Jingo d 21, p.37
Jingo d-21,
p.37
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55
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”.)
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56
Apparently there are “well-documented” cases of this sort of miraculous escape, but it has become a much-parodied staple of Boys' Own-style fiction. One well-known occurrence comes at the very end of the Blackadder III television series. Another can be found in the 1975 movie The Man Who Would Be King, starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
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57
Medieval Arab legend identifies the source of the Nile as being in “the Mountains of the Moon”.
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58
A direct quote from Tennyson's poem Sir Galahad:
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.
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59
There's a pub in Bath called “The Saracen's Head”, which supposedly has a similarly colourful history.
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60
‘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.
There are similarities between Tacticus' book, as expounded later in Jingo, and The Art of War by the Chinese general Sun Tzu.
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61
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.”
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62
From the beginning of every episode of the television series Mission: Impossible.
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63
Historically, the tusk of the narwhal has sometimes been taken for that of a unicorn.
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64
Das Boot (The Boat) was an epic German film, made by Wolfgang Petersen in 1981, telling the story of a German submarine in 1941.
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65
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.
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66
An inconsistency alert: earlier Carrot told Vimes that Blind Hugh had ‘passed away last month’.
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67
The first working submarine was a one-man, hand-propelled vessel called the Turtle, designed to use an auger 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 Eagle in New York Harbor on 6 September 1776, but the hull was lined with copper and the screw failed to pierce it.
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68
This has several parallels in our own world, most notably the Sioux, who adopted that name from their neighbours and habitual enemies the Ojibwa.
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69
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 Small Gods.
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70
According to the Bible, the prophet Jonah did much the same (Jonah 1:17).
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71
The Israelites, while fleeing from Egypt, were sustained by a divinely provided rain of bread (Exodus 16:4).
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72
Another Roman saying, coined by Terence (c.190–159 BC): “Fortune aids the brave.”
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73
For the story of Detritus' helmet, read Men at Arms.
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74
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.”
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75
One of the many adventures of Sinbad, in The Thousand and One Nights.
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76
From the 4th/5th century Roman writer Vegetius: “Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum” — “Let him who desires peace, prepare for war.”
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77
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 (a pun on the sweets called ‘Jelly Babies’).
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78
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’:
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.
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79
Since getting into his flowing white robes, Carrot appears to be fast turning into Lawrence of Arabia.
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80
Vetinari's patter seems to be based on that of the fez-wearing British comedian Tommy Cooper.
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81
This is, as Vetinari later translates, almost-Arabic for “where the sun shines not”.
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82
One of the best-known (in the west, at least) works of Arabic literature is 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.
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83
The joke as adapted by thee goode folkes of 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?”
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84
Another Tommy Cooper reference.
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85
The most famous example in our world is Alexandria, built by Alexander the Great.
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86
A reference to Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias.
Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramses the Second. Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias is famous, and because it is short here it is in full:
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… 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.”
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87
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”.)
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88
See Pyramids for the Discworld convention on the naming of camels.
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89
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’.
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90
Judging from the name, this could be one of Leonard's creations — but actually we've learned in Soul Music that this particular invention was the work of Ponder Stibbons at Unseen University.
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91
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.
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92
This speech is very similar to the end of the film 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.”
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93
Early in the film 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.”
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94
‘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.
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95
At the end of Dickens' 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 might have said: “If he had given any utterance to his [thoughts], and they were prophetic, they would have been these: ‘[…] 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.’”.
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Terry Pratchett, Jingo d-21
