Dijabringabeeralong

Dijabringabeeralong is one of the bigger towns on the continent XXXX. Instead of a welcome billboard, the sign on a windmill by the roadside upon entering the town says: "Dijabringabeeralong: Check Your Weapons" (ie 'Check that they work.').

Seemingly something like the "one-horse" towns of the old American West, the town seems to consist mainly of a street with houses that would probably be described as "vernacular" architecture on the Disc. It also has a bar.

It lies on the Lassitude River, where an annual Regatta is held that attracts a lot of attention. Usually consisting of a race of wheeled boats pulled by camels on the sand, it was cancelled during the events of The Last Continent. It was felt that a river full of water made a mockery of the whole event.

Annotation

The name (say it very slowly if you don't get the joke) makes fun of the naming style of many Australian towns and places. Those names, though, are mostly drawn from the local indigenous languages at the time of European invasion. Famous examples include Birrarung Marr, Coonabarabran, Mooloolaba, Mullumbimby, Parramatta, Wagga Wagga, Woolgoolga and Woolloomooloo (see the second annotation below). As late as the 1990s, Didjabringabeeralong (in various spellings) was an actual joke name used on some Australian tourist memorabilia in country towns, which is likely where Pratchett got the idea. Today, such a joke is considered in bad taste, since those town names are sometimes the only remnants left of indigenous languages which were largely wiped out along with most of their speakers by the English colonisers.

The argument between Wally the wombat and Rincewind has overtones of Eric Idle's Australian Wino Society sketch.

"Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: eight bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is 'beware'. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat."