeteries for 15p a couple of years ago, giving the same
  reasoning.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/19\,] }}
 ``\,`No-one visits most of the graves now, except old Mrs
  Tachyon, and she's barmy.'\,''

  A tachyon is a hypothetical faster-than-light quantum particle, which has
  not been proven to actually exist.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 20/19\,] }}
 ``\,`I was referring,' said his grandfather, `to William
  Stickers.'\,''

  Refers to the posters forbidding flyposting reading ``bill stickers will
  be prosecuted''. These quickly attracted the graffito ``Bill Stickers is
  Innocent'' (and similar). William Stickers is obviously this much-harassed
  individual.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 24/22\,] }}
 ``The last thing to go was the finger, still demonstrating its
  total disbelief in life after death.''

  See the Cheshire Cat annotation for p.~142/141 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 26/25\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] a skinny kid with short hair and flat feet and asthma
  who had difficulty even \emph{walking} in Doc Martens, [{\ldots}]''

  Doc Martens (fully: `Doctor Marten's patent Air-Wair boots and shoes',
  with `The Original Doctor Marten's Air Cushion Sole. OIL FAT ACID PETROL
  ALKALI RESISTANT') are one of the most popular and fashionable footwear
  in Britain among the younger generation. Once associated with skin-heads
  and fascists they are now simply standard issue for almost anyone in the
  UK between the age of 16 and 30.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28/26\,] }}
 ``\,`I saw this film once, about a man with X-ray eyes,' said
  Bigmac.''

  There are of course dozens of films that this description could apply to
  (starting with \emph{Superman}, for instance), but the best candidate would
  appear to be the 1963 Roger Corman movie \emph{X --- The Man With X-Ray Eyes},
  starring Ray Milland.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 29/27\,] }}
 ``\,`After \emph{Cobbers},' said Bigmac.''

  \emph{Cobbers} is obviously modelled on the Australian soap opera \emph{Neighbours}
  and its cousins.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 30/28\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the new Council named it the Joshua Che N'Clement block
  [{\ldots}]''

  A combination of Che Guevara, Joshua N'Komo, and the word `inclement'.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 39/37\,] }}
 ``Like Dead Man's Hand at parties.''

  One of those party games known under a dozen different names, but which
  usually consists of people passing various items to each other behind
  their backs. The idea is to throw in some really weird stuff and gross
  people out through their imaginations.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 40/38\,] }}
 ``\,`His head'll spin round in a minute!'\,''

  A reference to the 1973 horror movie \emph{The Exorcist}, starring Linda
  Blair, which actually turned out to be a watchable movie, rather to my
  surprise. For a good laugh, I recommend instead that you try to get a
  hold of either its 1977 sequel \emph{The Exorcist II}, or alternatively (if
  you like more intentional humour) of that one Saturday Night Live sketch
  with Richard Pryor (``the \emph{bed} is \emph{on} my \emph{foot}!''). But I digress.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 42/39\,] }}
 ``\,`The lady in the hat is Mrs Sylvia Liberty,' he whispered.''

  Sylvia Pankhurst was a famous suffragette (in fact it was something of a
  family trade), but it was Emily Davidson who threw herself under the
  horse.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 43/41\,] }}
 ``\,`I saw this film,' gabbled Wobbler, `where these houses were
  built on an old graveyard and someone dug a swimming pool and all the
  skeletons came out and tried to strangle people ---'\,''

  This movie is of course the famous 1982 movie \emph{Poltergeist}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 48/45\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the messages from God he heard when he played Cliff
  Richard records backwards ---'\,''

  This may need some explaining for people who are (a) not into rock music
  or religious fundamentalism, and (b) not European and therefore not in
  the possession of the slightest idea as to who Cliff Richard is.

  To begin with, it is a particularly obnoxious popular myth that heavy
  metal groups (or any popular performer, for that matter) hide Satanic or
  suicide-inducing or otherwise demoralising messages in their songs. This
  is done by a technique known as `backwards masking', which means the
  message can only be revealed by playing the music backwards (although the
  subliminal effect is supposedly in full effect when our innocent children
  listen to these songs the right way round).

  Needless to say, this is all an incredible load of nonsense: most
  supposedly Satanic messages exist only in people's fevered imaginations,
  and even if there \emph{were} such messages there isn't a single shred of
  evidence as to their effectiveness.

  To finally arrive at the main idea behind this annotation: Cliff Richard
  is a perpetually youthful-looking, squeaky-clean British pop singer,
  who's been around since the sixties and is still hugely popular today,
  even though (or perhaps even more so because) he found religion in the
  seventies. Consequently, any backwards messages in \emph{his} music, will most
  definitely not be Satanic, but rather the opposite.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 49/46\,] }}
 ``Grandad was watching \emph{Video Whoopsy}.''

  Although obviously meant as an equivalent to shows like \emph{America's
  Funniest Home Videos}, this is not the name of any existing show (the
  British version is called \emph{You've Been Framed}). The word `whoopsy' was
  popularised by the 70s UK sitcom \emph{Some Mother's Do {\textquoteright}Ave {\textquoteright}Em} as a
  euphemism for excrement, as in ``The cat's done a whoopsy on the carpet''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 58/54\,] }}
 ``\emph{WHEEEsssh} {\ldots} we built this city on {\ldots} \emph{ssshshhh} [{\ldots}]
  scaramouche, can you {\ldots} \emph{shssssss} {\ldots}''

  The ``we built this city'' fragment is from the 1985 hit song `We Built
  This City' by the group Starship, formerly Jefferson Starship, formerly
  the legendary Jefferson Airplane.

  The ``scaramouche'' line is, of course, from Queen's `Bohemian Rhapsody'
  (see also the annotation for p.~26/8 of \emph{Good Omens}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 66/61\,] }}
 ``\,`Who \emph{is} Shakespeare's Sister and why is she singing on the
  wireless?'\,''

  Shakespear's Sister is a female vocal duo (one of whom is a former
  Bananarama member, as well as the wife of Dave Stewart from `Eurythmics'
  fame --- but I digress), who were hugely popular in the UK in the early
  90s (and a bit less popular in the rest of the world, I'm afraid) with
  hits like `Stay' and `Hello (Turn Your Radio On)'. Shakespear's Sister
  have split up recently.

  British comediennes French and Saunders did a parody of Shakespear's
  Sister, called Dickens' Daughter, which has to be seen to be believed.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 68/63\,] }}
 ``\,`You have to have three A-levels.'\,''

  See the annotation for p.~296/203 of \emph{Good Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 72/67\,] }}
 ``\emph{The People's Shroud is Deepest Black}''

  As opposed to the People's Flag, which is Deepest Red, according to `The
  Red Flag', which is indeed a ``song of the downtrodden masses'' (see p.~86/79), as used by many socialist and communist parties.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 74/68\,] }}
 ``\,`Ghosts don't phone up radio stations!' `I saw this film once
  where they came out of the telephone,' said Bigmac, [{\ldots}]''

  Refers to the 1986 movie \emph{Poltergeist II}, starring JoBeth Williams and
  Craig T. Nelson.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 84/78\,] }}
 ``\,`It's worse than that. I'm dead, Jim.'\,''

  Refers to the \emph{Star Trek}-associated catch phrase: ``It's worse than that,
  he's dead Jim.''

  The phrase ``He's dead, Jim'' was a classic line from the television
  series, spoken by Dr McCoy to Captain Kirk, in at least five different
  episodes (if you must know: `The Enemy Within' (about a dog), `The
  Changeling' (about Scotty), `Wolf in the Fold' (about Hengist), `Spectre
  of the Gun' (about Chekov), and `Is There in Truth no Beauty?' (about
  Marvick)), and there are numerous near-miss instances where he said
  something similar, such as ``The man is dead, Jim'' or ``He's dead,
  Captain''. (This information courtesy of the newsgroup
  {\smaller \texttt{rec.arts.startrek.misc}}.)

  The ``It's worse than that'' part of the quote did not originate with \emph{Star
  Trek} itself, but with the 1987 song `Star Trekkin', by The Firm, which
  was a huge novelty hit set to a simple `London Bridge is falling down'
  tune, and featuring lyrics along the lines of:

\begin{verse}\textit{It's life Jim but not as we know it \\not as we know it, not as we know it \\It's life Jim but not as we know it \\Not as we know it Captain \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{It's worse than that he's dead Jim \\Dead Jim, dead Jim \\It's worse than that he's dead Jim \\Dead Jim, dead! \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 123/113\,] }}
 ``\,`Wasn't there an Elm Street down by Beech Lane?' [{\ldots}]
  `Freddie. Now that's a NICE name.'\,''

  Refers to the main character of the \emph{Nightmare on Elm Street} series of
  horror movies.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 132/122\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] he'd never been able to remember all that `Foxtrot
  Tango Piper' business [{\ldots}]''

  Since `Foxtrot Tango Piper' spells FTP, this \emph{may} be a reference to the
  computer world's File Transfer Protocol, which is a protocol (and also
  the name for the associated types of client software) used to transfer
  files between different machines. FTP is a very important means of data
  exchange on the Internet (see e.g.\  the section on the Pratchett Archives
  in Chapter~6), and is also well-known for being rather confusing to the
  beginner. Cries along the lines of ``I can't seem to get the hang of this
  FTP business'' are often heard on the net.

  In the NATO spelling alphabet, the actual word used to denote the letter
  `p' is `Papa', by the way.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 133/123\,] }}
 ``\,`These aliens landed and replaced everyone in the town with
  giant vegetables.'\,''

  Refers to the 1978 movie \emph{Invasion of the Body Snatchers}, starring
  Donald Sutherland. (Or perhaps to the original 1956 cult movie starring
  Kevin McCarthy.)

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 140/129\,] }}
 ``There is a night that never comes to an end{\ldots}''

  The idea of racing the sun around the world is used in the opening pages
  of Larry Niven's novel \emph{Ringworld}, in which Louis Wu spends 48 hours
  celebrating his 200th birthday by using matter transmitter booths to stay
  a step ahead of midnight.

  However, incredibly, Niven (who has a reputation for scientific accuracy
  --- not 100\% deserved, but still he's better than most SF authors on that
  score) originally had Wu going \emph{west to east} to stay ahead of midnight.
  Even more incredibly, no one caught this mistake until after the book
  went on sale. It was corrected in the second printing. The first printing
  is, as you might guess, a very rare collector's item.

  Since we can be pretty certain Terry's read \emph{Ringworld} (see \emph{Strata}),
  and since Niven's mistake is one of the most famous SF flubs of all time,
  Fletcher's admonition to Stanley Roundway (``We're going \emph{west}, Stanley.
  For once in your death, try to get the directions right.'') is probably no
  coincidence.

  On the other hand it should be noted that for some strange reason people
  on a.f.p.\ are always annoying Terry by trying to pin Larry Niven
  influences on him (see e.g.\  the annotation for p.~64/59 of \emph{Guards!
  Guards!}). Maybe this annotation, too, is just a far-fetched coincidence.
  It wouldn't be the first in this document, now would it?

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 142/130\,] }}
 ``\,`New York, New York.' `Why did they name it twice?' `Well,
  they ARE Americans.'\,''

  A reference to the 1979 hit song `New York, New York', by Gerard Kenny,
  which starts out:

\begin{verse}\textit{New York, New York, \\So good they named it twice. \\New York, New York \\All the scandal and the vice \\I love it \\New York, New York \\Now isn't it a pity \\What they say about New York City \\
}\end{verse}

  See also the annotation for p.~72/65 of \emph{Reaper Man}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 148/136\,] }}
 ``In a neglected corner, Mrs Tachyon was industriously
  Vim-ing a gravestone.''

  Apparently, Vim is unknown in the USA, but in Europe it is well-known as
  \emph{the} scouring powder for cleaning sinks and stuff. It is quite ancient,
  and has lately been eclipsed a bit by more modern (and less destructive)
  cleaners such as Jif or Mr Sheen.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 158/146\,] }}
 ``\,`Met Hannibal Lecter in a dark alley, did it?' said
  Yo-less.''

  A reference to the cannibalistic, eh, hero of the 1991 movie \emph{The Silence
  of the Lambs}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 159/147\,] }}
 ``\,`Baron Samedi, the voodoo god,' said Yo-Less. `I got the
  idea out of James Bond.'\,''

  The James Bond movie Yo-less means is \emph{Live and Let Die}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 164/151\,] }}
 ``\,`Body snatchers!' said Wobbler. `Burke {\textquoteright}n Head!' said
  Bigmac.''

  Burke and Hare were a famous pair of `resurrectionists' who operated in
  Edinburgh in the 19th century. Basically, they dug up fresh bodies from
  graveyards, in order to supply surgeons with material for anatomical
  dissections. Edinburgh University is not very proud of its association
  with this trade, especially since eventually, when demand outstripped
  supply, so to speak, Burke and Hare went a bit overboard and started
  creating their own supply of fresh, dead bodies.

  Also, Birkenhead is a town in Merseyside (the Liverpool area).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 171/158\,] }}
 ``\,`Good Work, Fumbling Four! And They All Went Home For Tea
  And Cakes.'\,''

  There was a series of children's books by Enid Blyton starring the Famous
  Five who managed to repeatedly avert crimes, capture gangs and generally
  have a Jolly Good Time.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Johnny and the Bomb}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 16\,] }}
 ``\,`Like in that film where the robot is sent back to kill the
  mother of the boy who's going to beat the robots when he grows up.'\,''

  A reference to the original 1984 \emph{The Terminator} movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 40\,] }}
 ``\,`Millennium hand and shrimp?'\,''

  Ah, clearly Mrs Tachyon is somehow receiving on the same astral frequency
  as the Bursar and Foul Ole Ron. See also the annotation for p.~324/233 of
  \emph{Lords and Ladies}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 50\,] }}
 ``\,`[{\ldots}] the mysterious rain of fish we had in September [{\ldots}]'\,''

  A Fortean resonance (see also the annotation for p.~155/99 of \emph{Good
  Omens}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 64\,] }}
 ``\emph{The Truth is Out Of Here}''

  Puns on the famous tagline for the \emph{The X-Files} television series (see
  also the annotation for p.~154 of \emph{Hogfather}).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 67\,] }}
 ``D'you see that film where the car travelled in time [{\ldots}]'\,''

  Undoubtedly this is the original \emph{Back To The Future} movie.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 73\,] }}
 ``\,`Me, and four token boys. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. It's only a mercy
  we haven't got a dog.'\,''

  A reference to the Famous Five. See also the annotation for p.~127/80 of
  \emph{Good Omens} and the annotation for p.~87 of \emph{The Amazing Maurice and his
  Educated Rodents}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{+\sf\ [\,p. 203\,] }}
 ``She held up a pickled onion.''

  It was observed on afp that the previous Johnny books both seem to leave
  open the option that what happens is all somehow a dream or a figment of
  Johnny's imagination, and that Kirsty actually finding a physical object
  this time would be an indication of a change in focus. But Terry
  disagrees:

  ``In OYCSM Kirsty (`Sigourney') is involved and remembers it, and Wobbler
  gets messages from Johnny on his own computer screen. OYCSM is, I admit,
  deliberately the most `equivocal' of the trio. I think it's not an
  either/or case --- it's all real AND it's all happening in his
  imagination.

  In JatD newspapers float in the air, the Dead are heard to speak on the
  radio (and the guys in the radio station notice this) and things happen
  in the pub and the cinema.

  In JatB bits of the town change, Mrs Tachyon has fresh fish and chips
  wrapped in a 1941 newspaper and is seen by people in the past after being
  in the present, the gang appear mysteriously in front of the old folks'
  club, Johnny (I think) finds that there's someone in the old newspaper
  picture which (if you know it's Wobbler) looks like Wobbler, and Johnny
  also has the playing card missing from his grandad's pack (and grandad
  got a medal for running a distance which couldn't possibly be run in the
  time). But what happens is the familiar `history reasserting itself'
  motif, as in \emph{Back to the Future III} --- there have to be \emph{clues} that
  the process misses, of course, otherwise there'd be no point. Remember
  that (in addition to all the other stuff) it's not the pickle that's the
  clue, it's the fact that Kirsty now \emph{remembers}.''

  When subsequently someone on afp said that they'd always figured the
  Johnny books were explorations of childhood angst in which the
  protagonist's fantasies are projected onto reality in an attempt to
  escape to a different world where he can be more powerful and
  significant, Terry replied in no uncertain terms:

  ``I can't be having with that pernicious rubbish. `Window' books, they are
  called: young Sid has big problems at home, so in his dreams he battles a
  dragon, and this gives him the strength to deal with the problems --- as
  if imagination and fantasy were some kind of medicines. Yo-less trots out
  this handy explanation in OYCSM.

  I'd be the first to say that the exercise of imagination and humanity's
  genius with metaphor can make a huge difference to our lives and are part
  of what makes us human. I just hate to see fantasy dismissed as a kind of
  poultice or, worse, as a drug. It's led to some godawful smug books (and
  some very good ones, I have to admit --- but a lot of dumb ones too).

  There \emph{are} natural explanations for a lot of the things that happen in
  the books, if you are desperate to find them (and people will sometimes
  go through some serious mental gymnastics to avoid changing their
  preconceived ideas about the universe) But I like to be equivocal about
  what is `real' and what isn't --- to Johnny it's all real, and that's what
  counts. `Saving the Screewee' isn't some code for improving his own life
  --- he deals with all the problems on their own terms and half the time
  he's projecting reality onto fantasy. Maybe sorting out one part of your
  life gives you some strength to sort out others, but you don't need
  aliens in your computer to tell you that.

  So: is what happens in the books real? Yes. Does it all happen in
  Johnny's head? Yes. Are the Dead a metaphor? Yes. Are they real? Yes. Not
  just waving, but particalling.''

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Carpet People}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 120/110\,] }}
 ``\,`For me, all possibilities are real. I live them all. [{\ldots}]
  Otherwise they never could have happened.'\,''

  Another one of Terry's quantum references. What Culaina describes here is
  a particular interpretation of quantum theory, namely that each quantum
  event causes time to split up into distinct possibilities (``the trousers
  of time''). The idea that certain events can only happen if they are
  directly observed is one of the best-known concepts in quantum mechanics.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Unadulterated Cat}\nopagebreak

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 7\,] }}
 ``The Campaign for Real Cats is against fizzy keg cats.''

  Parodies the aims and objectives of the Campaign for Real Ale, a British
  organisation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of traditional
  beer-making in the face of the threat from mass-produced
  `love-in-a-canoe' fizzy keg beer foisted on an unsuspecting public by the
  large national breweries.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 18\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] good home in this case means anyone who doesn't actually
  arrive in a van marked J. Torquemada and Sons, Furriers.''

  See the annotation for p.~137/88 of \emph{Good Omens} if you don't know who
  Torquemada was.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``Or perhaps there is now a Lorry cat undreamed of by T. S.
  Eliot.''

  T.~S.~Eliot, 20th century poet and critic. He wrote the book \emph{Old
  Possum's Book of Practical Cats}, which the musical \emph{Cats} was based on.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 28\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] growing fat on Yorkie bars.''

  See the annotation for p.~130/119 of \emph{Truckers}.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 35\,] }}
 ``You need a word with a cutting edge. \emph{Zut!} is pretty good.''

  `Zut' is also a French exclamation, meaning \emph{Damn} or ``drop dead''.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 44\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] sitting proudly beside a miniature rodent Somme on the
  doorstep.''

  The Somme is a river in the north of France, which has been the scene of
  some extremely heavy fighting in both World Wars. In 1916 for instance, a
  French/British offensive pushed back the German lines there, at very
  heavy cost to both sides.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 73\,] }}
 ``It's bluetits and milk-bottle tops all over again, I tell you.''

  Refers to a well-known evolution-in-action anecdote concerning a
  particular species of birds which collectively, over a period of time,
  learned how to open milk-bottles that the milkman left on the doorsteps
  each morning in a certain English rural area.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 84\,] }}
 ``[{\ldots}] the price of celery is eternal vigilance.''

  This paraphrases ``The price of liberty is eternal vigilance'', nowadays
  usually associated with Kennedy. It was in fact first said by John
  Philpot Curran in his ``The Right of Election of the Lord Mayor of Dublin''
  speech in 1790.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 86\,] }}
 ``a garden that looks like an MoD installation,''

  MoD = Ministry of Defence.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--\sf\ [\,p. 92\,] }}
 ``Owing to an unexplained occurrence of Lamarckian heredity [{\ldots}]''

  Lamarck was a contemporary of Darwin who became the symbol for what was
  for a long time a very strong rival of Darwin's own natural selection as
  an explanation for the mechanism of evolution. According to Lamarckism
  (simplification alert!), changes acquired by an individual of a species
  can immediately be inherited by the next generation, thus accounting for
  evolution. Lamarckism has by now completely disappeared as a serious
  evolutionary theory, in favour of modified versions of natural selection.

\cleardoublepage\chapter{Thoughts and Themes}

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Turtle Moves!}\nopagebreak

It was already mentioned in one of the annotations: on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}
there will at any given moment in time be at least one discussion ongoing
about some aspect of the Discworld considered as a physical object. What
does it look like? Where did it come from? Does it rotate? What do
constellations look like for the people living on it? Where are the
continents located? Is there a map of Ankh-Morpork\footnote{There is now.}? What
are the names of the Elephants\footnote{Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen,
just in case anyone'd forgotten.}? Is Great A'Tuin male or female? That
sort of thing.

Summarising these discussions is useless: nobody ever agrees on anything,
anyway, and besides: half the fun is in the discussion itself --- who cares
if these issues ever get properly `resolved'. Nevertheless, I think it will
be in the spirit of this annotation file, and of interest to the readers,
if I reproduce here some of the things Terry Pratchett \emph{himself} has said
on the various subjects, at those times when he chose to enter the
discussion.

To start with some history: many people think the appearance of the
Discworld as described in the novels was an invention of Terry's. This is
not really the case: in Hindu mythology, for instance, we find the idea of
a lotus flower growing out of Vishnu's navel. Swimming in a pool in the
lotus flower is the world turtle, on whose back stand four elephants facing
in the four compass directions. On their backs is balanced the flat,
disc-shaped world. See also Josh Kirby's magnificent drawing of the
Discworld in the illustrated version of \emph{Eric}.

  Terry: ``The myth that the world is flat and goes through space on the
  back of a turtle is, with variations, found on every continent. An
  African fan has just sent me a Bantu legend, which however does not
  include the character of N'Rincewind.''

Next up are the various questions concerning (a) exactly how the Discworld
looks, and (b) how it interacts with other celestial objects. Some relevant
quotes from Terry (as before, quotation marks (`` '') indicate the beginning
and ending of quotes from different Usenet articles):

  ``The elephants face outwards. The spinning of the Disc does not harm the
  elephants because that's how the universe is arranged.''

  ``I've got some drawings I did of the Discworld at the start and I've
  always thought of it like this:

  The \emph{shell} of the turtle is slightly smaller than the world, but the
  flippers and head and tail are all visible from the Rim, looking down ---
  as Rincewind does in \emph{The Colour of Magic}.''

  ``The Discworld revolves. The sun and moon orbit it as well. This enables
  the Disc to have seasons. And the DW `universe' --- turtle, world, sun,
  moon --- moves slowly through our own universe.''

  ``Where is the sun at noon? There are two answers.

\begin{verse}\textit{A) It's directly over the centre of the Disc; \\B) It's in a small cafe.'' \\
}\end{verse}

On the subject of constellations and what they would look like (see also
the file discworld-constellations available from the Pratchett Archives):

  ``GA must move fairly fast --- in \emph{The Light Fantastic} a star goes from a
  point to a sun (I assume GA halted somewhere in the temperate orbits) in
  a few weeks. I've always thought that Discworld astrology would largely
  consist of research; we already know the character traits, what we're
  trying to find is \emph{what the new constellations are}, as the turtle moves.
  And of course some particular constellations might have very distinct and
  peculiar characteristics that are never repeated. Some constellations,
  facing in front and behind, would change very little. The ones `to the
  side' would change a lot. Bear in mind also that the sun revolves around
  the disc and the disc revolves slowly, so that every group of stars in
  the sky would have a chance to be a constellation for birth date
  purposes. In short, we need hundreds and hundreds of constellation names
  --- good job there's Usenet, eh?''

Finally, on the less cosmic subject of planetary maps (for more information
about the Innovations comics and the Clarecraft models mentioned below,
read the {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} Frequently Asked Questions files, available from
the Pratchett Archives):

  ``The map of the Discworld in the Innovations comic is just an artist's
  squiggle. The surface of the Discworld in the Clarecraft model is{\ldots}
  er{\ldots} rather amazingly close to my idea, although the vertical dimension
  is hugely exaggerated. And Stephen Briggs, having just sent off the
  `definitive' map of Ankh-Morpork, has said that he can deduce a map of
  the Disc. Fans have also sent me fairly accurate maps. Once you work out
  that the Circle Sea is rather similar to the Med, but with Ephebe and
  Tsort and Omnia and Djelibeybi (and Hersheba, one of these days) all on
  the `north African' coast, Klatch being `vaguely Arabic' and Howondaland
  being `vaguely African' it's easy.

  But all maps are valid.''

  ``I've never thought that any parts of Discworld corresponded exactly to
  places on Earth. Lancre is `generic Western Europe/US rural', for example
  --- not the Ozarks, not the North of England, but maybe with something of
  each.

  The Sto Plains are `vaguely Central European'; Klatch, Ephebe, Tsort,
  etc, are all `vaguely Southern European/North African'.

  Genua was designed to be a `Magic Kingdom' but in a New Orleans setting
  --- I hope the voodoo, cooking etc.\  made that reasonably obvious. Genua
  and the other countries mentioned in \emph{Witches Abroad} are all on the
  other side of the Ramtops, which more or less bisect the continent.

  As far as the Ankh-Morpork map is concerned, we've decided to get it
  right \emph{at a point in time}. In any case, it's a developing city; the city
  of \emph{Guards!\ Guards!} has evolved some way from the one in \emph{The Colour of
  Magic}.''

\vspace{4ex}\section{Song{\ldots}}\nopagebreak

The one song that all Discworld fans will be familiar with, is of course
Nanny Ogg's favourite ballad: `The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All'
(see also the annotation for p.~36/35 of \emph{Wyrd Sisters}).

I will start this section with the complete text to the song that might
have been the prototype for the hedgehog-song --- except that it wasn't. It
can be found in Michael Green's book \emph{Why Was He Born So Beautiful and
Other Rugby Songs} (1967, Sphere UK), it is called `The Sexual Life of the
Camel', it probably dates back to the 1920s/30s, and it goes:

\begin{verse}\textit{The carnal desires of the camel \\Are stranger than anyone thinks, \\For this passionate but perverted mammal \\has designs on the hole of the Sphinx, \\But this deep and alluring depression \\Is oft clogged by the sands of the Nile, \\Which accounts for the camel's expression \\And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{In the process of Syphilization \\From the anthropoid ape down to man \\It is generally held that the Navy \\Has buggered whatever it can. \\Yet recent extensive researches \\By Darwin and Huxley and Ball \\Conclusively prove that the hedgehog \\Has never been buggered at all. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And further researches at Oxford \\Have incontrovertibly shown \\That comparative safety on shipboard \\Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone. \\But, why haven't they done it at Spithead, \\As they've done it at Harvard and Yale \\And also at Oxford and Cambridge \\By shaving the spines off its tail! \\
}\end{verse}

The annoying thing about the hedgehog song is of course that Terry only
leaks us bits and pieces of it, but certainly never enough material to
deduce a complete text from. So {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} readers decided to write
their \emph{own} version of the song, which is available for downloading from
the Pratchett Archives.

The first version of the song was written and posted by Matthew Crosby (who
tried to incorporate all the lines mentioned in the Discworld novels),
after which the text was streamlined and many verses were added by other
readers of the newsgroup. Currently we have thirteen verses, which makes
the song a bit too long to include here in its entirety.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to show what we've come up with, so
I have compromised and chosen to reproduce just my own favourite verses:

\begin{verse}\textit{Bestiality sure is a fun thing to do \\But I have to say this as a warning to you: \\With almost all animals, you can have ball \\But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{CHORUS: \\The spines on his back are too sharp for a man \\They'll give you a pain in the worst place they can \\The result I think you'll find will appall: \\The hedgehog can never be buggered at all! \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Mounting a horse can often be fun \\An elephant too; though he weighs half a ton \\Even a mouse (though his hole is quite small) \\But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{A fish is refreshing, although a bit wet \\And a cat or a dog can be more than a pet \\Even a giraffe (despite being so tall) \\But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{You can ravish a sloth but it would take all night \\With a shark it is faster, but the darned beast might bite \\We already mentioned the horse, you may recall \\But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{For prosimian fun, you can bugger a lemur \\To bolster your name as a pervert and schemer \\The lemurs cry \emph{Frink!} as a coy mating call \\But the hedgehog can never be buggered at all. \\
}\end{verse}

Finally, we come to the old drinking song mentioned in the annotation for p.~99/82 of \emph{Eric}: `The Ball of Kerrymuir'. This song can, coincidentally
enough, also be found in Michael Green's \emph{Why Was He Born So Beautiful and
Other Rugby Songs}. That version appears to have the dirty words replaced
by rows of asterisks --- a rather useless form of editorial restraint, since
in this particular case it means the song now contains more asterisks than
normal alphabetic characters. Enter {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} correspondent Tony
D'Arcy, who was kind enough to fax me an uncensored copy of the song. `The
Ball of Kerrymuir' has 43 verses, a small subset of which I now reproduce
for your reading pleasure, just to give you a feel for the song. From here
on down this section of the {\smaller APF} is rated X.

\begin{verse}\textit{Oh the Ball, the Ball of Kerrymuir, \\Where your wife and my wife, \\Were a-doing on the floor. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{CHORUS: \\Balls to your partner, \\Arse against the wall. \\If you never get fucked on a Saturday night \\You'll never be fucked at all. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{There was fucking in the kitchen \\And fucking in the halls \\You couldn't hear the music for \\The clanging of the balls. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Now Farmer Giles was there, \\His sickle in his hand, \\And every time he swung around \\He circumcised the band. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{Jock McVenning he was there \\A-looking for a fuck, \\But every cunt was occupied \\And he was out of luck. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{The village doctor he was there \\He had his bag of tricks, \\And in between the dances, \\He was sterilising pricks. \\
}\end{verse}

\begin{verse}\textit{And when the ball was over, \\Everyone confessed: \\They all enjoyed the dancing, \\but the fucking was the best. \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{4ex}\section{{\ldots}and Dance}\nopagebreak

When you mention `Discworld' and `dance' in the same breath, you can only
be talking about one thing: Morris Dancing, a subject that most non-Brits
will be almost completely in the dark about. Brewer has this to say on the
subject:

\emph{Morris Dance}: brought to England in the reign of Edward III, when John of
Gaunt returned from Spain. In the dance, bells were jingled, and staves or
swords clashed. It was a military dance of the Moors or Moriscos, in which
five men and a boy engaged; the boy wore a `morione' or head-piece, and was
called \emph{Mad Morion}.

Which is interesting, but doesn't really explain anything in a 20th century
context. Luckily, a newsgroup like {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} attracts contemporary
Morris Dancers like flies, and for the rest of this section I will give the
floor to Rich Holmes:

``In a number of books (including \emph{Strata}, \emph{Guards!\ Guards!}, \emph{Reaper Man},
and \emph{Lords and Ladies}) Pratchett refers to morris dancing. These allusions
may be lost on the typical American reader. Picture, then, six men in white
shirts and trousers, decorated with ribbons, wearing bells on their legs,
in a two-by-three formation --- the men, not the bells. To a tune played on
fiddle or squeezebox, they dance up and down, back and forth, gesturing
with big white handkerchiefs in their hands --- or, maybe, clashing
yard-long willow sticks with one another. That's morris dancing, or at
least the species of morris dancing that was done in the late 19th century
in the Cotswolds region of England.

It's also done today, throughout the English-speaking world (though in
America it's not exactly an everyday sight), these days by women's teams
and mixed teams as well as by men. There are several hundred morris teams
in England as well as 170 or so in the US and Canada and God knows how many
in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and other odd places.

As for where it came from, and when, and what it all means, no one really
knows. Some of its roots seem to go back to the European continent sometime
in or before the 15th century. Similar, possibly related dances were and
are found in Europe and even as far away as India. For a while in the late
19th and early 20th centuries they were commonly claimed by folklorists to
be a remnant of a pre-Christian fertility rite performed by a male
priesthood; there's really no hard evidence to support such a theory,
though.

Terry Pratchett tells us he's ``never waved a hankie in anger'' nor knows any
morris dancers personally, but that he finds the morris dance kind of
fascinating.

Those interested can contact either Tom Keays ({\smaller \texttt{htkeys@syr.edu}}) or Rich
Holmes ({\smaller \texttt{rsholmes@suhep.phy.syr.edu}}) about the Morris Dancing Discussion
List. You knew there was an ulterior motive here, didn't you?''

There is also a web page for the Morris Dancing Discussion List. The URL
is: \url{http://web.syr.edu/~hytelnet/mddl/}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Reverse Annotations}\nopagebreak

With the Discworld canon growing and reaching an increasingly wider
audience around the globe, we are starting to see something I'm calling
`reverse referencing': \emph{other} writers who put references to the Discworld
into their books.

The examples I have had reported to me so far:

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{Due South}

  The most often remarked-upon reverse annotation of the past year or so
  concerns the television series \emph{Due South}, which is about the adventures
  of a Canadian Mountie (Constable Benton Fraser), stationed in Chicago.

  The similarities between Benton Fraser and Carrot are, especially in the
  first few episodes, indeed remarkable. Like Carrot, Benton is innocent
  and straight-forward to the point of being naive (but not stupid!). He is
  nigh-on superhuman, polite, memorises everybody's name, works alongside
  cynical and jaded cops, and the first things he does are (1) take
  lodgings in the roughest neighbourhood around and (2) walk into a lowlife
  bar in full Mountie uniform shouting ``Excuse me{\ldots}''. And as with Carrot,
  his faith in human nature is almost always rewarded.

  I doubt very much whether Benton Fraser is \emph{really} based on Carrot
  (after all, the archetype that both characters are based on goes back a
  long way), but sometimes I wonder: Fraser's faithful companion is a wolf,
  and in one episode of \emph{Due South} Fraser and his partner are locked in a
  meat storage room and nearly freeze to death{\ldots}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Computer Games.

  References to the Discworld have occasionally been cropping up in
  otherwise unrelated computer games. In \emph{Angband}, for instance, one of
  the owners of the general store is `Rincewind the Chicken'. In the
  legendary game \emph{Nethack} you can explore the Dungeons as a tourist,
  starting out your quest with lots of gold and food, a credit card, and an
  expensive camera. Although the tourist character class wasn't originally
  created as a Discworld reference, there have been many Discworld-inspired
  additions in later releases of the game: the tourist's patron gods are
  now The Lady, Blind Io, and Offler, while Twoflower himself appears on
  the special quest level. And if you're hallucinatory, you may get to see
  the Luggage.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{Dream Park: The Californian Voodoo Game}, by Larry Niven and Stephen
  Barnes, 1991.

  The UK edition of this book describes the character Alan Myers as ``a
  Terry Pratchett wizard''. In the U.S. edition this sentence was simply
  left out.

  At a later point in the novel (both editions this time), two characters
  exchange the following lines:

\begin{quote}{--- It's been, what --- five years? \\--- Since the Diskworld Game. Ah{\ldots} Hamburg. \\
}\end{quote}

  Note the misspelling of Discworld.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{Object-Oriented Languages, Systems and Applications}, by Blair,
  Hutchinson, Gallagher and Shepherd, 1991.

  ``Consider the domain of Colours. If we have Red, Green and Blue, but now
  widen the domain to include Octaroon, an old program may read an unknown
  value from a new instance. Conversely, if we begin with Octaroon
  included, but now decide we no longer believe in Magic and remove it thus
  narrowing the domain, [{\ldots}]''

  Again, note the misspelling, this time of `Octarine'. Since this is a
  formal text book, \emph{The Colour of Magic} gets a proper mention in the
  references.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
The \emph{British Medical Journal}, January 1996 edition.

  The BMJ has a `Soundings' page, where doctors get a chance to write about
  a subject of their choice. In this issue, Liam Farrell, a GP from
  Crossmaglen, ended his column with the line:

  ``This is only common sense, but, as we have said before, in academic
  general practice, common sense is as rare as a tourist in Ankh-Morpork.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{The Books of Magic}, by John Ney Rieber, issue \#13, April 1995.

  Tim and Molly on their way through Soho, London, pass a movie theatre.
  The Billboard says: ``PRATCHETT THEATRE --- now playing: Unseen Demo{\ldots}''
  (the rest is cut off).

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{The Books of Magic II}, by Neil Gaiman and Scott Hampton, 1990.

  Tim is told of an occult battle taking place offstage in Calcutta: ``You
  wouldn't believe it. The cult of Kali, three Ninja death squads, the
  Brotherhood of the Cold Flame, a thousand elephants{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
\emph{Dirty Work}, by Dan McGirt, 1993, Pan Books, ISBN 0 330 32391 1, p.~215.

  The relevant quotation is:

  ``I peeled off my outer clothing and removed the Cosmosuit. Dreadguards
  took it away from me and placed it, along with Gardion and Overwhelm, in
  a wooden chest. They also took the Rae medallion and the Ring of Raxx.
  `The chest is made of insipid wormwood, the most highly inanimate and
  unmagical substance known to the world, which specifically does not run
  around on hundreds of tiny legs nor eat people,' Dread said of the box.
  `But it does prevent you from summoning your magic sword by thought.'
  `Thought of everything haven't you?'\,''

  Readers on a.f.p.\ are, by the way, unanimously unenthusiastic about this
  book, so don't assume that just because it mentions the Luggage it's got
  to be a good read.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Words from the Master}\nopagebreak

Here are a number of excerpts from articles by Terry Pratchett that I think
fall under the heading of `annotations' but which are either not associated
with one particular novel, or else so long they would break the flow of the
regular annotations.

Quotation marks (`` '') indicate the beginning and ending of quotes from
different Usenet articles. For further clarity I am putting my own
editorial text in square brackets ([~]) for the rest of this section.

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
What are the `rules' and `regulations' of headology? It just seems to be
  an area that is not properly defined.

  ``Ah. It appears you have discovered Rule 1.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Should Terry write Discworld novels with new characters, or should he
  write Discworld novels with established characters. Should he, in fact,
  listen to what his readers have to say on this subject?

  ``1. I always listen to advice. It's polite.

  2. If I \emph{heeded} all the advice I've had over the years, I'd have written
  18 books about Rincewind. Absolutely true. The most common plea in my
  mail right now is `when are we going to read about Rincewind in XXXX?'
  I'm being instructed that I have a duty to my readers --- if I was
  innocent, I'd be attaching corks to that battered pointy hat even now.
  But perhaps this is an issue on which I have thought long and hard. After
  all, it's my living and ten years of my life.

  If Discworld continues, then old characters will continue --- Rincewind
  will get red dust in his sandals, the Watch will be back, Gaspode will
  probably limp into stories. And new characters will arise. Why not? It's
  not as if there are \emph{rules}. What will probably \emph{end} Discworld is simple
  crowding --- the Watch already make Ankh-Morpork based stories a little
  problematical, and I won't get into the comic book convention of having
  Captain Courage out of town so that Commander Socko can take centre
  stage.''

  ``My publishers have \emph{never} insisted that I `write another Discworld
  book'. If I rang them up and said `the next one's a Western' (or
  whatever) they'd probably say `Oh, right.' In fact the current contract
  does NOT specify that my next book, for example, must be Discworld.

  Of course I listen to my readers! So the next book will be:

  Set in Ankh-Morpork/not set in Ankh-Morpork. With lots of the good old
  characters/with a whole cast of new characters. Written like the old
  books, which were better/written like the later books, which were better.
  With lots of character development/none of that dull character
  development stuff, which gets in the way of the jokes. Short/long.

  You want fries with that?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About the Discworld CD-ROM Game, and its sequel.

  ``\emph{What I did on the Computer Game}
  by Terry Pratchett

  I:

  a) rewrote and tinkered and generally worked quite hard on the script,
  although the guy that drafted it was pretty good;

  b) approved (and sometimes didn't approve) the characters --- I think the
  game's got the third version of Rincewind and of the Librarian, for
  example.

  I think some of the puzzles are a shade too obtuse, and when Discworld II
  is done I'll probably get more involved in them. But the look and feel of
  the game is pretty close to the early Rincewind books, I think. As game
  adaptations go, I was about as closely involved as possible for someone
  who doesn't write code. It seemed to us all that `Shouting at people' was
  a fairly realistic statement of the position.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About Unseen University's financial status.

  ``Unseen University owns quite a lot of land in the area of Sator Square
  and while the rents are pretty low there are a lot of properties. There
  have been various bequests by former Archchancellors and so on over the
  history of the university. I suspect UU also earns money for generalised
  magical services in the city (the Pork Futures warehouse, for example).
  Over the millennia, it all adds up.

  Finally, UU expenses are not high. As far as I can tell, the senior
  wizards don't draw salaries but are paid in big dinners. Merchants in the
  city tend to `give' UU foodstuffs because, well, wouldn't you prefer the
  local wizards to be fat and happy rather than thin and grouchy?''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Are there any plans for Pterry to appear on Europe-wide TV?

  ``I don't know. I hope not.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On interviews.

  ``People{\ldots}(including everyone who interviews me for their Uni magazine,
  `cos I must have done a hundred of those things) Rule I of interviews
  should be:

  Write a list of your main questions to fix things in your mind; Throw it
  away; Start the interview; Then LISTEN to what the guy is saying so that
  you can follow any interesting thread; Because if you don't, then what
  you'll get is a quiz, not an interview.

  Sigh{\ldots} It happens to me all the time:

  Q Where did you get the idea for the Discworld?

  A I stole it from an old man I met and now I've decided to tell you all.

  Q Who is your favourite character?

  Sigh{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Does Terry keep earlier drafts of his novels around?

  ``I save about twenty drafts --- that's ten meg of disc space --- and the
  last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out
  and received by the publishers, there's a cry here of `Tough shit,
  literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the
  rest are wiped.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On answering letters.

  [~Terry's wife Lyn reads all his mail first, and selects the reply order~]

  ``It tends to arrive on my desk in this order:

\begin{quote}{Stuff that really needs to be dealt with today. \\Stuff that needs an answer quickly. \\Fan mail with SAEs (Lyn encourages politeness) or which is particularly interesting, worthy, funny or whatever.\\Any other mail from \emph{abroad} (because it's usually taken a while to get here).\\Other mail. \\People who send me their MS without checking first, and others of that kidney.\\
}\end{quote}

  However, I tend to stir it all up and in fact answer in the order:

\begin{quote}{From kids \\Typed \\Readable \\Interesting \\Others \\Ones written in green ink on mauve paper \\Ones with more exclamation marks that sanity dictates \\
}\end{quote}

  It's a strange fact, isn't it, that emails of all sorts tend to get
  answered within 24 hours while `real' mail takes days or weeks or
  months.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the quality of Tolkien's writing.

  ``What \emph{is} a master writer?

  I read Tolkien now and notice the gaps, the evasions, all the `bad'
  things{\ldots} but few books have had the effect on me that TLOTR had when I
  was thirteen. Is he better or worse, for example, than Anita Brookner,
  widely regarded as a `fine writer' although terribly dull to read? What
  is a writer supposed to \emph{achieve}?

  Before I rank Tolkien, I'd like to know how the scoring is being done.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Why Terry switched his German publishers (from Heyne to Goldmann).

  ``There were a number of reasons for switching to Goldmann, but a deeply
  personal one for me was the way Heyne (in \emph{Sourcery}, I think, although
  it may have been in other books) inserted a soup advert \emph{in the text} {\ldots}
  a few black lines and then something like `Around about now our heroes
  must be pretty hungry and what better than a nourishing bowl'{\ldots} etc,
  etc.\ 

  My editor was pretty sick about it, but the company wouldn't promise not
  to do it again, so that made it very easy to leave them. They did it to
  Iain Banks, too, and apparently at a con he tore out the offending page
  and ate it. Without croutons.''

  [~A scan of the offending page is available from the Pratchett Archives.~]

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On people wanting to write their own Discworld stories.

  ``There is no question that using characters, backgrounds, plot threads,
  etc, etc of an author in copyright \emph{can} get you into serious legal
  trouble --- there have been cases over this recently in the States. Try
  publishing a James Bond novel without consulting the Fleming estate and
  see what happens. It's amazing that people don't realise this. Publishers
  are used to getting stories with a covering note saying `Here's a story
  I've set in Harry Spiven's `World of Hurts' universe{\ldots}' and the
  publishers say `Did you get his permission?' and the writer says `I don't
  have to do that, do I?' and the publishers go white and say `Does the
  Pope shit in the woods?'

  That's the REAL world. Now let's talk about FANDOM.

  The law isn't any different. But there's people out there writing HHGTTG
  stuff, Red Dwarf stuff, Star Trek stuff and Discworld stuff for the
  amusement of their friends. Authors react on an individual basis. Some
  hate it and try to stop it. Anne McCaffrey --- I think, although I'm open
  to correction here --- doesn't mind so long as her main characters are not
  used. Douglas Adams seems to have tolerated/given permission for a welter
  of Hitchhikers stuff in the ZZ9 fanzine.

  It seems to me that if something is being done on an amateur basis by a
  fan for fans, and is clearly their own work, and is done out of a shared
  regard for the basic subject matter, then it would be kind of chilly for
  an author to run around hammering people. It's fandom, for god's sake. I
  don't give anyone \emph{permission}, I just smile and think what the hell.

  There's a danger, of course, that some dumb bugger out there will
  interpret this as an indication that Discworld is now in the public
  domain or open to franchising. It is neither. If anyone tries a
  commercial rip-off --- not a parody, not fanac, but a cynical attempt to
  cash in on my Discworld --- then the sewage farm will hit the three
  megawatt aerogenerator.''

  ``I'd rather fanfic went on somewhere where I don't see it. Why? Because
  if A Fan writes a piece about, say, Discworld tax collectors, and I chose
  to write about Discworld tax collectors a year later, A Fan will send me
  the `nyer, ripoff, you nicked my idea' email.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
What is the `H.P. Lovecraft Holiday Fun Club'?

  ``Nothing serious, really. This was just the name I gave to a group of
  people that seemed to turn up at every UK convention in the late 80s ---
  me, Neil Gaiman, Jo Fletcher, Mary Gentle, Mike Harrison, etc, etc{\ldots} As
  to why{\ldots} well, it just seemed to fit in that well-known group of clubs
  like the Saudi Arabian Beer-Mat Collectors Association and the Venetian
  League of Joggers.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About special deluxe editions of the Discworld novels.

  ``We have been talking about some special Discworld editions, maybe with a
  few choice interior illustrations and some heavy leather covers. I
  personally would like to see them with chains, too.

  The snag for me is that the publishers keep talking about `limited'
  editions. I've got a psychological objection to `limited' editions. I
  like unlimited editions.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the lack of chapters in the Discworld novels.

  ``DW books don't have chapters because, well, I just never got into the
  habit of chapters. I'm not sure why they should exist (except maybe in
  children's books, to allow the parent to say ``I'll read to the end of the
  chapter and then you must go to sleep.''). Films don't have chapters.
  Besides, I think they interfere with the shape of the story. Use a
  bookmark is my advice.''

  ``I have to shove them in the putative YA books because my editor screams
  until I do.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On Discworld language use.

  ``A certain amount of DW slang comes from Palari or Polari, the fairground
  / underworld / theatre `secret language' (which seems to have a lot of
  roots in old Italian). UK readers with long memories might recall the
  pair of gay actors `Julian and Sandy', in the old Round the Horne radio
  show in the Sixties and Seventies (innocent times, innocent times); they
  spoke almost pure Palari.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Why don't you use a Macintosh for your writing?

  ``In fact I type so fluently that I can't deal with a mouse. My mother
  paid for me to have touch-typing lessons when I was 13, and they took.
  Hah! I can just see a DW book written with voice-recognition software!
  Especially in this cat-ridden house! `That's Ankh-Morpork, you bloody
  stupid machine! GET OFF THE TURNTABLE!' As to goshwowness --- well, it
  seems now that a 50MHz 486 is what you need if you're not going to have
  silicon kicked in your face on the beach. But{\ldots} Macs do interest me{\ldots}
  it's just that I associate them with manipulation rather than input.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Where are all these references to science, physics in particular, coming
  from?

  ``How much physics do I know? How do I know that? I don't know about the
  stuff I don't know. I've no formal training but I've spent a lot of time
  around scientists of one sort of another, and I'm a great believer in
  osmotic knowledge.''

  [~People on the net (who tend to have a university or technical
  background) are often impressed by Terry's many references to the
  physical sciences in his novels (``Oh wow, you can really tell he used to
  work for a nuclear power plant!'' is an often-heard cry), but frankly I
  think they are underestimating the non-university audience out there.
  Most of the things Terry mentions in passing (e.g.\  Big Bang, quarks,
  wave/particle duality) are covered in high school physics classes (or at
  least in Holland they are), and surely everybody who does not
  deliberately turn away from anything scientific in content will have seen
  references in newspapers, on tv or in magazines to things like quantum
  particles or the ``Trousers of Time''?~]

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
How do you write?

  ``How do I write? God, this is embarrassing. Look, I just do it. It's
  pictures in the head and memories and thinking about things and it all
  comes together. It's something I do.''

  ``1) Watch everything, read everything, and especially read outside your
  subject --- you should be importing, not recycling.

  2) Use a wordprocessor{\ldots} why do I feel this is not unnecessary advice
  here? It makes everything mutable. It's better for the ego. And you can
  play games when all else fails.

  3) Write. For more than three years I wrote more than 400 words every
  day. I mean, every calendar day. If for some reason, in those
  pre-portable days, I couldn't get to a keyboard, I wrote hard the
  previous night and caught up the following day, and if it ever seemed
  that it was easy to do the average I upped the average. I also did a hell
  of a lot of editing afterwards but the point was there \emph{was} something
  there to edit. I had a more than full-time job as well. I hate to say
  this, but most of the successful (well, okay{\ldots} \emph{rich}) authors I know
  seem to put `application' around the top of the list of How-to-do-its.
  Tough but true.''

  ``Application? Well, it means{\ldots} application. The single-minded ability to
  knuckle down and get on with it, as they say in Unseen University
  library.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
The advantages of having a background in journalism.

  ``Yes, Dave Gemmell and Neil Gaiman were both journalists. So was Bob
  Shaw. So was I. It's good training because:

\begin{quote}{1) any tendency to writers' block is burned out of you within a few weeks of starting work by unsympathetic news editors;\\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{2) you very quickly learn the direct link between writing and eating; \\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{3) you pick up a style of sorts; \\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{4) you get to hang around in interesting places; \\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{5) you learn to take editing in your stride, and tend to be reliable about deadlines;\\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{6) you end up with an ability to think at the keyboard and reduce the world to yourself and the work in hand --- you have to do this to         survive in a world of ringing telephones and shouting sub-editors.\\
}\end{quote}

  None of this makes you talented or \emph{good}, but it does help you make the
  best of what you've got.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the use of dog-Latin.

  ``People in the UK, even in public (i.e., private) schools, don't assume
  that ``everyone knows Latin''. Latin is barely taught anywhere anymore ---
  it certainly wasn't taught to me. But dog-Latin \emph{isn't} Latin, except by
  accident. It's simply made-up, vaguely Latin-sounding phrases, as in Nil
  Illegitimo Carborundum. `Fabricati Diem, Punc' is total nonsense in Latin
  [no doubt there are readers out there who could construct the correct
  phrase that might have fallen from the lips of Dirty Hadrian].''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the writing of \emph{Good Omens}.

  ``Neil and I had known each other since early 1985. Doing it was our idea,
  not a publisher's deal.''

  ``I think this is an honest account of the process of writing \emph{Good
  Omens}. It was fairly easy to keep track of because of the way we sent
  discs to one another, and because I was Keeper of the Official Master
  Copy I can say that I wrote a bit over two thirds of \emph{Good Omens}.
  However, we were on the phone to each other every day, at least once. If
  you have an idea during a brainstorming session with another guy, whose
  idea is it? One guy goes and writes 2,000 words after thirty minutes on
  the phone, what exactly is the process that's happening?

  I did most of the physical writing because:

\begin{quote}{1) I had to. Neil had to keep \emph{Sandman} going --- I could take time off from the DW;\\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{2) One person has to be overall editor, and do all the stitching and filling and slicing and, as I've said before, it was me by         agreement --- if it had been a graphic novel, it would have been         Neil taking the chair for exactly the same reasons it was me for a         novel;\\
}\end{quote}

\begin{quote}{3) I'm a selfish bastard and tried to write ahead to get to the good bits before Neil.\\
}\end{quote}

  Initially, I did most of Adam and the Them and Neil did most of the Four
  Horsemen, and everything else kind of got done by whoever --- by the end,
  large sections were being done by a composite creature called
  Terryandneil, whoever was actually hitting the keys. By agreement, I am
  allowed to say that Agnes Nutter, her life and death, was completely and
  utterly mine. And Neil proudly claims responsibility for the maggots.
  Neil's had a major influence on the opening scenes, me on the ending. In
  the end, it was this book done by two guys, who shared the money equally
  and did it for fun and wouldn't do it again for a big clock.''

  ``Yes, the maggot reversal was by me, with a gun to Neil's head (although
  he understood the reasons, it's just that he likes maggots). There
  couldn't be blood on Adam's hands, even blood spilled by third parties.
  No-one should die because he was alive.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On rumours that Neil Gaiman claims to have come up with some of the ideas
  in \emph{Reaper Man}, most notably the title and the Death storyline.

  ``To the best of my recollection the Reaper Man title was suggested by
  Faith Brooker at Gollancz (although I can't swear to this). But I know,
  and have gone on record about this, that the central idea of Reaper Man
  actually came from reading a fan letter from a lady who wrote ``Death is
  my favourite character --- he can be my knight on a white charger any day
  of the week''. The lady concerned can be produced to the court, m'lud.

  Listening intelligently while a fellow author talks about an upcoming
  book isn't the same as `suggesting the storyline and some other bits' and
  in fairness to Neil I doubt that he put it quite like that --- this sounds
  like something which has picked up a bit of spin in the telling. We've
  known each other for a long time, we share a similar conceptual universe
  --- we'd both agree happily that he has the darker end of it --- and we've
  often talked about what we're working on and tried out stuff on one
  another. And that's it, really.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
How big is his publisher's influence on what gets written?

  ``Question was: do the publishers force me to write DW books? (the subtext
  being, we'd like you to do other stuff). And the answer is, no, you can't
  work like that. It works the other way round --- I say I'm planning two
  more, they say, fine, here's a contract. The DW is sufficiently big and
  vague that it can cover \emph{Small Gods} and \emph{Eric}, so I've got a wide field
  to work in. But{\ldots} I'll say here again{\ldots} the days of twice-yearly DW
  books have probably gone. I'm still planning to write them regularly, in
  fact publishing schedules might end up bringing out two in a year, but I
  want to do other stuff as well. The fact is that each DW book sells more
  than the one before, and the backlist sales keep on rising. I don't write
  DW \emph{because} of this, but it suggests that there's a readership out
  there. I can't imagine how anyone can be \emph{forced} to write a book.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the joint copyright notice in his novels.

  [~All Terry's novels are ``copyright Terry and Lyn Pratchett'', and people
  on the net were wondering about the reasons for it.~]

  ``Copyright does not necessarily have anything to do with authorship --- an
  author can assign copyright wherever he or she likes. Lyn and I are a
  legal partnership, and so we hold copyright jointly (for various mildly
  beneficial reasons) in the same way that, if we ever bothered to form a
  limited company, \emph{that} would hold the copyright. At random I've picked a
  few favourite books off the shelf, and can say that it's not unusual for
  copyright not to be held simply in the name of the author. I do all the
  writing!''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the various Discworld covers.

  ``No, Kirby's Nanny Ogg is pretty good. And he's getting better ({\ldots}he's
  getting better{\ldots}) at someone who looks about right for Magrat. But he
  hasn't really got a clue about Granny.

  The artist who does the American book club editions --- can't recall his
  name --- does not, I think, do good \emph{covers}, but he makes a very good job
  of getting the characters right. They're not \emph{my} idea of the characters,
  but they're certainly based squarely on the plot. His Granny on the cover
  of Equal Rites was notable.''

  ``The next UK paperback reprint of TCOM (they do a couple a year) will not
  have a Kirby cover. This is an experiment --- there's been feedback to me
  and to Transworld that suggests there are a large number of potential DW
  readers out there who think they don't like fantasy and don't get past
  the Kirby covers.''

  [~Scans of both the original Josh Kirby cover and of the new cover by
  Stephen Player are available from the Pratchett Archives.~]

  ``Current cover policy is to have a fairly small graphic on the front of
  the hardcovers but a full traditional design on the front of the
  paperback; I'm not too unhappy about this, because I wasn't very keen on
  the \emph{Lords and Ladies} hardcover artwork.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On American editions of his books.

  ``I'm also nervy about `translating' things into American. (``Friends,
  Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears = Yo, muthers,
  y'knowwhatI'msayin?'') I've seen what even intelligent, well-travelled
  American writers think is normal British conversation (``I say, good
  show!'') and I'd hate to be guilty of that sort of thing in reverse.''

  ``As far as \emph{Johnny and the Dead} and \emph{Only You Can Save Mankind} are
  concerned: well, I dunno. It was bad enough having to translate Truckers
  into American, and then it was published so badly by Dell in hardcover we
  took the paperback rights away from them (which we are looking to sell
  now). And the two more recent books are very British, or at least
  European --- I can just imagine the dog's breakfast an US editor would
  make of them. My agent's got {\textquoteright}em, but I'm not that keen to sell.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On reference books.

  ``I've got Brewer's, of course\footnote{See the annotation for p.~117/103 of \emph{The
  Colour of Magic}.}, and if I need an instant reference it's a handy book.
  He also did a \emph{Reader's Companion} which is even better. But Ebenezer is
  only the tip of an iceberg of similar books, of which the Victorians were
  very fond.''

  ``Whenever I go to the States I always return with my luggage stuffed with
  Panati's and \emph{Straight Dope} books\footnote{See the annotation for p.~165/107 of
  \emph{Good Omens}.} (I've seen the \emph{Straight Dope} books here, but never seen
  an imported Panati (they've got titles like ``Extraordinary Origins of
  Everyday Things'')). I'm afraid I spend money like water in American book
  shops; I dunno, they just seem more inviting. The oddest book shop I've
  been in is Win Bundy's Singing Wind Book Ranch{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Likes and Dislikes.

  ``I \emph{hated} the Alice books.''

  ``I didn't like the Alice books because I found them creepy and horribly
  unfunny in a nasty, plonking, Victorian way. Oh, here's Mr Christmas
  Pudding On Legs, hohohoho, here's a Caterpillar Smoking A Pipe, hohohoho.
  When I was a kid the books created in me about the same revulsion as you
  get when, aged seven, you're invited to kiss your great-grandmother.''

  ``May I also add that the film \emph{The Return of Captain Invincible}, which
  is a series of bad moments pasted together with great songs and a budget
  of fourpence, is also a regularly-viewed video in the Pratchett
  household. And David Byrne's \emph{True Stories} also. Flame me if you wish. I
  laugh with scorn at threats.''

  ``These are modern authors whose books I will automatically buy knowing
  that life is going to get that little bit richer:

\begin{quote}{George McDonald Fraser (The Flashman books) \\Carl Hiaasen (still to get well known over here) \\Donald Westlake (a pro) \\Joseph Wambaugh \\Tom Robbins \\
}\end{quote}

  But I read more and more non-fiction, biographies and stuff these days.''

  [About Joanna Trollope:] ``An intelligent lady who writes worthwhile books
  for an audience largely neglected by `real' writers, and who occasionally
  comes up with a bit of description I really wish I'd thought of. The
  current TV adaptation of \emph{The Rector's Wife} is pretty awful.''

  [About P.~J.~O'Rourke:] ``PJ may be many things, but fascist he is not, as
  becomes obvious when you read his slightly more serious writings --- but
  he clearly does like to wind up the kind of people who are too free with
  `fascist' accusations. He's so far to the right that on many issues he's
  coming back at you from the left. [{\ldots}] I like PJ.''

  ``I got Corgi to republish Roy Lewis' \emph{The Evolution Man} a few years ago.
  To the best of my knowledge it's the only fiction he's done. Like I said
  in my intro, it's honest, genuine sf{\ldots} and one of my all-time favourite
  funny books.''

  ``If anyone can ever get hold of it, the classic funny cricket match was
  in the book \emph{England, Their England} by A.~G.~McDonnell. A forgotten
  masterpiece.''

  ``[Carl Hiaassen] is a writer I try to promote here at every opportunity.
  He hasn't written a bad book. I recommend \emph{Native Tongue} or maybe
  \emph{Double Whammy}.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Is there any truth to the rumour that you and Neil Gaiman had a fall-out
  over the \emph{Good Omens} film project?

  ``Me and Neil{\ldots} oh gawd. Yes, it's true to say we didn't agree over the
  way the film should be going. But that's about it. There's no flying
  daggers --- at least, I haven't thrown any and none have hit me.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Speaking of movies, what happened to the plans for a movie based on
  \emph{Mort}?

  ``A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian
  and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which
  went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people
  said ``Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and
  other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us,
  it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton''.
  The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans
  said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT\@. Just lose the
  Death angle, guys.

  Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the
  medication and come back in a hundred years.''

  ``The person also said that Americans ``weren't ready for the treatment of
  Death as an amusing and sympathetic character''. This was about 18
  months/2 years before \emph{Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey}.''

  ``Currently, since the amount of money available for making movies in
  Europe is about sixpence, the consortium is looking for some more
  intelligent Americans in the film business. This may prove difficult.

  It could have been worse. I've heard what \emph{Good Omens} was looking like
  by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out --- set in America, no
  Four Horsemen{\ldots} oh god.''

  ``What you have to remember is that in the movies there are two types of
  people 1) the directors, artists, actors and so on who have to \emph{do}
  things and are often quite human and 2) the other lifeforms.
  Unfortunately you have to deal with the other lifeforms first. It is
  impossible to exaggerate their baleful stupidity.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
If movies are too expensive, how about some more Discworld television
  adaptations?

  ``There's some approaches. There's \emph{always} some approaches. But too often
  they're from people who want to do a `funny fantasy' and paste the
  Discworld label on it. I have to repeat the old mantra: Discworld isn't
  internally funny to the people who live there --- there's no baseball
  playing frogs. And too often the approach is [sub-text] ``I bet a humble
  print author like you would be overjoyed to be on REAL TELEVISION, eh?''
  They get what Nanny Ogg calls the derriere velocitie PDQ, I can tell
  you.''

  ``We are talking usefully to UK TV people and, yes, there is serious
  interest in doing the Guards books as a sort of `Hill Street Octarines'.
  It might work. Even if it doesn't, people are close enough for me to
  scream at them.''

  ``IF IT ALL HAPPENS (`cos we're dealing with screen here) then there would
  be \emph{Guards!\ Guards!} as the pilot and \emph{Men at Arms} as `the series'.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Why does the Librarian have such troubles communicating with humans?
  Surely, as a highly trained, intelligent librarian he is literate, and
  therefore can write down what he wants to say?

  ``Personally, I think he does it out of spite.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Responding to newspaper articles mentioning ``Estimated wealth of sci-fi
  novelist Terry Pratchett: UK\# 26,500,000''.

  ``This began with some survey done by a magazine called \emph{Business Age}.
  Since it's off by the national debt of Belgium my agent rang them up to
  find out what the hell was going on. Various factoids emerged, like
  frinstance their assumption that I sell pro rata as much in the States as
  I do here (hollow laughter from the American readers). And we suspect
  they fall for the common error that a mere appearance in the bestseller
  lists means millionaire status (in a poor week the book at number ten
  might not have sold 100 copies). But the big wobbler is that the estimate
  is of `worth', not `wealth' --- they've hazarded a wild guess at the value
  of the Discworld \emph{rights}, as far as we can tell including film rights as
  well. Remember copyright lasts for 50 years and the books are consistent
  high backlist sellers. It's similar to pointing to a bright kid and
  saying `he's worth three million quids' --- i.e., all the money she or he
  \emph{might} earn during their life, at compound interest. It's fairy money.
  The kind Robert Maxwell had.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On his perennial problems with publishers in America.

  ``Well, I sell some [books]. I had a sort of publisher, in the same way
  that duckweed counts as a plant. Let's hope HarperCollins does better.''

  ``I can only repeat: my last publishers were so good they spelled my name
  wrong in the books, made sure they had covers in 50 shades of mud, and
  kept them out of the shops. HarperCollins are bringing out \emph{Small Gods}
  in January and are talking about some kind of accelerated schedule to
  catch up.

  I've seen the US \emph{Small Gods} cover, by the way. It's quite different
  from anything else of mine, and mainly text{\ldots} looks rather posh{\ldots}''

  ``HarperCollins have been sent the \emph{Soul Music} MS and are serious about
  publishing it this summer in an effort to `catch up'. That means in
  theory that new Discworld books should be published in the US at (more or
  less) the same time as in the UK\@. But it leaves \emph{Lords and Ladies} and
  \emph{Men at Arms} in a kind of limbo; HC are committed to bringing them out
  ``as soon as possible'' and it's in their interests to do so, because
  they've had to front advances which they can't recoup until they start
  selling.''

  ``Blame publishers. HarperCollins have got \emph{Lords and Ladies}, \emph{Small
  Gods}, \emph{Men at Arms} and \emph{Soul Music}. I \emph{think} Roc have got \emph{Eric}. I'd
  be happy to see them all out in one go. As for the Map{\ldots} I suspect it'll
  never get a US publication. It seemed to frighten US publishers. They
  don't seem to understand it.

  ``That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and
  Americans:

  A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An
  American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?

  I make no suggestion that one side or other is right, but observation
  over many years leads me to believe it is true.''

  ``The last I heard, my editor was mumbling a bit over [the Johnny books].
  Though he personally loved J\&tD I think he thought Americans wouldn't (as
  in: no-one in the book is American, WWI happened on another continent
  that American kids couldn't find on an atlas with three tries, and it
  feels, ugh, European. I'm paraphrasing his far more diplomatically worded
  comments).''

  As I understand it, \emph{Lords and Ladies} and \emph{Men at Arms} will come out in
  trade paperback ``fairly soon'' after \emph{Soul Music}, to get them out of the
  way --- ie, to desperately try to catch up on the schedule. But it looks
  as though SM is slipping back, `cos I saw the proofs only a week or so
  ago. Basically, it's the usual arrogance of US publishers towards their
  readers --- and counter-productive, since I know that quite a large number
  of UK editions find their way into the US.''

  ``The twisted thinking is as follows. Thousands of hardcover UK Discworld
  books cross the Atlantic after every pub date, certainly undermining the
  sales or potential sales of US copies; this pattern has become
  established because of the long delay before US publication.
  HarperCollins thought the only way they could retrieve the situation was
  leap the gap and publish the next `new' title as soon as possible,
  bringing out the other two over the next year more or less as `new
  backlist titles' while also continuing to publish genuinely new Discworld
  books. This would mean that \emph{Lords and Ladies} and \emph{Men At Arms} would be
  late, but they'd have been late \emph{anyway}, and titles from \emph{Soul Music} on
  would have an American pub.\  date pretty close to the UK one.

  That was the theory. Unfortunately, it has contained one major flaw, in
  that it is being put into practice. It seems to be thought that a
  publication date for \emph{Soul Music} that is 7--8 months behind the UK one is
  `contemporary', which is an interesting use of the word. Moreover, I have
  a horrible suspicion that they'll see two `new' Pratchett books on their
  list next year and, on the basis that the left hand does not know what
  the left hand is doing, decide that `Interesting Times' can be postponed
  until 1996 (having come out in the UK in November, 1994).

  Sometimes I think I'd have done better staying with Roc, sad covers and
  all --- at least they were catching up{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Is \emph{Strata} a Discworld novel or isn't it?

  ``\emph{Strata} used the idea of a Discworld but I've never thought of it as a
  Discworld novel within the meaning of the act. The first Discworld novel
  was \emph{The Colour of Magic}. Let the message go throughout the kingdom{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About the Discworld album by Dave Greenslade.

  ``It's called \emph{From The Discworld}. Most of the tracks are themes for the
  books (I particularly like the Small Gods one) but there are two songs,
  `The Shades of Ankh-Morpork' and something about a wizard's staff. There
  is also the insidious tune of the `Stick and Bucket Dance', even down to
  that special chord folk music has to have at the end so that people know
  they can come out now.''

  [~The CD was released by Virgin (UK:CDV 2738), and features the following
  tracks:

\begin{verse}\textit{1. A'Tuin the Turtle \\2. Octarine The Colour of Magic \\3. The Luggage \\4. The Shades of Ankh-Morpork \\5. Wyrd Sisters \\6. The Unseen University/The Librarian \\7. Death \\8. A Wizard's Staff has a Knob on the End \\9. Dryads \\10. Pyramids \\11. Small Gods \\12. Stick and Bucket Dance \\13. The One Horseman and the Three pedestrians of the Apocralypse \\14. Holy Wood Dreams~] \\
}\end{verse}

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
At the end of \emph{Wings} you implied that the Nomes would return some day
  for any remaining Nomes. Do you plan to write another book where the
  Nomes return or one about the world the Nomes now call home?

  ``I won't do one about any new planets, but there may be another book
  about the nomes.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On computer games.

  ``I have played \emph{Elite}, \emph{Wing Commander}, \emph{X-Wing} and altogether too
  many outer-space-shoot-em-ups. I mean, don't they all have shields,
  missiles and stuff?''

  ``Well, right now I'm storming through \emph{Privateer} under the callsign of
  Flash Bastard, whose career has progressed throughout the whole Wing
  Commander series.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Are \emph{Diggers} and \emph{Wings} going to be made into TV programs as follow-ups
  to \emph{Truckers}?

  ``Cosgrove Hall were just getting them storyboarded when Thames folded.
  They're still not a dead issue, but suffering as do many things when
  people at the top change: no-one likes to be associated with something
  started before their time.''

  ``Cosgrove Hall still want to do them. They're also interested in{\ldots} well,
  other stuff I've done. Right now a number of other people have come out
  of the woodwork with money and interesting ideas --- J\&tD seems like a
  starter, for one. But the BBC does not figure largely in current
  approaches.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Why isn't the Ankh-Morpork Mappe released as a poster?

  ``Transworld have considered doing the Mappe as a poster. There are snags.
  Where does the key go? The key as a booklet attached for some reason
  avoids the dreaded VAT; as a poster, VAT would be on it.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About future Discworld merchandising:

  ``Ankh-Morpork postcards will probably happen. There was a recent meeting
  to thrash out the whole T-shirts/calendars/towel and body splash thing,
  and they (and Discworld stationery) were near the top of the list{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About the continuing rumours that he will soon be sanctioning an official
  fan club.

  ``It's the word `official' that always pulls me up. It suggests I've got
  some kind of control or stake and I wouldn't want that. The best I can
  say is that, over the past few months (after hearing that Clarecraft's
  Discworld collectors club membership is in the high hundreds, and
  [Stephen Briggs] is disappearing under scarves) is that I'm no longer
  killing people who say they think one would be a good idea, since there
  are clearly many (if you can believe this) \emph{people out there with no net
  access} who want some kind of Discworld club. I'm not sure that's the
  answer you're looking for{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Do you deliver your manuscripts in digital form?

  ``The US publishers want discs. Gollancz tried setting from disc a few
  years ago and it seemed quite successful, but I think it stopped when the
  lad who knew how to work their Amstrad moved on. I've been set from disc
  once or twice by Corgi. But the instant-books you're looking for won't
  happen because: 1) books have to be scheduled ahead of time, for cost,
  sales and PR reasons 2) it's easier to squeeze a melon though the eye of
  a needle than it is to get a UK publisher to think in other than
  Gutenberg terms.''

  ``Basically, most publishers still hanker for paper MS --- even the ones
  that can set from disc want a print-out too. [{\ldots}] So now we're back to
  typos hand-set by experts (anyone who got that red and black eight page
  `extract' piece with my moody pic on the front that came out about two
  years ago will see what a creative typesetter can do --- there is at least
  one really creative typo per page). Mind you, copy-editors can be bad ---
  it's taken me a long time to make mine understand that there is a
  distinct difference between Mr and Mister. Mr = minor honorific, an
  invisible word, Mister = John Wayne getting angry.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
A philosophical question: why are elves considered evil, while cats (who
  do the same nasty things) are not?

  ``Ahem{\ldots}.

  There is no inconsistency. Nanny Ogg has a point of view. So has Death.
  So have I. But there's no such thing as `the official Discworld opinion'
  on, say, cats.

  Personally, I like cats. And they are also nasty cruel bastards. Just ask
  that two-thirds of a shrew that's outside our back door right now.''

  ``Okay, try this. Cats are nasty cruel bastards but that's because they
  are cats. As far as we know, they have no grasp of the concept of not
  being nasty cruel bastards. Humans, on the other hand, do.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
About the spoken-word versions of the Discworld novels.

  ``Transworld intended to bring out \emph{all} the Discworld on tape eventually
  --- I think the first three titles are coming out RSN.'' [~RSN = Real Soon
  Now~]

  ``There may be Braille/audiotape versions by people like Books For The
  Blind. Every so often I get requests --- as do most authors, I expect ---
  to allow Braille editions and special tapes, and we always say, ``fine,
  sure, no fee, no problem''. But we NEVER GET TOLD WHAT HAPPENS NEXT\@. So I
  don't know what's out there. It's a bit of a shame.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
On the subject of dedications.

  ``With the exception of requests, like ``Can you sign it to Scrummybunikins
  with lots of Hugs'', there are about 35 different Discworld dedications
  (some of which I don't have time to do with the queues being the length
  they are --- if you've got the Death Grin dedication in \emph{Mort}, treasure
  it, because I hardly ever do it these days). As for quality of
  handwriting, well, mine never was good{\ldots}

  Far More Wishes is part of a set (Best Wishes, Better Wishes, Even Better
  Wishes, More Wishes, Far More Wishes, Still More Wishes, Extra Wishes, A
  Whole New Quantum of Wishes and --- for those people with two carrier bags
  full of books --- Son of Best Wishes, Bride of Best Wishes, and Return of
  the Killer Best Wishes for 20,000 Fathoms). Also look out for the special
  Boo! in \emph{Mort} and \emph{Reaper Man}, our new Read it And Reap one in \emph{Reaper
  Man}, the special turtle drawing in \emph{Small Gods}, and various Now Reads
  Ons, Enhanced Wishes, etc, etc.\  Kids! Collect the Entire Set!''

  [~This explanation prompted FAQ maintainer Nathan Torkington to reply
  with:

  ``I can't wait to see what happens when you reach the fifty book mark, and
  people at the head of the queue say ``just wait a sec and I'll back the
  car in''. The dedications will probably be:

\begin{verse}\textit{Fuck off \\Go away \\Read Douglas Adams \\Get a life \\Get a job \\Don't you have anything \emph{better} to do with your time \\Son of fuck off \\My god, did I really write all these damn books \\Yes, by god, I \emph{do} regret it now \\Worst wishes \\I don't know why I don't have a rubber stamp made \\Look, just bugger off I'm fed up to the teeth with banana daiquiris \\I wish I \emph{had} said ``money'' \\This is the last dedication \\Bloody trade editions \\Oh, how cute, you have the hardback and paperback editions \\Oh, and the US ones too \\I'm memorising your face and your adenoidal laugh \\You're next, matey \\Third prodigal son of a fling with the daughter of the baker to fuck off'' \\
}\end{verse}

  Terry was very impressed by this list, and so were other readers of
  a.f.p.\ Terry says that since this discussion appeared on the net he is
  now occasionally asked for specific dedications along these lines.~]

  ``Book-specific ones tend to be: \emph{Mort} and \emph{Reaper Man}: `Boo!', `HAVE
  FUN', the Death grin, or `Read It And Reap'. \emph{Small Gods}: almost always
  `The Turtle Moves!' \emph{Pyramids}: usually the `Hi! in the Pyramid' \emph{Wyrd
  Sisters}: often `Really wyrd'{\ldots}''

  ``Read It And Reap has now been established as a `generic' line which
  doesn't \emph{just} get used in \emph{Reaper Man}.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
What order are the Discworld books in?

  ``As far as I am concerned, the Discworld books are in chronological
  order. Anything that suggests differently is probably because of the
  Trousers of Time, magical leakage from the HEM and so on{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
It was rumoured in \emph{Octarine} magazine that you and Robert Rankin were
  not ``the best of friends''. Any truth to this? (By the way: I hear that
  Rankin likes to throw wild parties in his jacuzzi.)

  ``I'll nail this one right now. We don't see much of one another but we
  get on fine. That was \emph{Octarine} stirring it up. I know nothing
  whatsoever about parties in jacuzzis, or rubber chickens.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
More about book shop tours and signing sessions.

  ``Well, the tour's over, and back I come to unload a stack of emails
  including a few on the lines of: some signings were chaos/badly organised
  (I'll better add that they added: we know it wasn't your fault, you were
  distantly seen to be scribbling at speed{\ldots}). Some interesting points
  were raised so, in honour of the afp'ers who queued, I thought I'd post a
  general reply here.

  I don't organise signings. The \emph{publishers} don't organise signings;
  shops clamour to get certain authors, and the publishers try to select
  the few dozen for this tour based on all kinds of stuff like number of
  shops already picked in that chain, location and so on. But the
  organisation of the signing itself is done by the shop. Not all of them
  can hack it. Believe me, I know this, and the reasons include:

\begin{quote}{--- this shop's idea of a good signing hitherto is fifty people \\--- this shop doesn't understand about, er, a `fan' type signing, where there's dedications and maybe some older titles and an         occasional brief chat.\\--- the shop doesn't understand about signings \emph{at all}, including the need for a proper table and chair for the signer, or a cup of tea.         It happens. I carry my own bag of pens because most shops would         provide one Biro.\\
}\end{quote}

  A lot of them \emph{can} run a signing, and the problems simply are the
  unavoidable ones you have if 300 people all want a book signed at the
  same time, \emph{and} want to say ``hi''.

  I'm sort of stuck. I can't run the thing from the desk. Besides, I was
  signing for six or seven hours most days, and my brain turns to cheese.
  My PR lady can help a bit, and does. If we spot a handicapped person in
  the queue, and tactful inquiry suggests they'd welcome it, they get to
  the front (I have to say that, to my annoyance, the staff in some shops
  seemed oblivious to this aspect). If the shop runs out of a title --- it
  happened a few times --- she can get some from the reps secret stash.

  On this tour I think that, despite my warnings, I signed everything. Most
  of the time people with a big stack were asked to wait until the end. I'm
  loathe to let shops decide how many books I'm going to sign so they're
  told that I'll sign everything if there's time --- otherwise, in an effort
  to be helpful, they'd make their own rules.

  Some problems would be solved by doing fewer signings (and people'd
  complain). We left out too many places this time as it was.

  It definitely was a busy tour. I would like to apologise to the relatives
  of the fan who gave me 29 books to sign in Odyssey 7, Manchester. I'm a
  little twitchy towards the end of a day of signing and did not mean to
  kill and eat him.''

  ``With a little more leisure I realise that the aforesaid postings
  concerned one particular shop. They did indeed seem far more interested
  in shifting books than running a proper signing, and this has been
  carefully noted for future reference. They had also not spotted that an
  author, in order to sign, needs a table and a chair.

  But a lot of shops seemed to do it well --- the Waterstones in Manchester,
  for example, seemed very good at hustling pregnant ladies, etc, to the
  front of the queue. In fact I think you merely had to look as though your
  feet hurt.

  Signings that don't involve a talk are invariably advertised as `an
  hour'. But there's always some extra time in the program.''

  ``Some shops on the tour --- they have been noted --- acted as if having a
  shop full of people buying books was terribly inconvenient. I know that
  one stopped taking phone orders because the staff got fed up.''

  ``On the latest tour I've heard that some shops have been telling people
  `he'll only sign \emph{Soul Music}'. This is shopspeak on the lines of ``It's
  out of print'' (which really means ``Who cares and bugger off, you pimply
  person''). Shops have no say in what I'll sign or not sign. So I'll
  repeat:

  I'll sign everything of mine --- if there's time. It's all down to queue
  length. If you've got an entire bag of books then generally I arrange to
  sign them after the queue has gone. You don't even have to buy the
  current title, although you may be subject to some righteous wragging if
  this is the case.''

  ``The tour just finished may have been the first one in which someone
  brought a computer in to be signed --- a Sparc workstation, I recall.''

  ``I'm not against flash photography! But repeated flash photography during
  a long day --- well, ever tried looking down at a white page after staring
  into a flash gun?''

  ``What is always very touching are the people who bring in their \emph{already
  signed} books to witness the new ones being signed. It's like their first
  Communion or something{\ldots}''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Is the Mappe of Ankh-Morpork based on London?

  ``We started with a LOT of real cities --- mostly in England, mostly old.
  There's a lot of Oxford and some Durham and Shrewsbury and odds and ends
  from everywhere, including a street in Abingdon opposite the theatre that
  puts on the Discworld plays. I think Stephen even said somewhere that
  London isn't the only city with a Hyde Park, but I could be wrong. But
  frankly any old city with a wall and a wiggly river looks like
  London{\ldots}.''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Do religious fanatics ever get mad at you for writing \emph{Small Gods}?

  ``I may have posted something on these lines before, but a lot of mail
  about \emph{Small Gods} is split between 1) pagans who say that it really
  shafts the Big Beard In the Sky religions and 2) Christians who say that
  it is an incredibly pro-Christian book.

  I suspect the latter is because Brutha displays tolerance, compassion,
  charity, steadfastness and faith, and these are now considered Christian
  virtues (i.e., virtues that modern Christians feel they should have{\ldots})''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
Annotations and References.

  ``If I put a reference in a book I try to pick one that a generally
  well-read (well-viewed, well-listened) person has a sporting chance of
  picking up; I call this `white knowledge', the sort of stuff that fills
  up your brain without you really knowing where it came from. Enough
  people would've read Leiber, say, to pick up a generalised reference to
  Fafhrd, etc., and even more people would have some knowledge of Tolkien
  --- but I wouldn't rely on people having read a specific story.''

  ``I like doing this kind of thing. There are a number of passages in the
  books which are `enhanced' if you know where the echoes are coming from
  but which are still, I hope, funny in their own right.''

  ``Sometimes I{\ldots} well{\ldots} I just write stuff which hasn't been pinched from
  ANYONE (shuffles feet, looks embarrassed{\ldots}).''

\vspace{1.4ex}{\mbox{--}}
When will you be visiting the USA?

  ``The publishers keep on saying ``We've got to bring you over next year''. I
  think I've found the logical flaw in this invitation{\ldots}''

\cleardoublepage\chapter{Editorial Comments}

\vspace{4ex}\section{The Origin of the {\smaller APF}}\nopagebreak

The first person ever to publicly suggest the concept of collecting
annotations for Terry's books was Tor Iver Wilhelmsen, a Usenet poster from
Norway. On 2 February 1992 (this was all of three days after
{\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} was created!), he wrote in a message to the newsgroup:

``Does anyone feel up to compiling a list of the various references to other
works that crops up in Pratchett's works, such as the Lovecraftian
inspirations (Bel-Shammaroth, the Dungeon Dimensions, The Place The Dragons
Dwell etc.), more like an `annotations' collection??''

There was no immediate response, but Nathan Torkington started maintaining
a broader FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) for the newsgroup soon
after that, and included a couple of explanations of references that were
cropping up often.

People continued asking for explanations and discovering new references,
however, and on 29 July 1992 I posted the following message (in a
discussion about \emph{Small Gods}, which had just been released):

``It's difficult to come up with more \emph{Small Gods} gags from memory, though.
There were so many I'm sure I did not get all of the references.

Which brings me to the fact that I more and more wish that there was an
``Annotated Pratchett'' file somewhere. The FAQ makes a good start, but it
could be a whole project in its own right.

Tell you what; if people are interested in this, I'm willing to start the
Annotated Pratchett Project right here and now.''

The reaction to this proposal was overwhelming (well, Nathan thought it was
a good idea --- turns out I didn't need any more encouragement than that),
and eventually the first publicly released version of the {\smaller APF} (v1.4) was
posted to {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} on 12 August 1992. This time there really was a
large and enthusiastic response on the newsgroup, and from then on the {\smaller APF}
was a going concern.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Version history and Timeline}\nopagebreak

17 August 2004 --- v9.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 2041 entries, 20703 lines, 916 kB. \\- `Breadth-first' release: no book left unannotated, although not every book annotated exhaustively yet.\\- First official PDF typeset format. \\- PDF/PostScript version now double-columned, with many other tweaks. \\
}\end{quote}

24 December 2000 --- 10 July 2001 --- v7a.5.x

\begin{quote}{- Size: 1777 entries, 18065 lines, 806 kB. \\- Series of quick incremental `development' releases. \\- Mike Kew joins as {\smaller APF} Assistant Editor and does most of the work. \\- HTML version becomes XHTML/CSS-compliant. \\- Experimentally available in PDF typeset format. \\
}\end{quote}

16 June 1996 --- v7a.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 1300 entries, 13680 lines, 615 kB. \\- Pratchett Archives and mirrors now use {\smaller \texttt{lspace.org}} domain. \\- First official HTML version and web pages. \\
}\end{quote}

27 September 1994 --- v7.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 974 entries, 10165 lines, 450 kB. \\- Now also available from Gopher server in USA. \\- Converted to HTML and put up on newfangled World Wide Web thingy by several UK readers.\\
}\end{quote}

17 September 1993 --- v6.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 622 entries, 6611 lines, 296 kB. \\- Too large to be posted to afp. \\- Now also available from Pratchett Archives mirror sites in the USA and Australia.\\
}\end{quote}

24 January 1993 --- v5.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 336 entries, 3340 lines, 148 kB. \\- Posted to afp in three parts. \\- First version to be available in typeset PostScript format. \\- Custom mail server and FTP site `Pratchett Archives' at Delft University created for {\smaller APF} and other Pratchett-related            material.\\
}\end{quote}

7 November 1992 --- v4.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 198 entries, 1702 lines, 79 kB. \\- Posted to afp in two parts. \\
}\end{quote}

22 September 1992 --- v3.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 133 entries, 1071 lines, 49 kB. \\- Posted to afp. \\- First version to be available from FTP site and mail server. \\
}\end{quote}

1 September 1992 --- v2.0

\begin{quote}{- Size: 78 entries, 631 lines, 28 kB. \\- Posted to afp. \\
}\end{quote}

12 August 1992 --- v1.4

\begin{quote}{- Size: 14 entries, 160 lines, 5 kB. \\- Posted to {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}}. \\
}\end{quote}

\vspace{4ex}\section{Credits}\nopagebreak

People who write articles to the Pratchett newsgroups or who email me
annotations should always be aware of one thing: for the {\smaller APF} I will freely
quote and copy from your submissions, without further explicit permission
or credit.

It's not only that I think long lists of contributors' names would be a
bother to maintain (we're talking about many hundreds of names here), would
make the {\smaller APF} even larger than it already is, and would be completely
uninteresting to anybody except the contributors themselves; but doing it
my way also allows me to edit, change, and mutilate the texts as I see fit
without worrying about folks going: ``but that's not what I said!''.

Explicitly marked quotes (i.e.\  the material placed between quotation marks
and preceded by a source attribution) form the exception to this rule. In
particular when including quotes from Terry Pratchett himself, I will choose
a selection in the first place, fix typos or obvious syntactical mistakes,
and adapt punctuation to conform to the rest of the {\smaller APF}, but I will make no
further edits or changes. In other words: What You See Is What He Said.

Apart from all the folks who contributed annotations, there are heaps of
people who have gone out of their way to help me get the {\smaller APF} into its
current form, and thanking them is certainly something that I don't mind
spending a few paragraphs on.

First and foremost, I have to thank Mike Kew, my Assistant Editor, who came
aboard in 2000 and basically did the hardest and most thankless bits of
work for the various 7a.5.x releases. His efforts kept the {\smaller APF} going in its
darkest hours, and without him v9.0 would not yet have seen the light of
day.

I would also like to thank all the {\smaller APF} proofreaders, beta-testers and
fact-checkers (by now again too many to list separately), who have helped
exterminate typos and grammar errors while improving quote and page number
accuracy. It's mindnumbingly boring work, and you have no idea how much I
appreciate not having to do it all by myself.

There are a number of people who have been so instrumental over the years I
would like to mention and thank them individually:

Nathan Torkington and Andy ``\&.'' Holyer, for being there at the beginning
and helping to get the whole thing rolling.

Sander Plomp, for the logs of early {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} newsgroup traffic,
and for coming up with the idea of making a \LaTeX\ version of the {\smaller APF}.

Robert Collier, for his work on the original HTML version of the {\smaller APF}.

Paulius Stepanas, for his help with the double page numbers. I once
promised that the ``conversion function'' would be a part of {\smaller APF} v9.0 --- but
it was not to be, and I apologise{\ldots}

Trent Fisher and David Jones, for helping me out in the beginning with Perl
and \LaTeX\ programming, respectively.

Last, but not least: Terry Pratchett, for giving us something to annotate
in the first place; for giving me permission to use quotes from his
articles in the {\smaller APF}; and for having to put up with increasing numbers of
fans who, perhaps because of the {\smaller APF}, have begun to think he is incapable
of writing anything truly original. They should know better.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Page Numbers}\nopagebreak

Up to {\smaller APF} v7a.0, each annotation was identified (in addition to the
relevant quote from the book) by two page numbers: one for the Gollancz
hardcover and one for the Corgi paperback. Unfortunately, this system has a
number of drawbacks.

One minor problem is that I have never liked the look of those double
page numbers. The ``247/391'' strings look ugly, bloat the text, and make
the annotations just that tiny bit harder to read.

A more serious problem is that having two page numbers is a maintenance
headache. Double the numbers means double the chance of mistakes. And
since I don't own Terry's books in both hardcover and paperback editions
myself, I have to rely on volunteers to supply fully half of the data I
need: all the page numbers for the editions of the books I don't have.

Thankfully, so far I \emph{have} had the help of volunteers who have done a
stellar job on this, but it does still mean that I can never just add an
annotation without having to go bother someone else for the second page
number. This makes annotating a two-step process, which is especially
tiresome now that {\smaller APF} updates are supposed to happen in more frequent
incremental steps.

The most serious drawback, however, and the one that has made me truly
reconsider the whole setup, is fairly recent, and caused by the fact that
there are now so many different editions of Terry's books available that
the percentage of readers to whom \emph{either} of the page numbers I supply
means anything useful, is shrinking, and will only get smaller over time.
Not only do we now have American editions in widespread use, but we also
have reissues of the older Corgi paperbacks and Gollancz hardcovers, both
with page counts that are different from the original versions.

Finally, I think the most useful aspects of the page numbers is that they
provide an ordering of the list of annotations for a given book. Had Terry
written in chapters, I probably would never have used page numbers at all,
but merely listed the annotations on a per-chapter basis. I strongly
suspect that the actual page numbers are used more often by me as editor
than by the vast majority of {\smaller APF} readers. I doubt that the {\smaller APF} readers
often have a need to use the page numbers as a link back from individual
annotations to the source text. Rather, it will be the other way around,
and on a much more global level: ``I have just read \emph{Pyramids}, now I'll go
browse through the annotations for that book and see what I've missed''.

With all that in mind I have decided that the {\smaller APF} will be switching to
uni-numbered annotations, based on the editions of the books I happen to
have in my possession. For v9.0, the double page numbers are still present
for the older books, but removing them will be one of the first things on
the TODO list for v10.0.

\vspace{4ex}\section{To Annotate or Not to Annotate}\nopagebreak

In the early years of the {\smaller APF} nearly every annotation that I received was
quickly incorporated into the next version of the file. For the later
versions, I became a bit more selective and started rejecting as well as
accepting annotations.

For one thing, quite a few annotations didn't make it into this version of
the {\smaller APF} because I simply couldn't place them. People send me annotations
that are keyed to the page numbers in their books, which more often than
not are not the same editions I use, or they don't mention page numbers at
all. As a result, I sometimes have to spend a lot of time searching for a
particular sentence or scene, and in many cases I just can't place it at
all.

Another reason why annotations may be rejected is because I couldn't
confirm the reference. Mind you, sometimes I'll include references that are
simply so cool, or so authoritative-sounding, that even though I don't know
anything about the subject myself, I feel they will enhance the file.
However, I often receive annotations that are rather vague and
non-specific, and which I do not wish to include without some further
confirmation. This confirmation can for instance consist of someone else
mailing me the same annotation, or of me delving into encyclopedias or
dictionaries and checking things myself.

And a final batch of entries are of course rejected because I thought they
were either too implausible or too `obvious'. Now note that these are not
fixed properties, and that as soon as I start getting the same annotation
from multiple sources, I will nearly always accept it for the {\smaller APF},
regardless of what I may think about it myself.

However, as long I have received a particular annotation from one source
only I'm going to have to make what is basically a very subjective
judgement call --- that is what editors are for. If an annotation strikes me
as implausible or just not very interesting, then it's out. If I think it's
valid, or if I just \emph{like} it, then it's in. If a trivial annotation is in
the same category as many others already in the file, then it will usually
be in (I am a stickler for consistency), unless I'm bored, in which case I
simply want to get on with the fun stuff, and I leave it out. Sic Biscuitas
Desintegrat, as they say.

The important point I want to get across here is that none of these
annotations are rejected permanently, and that everything is filed away for
future reference. They may very well be used in later versions of the {\smaller APF}.

So what \emph{do} I base my judgement calls on? The answer is of course that I
don't really consciously know, and that it usually just depends on my mood
anyway. One important rule of thumb that I try to follow as much as
possible is the following:

I do not like explaining English puns or words. As soon as another language
is involved (``with milk?'') --- fine. As soon as some weird old British
saying is referenced (``good fences'') --- cool. As soon as it is obvious that
many readers are simply not getting something that \emph{I} consider obvious
(``echognomics'') --- no problem. But as a basic heuristic I am assuming that
everybody who is able to read Terry Pratchett's books in the original
language has enough command of the English language to understand basic
puns, and enough sense to use a dictionary if they encounter an unfamiliar
word. I don't want to have to explain why \emph{Equal Rites} is a funny title.

\vspace{4ex}\section{The {\smaller APF} in Other Formats}\nopagebreak

Currently, the {\smaller APF} is available in three main formats: as a text file, as a
typeset PDF/PostScript file, and as an on-line collection of HTML web
pages.

The recommended point of entry for obtaining all these formats remains the
{\smaller APF} section of the L-Space Web at \url{http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/}. If
you are more old-school, you can use your browser or an FTP client to
bypass the web and go directly to the Pratchett Archives located at
\url{ftp://ftp.lspace.org/pub/pratchett/}.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Third-party Annotations}\nopagebreak

Over the years, a number of non-{\smaller APF} collections of Discworld annotations
have appeared (mostly on the Web), partially in reaction to the {\smaller APF} going
without updates for so long.

\emph{Detritus.co.uk}
\url{http://books.detritus.co.uk/pratchett/annotations/index.shtml} collects
annotations that have appeared on {\smaller \texttt{alt.fan.pratchett}} for the books up to
\emph{The Truth}, but seems to have gone without updates itself for a number of
years now.

\emph{Bugarup University}
\url{http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/4108/xxxx_explained.htm}
specifically collects `Australian' annotations for \emph{The Last Continent}.

\emph{Google Groups} \url{http://groups.google.com/} is not a dedicated web site, but
a Usenet search engine that offers a very good way to seek out annotation
discussions that have appeared on the Pratchett newsgroups.

If you know of any other annotation sites or sources, let me know, and I
will add them to the list.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Bibliography}\nopagebreak

In this section I want to list some of the specific resources I use in
editing the {\smaller APF}: reference works, web sites, software, etcetera.

A more exhaustive list will have to wait until one of the future updates to
the {\smaller APF}, but for v9.0 there are a few really heavily-used resources I want
to mention:

1. \emph{The Complete Works of William Shakespeare},
\url{http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/}, operated by The Tech at MIT.

The oldest on-line Shakespeare website in existence. All Shakespeare quotes
in the {\smaller APF} are taken from (and in the Web version linked to) this site.

2. \emph{Bible Gateway}, \url{http://www.biblegateway.com/}, operated by Gospel
Communications International.

Another web site that goes back to 1993. It is an unsurpassed resource for
scriptural research, and all Bible quotes in the {\smaller APF} are taken from (and in
the Web version linked to) the King James Version available on this site.

3. \emph{The Internet Movie Database}, \url{http://www.imdb.com/}, operated by
Internet Movie Database, Inc.

Another dinosaur resource that has been around since the early nineties.
Much of the movie-related data in the {\smaller APF} is taken from (and in the Web
version linked to) the IMDB.

4. \emph{Wikipedia --- The Free Encyclopedia}, \url{http://www.wikipedia.org/},
operated by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

A relative newcomer among the {\smaller APF} editing resources, but a very important
one. The Wikipedia articles have been invaluable in providing and checking
the facts and definitions that make up so much of the {\smaller APF}.

I have tried to keep my usage of the Wikipedia material at the level of
`fair use'. Although in many cases I would have liked to use much more
direct cutting-and-pasting of Wikipedia information, I cannot do this yet
because I am not sure if this is allowed, copyright-wise. Wikipedia
information is available under a so-called Free Documentation License,
which allows unlimited use and modification but only under one condition:
that the {\smaller APF} would in turn be released under a similar license, and I am
not sure I can do that yet --- see also the `Copyright Discussion' section.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Copying the {\smaller APF}}\nopagebreak

It's really quite simple: I have by now spent \emph{very} considerable amounts
of time trying to make this document a useful resource for fans of Terry
Pratchett's work, and I would be delighted to see the {\smaller APF} reach as many of
those fans as possible.

Please feel free to distribute the text and PDF/PostScript versions of the
{\smaller APF} to others by mail or in print, and to put them up on bulletin boards,
archive sites or whatever other advanced means of communication you have
available to you.

All I ask is that you (a) always distribute the {\smaller APF} for free, and in its
entirety (for obvious reasons, I should hope), and (b) always include
information telling people where they can find the original version (and
possible updates) of the file (i.e.\  \url{http://www.lspace.org/}).

I'd also prefer it if you did not put up separate copies of the HTML
version of the {\smaller APF} on the World Wide Web (local copies for personal use are
just fine). Experience has shown that on-line copies always become outdated
very soon, but continue to foul up search engine results for other people
for ages onwards. Please just link to the canonical version of the {\smaller APF} on
the Web instead (again: \url{http://www.lspace.org/}).

If you want to translate a version of the {\smaller APF} into another language (or
otherwise distribute a modified version of the {\smaller APF}), please first contact
me at {\smaller \texttt{apf@lspace.org}}, and I will give you more information in email.

\vspace{4ex}\section{Copyright Discussion}\nopagebreak

Formally speaking, the {\smaller APF} copyright situation is a bit murky. I would love
to release the {\smaller APF} under some form of open document license, which would
basically formalise the fact that everybody is allowed to copy and modify
the {\smaller APF} as they see fit. Such a license would also be a prerequisite for
being allowed to make more intensive use of other free resources such as
the \emph{Wikipedia} free encyclopedia.

However, with the {\smaller APF} containing so much quoted and contributed material it
is not clear to me if I actually have the right to release the {\smaller APF} under an
open license. Terry has, for instance, given me permission to use excerpts
from his Usenet articles in the {\smaller APF}, but he is able to do that because the
copyright resides with him in the first place. I surely cannot (and even if
I could might not \emph{want} to) release his words under a license that would
explicitly allow people to modify those words.

Similarly, although the vast majority of people have contributed
annotations to the {\smaller APF} with the full knowledge that their words might be
copied verbatim or edited beyond recognition, no formal copyright transfer
has ever been part of the deal. An open license would also make it possible
for people to e.g.\  actually start trying to sell printed copies of the {\smaller APF}
--- and \emph{that} might in turn be something an original submitter would not
like at all, and could lead to complaints or ill feelings.

It is for this same reason that my own project of selling printed versions
of the {\smaller APF} for charity never came to anything. Although at one point I
already had Terry's permission to go ahead, in the end I felt that adding
the concept of `money' into the equation, even for charity, would generate
too much potential for problems. Better to just keep everything absolutely
non-profit.

This turned out to have been a very good decision when in 1997 we received
a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer who claimed that we had violated
his copyright by quoting parts of the poem `Desiderata' in one of the
annotations, and could we please tell him how much money we had made off of
it, so that he could estimate the damages he was going to sue us for. We
told him no money had ever been involved in the {\smaller APF}, we removed the poem,
and we never heard from him again. Now I dare say that this was just a
``can't hurt to try'' approach intended to scare us (and everybody else his
search engine threw up) into settling; if he had really sued us I am fairly
certain we would been able to claim fair-use successfully. But the point is
that nobody wanted the hassle, that it would have inevitably jeopardised
our relationship with the Universities and ISPs who have been hosting the
Pratchett Archive and L-Space Web mirrors for free. And did I mention we
could do without the hassle?

I will continue to think about the copyright situation for the {\smaller APF}, and it
is entirely possible that in a future version some kind of formal license
will appear. Until then, I merely claim the editorial copyright on the {\smaller APF}
on behalf of Mike Kew and myself as editors, and I request that everyone
abide with the informal requests and restrictions outlined in the previous
section, \emph{Copying the {\smaller APF}}.

\end{raggedright}
\end{document}

