Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki - User contributions [en]

Tuckerization

2018-07-25T02:54:41Z

Thnidu: c/e

[[Image:Anorankh 1.jpg|thumb|right|The "anorankh" earrings that immortalised Colette Reap in the Discworld novels.]]
'''Tuckerization''' is the accepted name for the process, not only in [[Discworld]] novels, by which people buy a chance to be written into novels as (usually) minor characters, often in return for a suitable donation to charity. It is derived from science fiction writer {{wp|Wilson Tucker|Wilson Tucker}}, who either originated or popularised the idea.

Sometimes this involves no money changing hands – [[Hodgesaargh]], the [[Lancre]] castle falconer is based on Dave Hodges, the man Terry used for research on falconry, and the [[Seamstresses' Guild|seamstress]] [[Colette]] who appears in {{M!!!}} is a tribute to a fan who appealed to Terry because of her infeasibly large and different earrings. "Fascinatin'", you might say.

Beneficiaries in the Discworld canon include:
* [[Colette]], after Colette Reap
* [[Follett|Dr Follett]], after author [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Follett Kenneth Follett]
* [[Hodgesaargh]], after falconer Dave Hodges
* [[Marco Soto]], after games editor, artist and writer Marco Soto.

Another notable Tuckerization happens in [[Book:The Long War|The Long War]], where real-life animal experts and owners of a large feral cat sanctuary, Doctor Christopher Pagel and his wife Julia Pagel, are written into the story as themselves - but given the management problems associated with large cat species not known on [[Datum Earth]]. A note at the end of the novel acknowledges them and their work in large cat preservation (owners of the Companion Animal Hospital in real-life Madison)

==External links==
* [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tuckerization TV Tropes], for a fuller definition, history of the practice, and lots of examples.
* [http://www.ansible.co.uk/sfx/sfx149.html Product Placement], article written by David Langford in 2006 for ''SFX'' magazine.

[[Category:People|Tuckerization]]

Datum Earth

2018-07-25T02:52:57Z

Thnidu: copyedit

Datum Earth is the only known one of the [[Long Earth|Long Earths]] where Humans evolved; it can be considered as our Earth in the [[Book:The Long Earth|The Long Earth]] series. Over the course of the first two books, it passes from the dominant influence in colonising the Long Earth to being the distant colonising power that the Steppers inevitably rebel against. Following a calamity lampshaded in ''The Long War'' - namely the eruption of the volcanic caldera under Yellowstone - Datum Earth eventually realises the relationship is changed and it is now pretty much dependent on the colony worlds for its survival. By ''The Long Utopia'' the climactic changes caused by the eruption have caused large portions of the planet to be effectively abandoned, including most of the United States; the waves of migration caused by this have resulted in new types of communities arising in the Low Earths.

[[Category:The Long Earth|Earth Datum]]

Talk:More Polish

2017-06-10T22:23:26Z

Thnidu:

It's interesting, though. I'm wondering about some sort of "comparison page" listing non-English names for places and characters and how they evolved in the minds of the translators... for instance, in Dutch/Afrikaans you get ''Mustrum Riediekel de Bruin'' for a certain wizard, and ''Opie/Ouma Weedersmeer'' for a certain witch. both have interesting back-stories. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 20:20, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

I see this site is treated like a talk page. I'm a Polish person, so I wanted to confirm the things stated there. "Tak" means yes, but also "like (this)", "this way". It's also used this way in Czech and maybe some other Slavic languages. "Schmaltz" is not a Polish word, though we have a similiar one: "smalec". It describes animal fat (lard?) Everything else stated here is basically correct. [[User:Jendrej|~Jendrej]] ([[User talk:Jendrej|talk]]) 12:59, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
:It was another Polish contributor, years ago, who wanted to own the word. In North America, and I suspect English generally, it's thought of as Yiddish (particularly with the "t") and therefore refers to chicken fat and certainly not lard. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

::Since [[More Polish|this main page]] is formally an article, I've deleted [[User:AgProv]]'s sentence
:::I know "schmaltz" means "fat" or "grease" in Yiddish (memo - golems would know this?) - didn't know it was also Polish, but it makes sense - not every word in Yiddish is German-derived!
:: with an edit summary pointing here. From [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=schmaltz Online Etymology]:
::: from Yiddish ''shmalts'', literally "melted fat," from Middle High German ''smalz'', from Old High German ''smalz'' "animal fat," related to ''smelzan'' "to melt" (see [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=smelt '''smelt''' (v.)]).
::It seems most likely that the Polish word ''smalec'' came from German or Yiddish, rather than the other way around.
::By the way, Russian ''tak'' (так) also means "like this", "this way", so [[User:Jendrej|Jendrej]]'s thought ("maybe some other Slavic languages") is quite right.
::--[[User:Thnidu|Thnidu]] ([[User talk:Thnidu|talk]]) 22:23, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

More Polish

2017-06-10T22:02:38Z

Thnidu: See Talk

There are some Polish language words in Discworld which don't seem to be grouped elsewhere. Probably fell off the edge, missing the [[circumfence]], or something. So far the count is three (or four if you're fussy): Schmaltz as in [[Schmaltzberg]], [[Sto Lat]] and [[Tak]].

"tak" means "yes"? "Sto Lat" is a traditional song meaning "one hundred years", often performed at birthdays and celebrations? See [[Talk:More Polish|Talk]]

According to the "apf", alas, neither "sto helit" nor "sto kerrig" have any meaning in Polish - I've no reason to doubt this, but could you confirm? Interesting discussion, though, as quite a lot of Roundworld languages seem to have little shout-outs on the Disc, and not all of them can be put down to English and its habit of promiscuously adopting anything that takes its fancy from wherever! [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 19:59, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

As the apf so eruditely quotes:

''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!''

Which loosely translates to:

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!

[[Category:Foreign Language Articles|More Polish]]

Mine sign

2017-06-10T21:42:08Z

Thnidu: /* Known mine signs */ Laptop screen + old eyes + big print = Didn't see images till I'd read halfway down the section. This notice will help.

'''Mine sign''' is a [[dwarfs|dwarfish]] cultural phenomenon arising out of the often cramped conditions of living in mines and habitually carrying axes all the time. Getting along becomes incredibly important, lest someone become tempted to put the non-mining and non-prospecting blade of their axe to use, hence the habit of drawing unattributed symbols on the walls, or anything else to hand, as a kind of system of gossip. While plenty of these signs, such as the Long Dark, are a part of the ordinary dwarfish language, but some of them, such as the [[Summoning Dark]] are "''Unbelievably Mystical''," what with how the dwarves revere the written word.

== Known mine signs ==
(See images below.)
*'''The Long Dark:''' A circle with a horizontal line through it. The most common symbol, it merely signifies a mine, and is a part of the ordinary dwarfish language. (Eerily similar to the {{wp|File:Underground_no-text.svg|London Underground}}: all the more so considering the [[Undertaking|plans]] Vetinari has for the future of the city.)

*'''The Following Dark:''' A circle with two diagonal lines through it. Means things are getting really bad: "''We await what follows with dread''." Can also be translated as "''Repent, ye sinners''!" (Also similar to "'''Urban Clearway - No Parking'''" GB roadsigns)

*'''The Closing Dark'''

*'''The Opening Dark'''

*'''The Breathing Dark:''' Used rarely.

*'''The Speaking Dark:''' Considered fine.

*'''The Catching Dark:''' Considered fine.

*'''The Secret Dark:''' Considered fine.

*'''The Calling Dark:''' Considered to be very dangerous.

*'''The Waiting Dark:''' The dark that waits to fill new holes.

*'''The [[Summoning Dark]]:''' Like a circled eye with a tail. This is the most dangerous sign of all, and when drawn it's considered safest to keep it exposed to bright light at all times; there is some kind of quasidemonic entity with which it is associated, which can be called down as vengeance by a sufficiently determined, and presumably dying, individual. Even when this happens, it cannot take action on its own but must take control of and work through a person. It took care, when selecting Sam Vimes as its avatar, to ensure he cut himself on a Dwarf door that had been smeared with [[Vurms|vurm]] essence. The vurm-stuff got under Vimes' skin - in every applicable way - and marked him with a [[Draht]]. The draht remains as a mark of Vimes' fate, even after the Guarding Dark intervened.

Drahts in general remain a mark of initiation and membership of the [[Deep-Downers]], the ultra conservative, almost paramilitary, Dwarfs.

*'''The Guarding Dark:''' Also known as the Watchman. The only entity that can master, defeat and contain the brooding vengeful violence of the Summoning Dark. The Guarding Dark appears to have no known minesign. But it is clear that where the Summoning Dark goes, the Guarding Dark follows, at its own steady inexorable pace. The only known example of this was in the extraordinary head of [[Sam Vimes]] whose rage and desire to be ''Law''ful means that he watches himself, and governs his own inner beast. Wherever the Watchman goes inside the dark confines of Vimes's mind, he brings his lantern, dispelling the night. [[Imaginary Friend|More here:-]]

[[Image:Mine signs.JPG|1000px]]

[[Category:Discworld culture]]
[[de:Minenzeichen]]

Talk:Vurms

2017-06-10T21:34:06Z

Thnidu:

The Raleigh Sewer Monster, located in the sewer system under a [[Power Cable]], Nebraska -like town in North Carolina. Apparently it's an adaptation of tubiform worms working together to maximise such nutrients as may be found there, and its colonies are both worm-like and photosensitive. observe roundworld's vurms in action [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQmFWYWqTZA| here]. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 14:20, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

: ''Liverpool Echo'': [http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/come-clean-after-you-fall-3376426 We come clean after you fall for our sewer monster April Fool story] By Ben Turner. 00:00, 2 APR 2011. Updated 22:19, 7 MAY 2013. --[[User:Thnidu|Thnidu]] ([[User talk:Thnidu|talk]]) 21:34, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Draht

2017-06-10T21:24:00Z

Thnidu: Sentence case

[[Vurms|Vurm]] blood is used to create '''''drahts''''' - glowing, unique identity symbols for the ultra-conservative [[Dwarfs]] known as [[Deep-Downers]] - which are made by tattooing vurm blood under the skin. This is a powerful concept in Dwarf society. When [[Samuel Vimes]] gets his own Draht, but from a different source ( the [[Mine sign|Guarding Dark]]), Dwarfs respond with awe and respect. Which Sam knows exactly how to exploit.

[[Category: Discworld culture]]

Dwarves

2017-06-10T21:20:34Z

Thnidu: Redirect from the Tolkien spelling, which is used in many places on this wiki. See (but do not edit) Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 1#Evil Spelling

#REDIRECT [[Dwarfs]]

The Bucket

2017-06-10T21:07:59Z

Thnidu: Title case for the name of the pub, 2nd ¶

A [[Pubs|tavern]] in [[Gleam Street]], run by Mr. [[Cheese]], The Bucket is unofficially a policemen's pub, because the owner and the clients suit each other very well. Nobody else wants to drink in The Bucket, so [[Ankh-Morpork]] Watchmen can drink there without seeing a bar fight where they might have to interfere. Ankh-Morpork [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|Watchmen]] are silent and serious drinkers, but when they do talk, Mr. Cheese listens sympathetically. Mr. Cheese seldom gives his opinion or even a laugh, but sometimes he does smile because he finds descriptions of some homicide cases entertaining. Also, Watchmen all pay their tabs up on time, or else are given a lecture by Captain [[Carrot Ironfoundersson]].

The yard of The Bucket has several sheds which are rented out to small businesses. The [[Ankh-Morpork Times]] began in one such, and Mr Cheese may still be its landlord.

Major appearances in:
* {{MAA}}
* {{FOC}}
* {{T5E}}, as strike headquarters of the [[Watchmen's Guild]]
* {{TT}}, as where William meets the Dwarves who have a printing engine...

[[Category:Ankh-Morpork Businesses|Bucket,The]]
[[de:Der Eimer]]

Book:The Truth

2017-06-10T21:06:07Z

Thnidu: /* Plot */ copyedits

{{Book Data
|title=The Truth
|cover=[[File:Cover The Truth.jpg|thumb|240px|Cover art by Josh Kirby]]
|coauthors=
|illustrator=
|date=Nov 2000
|publisher=Doubleday
|isbn=0552147680
|pages=319
|rrp=
|series=Ankh-Morpork Books
|characters=[[William de Worde]], [[Sacharissa Cripslock]], [[Otto Chriek]], [[Mr. Tulip]], [[Mr. Pin]]
|annotations=yes
|notes= Book #25
}}
==Blurb==
William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first [[Ankh-Morpork Times|newspaper]]. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalist's life -- people who want him dead, a recovering [[vampires|vampire]] with a suicidal fascination for flash [[iconograph|photography]], some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to publish pictures of his humorously shaped potatoes.

William just wants to get at THE TRUTH. Unfortunately, everyone else wants to get at William. And it's only the third edition...

==Plot==
At the start of the story, [[William de Worde]] has been estranged from his wealthy father and makes a living writing an [[Ankh-Morpork]] newsletter which is sent out to other cities. The story begins when a group of dwarfs led by [[Gunilla Goodmountain]] arrive in the city with a new invention: a printing press with movable type. With the press set up in a hut behind [[The Bucket]] in Gleam Street, De Worde and the dwarfs begin to create Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper, the [[Ankh-Morpork Times]], with some encouragement by [[Lord Vetinari]].

Meanwhile, the New Firm ([[Mr. Pin]] and [[Mr. Tulip]], a duo of criminals) arrive in the city. They have kidnapped a Vetinari lookalike named [[Charlie (The Truth)|Charlie]], and are charged by the 'Committee to Unelect the Patrician' to frame Vetinari for a murder. They plan to use Charlie to frame the Patrician for attempting to run away with stolen gold, but this nearly fails due to the Patrician's Assassin skills. They improvise by stabbing [[Drumknott]] and pushing Charlie into the hallway to 'confess'.

Aided by his new reporter [[Sacharissa Cripslock]] and [[vampire]] iconographer [[Otto Chriek]], De Worde investigates the embezzlement against the Patrician, annoying the [[City Watch]] in the process. As it turns out, the criminals made the mistake of letting Vetinari's dog escape, and their assisting lawyer [[Mr. Slant]] warns them that the Watch will be able to extract information from it, so the New Firm are forced to search for the dog. Meanwhile, on his way back to the press, De Worde discovers that the Guild of Engravers, now the [[Engravers' Guild|Guild of Engravers and Prínters]] have set up a cheap tabloid paper called the ''Ankh-Morpork Inquirer'', full of totally unbelievable (even by [[Discworld]] standards) stories that a large part of the population seem to take seriously.

In the third edition of the Times, De Worde offers $25 for finding Wuffles. This causes a huge crowd of people to arrive offering a variety of animals, while the New Firm arrive in disguise. They are just about to attack De Worde when Otto takes a picture using "Dark Light", which as a side effect causes fear and panic among the crowd and a stampede of animals. Mr Pin demands that Slant increase their fee; he and Tulip head back to their base at the De Worde house, where they find Sacharissa Crisplock and take her back with them to the Press.

While they wait for De Worde to arrive, a fight breaks out and the machinery catches fire. Mr Pin and Mr Tulip take refuge in the basement, but boiling lead starts to pour through the ceiling. Pin shoots Tulip with a crossbow, and when he escapes, he attacks De Worde in a fit of rage and gets stabbed with a paper spike. De Worde discovers a [[Dis-organiser]], and by listening through the imp's memory discovers that his father is behind the conspiracy.

De Worde confronts his father at his mansion, only to almost be captured and transported away. He is saved by Otto Chriek, who threatens Lord De Worde with vampiric revenge but ultimately lets him go. Using the New Firm's payment, De Worde buys a new press and unites with the Guild. Vetinari is reinstated as Patrician and informs De Worde that Charlie has decided to take up acting. The book ends after William and Sacharissa report on [[Captain Carrot]] saving an old lady from a runaway beer cart. Meanwhile, Mr Tulip repents before [[Death]] and is reincarnated as a woodworm, while Mr Pin is reincarnated as one of the humorously shaped potatoes mentioned in the blurb.

==Literature==
One of the themes explored in this book is the role of media in society. The toughest criticism of this is offered by Vetinari at the end of the book: "How come there is always the same amount of news?"

The two newspapers competing show mainstream journalism, with its heroic abilities, that are sometimes beyond those of the police, and yellow journalism (also known as "red-top" in Great Britain), with its potential to do damage.

*"Red-top papers: such as The ''Sun'', the ''News of the World'', the ''Sport'', the ''Daily Star'', et c, whose mast-heads are a splash of red behind the paper's name. The ''Daily Mirror'' used to be a black-top until it was bought by Robert Maxwell, who turned the masthead red and drove the paper down-market and de-intellectualised it. What had formerly been a respectable middle-market newspaper of centre-left opinion has never recovered and is still a pale ghost of what it once was.

The [[wiki:Watergate Scandal|Watergate Scandal]] is also referenced at several points:
*The New Firm enter the city through the Water Gate
*The Committee to Un-elect the Patrician is a clear parody of the [[wiki:Committee to Re-Elect the President|Committee to Re-Elect the President]], although Vetinari is not elected
*Gaspode's alias, "Deep Bone" comes from [[wiki:Deep Throat|Deep Throat]], the anonymous informer who leaked information to the Press.
*Gaspode meets De Worde by the multi-storey stable block, the Discworld equivalent of a multi-storey car park where Deep Throat met reporters in secret
*The Disorganiser which reveals Lord De Worde. Nixon originally denied the allegations he faced but was exposed after taped conversations were discovered, revealing him to be in charge. And of course the myriad ''"expletive deleted"'' euphemism of the Nixon transcripts finds its Discworld home in the frequent recourse to "[[-ing]]"....

==Characters==
===Main Characters===
*[[Otto Chriek]]
*[[Sacharissa Cripslock]]
*[[Gunilla Goodmountain]]
*[[Mr. Pin]]
*[[Mr. Tulip]]
*[[Havelock Vetinari]]
*[[William de Worde]]
*[[de Worde|Lord de Worde]]
*[[Slant|Mr Slant]]

===Minor Characters===
*[[Eucrasia Arcanum]]
*[[Mr Bendy]]
*[[Boddony]]
*[[Canting Crew|The Canting Crew]]
**[[Foul Ole Ron]]
**[[Gaspode]]
**[[Coffin Henry]]
**[[The Duck Man]]
**[[Altogether Andrews]]
**[[Arnold Sideways]]
*[[Ronald Carney]]
*[[Charlie (The Truth)|Charlie]]
*[[Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler]]
*[[Rufus Drumknott]]
*[[Gaspode]]
*[[Harry King]]
*[[Nobby Nobbs]]
*[[Rocky]]
*[[Samuel Vimes]]
*[[Angua von Überwald]]
*[[Josia Wintler]]
*[[Wuffles]]

===Cameos and Mentions===
*Mr. Ronnie "Trust Me" Begholder, debtor of Chrysoprase (Mentioned)
*[[O'Biscuit]]
*Brezock the Babarian
*[[Bursar|The Bursar]]
*[[Catastrophe Carter]] (Mentioned)
*[[Caslong]]
*[[Chrysoprase]] (Mentioned)
*[[Clancy]], butcher
*[[Fred Colon]]
*[[Death of Rats]]
*[[Detritus]]
*[[Fettle Dodgast|Dr Fettle Dodgast]]
*[[Downey|Lord Downey]]
*[[Dozy]]
*Constable [[Fiddyment]]
*Slicer Gadley (Mentioned)
*[[Gowdie]]
*Heidehollen, philosopher (Mentioned)
*[[Igor|Watch Igor]]
*[[Igor|Igor the barman at the Biers (not an actual Igor}]]
*[[Carrot Ironfoundersson]]
*[[Keenside|Constable Keenside]]
*[[Effie King]] (Mentioned)
*[[Cheery Littlebottom]]
*Moltin the Snatcher (Mentioned)
*Mr. [[Passmore]]
*[[Hughnon Ridcully]]
*[[Mustrum Ridcully]]
*[[Selachii|Lady Selachii]] (Mentioned)
*[[Thunderaxe]] (Mentioned)
*[[Tilly|Miss Tilly]]
*[[Verence II]], King of [[Lancre]]
*[[De Worde|Rupert de Worde]] (Mentioned)

==Locations==
*[[Ankh-Morpork]]
**[[Ankh-Morpork League of Temperance|Abattoirs Lane]]
**[[Biers]]
**[[Brass Bridge]]
**[[Broadway]]
**[[Dolly Sisters]]
**[[Eucrasia Arcanum|Mrs Eucrasia Arcanum's Lodging House for Respectable Working Men]]
**[[Filigree Street]]
**[[Five-and-Seven Yard]] (Mentioned)
**[[Gleam Street]]
***[[The Bucket]]
***[[Ankh-Morpork Times|Offices of the Ankh-Morpork Times, Gleam Street]]
***[[Ankh-Morpork Inquirer|Offices of the Ankh-Morpork Inquirer, Gleam Street]]
**[[Guild of Conjurors]]
**[[Harry King|Harry King's Waste Reclamation Yard]]
**[[Harga's House Of Ribs]] (Mentioned)
**[[Hobson's Livery Stable]] in [[Creek Alley]]
**[[Lobbin Clout|Lobbins Clout]]
**[[Long Hogmeat]] (Mentioned)
**[[Mended Drum]]
**[[Misbegot Bridge]]
**[[Nonesuch Street]]
***[[De Worde|De Worde Town House]]
**[[Patrician's Palace]]
***[[Oblong Office]]
**[[Phedre Road]]
**[[Le Poil du Chien]]
**[[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|Ankh-Morpork City Watch HQ, Psuedopolis Yard]]
**[[Street of Small Gods]]
**[[Street of Cunning Artificers]]
***[[Ankh-Morpork Temple of Om]]
**Temple of Offler (Mentioned)
**[[Thieves Guild]] (Mentioned)
**[[Unreal Estate]]
***[[Thaumatological Park]]
**[[Unseen University]]
**[[Water Gate]]
**[[Welcome Soap]]
*[[Hugglestones]] (Mentioned)
*[[Mouldavia]] (Mentioned)
*[[The Desert|The Dark Desert]]

==Sentient Species==
*[[Dwarfs]]
*[[Elves]] (mentioned)
*[[Gargoyles]]
*[[Golems]]
*[[Gnolls]]
*[[Humans]]
*[[Nobby Nobbs|Nobbs]]
*[[Trolls]]
*[[Undead]]

==Supernatural Entities==
*[[Death]]
*[[The gods|Gods]] (mentioned)

==Creatures==
*[[Dragon of Unhappiness]] (mentioned)
*[[Imps]]
*[[Salamander]]
*[[Überwaldean land eels]]

== Concepts, devices, ideas, etcetera ==
*[[Ankh-Morpork League of Temperance]]
*[[Bodrozvachski zhaltziet!]]
*[[Clacks]]
*[[Überwaldean land eels|Dark Light]]
*[[Dis-organiser|Dis-organiser Mark II]]
*[[Dried Frog Pills]]
*[[Eau-de-Nil]]
*[[Fung Shooey]]
*[[Engravers' Guild|Guild of Engravers and Prínters]]
*Guild of Towncriers (Mentioned)
*[[Iconograph]]
*[[Moving Pictures]] (Mentioned)
*[[Music With Rocks In]] (Mentioned)
*[[Oil of Scallatine]]
*[[Photographer]]
*[[Potato|Orthodox Potato Cult]]
*[[Three Jolly Luck|The Three Jolly Luck Takeaway Fish Bar on Dagon Street & the fate of Mr Hong]] (Mentioned)
*[[Tosheroon]]
*[[Unseen University Press]]

==Gallery==
{|
|-
| valign="top" | [[File:Cover The Truth.jpg|thumb|120px|First Edition Cover by [[Josh Kirby]]]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT Proof.jpg|thumb|90px|Book Proof]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT Black.jpg|thumb|110px|Paperback 2004]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT Tape.jpg|thumb|120px|Audio Cassette]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT CD.jpg|thumb|140px|Audio CD]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT CK.jpg|thumb|110px|Cover by Chip Kidd]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT US.jpg|thumb|110px|US Cover]]
| valign="top" | [[File:TT Zoom.jpg|thumb|110px|Paperback 2012]]
|}
{|
|-
| valign="top" | [[File:TT CL.jpg|thumb|110px|Collectors Library Edition]]
|}

==External Links==
[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/the-truth.html ''The Truth'' Annotations - The Annotated Pratchett File]

{{series|before=The Fifth Elephant|series=Discworld|after=Thief of Time}}
{{series|series=Ankh-Morpork|before=|after=Going Postal}}

[[Category:Discworld Series|Truth, The]]
[[Category:Ankh-Morpork Series|Truth, The]]
[[de:Buch:Die volle Wahrheit]]

Help:Editing

2017-06-10T20:49:47Z

Thnidu: /* For Characters and others */ Showing how it's done as well as what it does

For a more complete guide, see {{wikipedia|help:editing|the Wikipedia page}}, but here are just a few tricks:

==Most importantly==
* Use '''Show preview''' to check your edit before saving.
* Check your links. Check links to empty pages (coloured red) to see whether you linked to the right page.
* Don't create an article of just a few lines solely to have created it. It's better to invest your time in [[:Category:Stubs|existing articles which need attention]].
* If you do create or edit a page, make sure the proper [[Special:Categories|categories]] are assigned.
* Use templates to easily add commonly used formatting and information. Below the save/preview buttons the most commonly used templates are linked. (Character Data, Book Data, Stub, etc)
* Never use material that you don't have permission to publish under the license this wiki uses.
* If you think an article could potentially contain much more information which you couldn't include, add the <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> template.
* When adding a comment or question to the '''Discussion''' page, sign it with the signature tool or by typing four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>).

All this makes editing easier and the result of your efforts better. It also saves others time, as someone else will have to correct omissions.

==Formatting==
The toolbar above your editing area can automate many formatting options but you can also put the text within <nowiki>'' ''</nowiki> to italicize it, or <nowiki>''' '''</nowiki> to bold-font it.

The toolbar also has '''Special characters''' not found on the keyboard and more '''Help'''.

==Linking==
Type the article name within [[ ]] to link it. For example, <nowiki>[[genetics]]</nowiki> shows up as [[genetics]].

The vertical bar | (usually found below the backspace key on a keyboard ) can be used to separate the linked article's name and the way you want it to show up in the content you're writing. For example, <nowiki>[[genetics|genetic stuff]]</nowiki> shows up as [[genetics|genetic stuff]].
To save yourself typing, just a | with no given text, will automagically strip away the '''''Namespace'':''' and '''(''things between brackets'''''*''')''' in the article title. For example, <nowiki>[[Ankh (river)|]]</nowiki> gives [[Ankh (river)|Ankh]], and <nowiki>[[Book:Thud!|]]</nowiki> gives [[Book:Thud!|Thud!]].

To link to a Category: page, add a colon before Category: and the | at the end like this: <nowiki>[[:Category:Wizards|]]</nowiki> = [[:Category:Wizards|Wizards]].

<nowiki>*</nowiki> called "parentheses" in the US

==Language==

*Spelling: 
The reference edition for wiki purposes is the original hardcover edition, Smythe, Gollancz or Doubleday. These will use British spellings, therefore article titles and links have to use the British form where there are variant spellings. (The obvious example being {{COM}}, not ''color''.) Otherwise, this is an international project with contributors from all over the world, some not even native English speakers. Any contributor creating an article is free to use any form or spelling found in reputable English dictionaries of any continent. Additions or edits to the article should then maintain the original style. Please do not edit correct spellings for your personal preference. Do edit for consistency; switching back and forth from flavor to flavour and kerb to curb looks sloppy.

*Style 
While we feel a dash of humour is usually a welcome addition, and we have tended to model the style on that of the not-very-reverent ''Discworld Companion'', remember that it is a form of encyclopedia, not a blog. We are interested in Mr. Pratchett's insights and opinions, not yours. Don't write in the first person. There are annotation pages for speculation, opinion, and insights into the background of things but wiki articles should be factual and supportable. The ''discussion'' pages may also be used to solicit support for an idea or express an opinion.

==For Books==

{{:Book title acronyms}}

==For Characters and others==
Most characters, locations, objects, concepts etc can be linked directly by [[ ]] - use full name if known without titles or honorifics. The book templates then have to be used to link to a book that has the same name as a character or location or things, for example the 4th novel, {{M}} (written as <code><nowiki>{{M}}</nowiki></code>), as distinguished from the character named [[Mort]] (<code><nowiki>[[Mort]]</nowiki></code>); other examples include pyramids, moving pictures, and the fifth elephant.

Help:Editing

2017-06-10T20:46:54Z

Thnidu: /* Linking */

For a more complete guide, see {{wikipedia|help:editing|the Wikipedia page}}, but here are just a few tricks:

==Most importantly==
* Use '''Show preview''' to check your edit before saving.
* Check your links. Check links to empty pages (coloured red) to see whether you linked to the right page.
* Don't create an article of just a few lines solely to have created it. It's better to invest your time in [[:Category:Stubs|existing articles which need attention]].
* If you do create or edit a page, make sure the proper [[Special:Categories|categories]] are assigned.
* Use templates to easily add commonly used formatting and information. Below the save/preview buttons the most commonly used templates are linked. (Character Data, Book Data, Stub, etc)
* Never use material that you don't have permission to publish under the license this wiki uses.
* If you think an article could potentially contain much more information which you couldn't include, add the <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> template.
* When adding a comment or question to the '''Discussion''' page, sign it with the signature tool or by typing four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>).

All this makes editing easier and the result of your efforts better. It also saves others time, as someone else will have to correct omissions.

==Formatting==
The toolbar above your editing area can automate many formatting options but you can also put the text within <nowiki>'' ''</nowiki> to italicize it, or <nowiki>''' '''</nowiki> to bold-font it.

The toolbar also has '''Special characters''' not found on the keyboard and more '''Help'''.

==Linking==
Type the article name within [[ ]] to link it. For example, <nowiki>[[genetics]]</nowiki> shows up as [[genetics]].

The vertical bar | (usually found below the backspace key on a keyboard ) can be used to separate the linked article's name and the way you want it to show up in the content you're writing. For example, <nowiki>[[genetics|genetic stuff]]</nowiki> shows up as [[genetics|genetic stuff]].
To save yourself typing, just a | with no given text, will automagically strip away the '''''Namespace'':''' and '''(''things between brackets'''''*''')''' in the article title. For example, <nowiki>[[Ankh (river)|]]</nowiki> gives [[Ankh (river)|Ankh]], and <nowiki>[[Book:Thud!|]]</nowiki> gives [[Book:Thud!|Thud!]].

To link to a Category: page, add a colon before Category: and the | at the end like this: <nowiki>[[:Category:Wizards|]]</nowiki> = [[:Category:Wizards|Wizards]].

<nowiki>*</nowiki> called "parentheses" in the US

==Language==

*Spelling: 
The reference edition for wiki purposes is the original hardcover edition, Smythe, Gollancz or Doubleday. These will use British spellings, therefore article titles and links have to use the British form where there are variant spellings. (The obvious example being {{COM}}, not ''color''.) Otherwise, this is an international project with contributors from all over the world, some not even native English speakers. Any contributor creating an article is free to use any form or spelling found in reputable English dictionaries of any continent. Additions or edits to the article should then maintain the original style. Please do not edit correct spellings for your personal preference. Do edit for consistency; switching back and forth from flavor to flavour and kerb to curb looks sloppy.

*Style 
While we feel a dash of humour is usually a welcome addition, and we have tended to model the style on that of the not-very-reverent ''Discworld Companion'', remember that it is a form of encyclopedia, not a blog. We are interested in Mr. Pratchett's insights and opinions, not yours. Don't write in the first person. There are annotation pages for speculation, opinion, and insights into the background of things but wiki articles should be factual and supportable. The ''discussion'' pages may also be used to solicit support for an idea or express an opinion.

==For Books==

{{:Book title acronyms}}

==For Characters and others==
Most characters, locations, objects, concepts etc can be linked directly by [[ ]] - use full name if known without titles or honorifics. The book templates then have to be used to link to a book that has the same name as a character or location or things, for example the 4th novel, {{M}}, as distinguished from the character named [[Mort]]; other examples include pyramids, moving pictures, and the fifth elephant.

Category:Reference templates

2017-06-10T20:42:32Z

Thnidu: grammar

This category comprises '''reference templates'''.
[[Category:Templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]

Library

2017-05-14T00:34:45Z

Thnidu: /* Library Contents */

{{Building Data
|photo=
|name= The Library
|location= The [[Unseen University]]
|owner=
|appearance= A large stone building, also no matter where you are in the library the dome is always overhead.
|residents= Magical Books; the [[Librarian]]; lost tribes of research students
|use= Library
|built=
|founded by=
|demolished=
|books=
|notes=
}}

===Layout===

The Library has endless shelves (some of which are [[Mobius shelves]]), but is covered by a dome only a few hundred feet across. The endless shelves may well be concealed between the two shelves right in front of one's eyes. A student wizard both studious and careful will tell his friends to come and look for him if he's not back from the Library in time for dinner. Even the Librarian sometimes has to use a ball of thread to mark his own trail. Occasionally a faculty member gathers a group of brave or unwisely curious students to find, for example, the Lost Reading Room. One such expedition headed by 'Bogeyboy' Swallatt got lost in the maze of shelves and was forced to eat their own boots to survive; when they found the remains of the previous year's expedition they ate their boots too.

All [[Unseen University]] grounds are permeated with magic - the ancient stone buildings housing far more rooms and corridors than their outer dimensions should allow. The Unseen '''Library''' is the most famously magical of the Unseen buildings.

There are connections to every library and every collection of books in the Multiverse, again by the principle of L-Space. This includes earlier and later versions of itself.

There are references to a University archive (which includes references to a certain [[Librarian|Dr Worblehat]]) which presumably lies somewhere near the Library.

===Library and Magic===

However, it should be noted that the fact that it houses books is the main reason that it is magical and dangerous. The additional fact that some of the books are about magic spells, written by [[wizards]], is only a small enhancement of the magical dangers of the Library. Books contain knowledge, and knowledge equals power, which according to the laws of physics can be converted to energy and matter, so the Library contains an extremely large mass that can distort time and space. That is the natural philosophy mumbo-jumbo explanation on the dangers of the Library. Another aspect of the Library (but indeed true for any other library or book shop) is that books are collections of words written by people. These words may inspire future writings, may be quoted by future writings, may even be subjects of future critical reviews. These words may themselves have quoted past writings, and so on. A full array of possible futures are implied by the books collected in one place. The Unseen University's Library is obviously magical in the layman's eyes only because the collection of books is very large and the Library is on magical grounds. If the truth be told, there is an [[L-space|Library-Space]], or ''L-Space'', connecting together all the space-time of all libraries. This is a fact known to very senior librarians, a secret that can be inappropriately exploited to the woe of the rest of the world. The L-Space itself may be considered magical in a specialized sense.

===Entry===

According to the strict word of the Lore, women are barred entrance to the library on the grounds that their inferior brains can't handle it. However, no sane wizard would care tell this to [[Adora Belle Dearheart]]. And in any case, the Librarian was more irritated that she was smoking, not that she was there. At one point, Glenda Sugarbean gained entrance by a servant's entrance. Perhaps servants have amnesty from the No Women rule(?).
Non-wizards can only enter the non-magic parts of the Library (how it is kept distinct isn't known).

===Library Staff===

The Library of the Unseen University is tended by the [[Librarian]], a wizard and a faculty member who has been an orangutan for many years now, due to a major magical accident described in {{TLF}}. The Wizards are so used to this situation that if someone were to to tell them that was an Orangutan in the Library, they would ask the Librarian about it. Many books in the Library are about magical spells, and the books themselves are somewhat alive. Some fly by flapping their covers, some like to snap shut to bite people, some need to be chained, and all need to be looked after by the Librarian, who is firm but gentle. If the books detect major magical threats and are frightened and restless, the Librarian comforts them. If the books are injured (physically damaged), the Librarian heals (repairs) them. [[Rincewind]] has also worked here, as Assistant Librarian, a post which he apparently no longer holds. In {{UA}}, several "lesser" librarians were seen, and one of them had the misfortune to have to answer [[Glenda Sugarbean]]'s questions about embarrassing words beginning with "F".

===Library Contents===

The Library contains many normal books on topics such as history, geography, philosophy but it also contains books never written, spotter's guides to invisible things, dictionaries of illusionary words and atlases of imaginary places. It is far more than a store-room of books of magical spells. Admittedly, one of the more important functions of the Library is to store books of very strong magic until the magic wears out (if ever). Several of such books are in separate dungeons, chained, kept between heavy plates or in ice, and locked in by a door of denatured [[octiron]], which is impervious to magic. One such book is the [[Octavo]], the first ever magical book on the [[Discworld]], which is no longer magical.

The books are more or less permanent in residence inside the library - if you want to read them 'outside' they need to be stolen (as [[Brother Fingers]] did with [[The Summoning of Dragons]] in {{G!G!}}). The books flew out of the Library during "the business with the Sourcerer" (as the Librarian's peers put it) and were kept in the [[Tower of Art]] for this time.

The Unseen Library is home to such weird and wondrous creatures as the [[.303 Bookworm|.303 bookworm]] and the [[Critters|critter]].

===Dr Worblehat's Quarters===

Since the Librarian is shown at night sleeping in a cubby hole in the Library and during the day sleeping in a hammock it becomes clear that Dr Worblehat's previous quarters are going begging. It may have been that [[Rincewind]] slept in this area when he was Assistant Librarian. Possibly these rooms are now jettisoned from the Unseen University complex, or have changed their purpose...
It would seem so that if these quarters were Dr Worblehat's they don't lie in the Library.

[[Category:Locations]]
[[Category:Unseen University Locations]]

[[de:Bibliothek (Unsichtbare Universität)]]

Library

2017-05-14T00:33:28Z

Thnidu: /* Layout */

{{Building Data
|photo=
|name= The Library
|location= The [[Unseen University]]
|owner=
|appearance= A large stone building, also no matter where you are in the library the dome is always overhead.
|residents= Magical Books; the [[Librarian]]; lost tribes of research students
|use= Library
|built=
|founded by=
|demolished=
|books=
|notes=
}}

===Layout===

The Library has endless shelves (some of which are [[Mobius shelves]]), but is covered by a dome only a few hundred feet across. The endless shelves may well be concealed between the two shelves right in front of one's eyes. A student wizard both studious and careful will tell his friends to come and look for him if he's not back from the Library in time for dinner. Even the Librarian sometimes has to use a ball of thread to mark his own trail. Occasionally a faculty member gathers a group of brave or unwisely curious students to find, for example, the Lost Reading Room. One such expedition headed by 'Bogeyboy' Swallatt got lost in the maze of shelves and was forced to eat their own boots to survive; when they found the remains of the previous year's expedition they ate their boots too.

All [[Unseen University]] grounds are permeated with magic - the ancient stone buildings housing far more rooms and corridors than their outer dimensions should allow. The Unseen '''Library''' is the most famously magical of the Unseen buildings.

There are connections to every library and every collection of books in the Multiverse, again by the principle of L-Space. This includes earlier and later versions of itself.

There are references to a University archive (which includes references to a certain [[Librarian|Dr Worblehat]]) which presumably lies somewhere near the Library.

===Library and Magic===

However, it should be noted that the fact that it houses books is the main reason that it is magical and dangerous. The additional fact that some of the books are about magic spells, written by [[wizards]], is only a small enhancement of the magical dangers of the Library. Books contain knowledge, and knowledge equals power, which according to the laws of physics can be converted to energy and matter, so the Library contains an extremely large mass that can distort time and space. That is the natural philosophy mumbo-jumbo explanation on the dangers of the Library. Another aspect of the Library (but indeed true for any other library or book shop) is that books are collections of words written by people. These words may inspire future writings, may be quoted by future writings, may even be subjects of future critical reviews. These words may themselves have quoted past writings, and so on. A full array of possible futures are implied by the books collected in one place. The Unseen University's Library is obviously magical in the layman's eyes only because the collection of books is very large and the Library is on magical grounds. If the truth be told, there is an [[L-space|Library-Space]], or ''L-Space'', connecting together all the space-time of all libraries. This is a fact known to very senior librarians, a secret that can be inappropriately exploited to the woe of the rest of the world. The L-Space itself may be considered magical in a specialized sense.

===Entry===

According to the strict word of the Lore, women are barred entrance to the library on the grounds that their inferior brains can't handle it. However, no sane wizard would care tell this to [[Adora Belle Dearheart]]. And in any case, the Librarian was more irritated that she was smoking, not that she was there. At one point, Glenda Sugarbean gained entrance by a servant's entrance. Perhaps servants have amnesty from the No Women rule(?).
Non-wizards can only enter the non-magic parts of the Library (how it is kept distinct isn't known).

===Library Staff===

The Library of the Unseen University is tended by the [[Librarian]], a wizard and a faculty member who has been an orangutan for many years now, due to a major magical accident described in {{TLF}}. The Wizards are so used to this situation that if someone were to to tell them that was an Orangutan in the Library, they would ask the Librarian about it. Many books in the Library are about magical spells, and the books themselves are somewhat alive. Some fly by flapping their covers, some like to snap shut to bite people, some need to be chained, and all need to be looked after by the Librarian, who is firm but gentle. If the books detect major magical threats and are frightened and restless, the Librarian comforts them. If the books are injured (physically damaged), the Librarian heals (repairs) them. [[Rincewind]] has also worked here, as Assistant Librarian, a post which he apparently no longer holds. In {{UA}}, several "lesser" librarians were seen, and one of them had the misfortune to have to answer [[Glenda Sugarbean]]'s questions about embarrassing words beginning with "F".

===Library Contents===

The Library contains many normal books on topics such as history, geography, philosophy but it also contains books never written, spotters guides to invisible things, dictionaries of illusionary words and atlases of imaginary places. It is far more than a store-room of books of magical spells. Admittedly, one of the more important functions of the Library is to store books of very strong magic until the magic wears out (if ever). Several of such books are in separate dungeons, chained, kept between heavy plates or in ice, and locked in by a door of denatured [[octiron]], which is impervious to magic. One such book is the [[Octavo]], the first ever magical book on the [[Discworld]], which is no longer magical.

The books are more or less permanent in residence inside the library - if you want to read them 'outside' they need to be stolen (as [[Brother Fingers]] did with [[The Summoning of Dragons]] in {{G!G!}}). The books flew out of the Library during "the business with the Sourcerer" (as the Librarian's peers put it) and were kept in the [[Tower of Art]] for this time.

The Unseen Library is home to such weird and wondrous creatures as the [[.303 Bookworm|.303 bookworm]] and the [[Critters|critter]].

===Dr Worblehat's Quarters===

Since the Librarian is shown at night sleeping in a cubby hole in the Library and during the day sleeping in a hammock it becomes clear that Dr Worblehat's previous quarters are going begging. It may have been that [[Rincewind]] slept in this area when he was Assistant Librarian. Possibly these rooms are now jettisoned from the Unseen University complex, or have changed their purpose...
It would seem so that if these quarters were Dr Worblehat's they don't lie in the Library.

[[Category:Locations]]
[[Category:Unseen University Locations]]

[[de:Bibliothek (Unsichtbare Universität)]]

UC

2016-01-20T18:29:59Z

Thnidu: Redirected page to University Calendar

#REDIRECT [[University Calendar]]

Opera Ghost

2016-01-20T18:28:03Z

Thnidu: copyediting

''he'd moved like music, like someone dancing to a rhythm inside his head. And his face for a moment in the moonlight was the skull of an angel...''

The Opera Ghost appears in {{M!M}}, haunting the [[Ankh-Morpork]] [[Opera House]]. He demands a box on every opening night--Box [[7a|Eight]]. Are you surprised at that?

He reputedly kills various people at the Opera House, but also has been known to anonymously train an aspiring [[Agnes Nitt|diva]] even if he thinks it is another [[Christine|diva wannabe]]. The ghost sends highly calligraphic notes to the the [[Seldom Bucket|Opera House Owner]] directing him to have the ghost's protege in a particular role. Then sends notes warning of impending death and uses five [[Multiple exclamation marks|exclamation marks]]!!!!!.

By the end of {{M!M}}, the Ghost is revealed to be two persons: [[Salzella]] and [[Walter Plinge]], both opera-mad in their own ways. For Salzella, it ends in his operatic death, for Walter in a rebirth as the artistic director of the Opera House.

In Walter's case the Opera Ghost was a split personality born from Walter's years of being in the Opera plus the fact that his mindset made him "empty" and that emptiness was filled by Opera, resulting in the Opera Ghost being born.

==Annotations==
This may be connected to Erik, The Phantom of the Opera as written about by Gaston Leroux (originally as a serialisation) and then turned into a musical.

[[Category:Discworld culture]]
[[Category:Discworld concepts]]
[[de:Operngeist]]

Book:Going Postal/Annotations

2015-06-13T19:44:20Z

Thnidu: Actual American saying. Replace ''neutrum'' (Latin, used in German) with English ''neuter''.

[[Annotations]] for the book {{GP}}
==By page number==
Page numbers refer to the U.S. edition

Cover - The cover design was inspired by the original ''Star Wars'' film poster, because there are other Star Wars references in the book.

Title- Around 1986 several mentally stressed U.S. Postal Service employees went on a shooting rampage at post offices, killing employees and bystanders. This resulted in the U.S. Postal Service (and many other organizations) re-evaluating employee work conditions and decreasing stress in the work place. The term has remained in U.S. slang for when an employee or ex-employee goes on a murder rampage at his workplace, though it is more used to predict that someone is getting upset with job conditions enough to go postal. In the book this emotional condition is perfectly represented by Stanley.

Character Annotation on Tolliver Groat:-

The name, the character description, and the Gormenghast-like Post office building, are straight out of Mervyn Peake: Tolliver Groat's personal take on the grotesque means that he could walk in to Peake's fantasy virtually as is. Indeed, Groat's dogged adherence to rule and ritual, his having practically memorised the Post Office rulebook long after the system has effectively collapsed and his insistence the rules still be followed because, well, they are the Rules, is reminiscent of Gormenghast's Master of Ceremonies, the ageing, repellent, and soap-innocent Barquentine. Moist von Lipwig has arrived in the Post Office system in time to be a less malevolent Steerpike - i.e., the character who shakes the system up and reinvigorates it. (Hmmm, Moist as Steerpike in a Gormenghast-like system - the manipulative outsider who causes a stir and gets things done.) Steerpike also, metaphorically and literally, climbs from the lowest Hell-like depths of the kitchens where is otherwise imprisoned for life as a lowly scullion, to the higher floors of the castle - via the ''outside'' of the building - where nobody questions his right to be there and he can re-integrate himself at a higher social level with a series of plausible cover stories. Compare this to Moist's resurrection from the dead and rebirth into a higher social position. The climbing metaphor becomes more explicit in {{MM}}, where, as with Steerpike's desperation climb, Moist is found edificeering on the exterior of his own building and just about to be exposed as a thief and a crook - for all the wrong reasons...

(p8) US hardcover- – reference to “the clacks”
– this is a Discworld version of a telegraph or fax machine and is based on “A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. Information is encoded by the position of the mechanical elements; it is read when the shutter is in a fixed position. These systems were popular in the late 18th - early 19th century.”(Wikipedia)

(p11) US hardcover - "They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully”
– This is a paraphrase of a quote by Samuel Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

(p11) " 'Er... it's not as bad a thing I do now...er'"
– Perhaps this is a spoof of the famous speech Sidney Carton says before he is executed in Dickens' ''Tale of Two Cities''. ("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."[http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/a-tale-of-two-cities/summary-and-analysis/book-3-chapter-15]) There is some ironic similarity here. Carton stepped in nobly to die for another man whom he physically resembled. Here, Moist is being executed under the alias of Albert Spangler. In both cases, Carton and von Lipwig are dying under someone else's name.

(p12) "What you had to do in this life was get past the pineapple, Moist told himself. It was big and sharp and knobbly, but there might be peaches underneath. It was a myth to live by and so, right now, totally useless."
– This philosophy is mentioned many times in the book and sounds like a somewhat ironic send-up of Forrest Gump's philosophy about life and a box of chocolates.

(p13)US hardcover: Mr. Wilkinson “I told him, sir, that fruit baskets is like life: until you’ve got the pineapple off’t the top you never know what’s underneath.”
– Reminiscent of the Forrest Gump quote: “My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.’”

A dialogue in {{TLC}} presages the whole ''getting past the pineapple'' bit. Corgi PB pp64-67, where amongst other things the Senior Wrangler discloses his aunt was a victim of one, a woman who literally could not get past the pineapple.

(p20) "They'd clamped it. They'd bloody clamped it...."
– The bright yellow tire lock (wheel boots) is sometimes used by law enforcement in our world for the same purpose.

(p22) "'Mr. [[Pump]] does not sleep. Mr. Pump does not eat. And Mr. Pump, Postmaster General, does not stop.'"
* Possibly a paraphrase from the 1984 film ''The Terminator'': "That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"
* It's close to a quote from the 1999 film ''The Mummy'': "He will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop."

(p23) "'Wait! Wait! There's a rule! A [[golems|golem]] mustn't harm a human being or allow a human being to come to harm!'"
– This is the first of Isaac Asimov's {{wp|Three_Laws_of_Robotics|Three Laws of Robotics}} (Golems are the [[Discworld (world)|Discworld]] equivalent of robots). Asimov, of course, didn't add the conditional "unless ordered to do so by duly constituted authority" that Vetinari did.

(p26) "'"NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLO M OF NI T CAN STAY THESE MES ENGERS ABO T THEIR DUTY."'"
– The inscription on the General Post Office in New York City reads: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service_creed] This was also referenced in {{MAA}}.

(p26) "'Who's [[Mrs. Cake]]?... They seem pretty frightened of her."
– [[Mrs. Cake]], first introduced in ''[[Book:Reaper Man|Reaper Man]]'', is a psychic medium who, more importantly, runs a boarding house for the undead of Ankh-Morpork.

(p33)US hardcover(footnote) “Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang” is a variation on Cockney rhyming slang. The example, “Apples and Pears” is from Cockney slang. Rhyming Slang phrases are derived from taking an expression which rhymes with a word and then using that expression instead of the word. For example the word "look" rhymes with "butcher's hook". In many cases the rhyming word is omitted - so you won't find too many Londoners having a "butcher's hook" at this site, but you might find a few having a "butcher's". The rhyming word is not always omitted so Cockney expressions can vary in their construction, and it is simply a matter of convention which version is used. (from http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk)

(p47) "'[Wings] on his hat and his ankles,' said Stanley. "So he could fly the messages at the speed of ... messages.'"
– Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) was the messenger to the gods in general and Jupiter (Zeus) in particular. He's commonly depicted with a winged cap and ankles. As well as making a neat stand-alone joke, the concept of the modesty-saving fig-leaf also having wings neatly pokes fun at the reason ''why'' fig-leaves went on public statuary in the first place. These were a Victorian invention devised to spare unmarried ladies under thirty from the sight even of sculpted male genitalia, carved by their ''unthinking'' forebears in earlier centuries. statues up to and including Michelangelo's ''David'', which for several hundred years had flaunted all, were issued the standard fig-leaf. (The fig was chosen ostensibly because the Bible identifies it as the leaf used by Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness, when ''they saw they were naked, and they were ashamed''.) This contributor has been to the National Museum in Berlin, where a rotunda houses old statues on which, without exception, the penises of the males on display have been excised and drilled through, so as to house the mounting for the fig-leaf... ouch... Of course, a ''second'' referent for fig leaves with wings comes from wall frescoes discovered intact at the Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On these imaginatively bawdy paintings, you may see that which the Victorians thought necessary to cover with a fig leaf, but flying round independently of any attached body, propelled by their very own sets of wings. In one mural, young women are trying to catch them as they buzz around in a flotilla... indeed, a popular lucky charm/religious amulet worn by Romans, frequently discovered in archaeological digs, was a pendant of an erect penis and testicles, with wings. This apparently symbolised fertility and good health as well as assuring a healthy sex life. It was worn around the neck in the same way other religions might wear a cross, or indeed a turtle. (Why do you get the feeling the wrong religion won in ancient Rome?) I also can't help thinking of the Special Air Service's winged dagger cap badge in a new and Freudian light here... Conflating these two concepts - Victorian prudery and healthy bawdiness - in the form of a confused-looking fig leaf with wings on, would suggest Ankh-Morpork is a place confused about what its attitude to sexuality should be... just like modern Britain, in fact!

Also note Om-as-Tortoise's desperate curse on Brother Nhumrod in {{SG}} (Corgi pb p 40) - ''"Your sexual organs to sprout wings and fly away!"

(p56) "'Be with you in jus't one moment, s'ir, I'm ju'st—'"
– Greengrocers throughout the English-speaking world (but in England in particular) are known for their persistent abuse of the apostrophe-ess combination on their handwritten signs.

(p63) "'The free golems work 24-8...."
– It's rarely mentioned anymore that the number [[7a|eight]] is magically significant on the Disc and tends to occur wherever our world would use a seven. In particular, the Discworld week is 8 days long. But at this point, go to your copy of {{GP}}, which is the first Discworld book to be separated into formal chapters. (Each has a heading where the chapter contents are summarised at the start, in the manner of a Victorian morality fable). Now look at the chapter heading for the one that comes in between Chapter Seven and Chapter Nine. Look ''closely'' at it.

(p72) "'However, I note that since you acquired the [[Grand Trunk Semaphore Company|Grand Trunk]] at a fraction of its value, breakdowns are increasing, the speed of messages has slowed down, and the cost to customers has risen.'"
– While there are some parallels to the Grand Trunk and America's now-broken AT&T telecommunications monopoly, there are far more parallels to the UK's British Telecom, which is still a monopoly there and has very few friends among its consumers. Interestingly, the history of BT is that it was originally part of the British Post Office and was still known as "Post Office Telecommunications" until 1980, shortly before it became privatized.

(p74) "'This, my lord'," said Gilt, gesturing to the little side table..."'Is this not an original [[hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl]] slab?'"
–The Vikings were known to have played a game called hnefatafl (king's board). It consisted of a marked board and peg-like pieces and seems to have some similarities to backgammon. "Hnefatafl" seems to be the origin of the word used for the Discworld game.

Of course we learn much more about this game in {{T!}}

(p83)US hardcover: Stanley: “See a pin pick it up and all day long you’ll have a pin.”
– A variation on the Roundworld rhyme “See a pin pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck.” Often 'penny' is substituted for pin.

(p83) "'They were hand-drawn and had his trademark silver head with a microscopic engraving of a cockerel.'"
– Perhaps this is a reference to the fancy microscopic engravings computer chip designers use when endorsing their work.

(p96) "'Do you understand anything I'm saying?' shouted Moist. 'You can't just go around killing people!' 'Why Not?'"
– Paraphrasing from ''Terminator 2'' this time. John Connor: "You can't just go around killing people!" Terminator: "Why?" "What do you mean, why? Because you can't!" "Why?"

(p99(''British edition'')). Grandad's speech on "We keep that name moving in the Overhead", referring to the mysterious death of [[John Dearheart]] and the great unhappiness this has provoked among long-time Linesmen. The following text quotes almost verbatim from Glen Campbell's country and western hit ''Wichita Lineman'', about the life and death of an electrical lineman in the heart of the USA....

(p104(''Corgi edition'')) "It overwhelms the soul, very much like the state he elsewhere describes as ''Vonallesvolkommenunverstandlichdasdaskeit''. " – This German is a bit mangled. With proper spaces it is "Von Alles Vol'''l'''kommen unverständlich das das -keit" which translates as "from everything completely non-understandable (=incomprehensible) theneuter theneuter" and a suffix changing a word into a noun (this might refer to "unverständlich": Unverständlichkeit would be incomprehensibility). This also appears to foreshadow the extensive employment of cod-German philosophy which defines Mr Nutt's character in {{UA}}

Freidegger is a clever pun on the famous German philosopher Heidegger[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger]] who wrote about time. (And he is difficult to understand either in his native German or in a translation).
The German word "Frei" means "free", therefore suited to the recurring topic of freedom in the book. In German and posssibly also in Überwaldean, ''Freitag'' is a day of the week: ''Friday'', when most people are ''freed'' of the burden of having to work for a living and get the weekend to themselves. An advertising campaign for chocolate cleverly used the slogan ''That Friday Feeling'', and we have the acronym TGIF, for ''Thank God It's Friday!"'' to denote that expansive Friday-night feeling at the start of the weekend. (Although I should point out, in the name of accuracy, that the current name "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday#Etymology Freitag]" is not derived from "Free - day" but from the old Norse Goddess [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyja Freya])

(p105) "The Marthter ith having one of hith little thoireeth, thur"
– In the Rocky Horror (Picture) Show, the hunchbacked servant tells the innocents "You've come on a rather special night. The Master is having one of his affairs..."

(p106) "[[Reacher Gilt]] certainly looked like a pirate, with his long, curly black hair, pointed beard, and eyepatch. He was even said to have a parrot."
– The name "Reacher Gilt" is itself a pun on "Long John Silver", the pirate captain from Treasure Island. Gilt's name, appearance and libertarian-capitalist ideology has stronger resonances with Ayn Rand's charismatic capitalist hero John Galt and pirate Ragnar Danneskjold, from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_shrugged Atlas Shrugged]. There may also be suggestions of English billionaire playboy-investor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_branson Richard Branson].

''There may also be links and distant echoes to the plot and characters of Shea and Wilson's '''''Illuminatus!''''' trilogy, also in this context a work of satire which parodies Ayn Rand's right-wing libertarian and extreme free-market philosophy. In this book, a "book within a book" is a parody of Ayn Rand's polemic, called ''Telemachus Sneezed''.''



(p106) "Twelve and a half percent! Twelve and a half percent!"
– As Moist almost explains later in the book, this is a financial joke. Long John Silver's parrot always repeated "Pieces of eight!" Pieces of eight were one-eighth pieces of a gold dollar coin. A dollar is one hundred cents, and one hundred percent make a whole. Twelve and a half percent, then, is exactly one-eighth of a dollar--a piece of eight.

(p129) "les buggeures risible"
– Pig French for "Silly Buggers", a common English slang term for deliberately obstructive activity. ("Someone's playing silly buggers, here...")

(p131) "This was going to be...ironic. They'd actually got hold of Lipwigzers!"
– The author possibly seems to be punning on Weimaraners ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimaraner]), which are a German breed of dog that take their name from the Grand Duke of Weimar, Karl August. The cover of the UK edition depicts two dogs similar in appearance to Rottweilers. (And there is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottweil Rottweil])

(p131) US hardcover: Worshipful Master: “Yes, well, you know what we used to say: you do have to be mad to work here!”
– a spin on the Roundworld saying: “You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps”
This is reinforced on (page 165) when Moist looks at the unfortunate selection of mugs Stanley has used for preparing tea for him and Sacharissa Cripslock. The cup Moist receives has a jokey message which has faded from ''You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps'' to '''''Be mad - it helps!'''''

(As in American slang "mad" tends to mean "angry" rather than "crazy", I wonder if this is also an echo of Susan's maxim from Hogfather - don't get scared, get angry?)
:(The American expression uses "crazy": “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps”. "Mad" in colloquial usage is almost always "angry" this (West) side the Water.)

(p137) "'Look, I'm not the One you're looking for!'"
– Possibly, but not clearly, a reference to Neo's role as the One in the ''Matrix'' films. Or, more likely, a reference to Graham Chapman's increasingly perplexed and angry Brian in Monty Python's ''The Life of Brian''. This is also the title of a song by American goth-rockers the [[Blue Öyster Cult]], about having to settle not for what you ''want'', but for the best deal you can actually ''get''. Another possible reference is to the film ''{{wp|Star Wars_Episode_IV:_A New Hope|Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope}}'' in which Obi-Wan Kenobi uses the force to deceive soldiers saying: "These aren't the droids you're looking for."

(p137) "Deliver Us!"
– A pun on the Israelites' cry from the Biblical book of Exodus.

(p146) "'Three and a bit, that's the ticket. Only [[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson|Bloody Stupid Johnson]] said that was untidy, so he designed a wheel where the pie was exactly three.'"
– There's an old mathematical limerick about this very
:It's a favorite hobby of mine
:A new value for pi to assign.
:I would set it to three
:'Cause it's simpler, you see,
:Than three point one four one five nine.

It also reminds me of the story of the legislature of an US state setting a definitive value for Pi.

Quote: ''It happened in Indiana. Although the attempt to legislate pi was ultimately unsuccessful, it did come pretty close. In 1897 Representative T.I. Record of Posen county introduced House Bill #246 in the Indiana House of Representatives. The bill, based on the work of a physician and amateur mathematician named Edward J. Goodwin (Edwin in some accounts), suggests not one but three numbers for pi, among them 3.2, as we shall see. The punishment for unbelievers I have not been able to learn, but I place no credence in the rumor that you had to spend the rest of your natural life in Indiana.'' Full story here [[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html]].

The urban legend spoofing the creationism struggle here [[http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.asp]]

(p153) "My gods, it's you! I thought for a second sun had appeared in the sky!" (Spike reacts from seeing Lipwig in his golden suit for the first time.) On first reading, it may appear that something is wrong with this sentence. However, if punctuated thus: "I thought, for a second, sun had appeared in the sky!", the interpretation is clearer.

(p156) "'Coo, you're a good draw-er, Mr. Lipwig. That looks just like Lord [[Vetinari]]!' 'That's the penny stamp,' said Moist.'"
– In our world, British Postmaster-General Sir Rowland Hill designed and introduced the first penny stamp, with a profile of Queen Victoria, in 1840 after much political debate. As on the Discworld, stamp collectors began to appear almost immediately afterward.

It's interesting that Moist writes "Post Office" on his stamps. In our world, this happened once as a mistake when the stamps for Mauritius were designed. There's a nice story how the engraver forgot the correct wording (Postage Paid), took a walk to the Post Office to ask, but when he saw the sign "Post Office" turned back without asking and wrote that on the stamp. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Penny]]

(p156)US hardcover: When Moist shows her his stamp designs, Adora says “What’s this? You carry your etchings with you to save time?”
– Adora’s referring to the phrase "Want to come up and see my etchings," a romantic cliché in which a man entices a woman to come back to his place with an offer to look at something artistic.

(p167) "Gently, the paper tore down the line of holes."
– Perforated stamp sheets didn't appear until 1857 in the U.S., seventeen years after the penny stamp was introduced.

(p175) "'I won't be long. I'm off to see the wizard.'"
– The author has probably been waiting years to use this line from Frank L. Baum's ''The Wizard of Oz''.

(p176) "Just below the dome, staring down from their niches, were statues of the Virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, [[Tubso]], [[Bissonomy]], and Fortitude."
– The seven Virtues in our world (the Discworld has eight) are Hope, Charity, Faith, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence. Their frescoed images adorn the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy.

(p176) "These [books] are not on the public shelves lest untrained handling cause the collapse of everything that is possible to imagine.* (footnote: Again.)
– There's a popular quote from Douglas Adams' ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'': "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory, which states that this has already happened."

Less likely is that it is a reference to the alleged destruction of the universe that happened when the B.S. Johnson's Sorting Engine was shut down, as described on page 149 (US hardcover).

(p.179) "... and in those caves are entombed more than a hundred thousand old books, mostly religious, each one in a white linen shroud....intelligent people have always known that some words at least should be disposed of with care and respect."
– In Jerusalem old or damaged Bibles and Torahs are buried in special tombs rather than destroyed. The tradition is that words are sacred and have power. The Hebrew name for such depository is "geniza", not exactly the wizards' "gevaisa", but enough to make you wonder...

(p181) "'Where do they go [when they die]?' 'No one's sure, exactly, but you can hear the sounds of cutlery,' said Pelc...."
– The Viking concept of the afterlife for warriors, Valhalla, was basically an enormous and never-ending feasting hall. University wizards are likewise known for their love of a good large meal.

(p197) "But, in truth, Boris- once you got past the pineapple- wasn't too bad a ride. He'd hit his rhythm, a natural, single-footed gait..." – Single-footing is a smooth, four beat "running walk" that some horse breeds (example: Icelandic, North American Single-footer, Rocky Mountain Saddle Horse) do naturally, sometimes as fast as other horses canter. At its fastest (racing single-foot), only one foot hits the ground at a time- hence the name. The single-foot gait is very smooth and easy on a rider if he uses a special saddle and sits further back on the horse. Moist is riding bareback, carrying a heavy load over his shoulder and leaning forward so he does not get the full effect. However, he seems quite amazed Boris is smoother than expected.

(p200) "'Er... Joe Camels, sir,' he said nervously. 'I'm the mayor here...'"
– Joe Camel was the (un)official name of the now-defunct mascot of Camel Cigarettes. The resemblance to the mayor ends with the name, however.

(p204) "And her hair was plaited and coiled up on either side of her head in those discs that back home in Uberwald had been called 'snails,' but in Anhk-Morpork put people in mind of a woman with a curly iced bun clamped to each ear."
– Think of old German beer waitresses, not Princess Leia from ''Star Wars''.

(p224) "'Tell me,' said Moist, 'have you ever heard of something called the Smoking Gnu?'"
– A pun on "The Smoking Gun", a newsletter published by the Lone Gunmen, a trio of computer hackers (or crackers) from the television series The X-Files, on whom the members of the Smoking Gnu are based. The ''gun'' → ''gnu'' joke has also been used in Mr. Pratchett's book for children, ''[[Book:Truckers|Truckers]]'', Chapter 9, in which a young [[Nomes|Nome]] named Vinto Pimmie persistently misreads "gun" as "gnu". The real meaning of the word "gnu" refers to a species of large antelope. "Gnu" also evokes the [http://www.gnu.org/ Free Software Foundation], which promotes the development and distribution of free software.

(p230) "'What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy "Pretty Lucretia" four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Considered as pounds per square inch, it's like being trodden by a very pointy elephant. Now, I know what you're thinking: you're thinking, "Could she press it all the way through to the floor?" And, you know, I'm not sure about that myself....'"
– Adapted from Clint Eastwood's famous challenge in ''Dirty Harry'': "I know what you're thinkin', punk. You're thinkin', did he fire six shots or only five? And to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement. But bein' this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and it'll blow your head clean off, you could ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

(p235) "But now it was time to put away childish pins."
– "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." – 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV) (the King James version has "but when I became a man, I put away childish things")

(p237) British hardback: The sequence from "As Moist peered..." until Moist turns around is pretty much taken straight from Brett's experience with Jones the cat in Ridley Scott's "Alien".

(p249) "'There's the Lady Sybil Free Hospital,' said Miss Dearheart. 'Is it any good?' 'Some people don't die.' 'That good, eh?'"
– [[Lady Sybil Ramkin|Lady Sybil Vimes]] nee Ramkin, of course, is the wife of [[Commander Vimes]] of the Watch, the Duchess of Ankh-Morpork, and in terms of assets, the wealthiest woman in the city. Up until now she's devoted herself to caring for swamp dragons, and horse doctors in Ankh-Morpork were considered more reliable for people than people doctors. This hospital is developed and now led by Dr. Lawn, on the plot of land on Attic Bee Street, near Goose Gate, that Vimes signed over to him as payment for helping Sam Jr. into the world (an event at the end of ''[[Book:Night Watch|Night Watch]]''). ''The accuracy of this annotation is currently under discussion, mainly regarding whether Lady Sybil actually runs the hospital or only lends her name and money. See Talk page.''

Another possible reason for the name is that Dr Lawn chose to name his hospital after, basically, the main person who got him the land in the first place.

(p259)US hardcover: Moist’s idea of what a master criminal could buy: “seaside properties with real lava flows near a reliable source of piranhas” sounds like the hideout of typical James Bond villains.

(p.260(Doubleday hardcover)) "Even Miss Extremelia Mume ... was doing good business among those prepared to back an outside chance. She'd hung a banner over the door. It read: 'It Could Be YOU'". 
This, along with the following paragraph's musings on hope, clearly refers to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lottery_%28United_Kingdom%29 UK National Lottery] (also known as the Tax For Innumerates). The Discworld people are making small donations/prayers to the temples hoping for a monetary windfall like Moist just got. It's obvious when you remember that a 90s TV campaign for the lottery featured a giant sparkly hand coming out of the clouds to point at winners... and their slogan at the time was "It Could Be YOU" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FlHbqnU0o].

(p263) "The nave of the temple was deserted, except for a little old man in a grubby robe, dreamily sweeping the floor."
This detail is out of place, unless it's a reference to Lu-Tze. Possibly the History Monks have taken an interest in the Post Office, or kicking Reacher Gilt out before he can become Patrician. For the History Monks to have somebody keeping an eye on an institution where a machine (the Sorting Engine) is capable of bending time and space is only logical, as well as the evidential detail that it was installed perhaps thirty years before the "present" - ie, roughly the same time that Samuel Vimes re-enters time in {{NW}}. So if the destruction of one time-bending machine (the Glass Clock) is responsible for taking Vimes ''out'' of time, then the switching-on of a second time-bending machine (the Sorting Engine) might have been the trigger event dictating when Vimes and Carcer were ''returned'' to normal space-time? (Or ''delivered'', so to speak) Alternately, it ''could'' just be a guy sweeping up after services, as the Men In Saffron don't have a monopoly on wearing robes, particularly in a temple.

(p276) Lipwig's musing about Gilt not needing "a tower with ten thousand trolls camped outside" brings to mind Saruman from ''The Lord of the Rings''.

(p279) US hardcover: Moist says "your big words tell them it’s going to be jam tomorrow and they hope."
– a reference to ''Alice in Wonderland'', in which the Queen offers Alice jam every other day: "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day."

(p287) US hardcover:‘Tump Tower’ refers to the Trump Tower, built by Donald Trump in New York City

(p293) "Deliver them, of course. You've got to. You are the messenger of the gods."
– Another reference to Mercury.

(p300) US Hardcover: The ‘crackers’ who disrupt the Clacks line are remarkably like Roundworld computer hackers

(p304) "'There's cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage—'"
– Stanley's stream of cabbage recipes parallels Bubba's list of shrimp dishes in the movie Forrest Gump, and Monty Python's Spam sketch.
* Also used in ''The Science Of Discworld II'', when Rincewind obsessively recites all the potato recipes he can think of to prevent the elf Queen from reading his thoughts.

(p308) "'Did you spot how the swage armature can be made to jump off the elliptical bearing if you hit the letter K and then send it to a tower with an address higher than yours but only if you hit the letter Q first and the drum spring is fully wound?'"
– Certain early (and some current) computer systems could be made to fail in similar ways. Unlikely character strings can sometimes, in binary, be interpreted as system codes and cause security breaches or outright system failures. Likewise, early mechanical typewriters could lock up if the wrong series of letters were pressed in quick succession, a phenomenon which the QWERTY keyboard was designed to make less likely.

(p326) Harper paperback: Miss Dearheart says, "You know how to pray, don't you? You just put your hands together -- and hope." A play on Lauren Bacall's famous line in the 1944 film "To Have and Have Not," "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

(p319) "'All right, but why "Smoking GNU"?' said Moist. 'That's cracker slang for a very fast message-send throughout the system,' said Sane Alex pointedly."
– In our world, GNU is also a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix", and the GNU Project is an ongoing effort to develop a free operating system compatible with commercial Unix.

(p326) "'I call it baize-space,' said [[Ponder Stibbons]] proudly."
– 'Baize' is the name given to the felt-like cloth used to cover billiards tables. As Stibbons points out later, it's also a pun on "phase space".

(p339) "'But it's a book!' said Mr. Pony. 'It'll take all night to code! And there's diagrams!'"
– It was established in ''[[Book:Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'' that the clacks towers could send images slowly by transmitting codes for pixel data, exactly the way computers do.

(p352) "'It's still not working, Mr. Stibbons!' he bellowed. "Here's that damn enormous fiery eye again!'"
– In J.R.R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', Sauron appeared as a great fiery cat's eye in visions and metaphoric descriptions. In Peter Jackson's movie adaptations, the Eye appears (aside from a literal interpretation on top of Sauron's fortress) in the palantíri (seeing-stones), which have a very similar function to the University's [[omniscope]].

(p360) "'Gilt can kiss my—' Grandad began, then remembered the present company and finished: '–donkey.'"
– A reference to American use of ''ass'', an old word for donkey, in place of ''arse''.

(p361) "'... I'm close to translating the mating call of the giant clam...'"
– TP likes to drop hints of corny old jokes. Place your forearms in front of your face one laid on top of the other. Very slowly open them so that only your eyes are visible between them and swivel your eyes from side to side. That's the mating call of the giant clam.

(p341) Right at the end of {{GP}} when the game is up and the financial corruption of the Trunk board is revealed, Stowley fakes amnesia and loss of his short-term memory as a desperate ploy to avoid prosecution. This hopefully didn't fool Vetinari for one moment, but the Roundworld referent is more depressing:

Charged with a range of financial misdemeanours in the late 1980's, including false accounting, fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion, Ernest Saunders, a senior member of the Guinness brewing and finance family, provided medical testimonials that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and had no recollection of the sequence of events that had led him to court. As genuine sufferers of Alzheimer's know, one of the first symptoms of the disease is the loss of short-term memory. The judge took his plea of being unable to face charges on medical grounds seriously, and released him with a short suspended sentence where otherwise he might have been looking at several years inside.

Incredibly, he made a full and complete recovery from Alzheimer's shortly after his court appearance, perhaps the only man in medical history to ever have reversed the progress of this disease. TP of all people would have an absolute right to hold somebody faking Alzheimer's as a "get-out-of-jail-free" card up to scorn, satire and ridicule.

Refer to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_share-trading_fraud|ref._Guinness share-trading fraud] for the full story, including Saunders' miracle recovery from Alzheimer's.

==Odds and ends==
Apologies if this is in the wrong place or noted elsewhere but the reference to the Matron will be to the Harridan played by (almost exclusively) Hattie Jacques in the various Carry On films concerning the UK NHS.-- SJC 2 June 2010 (BST)

'''Moist von Lipwig'''
:While I haven't found a good source for Germanic interpretations / history of the name, a 'lip-wig' is a slang term for a moustache. Hence 'von Lipwig' = 'of the (fake) moustache' - very fitting for a conman who relies on the addition of distinguishing features to disguise his undistinguished face. --[[User:SiD|SiD]] 22:18, 13 November 2006 (CET)

- '''[p. 17-18 (UK Corgi PB)]''' "'Er... would you mind signing the rope beforehand, sir? ... Worth more signed, of course.'" - Daniel "One Drop" Trooper
:Gotta love the irony that Moist von Lipwig / Albert Spangler, the consummate con-man, is helping his ''executioner'' to get 'money for old rope'! --[[User:SiD|SiD]] 22:18, 13 November 2006 (CET)

- '''[p. 47 (UK Corgi PB)]''' "A large black and white cat had walked into the room"
:Does the colour remind anyone else of Postman Pat's cat, Jess?

- '''[p. 187 (UK Corgi PB)]''' "'Actually it is the Sorting Engine,' said Groat. 'It's the curse of the Post Office, sir. It had imps in it for the actual reading of the envelopes, but they all evaporated years ago.'"
:While imps are of course used as the basis for a lot of Discworld technology, I doubt many people outside the Royal Mail know that the huge sorting machines in every mail centre are called '''I'''ntegrated '''M'''ail '''P'''rocessors - known as IMPs for short! --[[User:SiD|SiD]] 22:18, 13 November 2006 (CET)

- '''[p. 352(UK Corgi PB)p.330 (Doubleday hardcover)]'''

"I'm sure we have the right-" Ponder began.

This echoes Aragorn in ''Lord of the Rings/Two Towers'', when he wrests control of the Palantir from Sauron, and the next morning is seen looking drawn and exhausted from the mental and psychic strain of doing direct battle with the dark lord.

"I had the right, but barely" he explained to Gandalf.

While I agree that the the "fiery eye" is intended to be reminiscent of Sauron it is clearly not actually Sauron but merely the eye of Dr Collabone; red from allergies and enormous from peering too closely at his end of the omniscope.
--[[User:Neilxt|Neilxt]] 05:03, 21 August 2007 (CEST)

(p137) "'Look, I'm not the One you're looking for!'" - For some, this resonates with Obi-Wan's use of the Jedi mind trick to escape storm troopers -- "These aren't the droids you're looking for." This is annotated elsewhere on the Wiki as – Possibly, but not clearly, a reference to Neo's role as the One in the ''Matrix films''. Or, perhaps the most likely, a reference to Graham Chapman's increasingly perplexed and angry Brian in Monty Python's ''The Life of Brian'' when chased by hordes of adoring wannabe disciples. Or even [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOpxt3CpZBk|this_song]this song...

(p313) "'You know how to pray, don't you? You just put your hands together -- and hope.'" - obviously based on Lauren Bacall's famous line from "To Have and Have Not", to Humphrey Bogart: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow." Bacall's character's nickname is "Slim", and this is echoed in the affectionate nicknames of Moist and Dearheart, "Slick" and "Spike". --[[User:Eitheladar|Eitheladar]] 07:47, 31 December 2007 (CET)

(p??) The entire episode of a mail coach vs. the clacks system transporting the contents of a book evokes a saying that is well-known among us computer science types: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes". It's also known in other forms, e.g. "It's faster to send a petabyte of data to Hong Kong by sailboat than over the internet". Pratchett doesn't explicitly reference this saying, but he has created an instructive example of the difference between latency and bandwidth: while it takes less time for the start of a message to arrive via the clacks towers, the mail coach has an advantage when the size of the message is large (e.g. in case of sending the contents of a book, or even a large number of letters).

(p??) The crackers' blocking of the light and substitution of their own portable clacks tower is an example of what computer scientists and security researchers refer to as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack man-in-the-middle attack].

(p??) "'Ha, even the damn soup there is fifteen dollars!' said Moist" - Very likely a reference to The Blues Brothers, also referenced sporadically throughout Soul Music. When the Brothers visit a former band member - now Maître d' in a posh Chicago restaurant - at his place of work, he encourages them to leave on the basis that they can't afford to eat there, remarking "Come on guys..let me buy you a cup of coffee. The soup here is f*cking ten dollars."

[[Category:Annotations|Going Postal/Annotations]]

Book:Going Postal/Annotations

2015-06-13T19:26:37Z

Thnidu: /* By page number */

[[Annotations]] for the book {{GP}}
==By page number==
Page numbers refer to the U.S. edition

Cover - The cover design was inspired by the original ''Star Wars'' film poster, because there are other Star Wars references in the book.

Title- Around 1986 several mentally stressed U.S. Postal Service employees went on a shooting rampage at post offices, killing employees and bystanders. This resulted in the U.S. Postal Service (and many other organizations) re-evaluating employee work conditions and decreasing stress in the work place. The term has remained in U.S. slang for when an employee or ex-employee goes on a murder rampage at his workplace, though it is more used to predict that someone is getting upset with job conditions enough to go postal. In the book this emotional condition is perfectly represented by Stanley.

Character Annotation on Tolliver Groat:-

The name, the character description, and the Gormenghast-like Post office building, are straight out of Mervyn Peake: Tolliver Groat's personal take on the grotesque means that he could walk in to Peake's fantasy virtually as is. Indeed, Groat's dogged adherence to rule and ritual, his having practically memorised the Post Office rulebook long after the system has effectively collapsed and his insistence the rules still be followed because, well, they are the Rules, is reminiscent of Gormenghast's Master of Ceremonies, the ageing, repellent, and soap-innocent Barquentine. Moist von Lipwig has arrived in the Post Office system in time to be a less malevolent Steerpike - i.e., the character who shakes the system up and reinvigorates it. (Hmmm, Moist as Steerpike in a Gormenghast-like system - the manipulative outsider who causes a stir and gets things done.) Steerpike also, metaphorically and literally, climbs from the lowest Hell-like depths of the kitchens where is otherwise imprisoned for life as a lowly scullion, to the higher floors of the castle - via the ''outside'' of the building - where nobody questions his right to be there and he can re-integrate himself at a higher social level with a series of plausible cover stories. Compare this to Moist's resurrection from the dead and rebirth into a higher social position. The climbing metaphor becomes more explicit in {{MM}}, where, as with Steerpike's desperation climb, Moist is found edificeering on the exterior of his own building and just about to be exposed as a thief and a crook - for all the wrong reasons...

(p8) US hardcover- – reference to “the clacks”
– this is a Discworld version of a telegraph or fax machine and is based on “A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. Information is encoded by the position of the mechanical elements; it is read when the shutter is in a fixed position. These systems were popular in the late 18th - early 19th century.”(Wikipedia)

(p11) US hardcover - "They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully”
– This is a paraphrase of a quote by Samuel Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

(p11) " 'Er... it's not as bad a thing I do now...er'"
– Perhaps this is a spoof of the famous speech Sidney Carton says before he is executed in Dickens' ''Tale of Two Cities''. ("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."[http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/a-tale-of-two-cities/summary-and-analysis/book-3-chapter-15]) There is some ironic similarity here. Carton stepped in nobly to die for another man whom he physically resembled. Here, Moist is being executed under the alias of Albert Spangler. In both cases, Carton and von Lipwig are dying under someone else's name.

(p12) "What you had to do in this life was get past the pineapple, Moist told himself. It was big and sharp and knobbly, but there might be peaches underneath. It was a myth to live by and so, right now, totally useless."
– This philosophy is mentioned many times in the book and sounds like a somewhat ironic send-up of Forrest Gump's philosophy about life and a box of chocolates.

(p13)US hardcover: Mr. Wilkinson “I told him, sir, that fruit baskets is like life: until you’ve got the pineapple off’t the top you never know what’s underneath.”
– Reminiscent of the Forrest Gump quote: “My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.’”

A dialogue in {{TLC}} presages the whole ''getting past the pineapple'' bit. Corgi PB pp64-67, where amongst other things the Senior Wrangler discloses his aunt was a victim of one, a woman who literally could not get past the pineapple.

(p20) "They'd clamped it. They'd bloody clamped it...."
– The bright yellow tire lock (wheel boots) is sometimes used by law enforcement in our world for the same purpose.

(p22) "'Mr. [[Pump]] does not sleep. Mr. Pump does not eat. And Mr. Pump, Postmaster General, does not stop.'"
* Possibly a paraphrase from the 1984 film ''The Terminator'': "That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"
* It's close to a quote from the 1999 film ''The Mummy'': "He will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop."

(p23) "'Wait! Wait! There's a rule! A [[golems|golem]] mustn't harm a human being or allow a human being to come to harm!'"
– This is the first of Isaac Asimov's {{wp|Three_Laws_of_Robotics|Three Laws of Robotics}} (Golems are the [[Discworld (world)|Discworld]] equivalent of robots). Asimov, of course, didn't add the conditional "unless ordered to do so by duly constituted authority" that Vetinari did.

(p26) "'"NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLO M OF NI T CAN STAY THESE MES ENGERS ABO T THEIR DUTY."'"
– The inscription on the General Post Office in New York City reads: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service_creed] This was also referenced in {{MAA}}.

(p26) "'Who's [[Mrs. Cake]]?... They seem pretty frightened of her."
– [[Mrs. Cake]], first introduced in ''[[Book:Reaper Man|Reaper Man]]'', is a psychic medium who, more importantly, runs a boarding house for the undead of Ankh-Morpork.

(p33)US hardcover(footnote) “Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang” is a variation on Cockney rhyming slang. The example, “Apples and Pears” is from Cockney slang. Rhyming Slang phrases are derived from taking an expression which rhymes with a word and then using that expression instead of the word. For example the word "look" rhymes with "butcher's hook". In many cases the rhyming word is omitted - so you won't find too many Londoners having a "butcher's hook" at this site, but you might find a few having a "butcher's". The rhyming word is not always omitted so Cockney expressions can vary in their construction, and it is simply a matter of convention which version is used. (from http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk)

(p47) "'[Wings] on his hat and his ankles,' said Stanley. "So he could fly the messages at the speed of ... messages.'"
– Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) was the messenger to the gods in general and Jupiter (Zeus) in particular. He's commonly depicted with a winged cap and ankles. As well as making a neat stand-alone joke, the concept of the modesty-saving fig-leaf also having wings neatly pokes fun at the reason ''why'' fig-leaves went on public statuary in the first place. These were a Victorian invention devised to spare unmarried ladies under thirty from the sight even of sculpted male genitalia, carved by their ''unthinking'' forebears in earlier centuries. statues up to and including Michelangelo's ''David'', which for several hundred years had flaunted all, were issued the standard fig-leaf. (The fig was chosen ostensibly because the Bible identifies it as the leaf used by Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness, when ''they saw they were naked, and they were ashamed''.) This contributor has been to the National Museum in Berlin, where a rotunda houses old statues on which, without exception, the penises of the males on display have been excised and drilled through, so as to house the mounting for the fig-leaf... ouch... Of course, a ''second'' referent for fig leaves with wings comes from wall frescoes discovered intact at the Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On these imaginatively bawdy paintings, you may see that which the Victorians thought necessary to cover with a fig leaf, but flying round independently of any attached body, propelled by their very own sets of wings. In one mural, young women are trying to catch them as they buzz around in a flotilla... indeed, a popular lucky charm/religious amulet worn by Romans, frequently discovered in archaeological digs, was a pendant of an erect penis and testicles, with wings. This apparently symbolised fertility and good health as well as assuring a healthy sex life. It was worn around the neck in the same way other religions might wear a cross, or indeed a turtle. (Why do you get the feeling the wrong religion won in ancient Rome?) I also can't help thinking of the Special Air Service's winged dagger cap badge in a new and Freudian light here... Conflating these two concepts - Victorian prudery and healthy bawdiness - in the form of a confused-looking fig leaf with wings on, would suggest Ankh-Morpork is a place confused about what its attitude to sexuality should be... just like modern Britain, in fact!

Also note Om-as-Tortoise's desperate curse on Brother Nhumrod in {{SG}} (Corgi pb p 40) - ''"Your sexual organs to sprout wings and fly away!"

(p56) "'Be with you in jus't one moment, s'ir, I'm ju'st—'"
– Greengrocers throughout the English-speaking world (but in England in particular) are known for their persistent abuse of the apostrophe-ess combination on their handwritten signs.

(p63) "'The free golems work 24-8...."
– It's rarely mentioned anymore that the number [[7a|eight]] is magically significant on the Disc and tends to occur wherever our world would use a seven. In particular, the Discworld week is 8 days long. But at this point, go to your copy of {{GP}}, which is the first Discworld book to be separated into formal chapters. (Each has a heading where the chapter contents are summarised at the start, in the manner of a Victorian morality fable). Now look at the chapter heading for the one that comes in between Chapter Seven and Chapter Nine. Look ''closely'' at it.

(p72) "'However, I note that since you acquired the [[Grand Trunk Semaphore Company|Grand Trunk]] at a fraction of its value, breakdowns are increasing, the speed of messages has slowed down, and the cost to customers has risen.'"
– While there are some parallels to the Grand Trunk and America's now-broken AT&T telecommunications monopoly, there are far more parallels to the UK's British Telecom, which is still a monopoly there and has very few friends among its consumers. Interestingly, the history of BT is that it was originally part of the British Post Office and was still known as "Post Office Telecommunications" until 1980, shortly before it became privatized.

(p74) "'This, my lord'," said Gilt, gesturing to the little side table..."'Is this not an original [[hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl]] slab?'"
–The Vikings were known to have played a game called hnefatafl (king's board). It consisted of a marked board and peg-like pieces and seems to have some similarities to backgammon. "Hnefatafl" seems to be the origin of the word used for the Discworld game.

Of course we learn much more about this game in {{T!}}

(p83)US hardcover: Stanley: “See a pin pick it up and all day long you’ll have a pin.”
– A variation on the Roundworld rhyme “See a pin pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck.” Often 'penny' is substituted for pin.

(p83) "'They were hand-drawn and had his trademark silver head with a microscopic engraving of a cockerel.'"
– Perhaps this is a reference to the fancy microscopic engravings computer chip designers use when endorsing their work.

(p96) "'Do you understand anything I'm saying?' shouted Moist. 'You can't just go around killing people!' 'Why Not?'"
– Paraphrasing from ''Terminator 2'' this time. John Connor: "You can't just go around killing people!" Terminator: "Why?" "What do you mean, why? Because you can't!" "Why?"

(p99(''British edition'')). Grandad's speech on "We keep that name moving in the Overhead", referring to the mysterious death of [[John Dearheart]] and the great unhappiness this has provoked among long-time Linesmen. The following text quotes almost verbatim from Glen Campbell's country and western hit ''Wichita Lineman'', about the life and death of an electrical lineman in the heart of the USA....

(p104(''Corgi edition'')) "It overwhelms the soul, very much like the state he elsewhere describes as ''Vonallesvolkommenunverstandlichdasdaskeit''. " – This German is a bit mangled. With proper spaces it is "Von Alles Vol'''l'''kommen unverständlich das das -keit" which translates as "from everything completely non-understandable (incomprehensible) the (neutrum) the (neutrum)" and a suffix changing a word into a noun (this might refer to "unverständlich": Unverständlichkeit would be incomprehensibility). This also appears to foreshadow the extensive employment of cod-German philosophy which defines Mr Nutt's character in {{UA}}

Freidegger is a clever pun on the famous German philosopher Heidegger[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger]] who wrote about time. (And he is difficult to understand either in his native German or in a translation).
The German word "Frei" means "free", therefore suited to the recurring topic of freedom in the book. In German and posssibly also in Überwaldean, ''Freitag'' is a day of the week: ''Friday'', when most people are ''freed'' of the burden of having to work for a living and get the weekend to themselves. An advertising campaign for chocolate cleverly used the slogan ''That Friday Feeling'', and we have the acronym TGIF, for ''Thank God It's Friday!"'' to denote that expansive Friday-night feeling at the start of the weekend. (Although I should point out, in the name of accuracy, that the current name "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday#Etymology Freitag]" is not derived from "Free - day" but from the old Norse Goddess [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyja Freya])

(p105) "The Marthter ith having one of hith little thoireeth, thur"
– In the Rocky Horror (Picture) Show, the hunchbacked servant tells the innocents "You've come on a rather special night. The Master is having one of his affairs..."

(p106) "[[Reacher Gilt]] certainly looked like a pirate, with his long, curly black hair, pointed beard, and eyepatch. He was even said to have a parrot."
– The name "Reacher Gilt" is itself a pun on "Long John Silver", the pirate captain from Treasure Island. Gilt's name, appearance and libertarian-capitalist ideology has stronger resonances with Ayn Rand's charismatic capitalist hero John Galt and pirate Ragnar Danneskjold, from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_shrugged Atlas Shrugged]. There may also be suggestions of English billionaire playboy-investor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_branson Richard Branson].

''There may also be links and distant echoes to the plot and characters of Shea and Wilson's '''''Illuminatus!''''' trilogy, also in this context a work of satire which parodies Ayn Rand's right-wing libertarian and extreme free-market philosophy. In this book, a "book within a book" is a parody of Ayn Rand's polemic, called ''Telemachus Sneezed''.''



(p106) "Twelve and a half percent! Twelve and a half percent!"
– As Moist almost explains later in the book, this is a financial joke. Long John Silver's parrot always repeated "Pieces of eight!" Pieces of eight were one-eighth pieces of a gold dollar coin. A dollar is one hundred cents, and one hundred percent make a whole. Twelve and a half percent, then, is exactly one-eighth of a dollar--a piece of eight.

(p129) "les buggeures risible"
– Pig French for "Silly Buggers", a common English slang term for deliberately obstructive activity. ("Someone's playing silly buggers, here...")

(p131) "This was going to be...ironic. They'd actually got hold of Lipwigzers!"
– The author possibly seems to be punning on Weimaraners ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimaraner]), which are a German breed of dog that take their name from the Grand Duke of Weimar, Karl August. The cover of the UK edition depicts two dogs similar in appearance to Rottweilers. (And there is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottweil Rottweil])

(p131) US hardcover: Worshipful Master: “Yes, well, you know what we used to say: you do have to be mad to work here!”
– a spin on the Roundworld saying: “You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps”
This is reinforced on (page 165) when Moist looks at the unfortunate selection of mugs Stanley has used for preparing tea for him and Sacharissa Cripslock. The cup Moist receives has a jokey message which has faded from ''You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps'' to '''''Be mad - it helps!'''''

(As in American slang "mad" tends to mean "angry" rather than "crazy", I wonder if this is also an echo of Susan's maxim from Hogfather - don't get scared, get angry?)

(p137) "'Look, I'm not the One you're looking for!'"
– Possibly, but not clearly, a reference to Neo's role as the One in the ''Matrix'' films. Or, more likely, a reference to Graham Chapman's increasingly perplexed and angry Brian in Monty Python's ''The Life of Brian''. This is also the title of a song by American goth-rockers the [[Blue Öyster Cult]], about having to settle not for what you ''want'', but for the best deal you can actually ''get''. Another possible reference is to the film ''{{wp|Star Wars_Episode_IV:_A New Hope|Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope}}'' in which Obi-Wan Kenobi uses the force to deceive soldiers saying: "These aren't the droids you're looking for."

(p137) "Deliver Us!"
– A pun on the Israelites' cry from the Biblical book of Exodus.

(p146) "'Three and a bit, that's the ticket. Only [[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson|Bloody Stupid Johnson]] said that was untidy, so he designed a wheel where the pie was exactly three.'"
– There's an old mathematical limerick about this very
:It's a favorite hobby of mine
:A new value for pi to assign.
:I would set it to three
:'Cause it's simpler, you see,
:Than three point one four one five nine.

It also reminds me of the story of the legislature of an US state setting a definitive value for Pi.

Quote: ''It happened in Indiana. Although the attempt to legislate pi was ultimately unsuccessful, it did come pretty close. In 1897 Representative T.I. Record of Posen county introduced House Bill #246 in the Indiana House of Representatives. The bill, based on the work of a physician and amateur mathematician named Edward J. Goodwin (Edwin in some accounts), suggests not one but three numbers for pi, among them 3.2, as we shall see. The punishment for unbelievers I have not been able to learn, but I place no credence in the rumor that you had to spend the rest of your natural life in Indiana.'' Full story here [[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html]].

The urban legend spoofing the creationism struggle here [[http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.asp]]

(p153) "My gods, it's you! I thought for a second sun had appeared in the sky!" (Spike reacts from seeing Lipwig in his golden suit for the first time.) On first reading, it may appear that something is wrong with this sentence. However, if punctuated thus: "I thought, for a second, sun had appeared in the sky!", the interpretation is clearer.

(p156) "'Coo, you're a good draw-er, Mr. Lipwig. That looks just like Lord [[Vetinari]]!' 'That's the penny stamp,' said Moist.'"
– In our world, British Postmaster-General Sir Rowland Hill designed and introduced the first penny stamp, with a profile of Queen Victoria, in 1840 after much political debate. As on the Discworld, stamp collectors began to appear almost immediately afterward.

It's interesting that Moist writes "Post Office" on his stamps. In our world, this happened once as a mistake when the stamps for Mauritius were designed. There's a nice story how the engraver forgot the correct wording (Postage Paid), took a walk to the Post Office to ask, but when he saw the sign "Post Office" turned back without asking and wrote that on the stamp. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Penny]]

(p156)US hardcover: When Moist shows her his stamp designs, Adora says “What’s this? You carry your etchings with you to save time?”
– Adora’s referring to the phrase "Want to come up and see my etchings," a romantic cliché in which a man entices a woman to come back to his place with an offer to look at something artistic.

(p167) "Gently, the paper tore down the line of holes."
– Perforated stamp sheets didn't appear until 1857 in the U.S., seventeen years after the penny stamp was introduced.

(p175) "'I won't be long. I'm off to see the wizard.'"
– The author has probably been waiting years to use this line from Frank L. Baum's ''The Wizard of Oz''.

(p176) "Just below the dome, staring down from their niches, were statues of the Virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, [[Tubso]], [[Bissonomy]], and Fortitude."
– The seven Virtues in our world (the Discworld has eight) are Hope, Charity, Faith, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence. Their frescoed images adorn the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy.

(p176) "These [books] are not on the public shelves lest untrained handling cause the collapse of everything that is possible to imagine.* (footnote: Again.)
– There's a popular quote from Douglas Adams' ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'': "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory, which states that this has already happened."

Less likely is that it is a reference to the alleged destruction of the universe that happened when the B.S. Johnson's Sorting Engine was shut down, as described on page 149 (US hardcover).

(p.179) "... and in those caves are entombed more than a hundred thousand old books, mostly religious, each one in a white linen shroud....intelligent people have always known that some words at least should be disposed of with care and respect."
– In Jerusalem old or damaged Bibles and Torahs are buried in special tombs rather than destroyed. The tradition is that words are sacred and have power. The Hebrew name for such depository is "geniza", not exactly the wizards' "gevaisa", but enough to make you wonder...

(p181) "'Where do they go [when they die]?' 'No one's sure, exactly, but you can hear the sounds of cutlery,' said Pelc...."
– The Viking concept of the afterlife for warriors, Valhalla, was basically an enormous and never-ending feasting hall. University wizards are likewise known for their love of a good large meal.

(p197) "But, in truth, Boris- once you got past the pineapple- wasn't too bad a ride. He'd hit his rhythm, a natural, single-footed gait..." – Single-footing is a smooth, four beat "running walk" that some horse breeds (example: Icelandic, North American Single-footer, Rocky Mountain Saddle Horse) do naturally, sometimes as fast as other horses canter. At its fastest (racing single-foot), only one foot hits the ground at a time- hence the name. The single-foot gait is very smooth and easy on a rider if he uses a special saddle and sits further back on the horse. Moist is riding bareback, carrying a heavy load over his shoulder and leaning forward so he does not get the full effect. However, he seems quite amazed Boris is smoother than expected.

(p200) "'Er... Joe Camels, sir,' he said nervously. 'I'm the mayor here...'"
– Joe Camel was the (un)official name of the now-defunct mascot of Camel Cigarettes. The resemblance to the mayor ends with the name, however.

(p204) "And her hair was plaited and coiled up on either side of her head in those discs that back home in Uberwald had been called 'snails,' but in Anhk-Morpork put people in mind of a woman with a curly iced bun clamped to each ear."
– Think of old German beer waitresses, not Princess Leia from ''Star Wars''.

(p224) "'Tell me,' said Moist, 'have you ever heard of something called the Smoking Gnu?'"
– A pun on "The Smoking Gun", a newsletter published by the Lone Gunmen, a trio of computer hackers (or crackers) from the television series The X-Files, on whom the members of the Smoking Gnu are based. The ''gun'' → ''gnu'' joke has also been used in Mr. Pratchett's book for children, ''[[Book:Truckers|Truckers]]'', Chapter 9, in which a young [[Nomes|Nome]] named Vinto Pimmie persistently misreads "gun" as "gnu". The real meaning of the word "gnu" refers to a species of large antelope. "Gnu" also evokes the [http://www.gnu.org/ Free Software Foundation], which promotes the development and distribution of free software.

(p230) "'What is sticking in your foot is a Mitzy "Pretty Lucretia" four-inch heel, the most dangerous footwear in the world. Considered as pounds per square inch, it's like being trodden by a very pointy elephant. Now, I know what you're thinking: you're thinking, "Could she press it all the way through to the floor?" And, you know, I'm not sure about that myself....'"
– Adapted from Clint Eastwood's famous challenge in ''Dirty Harry'': "I know what you're thinkin', punk. You're thinkin', did he fire six shots or only five? And to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement. But bein' this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and it'll blow your head clean off, you could ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

(p235) "But now it was time to put away childish pins."
– "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." – 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV) (the King James version has "but when I became a man, I put away childish things")

(p237) British hardback: The sequence from "As Moist peered..." until Moist turns around is pretty much taken straight from Brett's experience with Jones the cat in Ridley Scott's "Alien".

(p249) "'There's the Lady Sybil Free Hospital,' said Miss Dearheart. 'Is it any good?' 'Some people don't die.' 'That good, eh?'"
– [[Lady Sybil Ramkin|Lady Sybil Vimes]] nee Ramkin, of course, is the wife of [[Commander Vimes]] of the Watch, the Duchess of Ankh-Morpork, and in terms of assets, the wealthiest woman in the city. Up until now she's devoted herself to caring for swamp dragons, and horse doctors in Ankh-Morpork were considered more reliable for people than people doctors. This hospital is developed and now led by Dr. Lawn, on the plot of land on Attic Bee Street, near Goose Gate, that Vimes signed over to him as payment for helping Sam Jr. into the world (an event at the end of ''[[Book:Night Watch|Night Watch]]''). ''The accuracy of this annotation is currently under discussion, mainly regarding whether Lady Sybil actually runs the hospital or only lends her name and money. See Talk page.''

Another possible reason for the name is that Dr Lawn chose to name his hospital after, basically, the main person who got him the land in the first place.

(p259)US hardcover: Moist’s idea of what a master criminal could buy: “seaside properties with real lava flows near a reliable source of piranhas” sounds like the hideout of typical James Bond villains.

(p.260(Doubleday hardcover)) "Even Miss Extremelia Mume ... was doing good business among those prepared to back an outside chance. She'd hung a banner over the door. It read: 'It Could Be YOU'". 
This, along with the following paragraph's musings on hope, clearly refers to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lottery_%28United_Kingdom%29 UK National Lottery] (also known as the Tax For Innumerates). The Discworld people are making small donations/prayers to the temples hoping for a monetary windfall like Moist just got. It's obvious when you remember that a 90s TV campaign for the lottery featured a giant sparkly hand coming out of the clouds to point at winners... and their slogan at the time was "It Could Be YOU" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FlHbqnU0o].

(p263) "The nave of the temple was deserted, except for a little old man in a grubby robe, dreamily sweeping the floor."
This detail is out of place, unless it's a reference to Lu-Tze. Possibly the History Monks have taken an interest in the Post Office, or kicking Reacher Gilt out before he can become Patrician. For the History Monks to have somebody keeping an eye on an institution where a machine (the Sorting Engine) is capable of bending time and space is only logical, as well as the evidential detail that it was installed perhaps thirty years before the "present" - ie, roughly the same time that Samuel Vimes re-enters time in {{NW}}. So if the destruction of one time-bending machine (the Glass Clock) is responsible for taking Vimes ''out'' of time, then the switching-on of a second time-bending machine (the Sorting Engine) might have been the trigger event dictating when Vimes and Carcer were ''returned'' to normal space-time? (Or ''delivered'', so to speak) Alternately, it ''could'' just be a guy sweeping up after services, as the Men In Saffron don't have a monopoly on wearing robes, particularly in a temple.

(p276) Lipwig's musing about Gilt not needing "a tower with ten thousand trolls camped outside" brings to mind Saruman from ''The Lord of the Rings''.

(p279) US hardcover: Moist says "your big words tell them it’s going to be jam tomorrow and they hope."
– a reference to ''Alice in Wonderland'', in which the Queen offers Alice jam every other day: "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day."

(p287) US hardcover:‘Tump Tower’ refers to the Trump Tower, built by Donald Trump in New York City

(p293) "Deliver them, of course. You've got to. You are the messenger of the gods."
– Another reference to Mercury.

(p300) US Hardcover: The ‘crackers’ who disrupt the Clacks line are remarkably like Roundworld computer hackers

(p304) "'There's cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage—'"
– Stanley's stream of cabbage recipes parallels Bubba's list of shrimp dishes in the movie Forrest Gump, and Monty Python's Spam sketch.
* Also used in ''The Science Of Discworld II'', when Rincewind obsessively recites all the potato recipes he can think of to prevent the elf Queen from reading his thoughts.

(p308) "'Did you spot how the swage armature can be made to jump off the elliptical bearing if you hit the letter K and then send it to a tower with an address higher than yours but only if you hit the letter Q first and the drum spring is fully wound?'"
– Certain early (and some current) computer systems could be made to fail in similar ways. Unlikely character strings can sometimes, in binary, be interpreted as system codes and cause security breaches or outright system failures. Likewise, early mechanical typewriters could lock up if the wrong series of letters were pressed in quick succession, a phenomenon which the QWERTY keyboard was designed to make less likely.

(p326) Harper paperback: Miss Dearheart says, "You know how to pray, don't you? You just put your hands together -- and hope." A play on Lauren Bacall's famous line in the 1944 film "To Have and Have Not," "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

(p319) "'All right, but why "Smoking GNU"?' said Moist. 'That's cracker slang for a very fast message-send throughout the system,' said Sane Alex pointedly."
– In our world, GNU is also a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix", and the GNU Project is an ongoing effort to develop a free operating system compatible with commercial Unix.

(p326) "'I call it baize-space,' said [[Ponder Stibbons]] proudly."
– 'Baize' is the name given to the felt-like cloth used to cover billiards tables. As Stibbons points out later, it's also a pun on "phase space".

(p339) "'But it's a book!' said Mr. Pony. 'It'll take all night to code! And there's diagrams!'"
– It was established in ''[[Book:Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'' that the clacks towers could send images slowly by transmitting codes for pixel data, exactly the way computers do.

(p352) "'It's still not working, Mr. Stibbons!' he bellowed. "Here's that damn enormous fiery eye again!'"
– In J.R.R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', Sauron appeared as a great fiery cat's eye in visions and metaphoric descriptions. In Peter Jackson's movie adaptations, the Eye appears (aside from a literal interpretation on top of Sauron's fortress) in the palantíri (seeing-stones), which have a very similar function to the University's [[omniscope]].

(p360) "'Gilt can kiss my—' Grandad began, then remembered the present company and finished: '–donkey.'"
– A reference to American use of ''ass'', an old word for donkey, in place of ''arse''.

(p361) "'... I'm close to translating the mating call of the giant clam...'"
– TP likes to drop hints of corny old jokes. Place your forearms in front of your face one laid on top of the other. Very slowly open them so that only your eyes are visible between them and swivel your eyes from side to side. That's the mating call of the giant clam.

(p341) Right at the end of {{GP}} when the game is up and the financial corruption of the Trunk board is revealed, Stowley fakes amnesia and loss of his short-term memory as a desperate ploy to avoid prosecution. This hopefully didn't fool Vetinari for one moment, but the Roundworld referent is more depressing:

Charged with a range of financial misdemeanours in the late 1980's, including false accounting, fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion, Ernest Saunders, a senior member of the Guinness brewing and finance family, provided medical testimonials that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and had no recollection of the sequence of events that had led him to court. As genuine sufferers of Alzheimer's know, one of the first symptoms of the disease is the loss of short-term memory. The judge took his plea of being unable to face charges on medical grounds seriously, and released him with a short suspended sentence where otherwise he might have been looking at several years inside.

Incredibly, he made a full and complete recovery from Alzheimer's shortly after his court appearance, perhaps the only man in medical history to ever have reversed the progress of this disease. TP of all people would have an absolute right to hold somebody faking Alzheimer's as a "get-out-of-jail-free" card up to scorn, satire and ridicule.

Refer to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_share-trading_fraud|ref._Guinness share-trading fraud] for the full story, including Saunders' miracle recovery from Alzheimer's.

==Odds and ends==
Apologies if this is in the wrong place or noted elsewhere but the reference to the Matron will be to the Harridan played by (almost exclusively) Hattie Jacques in the various Carry On films concerning the UK NHS.-- SJC 2 June 2010 (BST)

'''Moist von Lipwig'''
:While I haven't found a good source for Germanic interpretations / history of the name, a 'lip-wig' is a slang term for a moustache. Hence 'von Lipwig' = 'of the (fake) moustache' - very fitting for a conman who relies on the addition of distinguishing features to disguise his undistinguished face. --[[User:SiD|SiD]] 22:18, 13 November 2006 (CET)

- '''[p. 17-18 (UK Corgi PB)]''' "'Er... would you mind signing the rope beforehand, sir? ... Worth more signed, of course.'" - Daniel "One Drop" Trooper
:Gotta love the irony that Moist von Lipwig / Albert Spangler, the consummate con-man, is helping his ''executioner'' to get 'money for old rope'! --[[User:SiD|SiD]] 22:18, 13 November 2006 (CET)

- '''[p. 47 (UK Corgi PB)]''' "A large black and white cat had walked into the room"
:Does the colour remind anyone else of Postman Pat's cat, Jess?

- '''[p. 187 (UK Corgi PB)]''' "'Actually it is the Sorting Engine,' said Groat. 'It's the curse of the Post Office, sir. It had imps in it for the actual reading of the envelopes, but they all evaporated years ago.'"
:While imps are of course used as the basis for a lot of Discworld technology, I doubt many people outside the Royal Mail know that the huge sorting machines in every mail centre are called '''I'''ntegrated '''M'''ail '''P'''rocessors - known as IMPs for short! --[[User:SiD|SiD]] 22:18, 13 November 2006 (CET)

- '''[p. 352(UK Corgi PB)p.330 (Doubleday hardcover)]'''

"I'm sure we have the right-" Ponder began.

This echoes Aragorn in ''Lord of the Rings/Two Towers'', when he wrests control of the Palantir from Sauron, and the next morning is seen looking drawn and exhausted from the mental and psychic strain of doing direct battle with the dark lord.

"I had the right, but barely" he explained to Gandalf.

While I agree that the the "fiery eye" is intended to be reminiscent of Sauron it is clearly not actually Sauron but merely the eye of Dr Collabone; red from allergies and enormous from peering too closely at his end of the omniscope.
--[[User:Neilxt|Neilxt]] 05:03, 21 August 2007 (CEST)

(p137) "'Look, I'm not the One you're looking for!'" - For some, this resonates with Obi-Wan's use of the Jedi mind trick to escape storm troopers -- "These aren't the droids you're looking for." This is annotated elsewhere on the Wiki as – Possibly, but not clearly, a reference to Neo's role as the One in the ''Matrix films''. Or, perhaps the most likely, a reference to Graham Chapman's increasingly perplexed and angry Brian in Monty Python's ''The Life of Brian'' when chased by hordes of adoring wannabe disciples. Or even [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOpxt3CpZBk|this_song]this song...

(p313) "'You know how to pray, don't you? You just put your hands together -- and hope.'" - obviously based on Lauren Bacall's famous line from "To Have and Have Not", to Humphrey Bogart: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow." Bacall's character's nickname is "Slim", and this is echoed in the affectionate nicknames of Moist and Dearheart, "Slick" and "Spike". --[[User:Eitheladar|Eitheladar]] 07:47, 31 December 2007 (CET)

(p??) The entire episode of a mail coach vs. the clacks system transporting the contents of a book evokes a saying that is well-known among us computer science types: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes". It's also known in other forms, e.g. "It's faster to send a petabyte of data to Hong Kong by sailboat than over the internet". Pratchett doesn't explicitly reference this saying, but he has created an instructive example of the difference between latency and bandwidth: while it takes less time for the start of a message to arrive via the clacks towers, the mail coach has an advantage when the size of the message is large (e.g. in case of sending the contents of a book, or even a large number of letters).

(p??) The crackers' blocking of the light and substitution of their own portable clacks tower is an example of what computer scientists and security researchers refer to as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack man-in-the-middle attack].

(p??) "'Ha, even the damn soup there is fifteen dollars!' said Moist" - Very likely a reference to The Blues Brothers, also referenced sporadically throughout Soul Music. When the Brothers visit a former band member - now Maître d' in a posh Chicago restaurant - at his place of work, he encourages them to leave on the basis that they can't afford to eat there, remarking "Come on guys..let me buy you a cup of coffee. The soup here is f*cking ten dollars."

[[Category:Annotations|Going Postal/Annotations]]

Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum

2015-06-13T19:13:06Z

Thnidu:

'''This is a location to discuss non-content matters (what do we do with content disputes, vandalism, etc, what do we want to do with this wiki, and so on).'''

<div class="usermessage">This is the page for current discussions.

Archives
*[[Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 1]]
*[[Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 2]]
*[[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 3]]
*[[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 4]]
*[[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 5]]
</div>

==The Long Earth==
I've finally gotten around to listening/reading [[Book:The Long Earth|The Long Earth]] series. Loving the concept! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 17:07, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
: This series was amazing! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

==Taking leave ==
I'll be off buying cigars and incommunicado next week. Somebody might pull an extra shift on watch. Hasta luego! --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
:will do what I can.... how long are you visiting [[Sumtri]] for? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 19:10, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Hola! I'm back. Stuff seems to have been done. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:13, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

==Namespaces==
The new page [[Book:The Rince Cycle]] points out a need for one or more namespaces for works that aren't Books or Short Stories, unless I'm missing something: this one's a playscript but there are other things. Discuss. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:59, 11 February 2015 (UTC) 
(''copied from Talk:Book:The Rince Cycle''): 
:Well, we've done LP records, CD's, TV adaptations, computer games..... and the playscripts are listed in the biography and all appear to be redlinked, as if the option is there to create articles.... I'd say why not? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 18:55, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Why indeed, but the question is how to define a namespace (or what to call it). It could be Peripherals: as the category, but shorter would be better. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 22:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

: '''Misc''' --[[User:Thnidu|Thnidu]] ([[User talk:Thnidu|talk]]) 17:57, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

==Mirabile Dictu==
Chaffinch's [[Ancient and Classical Mythology]] is now the fourth most popular page here. Huh? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

:I'm wondering if people looking for ''Bulfinch's Ancient and Classical'' are getting their ornithology wrong on a Google search; they can vaguely remember the guy they're looking for is ''some'' sort of finch but not which exact kind. I hang around on Yahoo Answers now and again just for fun and to do some corrective trolling. it's amazing how many disinterested schoolchildren put up please for people to do their homework for them when they can't be bothered to do their own research, and to be honest, a lot of them are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. I have a lovely picture in my head of a fairly dense American schoolchild being told to look up Greek mythology, steered to look for Mr Bulfinch, who gets it wrong and ends up on our wiki instead. Thus ending up writing about Blind Io, Petunia, Offler, Epidity, Bissonomy and the rest of the Dunmanifestin gang. Then confidently handing it in.... [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 11:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The [[Special:Popularpages|statistics]] continue to boggle my mind. The main page approaches 3.5 million views, up a million since the New Year. The popularity ranking of views for individual pages may be obvious or wildly unlikely. At the end of 2014 I put up a short history of the wiki to fill in the "About" page. Who looks at the "About" page? They may reach 10,000 by the end of February! [[Lies-To-Children]] is more popular than [[Ankh-Morpork]]! [[Ptraci]] and [[Pseudopolis]] don't make the top 500. [[Ankh]] languishes at 2630th...Wot's it all abaht, then? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I also cannot help but notice that new pages I started, to fill in gaps about obscure or very minor characters and situations/ places, went from 0 views to well over 600 within hours of posting. In my experience a brand-new page tends to get 8-20 hits in the first few days, I guess from regulars looking at it out of curiosity. But 644? Something odd is happening. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 22:57, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

:Think bots! Remember just because spammers now find it difficult to post here it doesn't mean we don't still get scanned. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 13:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

==Possible Outage==
I've asked the cabal to make a DNS change. This should be transparent to you guys but there was a small unplanned outage last time we made a change. This change will let me cut my hosting costs by about a third so that's a good thing. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
: Never noticed. Glad to hear the financial burden is reduced. I'm still hoping to get together with my son-in-law the interweb marketing wallah to discuss revenue possibilities. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:32, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
::They apparently haven't made the change yet. But once they do this won't be a big deal to afford. I'd over engineered to begin with but now it's only costing about $25/month. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 13:10, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

=='''Thursday, March 12, 2015'''==
What are we supposed to write today? A good journalist (like Terry Pratchett) would suck it up and write a thousand words of inspiring prose and biographical notes. I'm not that good; I'm too depressed. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 20:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
:It was just so sudden...--[[User:Zdm|Zdm]] ([[User talk:Zdm|talk]]) 20:40, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
::I have, on occasion, thought about how terrible it would be to wake up one day to the news that Sir Pterry had died, but actually waking up to the news was shocking and a very different thing. I don't know what there is to say or write here beyond what has already been said by countless others... [[User:TC01|TC01]] ([[User talk:TC01|talk]])

[https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/2yt9j6/gnu_terry_pratchett/cpcvz46 A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.] [[User:TC01|TC01]] ([[User talk:TC01|talk]]) 02:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
:That is brilliant. Thanks for help making me smile on such a sad day.--[[User:Zdm|Zdm]] ([[User talk:Zdm|talk]]) 03:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Copied from my FB page.
On the death of Sir Terry Pratchett, first thoughts. Having spent a lot of time trying to turn other people on to Terry and his writings and having gifted some of the most intelligent people I know copies of the books with notes attached saying "read this, you'll like it.".

Still feeling very sad as if a lot of colour has drained out of the world. Like many others, thinking he would "diminish" over a period of quite a few years. Sadly, the "diminishing" process appeared evident in his last few published books, as if he was, perhaps, creating a broad outline, filling in such detail as he could, but others (Rob Williams? Rhianna?) were completing the books. The Discworld story in "Science of Discworld 4" read as if other people had written it - the authentic Pratchett voice was missing, there were continuity problems with other books, and it read like second-division fanfic. That is, it told a good story, but the Pratchett voice and tone either weren't there or only intruded in ocassional flashes of the old brilliance.

"Unseen Academicals" was... well, Terry was in there. But it read as if at least one other writer was in there too. As well as all the continuity glitches concerning well-established characters and callbacks to previous books. Not that it wasn't good, but it could have been better.

I guess the next stage is going to be like it was with Tolkein - they'll milk unpublished writing and fragments for all they're worth (although Terry did once say he wanted all the files and hard drives wiped when he died, so nobody could come along and use him as a PhD thesis in literature). right down to, what did "Private Eye" once "publish", "The JRR Tolkein Laundry Lists" , or equivalent of.... a terribly sad morning.

And Jeremy Clarkson and Jeffrey Archer are both still alive... (unsigned comment by [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 13 Mar 2015)

'''''“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away”''''' ({{RM}}) …(unsigned comment by [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 14 Mar 2015)
:So, some thinkers and writers born more than two thousand years ago are not reslly "dead", let alone Chaucer, Shakespeare or Swift. This compels us to continue the wiki for a few hundred years, at least, in whatever form advancing technology dictates. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:11, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
::Absolutely! We're just lucky enough to have been around during his lifetime, to have enjoyed the books as they came out and be the ones to help keep the ball rolling, rather than having to look back in time to enjoy his works. I remember thinking, when first hearing that phrase, of the Ancient Egyptian philosophy which follows much the same lines (that memory grants immortality) - and still, ''well'' over 2000 years on we know so much of them, and they lacked the modern printing press, globalisation and internet we have now.
:: Besides, theres no reason why there might not be many further additions to make in future, especially if his daughter continues the series or if Narrativia manage to make more films or the rumored TV series [Mind drifts to Douglas Adams whose film of Hitchhikers Guide only managed to be progressed upon after his unfortunate passing].--[[User:GallifreyanWitch|Verity]] ([[User talk:GallifreyanWitch|talk]]) 17:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

just re-read [[Book:A Slip of the Keyboard]]. There's a bit where Terry relates a near-Death-experience he had on the operating table during what might have been a routine op to insert arterial stents. Apparently the surgeons had "fun and games" when a major artery started to spurt. This wasn't helped by Terry sitting up on the operating table and addressing an invisible presence, who apparently was {{death|offering him sandwiches}}. Did this make its way into the ham sandwich scene in {{W}}. and were sandwiches offered on a recent occasion? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 23:03, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

A book I haven't gotten to myself and not well described in the wiki. I had no tendency to hallucinations when I got my stents (even the big one) and {{Death|death didn't seem interested}}.--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:22, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

== ==
I do miss the User Merge and Delete. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:25, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

==Aaand, we're back!==
These short naps are great. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

==Milestone==
Somewhere in the next couple of months will be this wiki's tenth anniversary. The history being lost and uncertain anyway, in those days, it may be hard to pin down a date. I must ask [[User:Death|Death]] if he can recall or look up a day. Any other recollections? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:18, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

==clacks-overhead:GNU Terry Pratchett==
:I don't log on here very often, but ... Today I was starting to create a page about the website [http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/ GNU Terry Pratchett], when I realized it should probably go in a non-canon namespace, such as "Meta" if there were one. This is as far as I got on it.
:'''Please advise:''' Where should I post it? I'd prefer to be answered by email, to the same user-ID at gmail.com.
----
----
After the death of his son [[John Dearheart|John]] while repairing a [[clacks]] tower, [[Robert Dearheart]], the inventor of the clacks system, arranged to [[John Dearheart#After his death|keep his name running continuously on the clacks]]: ''So as the name "John Dearheart" keeps going up and down the line, this tradition applies a kind of immortality as "a man is not dead while his name is still spoken".''

After [[Biography#Other_personal_facts|Sir Terry's death]] a number of fans decided (probably independently in several cases) to perpetuate his name in this way. [http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/ GNU Terry Pratchett] gives information about doing so on many servers, platforms, services, etc. And here is a way to do it ''ad hoc'' (take out the hyphens from h-r-e-f):

<nowiki><a h-r-e-f="clacks-overhead:GNU Terry Pratchett">.</a></nowiki>

Insert this string into any HTML text and it will display as a single period ("full stop" to Terry's compatriots) with a hyperlink. The hyperlink is present but does not go anywhere, because
:The address wasn't understood
:[Your browser] doesn't know how to open this address, because one of the following protocols (clacks-overhead) isn't associated with any program or is not allowed in this context.

That code doesn't work on Mediawiki pages such as this wiki, apparently because the software sensibly but unfortunately checks for valid HTML protocols, such as ''http'', and rejects invalid ones like ''clacks-overhead''. But you can use this:

<nowiki>[http://clacks-overhead-GNU_Terry_Pratchett .]</nowiki>

This displays as
: [http://clacks-overhead-GNU_Terry_Pratchett .]

which is a formally valid hyperlink to a nonexistent server.
----
----
:--[[User:Thnidu|Thnidu]] ([[User talk:Thnidu|talk]]) 19:13, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Thnidu

2015-06-13T18:54:34Z

Thnidu: Created page with "Hi. I've been an sf fan all my life ... and at the time I write this, I'm just under four months short of the age Sir Terry attained, and I sure hope to do better there! I edi..."

Hi. I've been an sf fan all my life ... and at the time I write this, I'm just under four months short of the age Sir Terry attained, and I sure hope to do better there! I edit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thnidu Wikipedia] a lot, so I'm generally familiar with the software here, though I haven't been on this wiki much. --[[User:Thnidu|Thnidu]] ([[User talk:Thnidu|talk]]) 18:54, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Kaos

2015-06-13T18:22:54Z

Thnidu:

{{Character Data
|title= Kaos
|photo= Kaos.jpg|Image by [http://www.john-howe.com/ John Howe]
|name= Kaos, Ronnie Soak
|age=
|race= [[Anthropomorphic personification]]
|occupation= Left the Horsemen before they were famous, now is a dairyman
|appearance= Completely black eyes
|residence= [[Ankh-Morpork]]
|death=
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=
|books= {{TOT}}
|cameos= [[Book:The Celebrated Discworld Almanak|''The Celebrated Discworld Almanak'']]
}}

[[Kaos]] was the fifth horseman of the [[Four Horsemen|apocralyptic riders]], but he left them before they were famous because of artistic disagreements. Of course, he always said later on that he never cared about their success. He is an [[anthropomorphic personification]]. Yes, Kaos is written correctly. Kaos is the real chaos. It is chaos with the complete absence of rules and not the chaos which can be used to draw pretty Mandelbrot patterns. The ancient Kaos would not believe in all seemingly messy things obeying and indeed revealing an underlying universal rule.

Many anthropomorphic personifications dislike the [[Auditors of Reality]] because the Auditors like to break actual phenomena in the world in order for things to go according to what they think are the correct rules. Kaos hates the Auditors for the simple reason that they embody rules.

Kaos has eyes that are completely black from edge to edge. He wears a helmet with full-face visor, on which there are strange black spots that might look like the wings of a strange butterfly, and then again might look like the eyes of some alien creature. He rides a chariot with a black horse which glows slightly red. His sword has a blue flame, burning with absolute coldness. His hands trail with cold steam.

Since, as mentioned above, Kaos was the fifth horseman of the apocralyptic riders, and that he'd left them before they became famous, it would seem that these 'disagreements' were primarly between [[War]], [[Famine]] and [[Pestilence]], against Kaos. Kaos, for the most part, it seems, gets along rather well-enough with [[Death]], (although Kaos thinks of Death as "''a Big Sleep''.") According to a discussion between Kaos and [[Lu-Tze]] (one of Kaos' 'creatures'), Kaos was actually the first of the apocralyptic riders to be such, before the other four.

Currently he delivers dairy products in [[Ankh-Morpork]] under the name of '''Ronnie Soak'''. (Please, read his last name backwards.) Since physical laws such as time are optional for him, he is always on time and can attend to a large number of customers each day (exactly 7 o'clock, not a second late, at ''every'' customer's door). Ronnie also gets to go and get the best milk from everywhere, including extinct species and from non-mammals. When not acting as an apocralyptic horseman, he uses his sword to keep the milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, eggs, etc. nice and cold.

After a talk with (or, more correctly, after being talked at by) the famous [[History Monks|History Monk]], [[Lu-Tze]], Kaos decides to accept the role of Chaos as theorized by modern people: seemingly completely random events all obeying a universal rule. In that position, Chaos trumps everything. Ancient disorderly Kaos had been pushed aside by objects, life forms, and societies, but Chaos is the principle of absolutely everything.

Kaos also has a lot in common with [[The Lady]]; case in point, the Butterfly effect. The butterfly motif on Kaos' helmet is reflective of the [[wikipedia:Butterfly effect|'''Butterfly effect''']], in which a small change can have any number of effects on subsequent events. Both Kaos and The Lady have exhibited the use of Probability in their approach to what they each do. They have even been connected with the imagery of this 'very special butterfly', also known as the 'Butterfly effect': In ''Interesting Times'', The Lady, when beginning a new game against [[Fate]], released a small butterfly from Her hand.

==Annotation==
[[Image:Kaosmine.jpg|200px|left|thumb|Kaos, by [[user:darkplush|Kit Cox]]]]
What swings it for Ronnie and clinches his decision to rejoin the band for this gig is a seemingly artless reference to the [[Auditors]] as "''the Laws''."

This is another (at least)bi-level reference. On [[Roundworld]], the existential bandits Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger, were admittedly motivated by getting rich quick: but they were at least as drawn to crime by a distaste for "The Laws" (a Texan abbreviation for agents of law-enforcement). Dillinger, a free-spirited and raffish bank-robber, saw hitting out at The Laws as his method of throwing grit into the machine.

Use of the term "Law" in this context also evokes Michael Moorcock's cosmological view: that the primal struggle in the world is not between Good and Evil, but between the opposed and co-equal principles of Law and Chaos. (Incidentally, Moorcock's revision of the tired old "Good Versus Evil" rationale in fantasy fiction also serves as the jumping-off point for role-playing fantasy games such as [[Dungeons and Dragons]], where players roll dice for "character alignment"[http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A2309230]. A veteran DM such as Terry Pratchett would know this, of course...)

Naturally Chaos would be drawn to fighting Law... the song-lyric might be re-written as ''I fought the Law and Chaos won.''

The fifth horseman who left before they became famous is an obvious reference to Pete Best, the Beatle who was sacked before they became famous.

The butterfly motif on Kaos' helmet is reflective of the [[wikipedia:Butterfly effect|'''Butterfly effect''']], in which a small change can have any number of effects on subsequent events.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Supporting characters]]
[[Category:Supernatural entities]]
[[de:Kaos]]

Biography

2015-06-13T18:13:02Z

Thnidu: Added obituary line from universal header at end of § Other personal facts

[[File:lil.jpg|150px|left]]

'''Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE''' (let's acknowledge it here, just once, but hereinafter, I'm sure he won't mind if we leave it as plain Terry?) is a prolific British author of comedy fantasy.

==Blurbs==

Over the years several versions of the cover text which describes the author were printed.

* '''1990, {{TCOM}}, Corgi:''' Terry Pratchett is, on average, a sort of youngish middle-aged. He lives in Somerset with his wife and daughter, and long ago chose journalism as a career because it was indoor work with no heavy lifting. Beyond that he positively refuses to be drawn. People never read these biographies anyway, do they? They want to get on with the book, not wade through masses of prose designed to suggest that the author is really a very interesting person so look, okay, he wrote these other books, all right, they were [[Book:The Carpet People|The Carpet People]] (for kids), [[Book:The Dark Side of the Sun|The Dark Side of the Sun]], [[Book:The Light Fantastic|The Light Fantastic]], [[Book:Equal Rites|Equal Rites]], [[Book:Mort|Mort]], [[Book:Sourcery|Sourcery]] and [[Book:Wyrd Sisters|Wyrd Sisters]]. The last five were about the Discworld, and actually quite a lot of people liked them. He grows carnivorous plants as a hobby; they are a lot less interesting than people believe. * For those who really need to know, Terry Pratchett was born in Buckinghamshire in 1948. He's managed to avoid all interesting jobs authors take in order to look good in this sort of biography. In search for a quiet life he got a job as a Press officer with the Central Electricity Generating Board just after Three Mile Island, which shows the unerring sense of timing. It's true about the carnivorous plants, though.

* '''1990, [[Book:Good Omens|Good Omens]], Corgi:''' For those who really need to know, Terry Pratchett was born in Buckinghamshire in 1948. He's managed to avoid all interesting jobs authors take in order to look good in this sort of biography. In search for a quiet life he got a job as a Press officer with the Central Electricity Generating Board just after Three Mile Island, which shows the unerring sense of timing. Now a full time writer, he lives in Wiltshire with his wife and daughter. He likes people to buy him banana daiquiris (he knows people don't read author biographies, but feels it might be worth a try).

* '''1994, [[Book:Interesting Times|Interesting Times]], Corgi:''' Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and still is not dead. He started work as a journalist one day in 1965 and saw his first corpse three hours later, work experience ''meaning'' something in those days. After doing just about every job it's possible to do in provincial journalism, except of course covering Saturday afternoon football, he joined the Central Electricity Generating Board and became press officer for four nuclear power stations. He'd write a book about his experiences if he thought anyone would believe it. All this came to an end in 1987 when it became obvious that the Discworld series was much more enjoyable than real work. Since then the books have reached double figures and have a regular place in the bestseller lists. He also writes books for younger readers. Occasionally he gets accused of literature. Terry Pratchett lives in Wiltshire with his wife Lyn and daughter Rhianna. He says writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves.

* ''' 1998, [[Book:Men at Arms|Men at Arms]], Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett lives in the West Country, where he tries to write books in between answering his mail. He lives in constant dread that someone will discover how enjoyable he finds writing, and stop him doing it. He thinks the world could use more orang-utans. The carnivorous plants in the greenhouse are still doing well.

* '''1998, [[Book:The Last Continent|The Last Continent]], Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett is fifty and lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire, where he answers letters in a desperate attempt to find the time to write. He used to grow carnivorous plants, but now they've taken over the greenhouse and he avoids going in. He feels it may be time to get a life, since apparently they're terrible useful.

* '''1999, [[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]], Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett is Britain's best-selling living novelist. He lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. [[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]] is the twenty-fourth novel in his phenomenally successful Discworld series.

* '''2001, [[Book:Thief of Time|Thief of Time]], Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett is the author of the phenomenal Discworld series, and is Britain's best-selling living novelist. He was appointed {{wp|Order_of_the_British_Empire|OBE}} in 1998.

* '''2001, [[Book:The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents|The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents]], Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett is one of the most popular authors writing today. The author of the phenomenally successful Discworld series, which is written for adults but is also read by many young readers, and a number of successful books for younger readers (which are also read by adults and have appeared on several major award shortlists). His trilogy for young readers, ''The Bromeliad'', is being adapted into a spectacular animated movie. He lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. He was appointed {{wp|Order_of_the_British_Empire|OBE}} in 1998.
* '''2004, [[Book:A Hat Full of Sky|A Hat Full of Sky]], Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett is one of the most popular authors writing today. He is particlarly well known for the phenomenally successful Discworld series, which includes two previous titles for younger readers [[Book:The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents|The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents]], which won the 2001 Carnegie Medal, and [[Book:The Wee Free Men|The Wee Free Men]], the first novel about [[Tiffany Aching]] and the [[Nac Mac Feegle]]. He has also written a number of other successful titles for younger readers, including the ''Bromeliad'' trilogy. Terry Patchett lives in Wiltshire, and finds the days are rather full.

* '''2004, [[Book:Once More* *with Footnotes|Once More* *with Footnotes]], NESFA Press:''' '''''Terry Pratchett''''' is the author of, mostly, the thirty-one novels in the '''''Discworld''''' series, which have something like 55,000,000 copies worldwide.

: He began writing in his teens, but actually ''followed'' the advice that old writers give to new writers, which is: get another job to pay the bills. This may have been a bad idea because he chose newspaper journalism, which was great fun but gave him practically no spare time in which to write. So he got a job as a PR man in the UK's electricity supply industry, thinking that handling the Press for four nuclear power stations would be a nice quiet life.

: This turned out to be untrue, because of some place called Three Mile Island.

: Nevertheless, as a relaxation from the demands of his day-and-night job, he invented '''''Discworld''''', a fantasy world with wizards, witches, heroes, dragons, and other mythological fauna, but where people act as if they are ''real''. It sold so well that within a few years he was able to quit the day-and-night job because he was making more money from his hobby.

: Since then he has published at a rate of, usually, two books a year. Most are in the '''''Discworld''''' series, but he also writes for children (The '''''Johnny Maxwell''''' books, '''''The Bromeliad''''') and, with [[Neil Gaiman]], co-authored '''''Good Omens''''', a book about the lighter side of Armageddon which might just possibly turn into a movie before Armageddon happens for real.

: While other ventures are planned, '''''Discworld''''' continues. In recent years it has split into "adult" and "children's" series. The difference between them is that one deals with serious themes, while the other one is for adults.

: '''''Terry Pratchett''''' was born in England in the small town of Beaconsfield, currently being engulfed by London's sprawl, and now lives with his wife Lyn in Wiltshire, close enough to Stonehenge to find it boring. Their daughter Rhianna is a journalist, on the basis that it worked for her dad.

: Since writing was his hobby, he doesn't actually have one now. However, he reads a lot, grows things, and last year achieved a boyhood dream by building an astronomical observatory in his garden. In 1998, he was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for "services to literature." He suspects, however, that the best service he has done for literature is deny that he writes it.

* '''2011, {{SN}}, Doubleday:''' Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the Discworld series, started in 1983 with {{TCOM}} and now, with {{SN}}, numbering thirty-nine novels. Worldwide sales of his books are in excess of 70 million, and they have been translated into thirty-seven languages. Terry Pratchett was awarded an OBE in 1998, and was knighted for services to literature in 2009.

==Other personal facts==
In 2007, Terry Pratchett suffered a [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=490576&in_page_id=1774 mild stroke], resulting in the ability to recall the lyrics of advertising jingles from 40 years ago and the inability to knot a tie. This diagnosis turned out to be inaccurate, however. On 11 December 2007, Terry announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. See [http://www.paulkidby.com/news/dec2007.html here].

At the end of the announcement he writes, "I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell."

Terry also filmed 'Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die', a documentary on euthanasia. In it he interviews several people with incurable conditions who are considering, or have considered, choosing the point of their own death. He also investigated Dignitas, a Swiss group who helps those with terminal or severe illnesses to die. Peter Smedley, hotelier and millionaire, allowed himself to be filmed consuming a barbiturate solution in order to end his own life.

Thursday, March 12th 2015: Sir Terry Pratchett died at home in Wiltshire following a long battle with Alzheimer's. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31858156 BBC report, 3:26pm GMT]

[[File:200px-Terry_Pratchett_COA.svg.png|450px|thumb|right|Sir Terry's coat of arms, chosen on the occasion of his knighthood]]
==Arise, Sir Terry of Discworld!==

On 31st December 2008, the annual New Year's Honours List announced that Terry Pratchett is to become Sir Terry Pratchett for services to English literature. ('''''Guardian''''', London, 31/12/08).

Sir Terry is reported as being "absolutely flabbergasted" .

"There are times when phrases such as ''totally astonished'' just don't do the job. I am of course delighted and honoured and, needless to say, flabbergasted."

''The Guardian'' also pointed to TP's work on behalf of Alzheimers' awareness, and hinted this may also have swung the decision.

==External links==
* {{ls|about-terry/biography.html|A biography of Terry Pratchett by Colin Smythe}}
* [http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/terry/ About Terry from the author's website]

:
[[Category:Terry Pratchett]]
[[de:Terry Pratchett]]

Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum

2015-06-13T18:03:30Z

Thnidu: /* Milestone */ new §

'''This is a location to discuss non-content matters (what do we do with content disputes, vandalism, etc, what do we want to do with this wiki, and so on).'''

<div class="usermessage">This is the page for current discussions.

Archives
*[[Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 1]]
*[[Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 2]]
*[[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 3]]
*[[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 4]]
*[[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 5]]
</div>

==The Long Earth==
I've finally gotten around to listening/reading [[Book:The Long Earth|The Long Earth]] series. Loving the concept! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 17:07, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
: This series was amazing! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

==Taking leave ==
I'll be off buying cigars and incommunicado next week. Somebody might pull an extra shift on watch. Hasta luego! --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
:will do what I can.... how long are you visiting [[Sumtri]] for? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 19:10, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Hola! I'm back. Stuff seems to have been done. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:13, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

==Namespaces==
The new page [[Book:The Rince Cycle]] points out a need for one or more namespaces for works that aren't Books or Short Stories, unless I'm missing something: this one's a playscript but there are other things. Discuss. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:59, 11 February 2015 (UTC) 
(''copied from Talk:Book:The Rince Cycle''): 
:Well, we've done LP records, CD's, TV adaptations, computer games..... and the playscripts are listed in the biography and all appear to be redlinked, as if the option is there to create articles.... I'd say why not? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 18:55, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Why indeed, but the question is how to define a namespace (or what to call it). It could be Peripherals: as the category, but shorter would be better. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 22:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

: '''Misc''' --[[User:Thnidu|Thnidu]] ([[User talk:Thnidu|talk]]) 17:57, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

==Mirabile Dictu==
Chaffinch's [[Ancient and Classical Mythology]] is now the fourth most popular page here. Huh? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

:I'm wondering if people looking for ''Bulfinch's Ancient and Classical'' are getting their ornithology wrong on a Google search; they can vaguely remember the guy they're looking for is ''some'' sort of finch but not which exact kind. I hang around on Yahoo Answers now and again just for fun and to do some corrective trolling. it's amazing how many disinterested schoolchildren put up please for people to do their homework for them when they can't be bothered to do their own research, and to be honest, a lot of them are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. I have a lovely picture in my head of a fairly dense American schoolchild being told to look up Greek mythology, steered to look for Mr Bulfinch, who gets it wrong and ends up on our wiki instead. Thus ending up writing about Blind Io, Petunia, Offler, Epidity, Bissonomy and the rest of the Dunmanifestin gang. Then confidently handing it in.... [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 11:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The [[Special:Popularpages|statistics]] continue to boggle my mind. The main page approaches 3.5 million views, up a million since the New Year. The popularity ranking of views for individual pages may be obvious or wildly unlikely. At the end of 2014 I put up a short history of the wiki to fill in the "About" page. Who looks at the "About" page? They may reach 10,000 by the end of February! [[Lies-To-Children]] is more popular than [[Ankh-Morpork]]! [[Ptraci]] and [[Pseudopolis]] don't make the top 500. [[Ankh]] languishes at 2630th...Wot's it all abaht, then? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I also cannot help but notice that new pages I started, to fill in gaps about obscure or very minor characters and situations/ places, went from 0 views to well over 600 within hours of posting. In my experience a brand-new page tends to get 8-20 hits in the first few days, I guess from regulars looking at it out of curiosity. But 644? Something odd is happening. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 22:57, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

:Think bots! Remember just because spammers now find it difficult to post here it doesn't mean we don't still get scanned. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 13:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

==Possible Outage==
I've asked the cabal to make a DNS change. This should be transparent to you guys but there was a small unplanned outage last time we made a change. This change will let me cut my hosting costs by about a third so that's a good thing. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
: Never noticed. Glad to hear the financial burden is reduced. I'm still hoping to get together with my son-in-law the interweb marketing wallah to discuss revenue possibilities. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:32, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
::They apparently haven't made the change yet. But once they do this won't be a big deal to afford. I'd over engineered to begin with but now it's only costing about $25/month. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 13:10, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

=='''Thursday, March 12, 2015'''==
What are we supposed to write today? A good journalist (like Terry Pratchett) would suck it up and write a thousand words of inspiring prose and biographical notes. I'm not that good; I'm too depressed. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 20:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
:It was just so sudden...--[[User:Zdm|Zdm]] ([[User talk:Zdm|talk]]) 20:40, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
::I have, on occasion, thought about how terrible it would be to wake up one day to the news that Sir Pterry had died, but actually waking up to the news was shocking and a very different thing. I don't know what there is to say or write here beyond what has already been said by countless others... [[User:TC01|TC01]] ([[User talk:TC01|talk]])

[https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/2yt9j6/gnu_terry_pratchett/cpcvz46 A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.] [[User:TC01|TC01]] ([[User talk:TC01|talk]]) 02:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
:That is brilliant. Thanks for help making me smile on such a sad day.--[[User:Zdm|Zdm]] ([[User talk:Zdm|talk]]) 03:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Copied from my FB page.
On the death of Sir Terry Pratchett, first thoughts. Having spent a lot of time trying to turn other people on to Terry and his writings and having gifted some of the most intelligent people I know copies of the books with notes attached saying "read this, you'll like it.".

Still feeling very sad as if a lot of colour has drained out of the world. Like many others, thinking he would "diminish" over a period of quite a few years. Sadly, the "diminishing" process appeared evident in his last few published books, as if he was, perhaps, creating a broad outline, filling in such detail as he could, but others (Rob Williams? Rhianna?) were completing the books. The Discworld story in "Science of Discworld 4" read as if other people had written it - the authentic Pratchett voice was missing, there were continuity problems with other books, and it read like second-division fanfic. That is, it told a good story, but the Pratchett voice and tone either weren't there or only intruded in ocassional flashes of the old brilliance.

"Unseen Academicals" was... well, Terry was in there. But it read as if at least one other writer was in there too. As well as all the continuity glitches concerning well-established characters and callbacks to previous books. Not that it wasn't good, but it could have been better.

I guess the next stage is going to be like it was with Tolkein - they'll milk unpublished writing and fragments for all they're worth (although Terry did once say he wanted all the files and hard drives wiped when he died, so nobody could come along and use him as a PhD thesis in literature). right down to, what did "Private Eye" once "publish", "The JRR Tolkein Laundry Lists" , or equivalent of.... a terribly sad morning.

And Jeremy Clarkson and Jeffrey Archer are both still alive... (unsigned comment by [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 13 Mar 2015)

'''''“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away”''''' ({{RM}}) …(unsigned comment by [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 14 Mar 2015)
:So, some thinkers and writers born more than two thousand years ago are not reslly "dead", let alone Chaucer, Shakespeare or Swift. This compels us to continue the wiki for a few hundred years, at least, in whatever form advancing technology dictates. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:11, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
::Absolutely! We're just lucky enough to have been around during his lifetime, to have enjoyed the books as they came out and be the ones to help keep the ball rolling, rather than having to look back in time to enjoy his works. I remember thinking, when first hearing that phrase, of the Ancient Egyptian philosophy which follows much the same lines (that memory grants immortality) - and still, ''well'' over 2000 years on we know so much of them, and they lacked the modern printing press, globalisation and internet we have now.
:: Besides, theres no reason why there might not be many further additions to make in future, especially if his daughter continues the series or if Narrativia manage to make more films or the rumored TV series [Mind drifts to Douglas Adams whose film of Hitchhikers Guide only managed to be progressed upon after his unfortunate passing].--[[User:GallifreyanWitch|Verity]] ([[User talk:GallifreyanWitch|talk]]) 17:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

just re-read [[Book:A Slip of the Keyboard]]. There's a bit where Terry relates a near-Death-experience he had on the operating table during what might have been a routine op to insert arterial stents. Apparently the surgeons had "fun and games" when a major artery started to spurt. This wasn't helped by Terry sitting up on the operating table and addressing an invisible presence, who apparently was {{death|offering him sandwiches}}. Did this make its way into the ham sandwich scene in {{W}}. and were sandwiches offered on a recent occasion? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 23:03, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

A book I haven't gotten to myself and not well described in the wiki. I had no tendency to hallucinations when I got my stents (even the big one) and {{Death|death didn't seem interested}}.--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:22, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

== ==
I do miss the User Merge and Delete. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:25, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

==Aaand, we're back!==
These short naps are great. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

==Milestone==
Somewhere in the next couple of months will be this wiki's tenth anniversary. The history being lost and uncertain anyway, in those days, it may be hard to pin down a date. I must ask [[User:Death|Death]] if he can recall or look up a day. Any other recollections? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:18, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

==clacks-overhead:GNU Terry Pratchett==
I don't log on here very often, but ... Today I was starting to create a page about [http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/ GNU Terry Pratchett], when I realized it should probably go in a non-canon namespace, such as "Meta" if there were one. This is as far as I got on it:

:After the death of his son [[John Dearheart|John]] while repairing a [[clacks]] tower, [[Robert Dearheart]], the inventor of the clacks system, arranged to [[John Dearheart#After his death|keep his name running continuously on the clacks]]. ''So as the name "John Dearheart" keeps going up and down the line, this tradition applies a kind of immortality as "a man is not dead while his name is still spoken".''

Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum

2015-06-13T17:57:29Z

Thnidu: /* Namespaces */

Clacks

2015-06-13T17:38:28Z

Thnidu: /* Workforce */ link to def of "calenture"; minor fixes

'''''The Clacks''''' is the informal nickname for the semaphore system that is the fastest means of non-magical communication on the [[Discworld]]. It was first seen in {{T5E}}, and featured heavily in {{GP}}. The system was invented by [[Robert Dearheart]], and later run by the [[Grand Trunk Semaphore Company]].

==Construction==
[[Image:ClacksTower181.jpg|200px|left]]
The machinery consists of a series of towers, each of which contains a grid of eight shutters, double for particularly busy towers. By opening and closing these shutters, very complex messages can be coded and sent long distances - it is even possible to send colour pictures.

The towers are approximately 150 feet tall and eight miles apart. In dangerous areas of Überwald and other places, the bottom of each one is a twenty-foot-high stone building with reinforced windows and doors, providing security and accommodation for the operators.

The original machinery has been improved upon by the use of clockwork and punch cards known as [[jacquards]]. [[John Dearheart]], son of founder Robert, kept tweaking the design of the tower he worked in, making a tower that was easier to construct, improving wind resistance and the shutter systems, harnessing wind power and adding coloured lights. These enhancements may or may not have been passed on to the rest of the Grand Trunk, however by the time of {{RS}} 'new augmented colour shutter boxes' were in use after dark. In {{MM}}, [[Moist von Lipwig]] mentions treadmills powered by donkeys, and suggests that they be replaced with [[Golem|Golems]].

==The Grand Trunk==
The Grand Trunk was the name for the main system of towers that ran from [[Ankh-Morpork]] to [[Genua]], via [[Überwald]] and [[Borogravia]]. The towers in the wilder parts of the continent were typically fortified. Ankh-Morpork would go to war against any country who threatened the traffic on the Grand Trunk, which it did in {{MR}}. More accurately (as Ankh-Morpork has not had an army in living memory), they went ''to'' the war and explained to the combatants that it would be very bad for their commerce and industry to threaten the Clacks.

Unfortunately, the pioneers who invented it were not as good at running a business as they were at engineering, and were bought out using embezzled money. The Grand Trunk came under the control of the corrupt [[Reacher Gilt]]. The new company eliminated the daily maintenance time (the Hour of the Dead), resulting in the Clacks often being down for longer periods for the inevitable major repairs.

By the end of {{GP}}, Lord [[Vetinari]] had intervened following exposure of the Company's crimes. As of {{RS}}, [[Adora Belle Dearheart]] is now Managing Director and CEO of the Company, possibly a factor enabling her and Moist to start married life as residents of [[Scoone Avenue]]. Adora proves to be a ''very'' hands-on CEO.

Several companies and organisations in [[Ankh-Morpork]] have their own towers and "c-mail" addresses, including the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch]], [[We-R-Igors]] and [[Unseen University]]. The latter's semaphore tower is linked up to [[Hex]], effectively creating the Discworld's first modem. Companies typically use their own codes in addition to the Grand Trunk's own.

==Workforce==
The shutter machinery is generally operated by humans, including children, something that the GTCS were willing to overlook due to the kids not drawing wages. Sometimes [[Gargoyles]] are hired as clacks monitors in the city, because of their ability to sit patiently on rooftops. Clacks operators typically tend to be single-minded to the point of obsession. Sometimes it all gets too much for them (particularly if they spend too long in the sun), and a condition like '[http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cal4.htm calenture]' sets in - measures were put in place to reduce the number of workers who suddenly thought they could fly.

Just recently, large numbers of [[Goblins]] have been taken on as clacks operators. They have an amazing talent for reading and coding despite having no tradition of written language, and their small size is handy in the cramped towers and among the machinery. Their presence has assisted the clacks in becoming 'more accurate and streamlined than ever before', being able to identify subtle shade differences in the colour shutter boxes now in use far more accurately than humans. Goblins show great enthusiasm for this work, enjoying the coding and deciphering, working day and night where possible, stopping only when sleep becomes a necessity (and even then sleeping in the clacks towers) or when the lady troll with the rat trolley brings around food. Late at night Goblins chat with other Goblins via the clacks.

==Attacks==
As with our world's Internet, the new system has brought new types of crime with it. Hacking (i.e. breaking into a semaphore tower) arose fairly quickly, but this form of computer crime was dealt with by the simple expedient of arming the tower operators.1 [[The Smoking Gnu]] discovered that certain codes could disrupt and damage the delicate machinery, something they often did in protest of the policies of the [[Grand Trunk Semaphore Company]]. This kind of attack is known as [[Crackers|"cracking"]]. The wizards have also used Hex in this kind of crime, as it was easily able to crack the codes to make a message appear to have been sent by a guild or even the company's internal network itself.

1 In the events of {{RS}}, we find the [[Dark Guards|Delvers]] of the reactionary [[Grag]]s attacking and burning the towers again, attempting to prevent advancing modernity and enlightenment.

==Other Semaphores==
During the events of {{MR}}, [[Borogravia]]'s [[Tenth Foot]] regiment chance across some [[Zlobenia|Zlobenian]] troops using a light semaphore. Lt. Blouse calls it a "light clacks", although it's a simpler device more closely related to the {{wp|Aldis lamp|Aldis lamp}} or {{wp|heliograph|heliograph}}. A mobile device designed for communicating silently over distance, it consists of a five-foot-long tube to be balanced on the shoulder, with a stovepiped box on the back (perhaps containing a [[Salamander]]; [[Blouse]] suggests a "firework thingy"). There was also a brief fad for portable semaphore sets, but these have not appeared since their mention in the [[Book:Discworld Thieves' Guild Yearbook and Diary 2002|Thieves' Guild Yearbook]]. The Watch has experimented with semaphore helmets, with limited success, and once used white paddles to send a message to the Watch House.

==Roundworld Counterpart==
The real-world counterpart of the Clacks was known as the optical telegraph or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line Semaphore Line]. Invented in the late 18th century and operated into the early 19th century before being made obsolete by electrical telegraphy, semaphore lines were used by the governments of France, Britain, and other European countries to convey vital information more rapidly than horseback riders could. Semaphore lines could only send about two words a minute, and were thus much less efficient than those of Discworld.
Another comparison is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliograph Heliograph].

==Annotation==
The Internet Engineering Task Force has published [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4824 RFC 4824], a method for The Transmission of IP Datagrams over the Semaphore Flag Signaling System (SFSS), in 2007.

[[Category:Devices]]
[[Category:Discworld concepts]]
[[de:Semaphoren]]

Sacharissa Cripslock

2015-03-13T05:22:20Z

Thnidu: spelling

{{Character Data
|title=Sacharissa Cripslock
|photo=scoopmine.jpg|Sacharissa Cripslock, as drawn by [[User:darkplush|Kit Cox]]
|name=Sacharissa Cripslock
|age=Twenty-something
|race=Human
|occupation=Journalist
|appearance=Buxom, attractive young lady
|residence=[[Ankh-Morpork]]
|death=
|parents=Mr Cripslock, engraver
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status= married, spouse unknown
|books={{TT}}
|cameos={{GP}} {{MM}} {{ISWM}}
}}

The Discworld's very own [[wikipedia:Lois Lane|Lois Lane]], '''Sacharissa Cripslock''' is the granddaughter of the [[Engravers' Guild|engraver]] formerly employed by [[William de Worde]] to make copies of his newsletter. She confronts him angrily when he starts printing his newsletter with [[Gunilla Goodmountain]], threatening her grandfather's livelihood.

She is described as eclectically attractive insofar as facial features are concerned: various aspects of her face would have had differing appeal over the centuries and went in and out of fashion. However, certain bodily features never go out of style and she is quite well-endowed in that respect.

Sacharissa strives for Respectability – however she suffers from misplaced assumptions on what exactly constitutes Respectability. She takes most of her cues from previous centuries, and believes that correct mannerisms are an adequate substitute for good manners. Either way it is a difficult task for one with her figure, which she tries to conceal with old-fashioned dresses (to no avail). When provoked, she can also fire out [[-ing]]'s in the same indiscriminate way [[Detritus]] fires his [[Piecemaker]].

She ends up becoming a reporter with the new ''[[Ankh-Morpork Times]]'', where she shows considerable talent as a journalist with a nose for news and a knack of creating snappy headlines. Unlike most citizens of [[Ankh-Morpork]], she does not wield a pen like a carving knife, and has a firm grasp on the idea of punctuation. In addition, thanks to her physical qualities, various young men from all walks of life tend to come to her with various titbits which she can put into the paper.

In {{GP}}, she wears a wedding ring: it is more than likely that she married William, who was quite taken with her in {{TT}}, eventually getting up the courage to ask her to lunch... before the hungry press intervened! Despite being married, she still refers to herself as ''Miss'', which [[Moist von Lipwig]] surmises upon first meeting her means that she has Views. In {{RS}}, a footnote on page 123 explicitly refers to "Mr de Worde and wife". However, the reference does not elaborate as to ''whom''. The lack of emphasis upon a romance between William and Sacharissa may reflect on their own reluctance to publicize their private lives (perhaps with good cause in William's case!). Or, it may just be another example of Pratchett's relaxed attitude towards the traditional narrative, in which the main characters' romance would certainly take center stage. Pratchett characters frequently marry; far less frequently is a Big Deal made over the nuptials, provided a dragon doesn't show up.

==External links==
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_characters#Sacharissa_Cripslock Sacharissa Cripslock] on Wikipedia

The role was played by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamsin_Greig Tamsin Greig] in the TV adaptation of {{GP}}.

[[Category:Discworld characters|Cripslock,Sacharissa]]
[[Category:Human characters|Cripslock,Sacharissa]]
[[Category:Serial characters|Cripslock,Sacharissa]]
[[de:Sacharissa Kratzgut]]

Unseen University

2014-11-15T04:51:53Z

Thnidu: /* Former Archchancellors */

{{Building Data
|photo=UU01.png|coat of arms|100px|
|name= Unseen University
|location= [[Ankh-Morpork]]
|owner=
|apperance=
|residents= [[Wizards]]
|use= University
|built= 1282 AM ([[1 UC]])
|founded by= [[Albert|Alberto Malich the Wise]]
|demolished=
|books= {{TCOM}} {{TLF}} {{ER}} {{M}} {{S}} {{E}} {{MP}} {{RM}} {{SM}} {{IT}} {{H}} {{TLC}} {{TT}} {{TOT}} {{GP}} {{UA}}
|notes= Motto: ''NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES'' (now you see it, now you don't)
}}

''"Unseen University, home of the greatest wizards on the Discworld. And one or two of the worst."''

The '''Unseen University''' (UU) is a school for [[Wizards|wizards]] located in [[Ankh-Morpork]]. It was founded in the year 1282 AM ([[1 UC]]) by [[Albert|Alberto Malich the Wise]].

==The Place==
The Unseen University has gates of [[octiron]], and single-minded [[Bledlows]] to perform the Ceremony of the Keys every night. The University has an octagonal lawn, roses, other plants, and compost heaps tended by Mr. [[Modo]], the university's dwarf gardener. The buildings are of ancient stone, and contain many dark, winding corridors and small rooms, far more than the size of the grounds should allow. The unusual architecture of the building suggests that the top storeys and roof were built before the ground floors. Inside the University is the [[Great Hall]], where the Wizard's four main meals of the day are eaten. Also noteworthy are the hundreds of paintings and busts of former [[Archchancellor|Archchancellors]] that line the vestibule just outside the Great Hall. Other notable features are the [[Uncommon Room]], the staffroom of the Faculty (see below); the gymnasium (which is for students to practise spells, not exercise, and - as such - is lined and protected ''very'' powerfully); the [[Emperor]] candle and the [[Tesseractical Floor|Tesseractical floor]].

The grounds are enclosed in brick walls, but there are some places where bricks can be removed to offer convenient footholds for young and reasonably athletic students to climb over. The more famous buildings are: The [[Tower of Art]], the [[Library]], and the [[High Energy Magic Building]].

[[Old Tom]] is the University's bell and it is made of octiron. Every hour this bell chimes heavy silences which render all sounds inaudible. Sometimes Old Tom also rings during incidents involving a massive amount of magic, making verbal communication very difficult during the emergency.

The [[Unreal Estate]] is an area outside of the University walls. The area used to be the University's dumpster, and the magic contamination has until recently made the ground unusable for any housing or farming. However, part of this area has since been developed into the [[Thaumatological Park]]. This serves two purposes: it earns money for the University by selling commercially useful by-products of research magic such as the [[Dis-organiser]], and it keeps young wizards trained by [[Ponder Stibbons]] usefully occupied after graduation, otherwise there's no telling what minds like those would find to do. As the area is still inherently dangerous, a ''really'' cynical senior wizard might reflect that it could even thin their numbers out a bit, which is no bad thing...

The University is unbelievably rich. This comes from the rents of [[Sator Square]], the [[Plaza of Broken Moons]], magical services throughout the city and the classrooms that are rented out for various uses. Much more recently there has been the money made from the Thaumatological Park. Additionally, the University doesn't spend much, on food especially. People donate food regularly to the place, on the basis that if there were a lot of daft old men living on enough magic to rip a hole in two realities near ''you'', you'd want them to be too full to move as well.

==The People==
For many centuries, the wizards in Unseen University vied for the top position, the Archchancellor. The wizards were also in eight orders, each wizard fighting for the higher positions in the order, and fighting off other orders. (For more on in-fighting of wizards, see also the article [[Wizard's magic]].) After the coming of Archchancellor Ridcully, the power structure stabilized because nobody is able to murder Ridcully. The fighting changed from magical and murderous to quarrels and minor insults between faculty members. Everybody is able to come down alive and have a big dinner in relative calm, (unless the Bursar is insane for the moment or there is major magical disturbance in the vicinity.) There are many, many faculty members who are wizards who specialize in particular studies, drawing no salary, living at the ends of obscure corridors, unknown and unseen by others except at meals or when the more important wizards require the specialized wizards for some reason. Few faculty members like to teach. They have virtual lectures in a classroom, ([[Room 3b]]) that does not exist, a happy arrangement mutually understood and respected by [[Faculty]] and [[students]] alike. The other lecture theatre specifically mentioned in the chronicles is [[Room 5b]], which has its own woes in that Space and Time have come adrift from each other, and a lecturer walking in might discover he's already there and has started taking a class twenty minutes previously. Genuine lectures do happen at the University and are generally well-attended: refer to {{ER}}, where [[Eskarina Smith]] clandestinely attends the lectures by hiding underneath the tiered benches, and watching from behind a line of pointy boots. Student wizards do have to pass an exam, with an 88% pass mark, to obtain a Bachelor's degree. After that, a wizard may leave and find work, or stay and do more researches for advanced degrees.

All alumni of the UU have the right to wear a bronze octogram which symbolises their attendance at the school.

The faculty members listed below are well-known simply because they appear more often to the public and are there when the Archchancellor calls for meetings. These faculty members are not known for their lectures or the importance of their subjects. A hot subject, if such it may be called, is any technomancy under Ponder Stibbons's supervision, but in fact, his students are not more single-minded than other research students, and his department does not draw particularly many more students than other departments. Still, Mr. Stibbons's labs in the High Energy Building are often helpful to the Archchancellor in these modern times.

===The Top Faculty===
[[image:UUFaculty.jpg|350px|thumb|Left to right: The Chair, The Dean, The Librarian, The Archchancellor, Runes, The Bursar, Ponder Stibbons, The Senior Wrangler and Rincew.... oh he's, er, gone.]]
*The [[Archchancellor]] ([[Mustrum Ridcully]]),
*The [[Bursar]] (A. A. Dinwiddie)
*The [[Dean]] (Henry Porter)
Note:As of ''Unseen Academicals'' "The Dean" is now Archchancellor of [[Brazeneck College]]
*The [[Senior Wrangler]] (Horace)
*The [[Chair of Indefinite Studies]]
*The [[Lecturer in Recent Runes]]
*The [[Librarian]], (an orangutan, previously Human Horace Worblehat)
*The Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic ([[Ponder Stibbons]])
*The [[Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography]] ([[Rincewind]])
*The [[Department of Post-Mortem Communications|Head of the Department of Post-Mortem Communications]] (Dr [[John Hicks]])

*[[Hex]], the University's thinking-engine, although nominally a campus resource, functions as a ''de facto'' member of the top faculty

===Other Members of the Teaching Staff (in alphabetical order)===
*Master of the Music (Professor Ritornello)
*The [[Chair for the Public Misunderstanding of Magic]]
*The [[Dean of Liberal Studies]]
*The [[Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage]]
*The [[Lecturer in Applied Astrology]]
*The [[The Lecturer in Approximate Accuracy|Lecturer in Approximate Accuracy]]
*The [[Lecturer in Creative Uncertainty]]
*The [[Professor of Applied Anthropics]]
*The [[Professor of Astrology]]
*The Professor of Dust, Miscellaneous Particles and Filaments
*The [[Professor of Extreme Horticulture]]
*The [[Professor of Illiberal Studies]]
*The [[Professor of Logic]]
*The [[Posthumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy|''Posthumous'' Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy]]
*The [[Prehumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy|''Prehumous'' Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy]]
*The [[Professor of Natural Studies]]
*The Professor of Ornithology
*The [[Professor of Recondite Architecture and Origami Map Folding‎]]
*The [[Professor of Recondite Phenomena]]
*The [[Professor of Slood Dynamics]]
*The [[The Professor of Virtual Anthropology|Professor of Virtual Anthropology]]
*The [[Reader in Esoteric Studies]]
*The [[Reader in Woolly Thinking]]

===The Staff===
*[[Modo]], Gardener
*Mrs. [[Whitlow]], head of housekeeping
*The [[Bledlows]], the UU's policemen, nowadays basically the porters
**[[McAbre]], Head Bledlow
**[[Gelid]], Bledlow
**[[Alphonse Nobbs]] (no relation), Bledlow
**[[Frankly Ottomy]], Bledlow
*[[Glenda Sugarbean]], head of the [[Night Kitchen]]
**[[Juliet Stollop]], one of Ms Sugarbean's workers
**Mrs. May Hedges, Night Kitchen cheeseboards
**Mildred & Rachel, Night Kitchen vegetable women
* [[Ksandra]], hapless undermaid
*The [[Candle Knave]], Mr [[Natchbull Smeems|Smeems]]
*The [[Candle Dribbler|Candle Dribblers]] of [[The Vats|the Vats]]
*Mr. [[Downbody]], one of the servants in the [[Uncommon Room]]
*Mr [[Blunk]], the coal porter

===Former Faculty & Staff===
* [[Windle Poons]], wizard (deceased).
* [[Evans the Striped]], sports master (deceased).
*[[Brother Fingers]] once worked as an odd-job man at UU.
*[[Inspector Lewton]] briefly hired on as a dormitory bedmaker in [[Discworld Noir]], but only as a ruse to snoop around the campus.
* Dr. [[Fettle Dodgast]], age 132 when interviewed in {{TT}}, most likely belongs among the ''former'', not current, faculty by now.
* Dr [[Sensibility Bustle]], DM, Phil, B.EI L, Patricius Professor of Magic, linguistics expert and hiver researcher (deceased).
* Professor H.F. Pullunder (Doctor Erratamus) is mentioned by Ponder while reading the Book of Traditions. No one recognizes the name.
* Dr. Earwig retired to get married to a witch, now Mrs. [[Letice Earwig]].
* Dr. Housemartin left UU for medical reasons (a bad case of work-related frogs).
* Professor Maidenhair transferred to Genua, possibly in hopes that people there wouldn't laugh at his name.

===Former Archchancellors===
*[[Albert|Alberto Malich]] – founder
*Archchancellor [[Bewdley]] – according to his commemorative statue, disliked Ankh-Morpork intensely. According to {{TLC}}, a magical hole opened in his left boot.
*Archchancellor "Trouter" Hopkins – his actual preserved body is in the great hall, in accordance with his will, in which he stated that he wanted his body to be pickled in alcohol posthumously.
*Archchancellor William Badger – a very unpopular man, whose likeness is on the University's drain covers.
*Archchancellor [[Galder Weatherwax]] – Archchancellor in {{TLF}}
*Archchancellor [[Cutangle]] – Archchancellor in {{ER}}
*Archchancellor-Elect [[Virrid Wayzygoose]] – an ''almost''-Archchancellor who died before his own inaugural dinner in {{S}}
*Archchancellor [[Ezrolith Churn]] – Archchancellor in {{E}}
*Archchancellor [[Buckleby]] – Apparently locked himself in his own wardrobe. Mentioned in {{H}}
*Archchancellor [[Spode]] – mentioned in {{H}} and instituted a rule about locking doors
*Archchancellor [[Sloman]] – mentioned in "A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices"; discovered the Special Theory of Slood
*Archchancellor [[Bowell]] – left an unusual bequest and has a vestibule named after him (see below)
*Archchancellor Preserved Bigger – left a substantial bequest with the requirement that UU play football at least once every 20 years.
*Archchancellor Abasti – The ever-changing stained glass window overlooking the Great Hall is dedicated to him.

==The Orders of Wizardry==
*[[Ancient and Truly Original Brothers of the Silver Star]]
*[[Ancient and Truly Original Sages of the Unbroken Circle]]
*[[Brotherhood of the Hoodwink]]
*[[Brothers of the Order of Midnight]]
*[[Sages of the Unknown Shadow]]
*[[Venerable Council of Seers]]
*[[Mrs Widgery's Lodgers]]
*[[The Last Order]]

==Terms==
There are eight terms, each one is roughly one week long, to minimise the time that the professers must spend teaching. However, the students continue to live and study on their own for the remainder of the year. The terms are called:
*Octinity
*Rotation
*Backspindle
*Hogswatch
*Evelyn
*Micklemote
*Candlerent
*Soul Cakes

==Unseen University Degrees==
These are the UU courses in magic and related topics. UU also offers lesser degrees in medicine, law, geology and so on, but lecturers are required to have at least one magical degree from UU before they are allowed to teach.

The full list can be [[UU degrees|found here]].

==Customs and traditions==
===Beating the Bounds===
Also known as "plunkers", this ceremony takes place each year at dawn on the 22nd of Grune. The entire faculty walks along the original boundaries of the University, walking through or if necessary over any buildings in the way of the original march route. Any nearby citizens are hit with live ferrets, and any red-headed men (except for one [[Carrot|Captain Ironfoundersson]]) are given a "plunking". Upon return to the University, breakfast is served, in which duck must be present.

In our world the beating of the bounds of Oxford takes place every Ascension day (changes every year but it is either May or June).

===Boy Archchancellor===
Occurring at around [[Hogswatch]], a first year student is selected to be the Archchancellor for the day. He has the full powers of Archchancellorship, and there is many a tale of him performing all manner of jokes and pranks on the most senior wizards. Because his life expectancy following this will almost certainly be brief, the boy chosen is normally the University's most unpopular student.

This is similar to the idea of a boy bishop, which is present in our world.

===The [[Convivium]]===
The Degrees ceremony, in which the [[Archchancellor]], University Council, eighth level wizards, masters and doctors proceed from the University to the [[Opera House]]. They are led by the Commander of the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|Watch]], or if there isn't one, then by a man carrying a pot of mustard and a quill. Foreign dignitaries, city officials and nobles are also invited to this ceremony, and upon arrival at the Opera House, the [[Patrician]] will present the graduates with their degrees.

===Gaudy Night===
This appears to be a follow up of the Convivium, and the new graduates attend a feast in the Great Hall of the University, making an even greater effort than usual to be the best dressed. The winner is thrown into the river by the losers.

This is an celebration dinner at Oxford University, around which the novel ''Gaudy Night'' by Dorothy L. Sayers is based.

===Head of the River===
Because of the difficulty of rowing on the river, teams of eight wizards will carry the racing skiffs and run from the University boathouse to the Brass Bridge. The course is known as the "Bumps", and the winning team is awarded a "Brown" (a new pair of brown boots to replace the ones that will by now have been effectively disintegrated). They are now referred to as "Head of the River". One past winner of this race is the current Archchancellor, [[Mustrum Ridcully|Mustrum Ridcully the Brown]].

===May Morning===
Every May Day Dawn, the University choir sing from the top of the [[Tower of Art]] to the rest of the faculty, assembled below. Although the anthem cannot be heard, the Tower of Art being 800 feet high, the listeners still clap after five minutes, the length of time taken to sing the anthem.

===The Poor Scholars===
This harks back to the founding days of the University, when young, but poor men with magical talent were accepted into the universities. However, there was no accommodation space for them, so they lived in lean-tos against the walls of the [[Tower of Art]]. As a recognition of their determination, the faculty would throw food down to (or at) the poor scholars. Now, this ceremony takes place once a year, and the students gather in [[Sator Square]], where the faculty throw stale bread rolls at them as hard as they can.

===Rag week===
This is the entire backspindle term. On this week, the wizards are let loose on Ankh-Morpork. Activities include the Short Street Climb, in which the wizards climb sideways across the streets. Some fail to reach the end, and fall into the [[the Mended Drum]]. Another custom is tobogganing, in which the wizards go up to the Tower of Art on teatrays, and then toboggan back down. It must be noted that for this to happen, the involved students must have consumed a large amount of alcohol.

===Scrawn Money===
Also known as "Archchancellor Scrawn's bequest", this rather dated ceremony requires all those who live on University property to assemble in Sator Square, where they are given two pennies, a pair of socks, and a loaf of day-old bread each. They are then allowed to watch the wizards eat lunch.

==='Sity and Guilds===
Due to the rivalry induced violence between students of the various [[guilds]] and the university, it was decided to channel the rivalries into an annual sporting match, similar to football or rugby. The "playing field" was from [[The Shades]] to the Tower of Art. Goals are scored by kicking the ball through the door or window of a pub, and the scoring team had to get drinks bought by the other teams. Only one goal per pub was allowed due to the length of some games that had not benefited from this rule. It appears that the Unseen University has not participated in this for some time now.

===The Wizards' Excuse Me===
A large dance at the end of the Backspindle term, to which the city nobles are also invited. There are two bands and a giant buffet with three dozen kinds of meat.

=== Archchancellor [[Bowell]]'s Remembrance's bun and penny ===
An extant bequest pays for one small currant bun and one copper penny to be placed on a high stone shelf on one wall of this vestibule (circular hall) every second Wednesday. No one knows why this is done, or even why the vestibule is named [[Archchancellor Bowell's Remembrance]] ({{H}})

===The Hunting of the Megapode===
A veritable heyhoe-rumbledown as all fellows pursue the [[Megapode]] through the college buildings with much mirth and good spirits.

===Archchancellor Preserved Bigger's Bequest, or Poore Boys Funne===

The Bigger's Bequest is a very large fund. Monies from the interest on the fund cover approximately 87.4% of the college food bill. It does however carry conditions, in order for the UU to have access to these funds they must play [[Football]] at least once every twenty years.
Food is ''important'' to the modern wizard: the University appears to be regualted as tightly as any ship at sea by its [[Unseen University Mealtimes|mealtimes]], which happen at approximately two-hour intervals throughout the day and night, like the ship's bells that tell sailors what watch they're on. Therefore while there is much grumbling and reluctance, the vital necessity to play football is acknowledged in {{UA}}.

==Flora and Fauna==
The grounds are closed and heavily contaminated with magic, so a special ecosystem has evolved within Unseen University, with many wondrous creatures not found elsewhere, and many highly intelligent and civilized varieties of common house pests. These include:
*[[.303 Bookworm]] in the Library.
*Ants; some pull carts, some ride on beetles. One time, a clan of ants built a sugar pyramid for the mummy of a deceased queen (on the walls the true secret of longevity was inscribed, but it was lost when it was washed out).
*Bedbugs in Rincewind's mattress, smart enough to take the mattress with them when they feel they need to flee the University.
*Cockroaches; billions of them can march with their steps perfectly in time.
*[[Critters]] in the Library.
* Escaped demons in the cellar.
*Flying insects (including bees) who are not only capable of leaving a room by the window through which they entered, they can unerringly pick out a tiny hole in the glass no larger than a small coin, and enter and leave via this aperture.
*{{wp|Marmosets|Marmosets}} were planned to be used by a previous Archchancellor in order to communicate throughout the university (a piped system).
*[[Rats]] who seem to understand human speech. Some have moved to under the [[Patrician's Palace]] and sometimes serve the Patrician, Lord [[Havelock Vetinari]].
*Owls - [[Book:The Ankh-Morpork Post Office Handbook & Diary 2007|The Ankh-Morpork Post Office Handbook & Diary]] notes that there are a large population of owls living in the upper attics of UU. The wizards did once try and use the owls are an internal postal-service to deliver the letters and memos. However these were very intelligent birds, and saw the letters an an easily obtainable source of nesting material. The letters had to be retrieved from owls and stamped 'defected on by owls' (although most people can see this when they get it).
*[[Quoth|Ravens]] talk and are very inquisitive, but not very bright.
*[[Swear-Words]], cussed into being by Ridcully during a time of great magical potential.

:These creatures can be found in: {{ER}}, {{S}}, {{G!G!}}, {{RM}} and {{NW}}.

[[Gargoyles]] - There are a large colony of gargoyles covering much of the ancient buildings of the Unseen University. The first appear in {{ER}}. In wet weather they delight in spitting the water over passing students. In the event of a serious storm however, they have been known to leave the walls and hide under the attics, holding 'that just because your are ugly, doesn't mean you have to be stupid'. In {{S}} the entire gargoyle population abandoned UU, descending to ground level and fleeing across the immaculate grass lawns, sensing the approach of the [[Coin|Sourcerer]].

The University still dumps magical rubbish carelessly in the back alleys of [[Ankh-Morpork]]. The eating of magical rubbish led to the rise of the [[Rats|rat]] Clan, composed of rats not only intelligent but also fluent in human speech. These rats are important characters in ''[[Book:The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents|The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents]]''.

[[Gaspode]], the thinking-brain dog for the [[Canting Crew]], may also have got his thinking abilities and human speech from eating Unseen's rubbish (or, as he says in {{MAA}}, by sleeping next to the High Energy Magic Building), dumped by time-honoured custom in the [[Unreal Estate]]. (Details in {{MP}} and {{MAA}}). This was certainly the case for [[The Amazing Maurice]], an otherwise bright feral tomcat who, before eating Unseen's rubbish at one step removed, was scratching a bare living on the margins, but then got a Big Idea.

[[Schleppel]], a boogeyman, was invited to move into the University's cellars after the events of {{RM}}, and happily looked forward to preying on its various wildlife. It is uncertain how he may have fitted into its curious ecology.

==Annotation==
The name of the Unseen University probably comes from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_College Invisible College]

[[de:Unsichtbare Universität]]
[[Category:Locations]]
[[Category:Ankh-Morpork Businesses]]

Thlabber

2014-11-15T04:21:18Z

Thnidu:

This is a recognised scientific term used by [[Wizard's magic|wizards]] to describe the precise instant during any magical transformation where, after a period of feeling elongated, stretched, altered, or reduced to a single point in the space-time continuinuinuum, things have just returned to normal and the subject is feeling the first hints of relief and disorientation.

Sometimes the thlabber moment is relatively benign, as when [[Moist von Lipwig]] is subjected to an experimental spell at [[Unseen University]] to match him up with the correct library book for his needs. (He got ''[[The History of Hats]]''.)

Sometimes, it describes the sort of feeling [[Angua von Überwald]] must have on a Bad Hair Day when things have resolved themselves, and she has just morphed into either wolf or human form.

[[Category:Discworld concepts]]

Ladislav Pelc

2014-11-15T04:14:58Z

Thnidu: /* Annotation */ English corrections

Ladislav Pelc is the current [[Prehumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy]]. He is unusual for a wizard in that he has no beard of his own but wears a false beard when in public. He resides in a small office in the [[Unseen University]] where he is currently working on a device to identify the reading needs of all visitors to the Library.

==Annotation==

This character is named after a real person. In 2002, a flood destroyed Divadlo v Dlouhé, a theater in Prague, Czech Republic, which plays dramatizations of Terry Pratchett's novels. Terry Pratchett then suggested a benefit auction for reconstruction of the theater and Ladislav Pelc donated the highest sum in the auction.

[[Category:Wizards|Pelc,Ladislav]]
[[Category:Discworld characters|Pelc,Ladislav]]
[[de:Ladislav Pelc]]

Wen the Eternally Surprised

2014-02-07T06:04:05Z

Thnidu: /* Annotation */ mark rising tone on ''wén'' and add the character, cites for translations

{{Character Data
|title= Wen
|photo=
|name= Wen the Eternally Surprised
|age= Difficult to tell, but born thousands of years ago
|race= [[Human]]

|occupation= Founder of the [[History Monks|Order of Wen]]
|appearance= Bald young man

|residence= [[Glass House|Glass Palace]]

|death= Practically immortal as he is not affected by time
|parents=
|relatives=
|children= [[Lobsang Ludd]] and [[Jeremy Clockson]]
|marital status= married to the (previous - and female) personification of [[Time]]

|books= ''[[Book:Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]''
|cameos=
}}

Founder of the Order of Wen, also known as the [[History Monks]], and married to the original [[anthropomorphic personification]] of [[Time]]. Their son [[Lobsang Ludd|Lobsang]] is the current (if such a word can be used in this context) Time.

Wen has the appearance of a bald and fairly surprised young man, who looks as if he has been around a very long time. He is the author of the Scrolls of Wen, where he recounts his discovery of the nature of Time and how he manipulates time. And a love poem.

As a youngish man who had devoted his life to understanding time (somewhat like an early astrophysicist), he actually met the avataristic incarnation of time, who looked - to him - like a young, dark-haired woman. However, as these anthropomorphic personifications can assume any form they desire (witness no-one recognising [[Death]] unless he wishes them to), it is unwise to assume that his lover was female - or in fact human-shaped.

For lovers they became, and Time took Wen from his newly-founded monastery wherein the secrets of the manipulation of time (and, incidentally, how to kick people so hard their kidneys came out of their noses) had started to be distilled and passed on to novices, and away to her [[Glass House|Glass Palace]] beyond space and time.

His first novice was [[Clodpool]], a particularly lack-witted apprentice, but a fortunate creature indeed, to whom fell the task of running after his Master and who was blessed by being the first to receive the wisdom of Wen.

For all his great age (living outside time, Wen may have existed for trillennia), he was still quantifiably human (and male) when the time came for his child to be born. He approached [[Nanny Ogg]], who is probably the greatest midwife the Disc has ever known, on three separate occasions, one in her early witchhood, once in her middle years and once when she was the comfortable old baggage Discworld fans adore. On each occasion he pleaded with her that they didn't have much time, which was ridiculous because if he could manipulate his own appearances ''to'' her so easily, surely he could have returned ''with'' her to the Glass Palace before he'd even left, should he have so desired.

Be that as it may, Time was no great shakes herself on the calmness continuinuumum...um. She was so scared (all right - if she's giving birth perhaps we ''can'' assume she was female, for some value of "female") that she couldn't maintain a temporal position, and Wen had to sing little songs to her and babble in his outlandish tongue to soothe her. But the birth troubled her sorely. She had the child, then stuttered a little, time got messed up, and she gave birth again. One child - born twice. Not twins. As [[Nanny Ogg]] remarked later, "Twins is two souls born once each. Not one born twice."

As so often on the Disc it was left to a witch to sort it out. (Or more likely, the witch bullied and argued until she got her way.) The two children were left on the doorsteps of different guilds, and it is upon this premise that {{TOT}} builds its story.

As a reward for her services, Wen gave Nanny a fancy egg-timer (a miniature [[life-timer]] such as Death cares for in his great library) with the words '''Tempus Redux''' carven upon it. In the Ancient Latatian tongue (as in Roundworld's Latin), this means ''Time Returned'' - a recompense for the few hours she helped. Vital to anybody, these hours may very well prove pivotal to another, as-yet-untold, Discworld plot - probably when [[Granny Weatherwax]] wants them used, as opposed to Nanny Ogg...

==Annotation==
''Wén'' (文) in Mandarin Chinese (a [[Roundworld]] tongue) means "culture; refined",[http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E6%96%87][http://en.bab.la/dictionary/chinese-english/%E6%96%87] but it is much more likely that his name is a [[pune]], or play on words, on the English word "When", meaning a fixed point in time.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Supporting characters]]
[[de:Ewig überraschter Wen]]

Wen the Eternally Surprised

2014-02-07T05:52:24Z

Thnidu: /* Annotation */ mark rising tone on ''wén'' and add the character

{{Character Data
|title= Wen
|photo=
|name= Wen the Eternally Surprised
|age= Difficult to tell, but born thousands of years ago
|race= [[Human]]

|occupation= Founder of the [[History Monks|Order of Wen]]
|appearance= Bald young man

|residence= [[Glass House|Glass Palace]]

|death= Practically immortal as he is not affected by time
|parents=
|relatives=
|children= [[Lobsang Ludd]] and [[Jeremy Clockson]]
|marital status= married to the (previous - and female) personification of [[Time]]

|books= ''[[Book:Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]''
|cameos=
}}

Founder of the Order of Wen, also known as the [[History Monks]], and married to the original [[anthropomorphic personification]] of [[Time]]. Their son [[Lobsang Ludd|Lobsang]] is the current (if such a word can be used in this context) Time.

Wen has the appearance of a bald and fairly surprised young man, who looks as if he has been around a very long time. He is the author of the Scrolls of Wen, where he recounts his discovery of the nature of Time and how he manipulates time. And a love poem.

As a youngish man who had devoted his life to understanding time (somewhat like an early astrophysicist), he actually met the avataristic incarnation of time, who looked - to him - like a young, dark-haired woman. However, as these anthropomorphic personifications can assume any form they desire (witness no-one recognising [[Death]] unless he wishes them to), it is unwise to assume that his lover was female - or in fact human-shaped.

For lovers they became, and Time took Wen from his newly-founded monastery wherein the secrets of the manipulation of time (and, incidentally, how to kick people so hard their kidneys came out of their noses) had started to be distilled and passed on to novices, and away to her [[Glass House|Glass Palace]] beyond space and time.

His first novice was [[Clodpool]], a particularly lack-witted apprentice, but a fortunate creature indeed, to whom fell the task of running after his Master and who was blessed by being the first to receive the wisdom of Wen.

For all his great age (living outside time, Wen may have existed for trillennia), he was still quantifiably human (and male) when the time came for his child to be born. He approached [[Nanny Ogg]], who is probably the greatest midwife the Disc has ever known, on three separate occasions, one in her early witchhood, once in her middle years and once when she was the comfortable old baggage Discworld fans adore. On each occasion he pleaded with her that they didn't have much time, which was ridiculous because if he could manipulate his own appearances ''to'' her so easily, surely he could have returned ''with'' her to the Glass Palace before he'd even left, should he have so desired.

Be that as it may, Time was no great shakes herself on the calmness continuinuumum...um. She was so scared (all right - if she's giving birth perhaps we ''can'' assume she was female, for some value of "female") that she couldn't maintain a temporal position, and Wen had to sing little songs to her and babble in his outlandish tongue to soothe her. But the birth troubled her sorely. She had the child, then stuttered a little, time got messed up, and she gave birth again. One child - born twice. Not twins. As [[Nanny Ogg]] remarked later, "Twins is two souls born once each. Not one born twice."

As so often on the Disc it was left to a witch to sort it out. (Or more likely, the witch bullied and argued until she got her way.) The two children were left on the doorsteps of different guilds, and it is upon this premise that {{TOT}} builds its story.

As a reward for her services, Wen gave Nanny a fancy egg-timer (a miniature [[life-timer]] such as Death cares for in his great library) with the words '''Tempus Redux''' carven upon it. In the Ancient Latatian tongue (as in Roundworld's Latin), this means ''Time Returned'' - a recompense for the few hours she helped. Vital to anybody, these hours may very well prove pivotal to another, as-yet-untold, Discworld plot - probably when [[Granny Weatherwax]] wants them used, as opposed to Nanny Ogg...

==Annotation==
''Wén'' in Mandarin Chinese (a [[Roundworld]] tongue) means "Cultured", but it is much more likely that his name is a [[pune]], or play on words, on the English word "When", meaning a fixed point in time.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Supporting characters]]
[[de:Ewig überraschter Wen]]

Orakh

2014-02-07T05:42:55Z

Thnidu: spelling

[[Orakh]] is an alcoholic beverage with a difference, made from cacti sap enlivened with fermented scorpion venom and maybe the most toxic alcoholic drink in the multiverse. It is favoured by certain desert tribes in [[Klatch]], in that it mitigates the effects of [[Klatchian Coffee]], which of course induces a state of [[knurd]]ness in the drinker.

Just as Highland whisky snobs will insist the only way to dilute whisky is to have separate glasses of Scotch and water and take alternate sips from each, the serious Klatchian Coffee drinker will order his thimble-sized cup of coffee with an Orakh chaser. This isn't an affectation, it is the only way to safely take the effects of the coffee in measured, moderate, increments.

[[The Luggage]] did not know this when, lovelorn, it walked into a [[pubs|tavern]] on the edge of [[Al-Khali]] and started mugging people for drinks. Therefore the tavern keeper spent a long and very lonely night providing drinks, poured immoderately into a saucer, for the Luggage to lap up.

The effect on [[the Luggage]] was for it to go out in a blazing hot desert with a foul hangover and make two rare species of wildlife (the [[chimera]] and the [[basilisk]]) even rarer. A hapless alligator was a discourtesy detail.

[[Category:Food and drink]]
[[de:Orakh]]

List of Pratchett characters

2014-02-07T05:40:41Z

Thnidu: /* Überwald */ replace long list of links to "Igor" page with equally long list of links to individual Igors' thectionth of the Igor page

'''Alphabetical list of characters in the works of Terry Pratchett'''
When including characters, please also add them to the ''Pratchett characters'' category.

'''There are over 1100 individuals listed on this site. For more complete lists, please also follow links to [[:Category:Discworld characters|Discworld characters]], [[:Category:Human characters|Human characters]], [[:Category:Dwarf characters|Dwarf characters]] etc.

=Major Discworld characters=
'''Major characters are those with dialogue in three or more books or who are in some other way important (like the Luggage).'''

===Ankh-Morpork and The Watch===
Featuring characters appearing in {{G!G!}}, {{MAA}}, {{FOC}}, {{J}}, {{TFE}}, {{NW}}, {{T!}}, and {{SN}}

* [[Mrs. Cake]]
* [[Fred Colon]] (Sergeant, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Mrs. Marietta Cosmopilite]]
* [[Detritus]] (Sergeant, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler]]
* [[Dorfl]], ([[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Rufus Drumknott]] (current assistant to Lord [[Havelock Vetinari]])
* [[Gaspode]] the Wonder Dog
* [[Carrot Ironfoundersson]] (Captain, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Leonard of Quirm]]
* [[Cheery Littlebottom]] (Sergeant, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Nobby Nobbs]] (Corporal, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Lady Sybil Ramkin]], Duchess of Ankh
* [[Foul Ole Ron]]
* [[Reg Shoe]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Mr. Slant]]
* [[Angua von Überwald]] (Captain, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Havelock Vetinari|Lord Havelock Vetinari]] (current [[Patrician]] of [[Ankh-Morpork]])
* [[Samuel Vimes]] (Commander, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]], Duke of Ankh)
* [[Visit-the-Infidel-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Willikins]], Butler to [[Samuel Vimes]]

===Unseen University and the Wizards===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Equal Rites]], [[Sourcery]], [[Eric]], [[Reaper Man]], [[Lords and Ladies]], [[Hogfather]], and [[The Last Continent]]

* The [[Bursar]]
* [[Coin]]
* The [[Chair of Indefinite Studies]]
* The [[Dean]]
* [[Hex]]
* Doctor [[John Hicks|Hix]]
* The [[Lecturer in Recent Runes]]
* The [[Librarian]] (formerly Dr [[Horace Worblehat]])
* [[The Luggage]]
* [[Mustrum Ridcully]] (Archchancellor, [[Unseen University]])
* [[Rincewind]] (Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography)
* The [[Senior Wrangler]]
* [[Ponder Stibbons]]
* Mrs. [[Whitlow]]

===Lancre and the Witches===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Equal Rites]], [[Wyrd Sisters]], [[Witches Abroad]], [[Lords and Ladies]], [[Maskerade]], and [[Carpe Jugulum]]

* [[Gammer Brevis]]
* [[Magrat Garlick]]
* [[Greebo]]
* [[Agnes Nitt]] (aka Perdita X Dream)
* [[Jason Ogg]]
* [[Gytha Ogg]], (aka "Nanny")
* [[Shawn Ogg]]
* [[Eskarina Smith]]
* [[Tomjon]]
* [[Lucy Tockley]] (aka Diamanda)
* [[Verence II]]
* [[Esmerelda Weatherwax]], (aka "Granny")
* [[Lily Weatherwax]], (aka Lilith Tempscire) (originally from Lancre)

===Death's Domain and supernatural entities===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Mort]], [[Reaper Man]], [[Soul Music]], [[Hogfather]], and [[Thief of Time]]

* [[Auditors of Reality]]
* [[Albert]] (Alberto Malich, the wise)
* [[Binky]]
* [[Blind Io]]
* [[Death]]
* [[Death of Rats]]
* [[Fate]]
* [[The Lady]]
* [[Mort]]
* [[Offler]]
* [[Om]]
* [[Quoth]]
* [[Susan Sto Helit]]
* [[Ysabell]]
See also [[the gods]], [[anthropomorphic personification]] and [[Supernatural Entities]] for gods and other entities who appear in only one or two books.

===Tiffany Aching===
Featuring characters appearing in [[The Wee Free Men]], [[A Hat Full of Sky]], [[Wintersmith]], and [[I Shall Wear Midnight]]

* [[Tiffany Aching]]
* [[Rob Anybody]]
* [[Roland]] de Chumsfanleigh (Pronounced Chuffley - it's not his fault)
* [[Letice Earwig]]
* [[Annagramma Hawkin]]
* [[Jeannie]]
* Miss [[Perspicacia Tick]]
* [[Daft Wullie]]

===Industrial Revolution Characters===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Moving Pictures]], [[The Truth]], [[Going Postal]], [[Making Money]] and the forthcoming novel, [[Raising Steam]]

* [[Otto Chriek]]
* [[Sacharissa Cripslock]]
* [[Adora Belle Dearheart]] (also known as ''Spike'' and ''Killer'')
* [[Moist von Lipwig]]
* [[William de Worde]], (Editor of the [[Ankh-Morpork Times]])

===Discworld Cultures===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Pyramids]], [[Small Gods]], and [[Monstrous Regiment]]

=Minor Discworld characters=

===Ankh-Morpork and The Watch===
Featuring characters appearing in {{G!G!}}, {{MAA}}, {{FOC}}, {{J}}, {{TFE}}, {{NW}}, {{T!}}, and {{SN}}
* [[Agony Aunts]], Sadie & Dotsie
* [[71-hour Ahmed]]
* [[Altogether Andrews]]
* [[Grag]] [[Ardent]]
* [[Wee Mad Arthur]]
* [[Grag]] [[Bashfull Bashfullsson]]
* [[The Hon. J. Bleedwell]]
* [[Bluejohn]] (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Boffo (Clown)|Boffo]]
* [[Brakenshield]] (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Rupert Bleakley]]
* [[Brick]]
* [[Carcer]]
* [[Chrysoprase]] (the [[Breccia]])
* [[Cecil Clapman]], also known as "Snouty" (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Ned Coates]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Cruces|Dr. Cruces]]
* [[Cuddy]] (Lance-Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Dai Dickins]], (Sergeant, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Doughnut Jimmy]]
* [[Lord Downey]] (head of the [[Assassins' Guild]])
* [[Downspout]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[the Duck Man]]
* [[Edward d'Eath]]
* [[Errol]]
* [[Legitimate First]], (cryptkeeper of the cemetery of Small Gods)
* [[Zlorf Flannelfoot]], former president of the Guild of Assassins
* [[Gimlet Gimlet]]
* [[Grag]] [[Hamcrusher]]
* [[Helmclever]]
* [[Sally von Humpeding]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Gunder Ironcrust]]
* [[Setha Ironcrust]]
* [[All Jolson]]
* [[John Keel]], (Sergeant-At-Arms, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Dr. Lawn]]
* [[Lady Roberta Meserole]] (also known as Madam)
* [[Mica]] (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Horace Nancyball]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Rosemary Palm]] of the [[Seamstresses' Guild]]
* [[Pepe]]
* [[A.E. Pessimal]]
* [[Doc Pseudopolis]]
* [[Verity Pushpram]] (also known as ''Hammerhead'')
* [[Reet]], [[Seamstresses' Guild|Seamstress]] and former girlfriend of [[Carrot Ironfoundersson]]
* [[Rodney]]
* [[Ronald Rust]]
* [[Sammies]]
* [[Schist]] (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Albert Selachii]]
* [[Arnold Sideways]]
* [[Mr Shine]]
* [[Inigo Skimmer]]
* [[Mad Lord Snapcase]]
* [[Wallace Sonky]]
* Sir [[Reynold Stitched]]
* [[Findthee Swing]]
* [[Buggy Swires]]
* [[Pors Stronginthearm]] of [[Burleigh & Stronginthearm]]
* [[Tawneee]]
* [[Grabpot Thundergust]]
* [[Charles Venturi]]
* [[Vortin]]
* [[Eric Wheelbrace]], author of [[Walking in the Koom Valley]]
* [[Billy Wiglet]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Lord Winder]]
* [[Notfaroutoe|Arthur Winkings]] (also known as Count [[Notfaroutoe]])
* [[Notfaroutoe|Doreen Winkings]] (also known as Countess [[Notfaroutoe]])
* [[Lupine Wonse]] (previous assistant to Lord [[Havelock Vetinari]] of [[Ankh-Morpork]])
* [[Stoker Blake]]

===Unseen University and The Wizards===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Equal Rites]], [[Sourcery]], [[Eric]], [[Reaper Man]], [[Lords and Ladies]], [[Hogfather]], [[The Last Continent]], [[The Last Hero]], and [[Unseen Academicals]]

* [[Bethan]]
* [[Skarmer Billias]]
* [[Drum Billet]]
* [[Cohen the Barbarian]] (leader of the [[Silver Horde]])
* [[Conina]] (the barbarian hairdresser)
* The [[Creator]] (of Discworld)
* The [[Creator (of the Continent XXXX)]]
* [[Cutangle]] (Past Archchancellor, [[Unseen University]])
* [[Herrena]]
* [[Trevor Likely]]
* [[Mightily Oats]]
* [[Modo]]
* Mr. [[Nutt]], UU [[Candle Dribbler]] and [[Orcs|orc]]
* [[Windle Poons]]
* [[Hughnon Ridcully]], High Priest of [[Blind Io]]
* Madame [[Sharn]]
* [[Spelter]]
* [[Juliet Stollop]] (Jooles), Night Kitchen girl & fashion model sensation
* [[Glenda Sugarbean]], Head Cook of Unseen University's Night Kitchen
* [[Adrian Turnipseed]], (also known as "Big Mad Drongo")
* [[Twoflower]]
* [[Galder Weatherwax]] (Past Archchancellor, [[Unseen University]])

===Lancre and The Witches===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Equal Rites]], [[Wyrd Sisters]], [[Witches Abroad]], [[Lords and Ladies]], [[Maskerade]], and [[Carpe Jugulum]]

* [[André]]
* [[Marmaric Carding]]
* [[Casanunda]]
* [[Old Mother Dismass]]
* [[Lady Felmet|Duchess Felmet]]
* [[Leonal Felmet|Duke Felmet]]
* [[Hwel]]
* [[Desiderata Hollow]]
* [[Mightily Oats]]
* [[Walter Plinge]]
* [[Mr Pounder]]
* Mr. [[Salzella]]
* [[Ella Saturday]]
* [[Olwyn Vitoller]]
* [[Goodie Whemper]]

===Death's Domain and Supernatural Entities===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Mort]], [[Reaper Man]], [[Soul Music]], [[Hogfather]], and [[Thief of Time]]

* The [[Abbot]]
* [[Lias Bluestone]]
* [[Duke Bottomley]]
* [[Imp y Celyn]]
* [[Mr. Clete]]
* [[Jeremy Clockson]]
* [[Keli]]
* [[Myria LeJean]]
* [[Lu-Tze]] (also known as ''Sweeper''), one of the [[History Monks]]
* [[Lobsang Ludd]]
* [[Qu]]
* [[Marco Soto]]
* [[William Spigot]]
* [[Jonathan Teatime]]
* [[Wen the Eternally Surprised]]
* [[Gabby Wheels]]

===Tiffany Aching===
Featuring characters appearing in [[The Wee Free Men]], [[A Hat Full of Sky]], [[Wintersmith]], and [[I Shall Wear Midnight]]

* [[Granny Aching]]
* [[Wentworth Aching]]
* [[Jenny Greenteeth]]
* [[Toad]]

===Industrial Revolution Characters===
Featuring characters appearing in [[Moving Pictures]], [[The Truth]], [[Going Postal]], [[Making Money]] and the forthcoming novel, [[Raising Steam]]

* [[Gaffer Bird]]
* [[Boddony]]
* [[Reacher Gilt]]
* [[Gladys]] ([[Golem]] at the [[Post Office]])
* [[Gunilla Goodmountain]]
* [[Tolliver Groat]]
* [[Laddie]]
* [[Iodine Maccalariat]] (Miss Maccalariat)
* [[Mr. Pin]]
* [[Mr. Pony]] of the [[Artificers' Guild]]
* Mr. [[Pump]]
* [[Sendivoge]]
* [[Thomas Silverfish]]
* [[Victor Tugelbend]] (also known as Victor Maraschino)
* [[Mr. Tulip]]
* [[Theda Withel]] (also known as "Ginger" and "Delores De Syn")

===Discworld Cultures===
Featuring characters from [[Pyramids]], [[Small Gods]], [[The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents]], and [[Monstrous Regiment]]

* [[Aristocrates]]
* [[Brutha]]
* [[Didactylos]]
* [[Dios]] ({{P}})
* [[Ibid]]
* [[Jack Jackrum]]
* The Amazing [[Maurice]]
* [[Polly Perks]]
* [[Ptaclusp]] ({{P}})
* [[Ptaclusp IIa]] ({{P}})
* [[Ptaclusp IIb]] ({{P}})
* [[Ptraci]] ({{P}})
* Sergeant [[Simony]]
* [[Teppic]] (King Teppicymon XXVIII {{P}})
* [[St. Ungulant]] (full name Sevrian Thaddeus Ungulant)
* [[Urn]]
* [[Vorbis]]
* [[Xeno]]

===Überwald===

* [[Sally von Humpeding]], (Constable, [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|City Watch]])
* [[Igor#Igor at Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Ankh-Morpork|Igor at Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Ankh-Morpork]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Ankh-Morpork Embassy in Bonk, Überwald|Igor at Ankh-Morpork Embassy in Bonk, Überwald]]
* [[Igor#Igor at the Baron's, Bonk, Überwald|Igor at the Baron's, Bonk, Überwald]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Biers, Ankh-Morpork|Igor at Biers, Ankh-Morpork]]
* [[Igor#Igor at the Lady Sybil Free Hospital|Igor at the Lady Sybil Free Hospital]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Jeremy Clockson's, Ankh-Morpork|Igor at Jeremy Clockson's, Ankh-Morpork]]
* [[Igor#Igor who worked for Demented Doctor Wingle in Bad Schuschein|Igor who worked for Demented Doctor Wingle in Bad Schuschein]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Don'tgonearthe Castle, Überwald|Igor at Don'tgonearthe Castle, Überwald]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Reacher Gilt's, Ankh-Morpork|Igor at Reacher Gilt's, Ankh-Morpork]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Hobson's Livery Stable, Ankh-Morpork|Igor at Hobson's Livery Stable, Ankh-Morpork]]
* [[Igor#Igor in the Ins-and-Outs, Borogravia|Igor in the Ins-and-Outs, Borogravia]]
* [[Igor#Igor at Lady Margolotta's, Bonk, Überwald|Igor at Lady Margolotta's, Bonk, Überwald]]
* [[Igor#Igor who works for Doctor Thaumic near Bonk, Uberwald|Igor who works for Doctor Thaumic near Bonk, Uberwald]]
* [[Igor#Aunt Igorina who runs We-R-Igors at Bad Schuschein|Aunt Igorina who runs We-R-Igors at Bad Schuschein]]
* [[Igor#Igor at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork|Igor at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork]]
* [[Mightily Oats]]
* [[Bela de Magpyr]])
* [[Count de Magpyr]]
* [[Lacrimosa de Magpyr]]
* [[Vlad de Magpyr]]
* [[Lady Margolotta]]
* [[Rhys Rhysson]], [[Low King]] of the [[dwarfs]]
* [[Guye von Überwald]]
* [[Serafine von Überwald]]
* [[Wolfgang von Überwald]]
* [[Yennorks]]

=Discworld Historical Figures=
* [[Achmed The Mad]]
* [[B'hrian Bloodaxe]], [[Low King]] of the [[dwarfs]]
* [[St Bobby]]
* [[Carelinus]]
* [[Rolande de Colline]]
* [[Aliss Demurrage]] (aka [[Black Aliss]])
* [[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]] ("Bloody Stupid" Johnson)
* [[Khuft]] - founder of The Old Kingdom
* [[Lorenzo the Kind]]
* [[Olaf Quimby II]]
* [[Ossory]]
* [[Methodia Rascal]]
* [[Riktor]]
* General [[Callus Tacticus]]
* [["Stoneface" Vimes]]
* Queen [[Ynci]]

=Characters from books not set in the Discworld universe=
===The Dark Side of the Sun===
* The [[First Sirian Bank]]
*[[Isaac]] the robot

===Strata===
*[[Kin Arad]]
*[[The Committee]]
*[[Leiv Eriksson]]
*[[Marco Farfarer]]
*[[Abu Ibn Infra]]
*[[Jago Jalo]]
*[[Silver (Strata)|Silver]]

===Bromeliad series===
*[[Grimma]]
*[[Angalo de Haberdasheri]]
*The Duke [[Cido de Haberdasheri]]
*The [[Baroness del Icatessen]]
*[[Dorcas del Icatessen]]
*The [[Count de Ironmongri]]
*[[Kiddie-Klothians|Nooty Kiddies-Klothes]]
*[[Masklin]]
*[[Granny Morkie]]
*Old [[Torrit]]
*[[Nicco]]
*[[Nisodemus]]
*[[Sacco]]
*The [[Abbot of the Stationeri]]
*[[Gurder]] de Stationeri
*[[The Thing]]

===Good Omens===
*[[Adam Young]], leader of [[the Them]], the antichrist
*[[Anathema Device]], professional descendant
*[[Aziraphale]], angel
*[[Beelezebub]], Prince of Hell
*[[Brian ("Good Omens")|Brian]], one of [[the Them]]
*[[Anthony Crowley|Crowley]], an angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards
*[[Death (Good Omens)|Death]], a Horseman of the Apocalypse
*[[Dog]], a hellhound
*[[Famine (Good Omens)|Famine]], a Horseman of the Apocalypse
*[[Hastur]], a Fallen Angel
*[[Ligur]], a likewise fallen Angel
*[[Madame Tracy]] also named [[Marjorie Potts]]
*the [[Metatron]], or Voice of God
*[[Newton Pulsifer]], Witchfinder Private
*Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, or [[Pepper]], one of [[the Them]]
*[[Pollution]], a Horseman of the Apocalypse
*[[Shadwell]], a Witchfinder Sergeant
*[[War (Good Omens)|War]], a Horseman of the Apocalypse
*[[Warlock (character)|Warlock]], son of a cultural attache, not the Antichrist
*[[Wensleydale]], one of [[the Them]]
*[[Mrs. Deirdre Young]], 'Mother' to [[Adam Young]]
*[[Mr. Young]], 'Father' to [[Adam Young]]

===Johnny Maxwell series===
*[[Bigmac]]
*[[Johnny Maxwell]]
*[[Kirsty]]
*[[Wobbler]]
*[[Yo-less]]

===Nation===
*[[Ataba]]
*[[Cookie]]
*[[Cox]]
*[[Ermintrude Fanshaw]], aka ''Daphne''
*[[Daphne's Grandmother]]
*[[Henry Fanshaw]], Daphne's Father
*Mr [[Griffith]]
*Mrs. [[Gurgle]]
*[[Mau]]
*[[Milo]]
*[[Nawi]]
*[[Pilu]]
*[[Nathan Roberts]]
*[[Lionel Samson]]

===The Long Earth===
*[[Douglas Black]]
*[[Lobsang]]

===Dodger===
*[[Dodger]]
*[[Solomon Cohen]]

Note: Some character pages may not yet have been added to this list. Check the relevant categories to be sure.

{{listdev}}

=External links=
*{{ls|/books/whos-who/|L-Space Web, Who's Who}}

[[Category: Pratchett characters| ]]

Igor

2014-02-07T05:32:44Z

Thnidu: /* Aunt Igorina who runs We-R-Igors at Bad Schuschein */

{{Character Data
|title= Igor
|photo= Igor.jpg|One of the Igors, as drawn by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]]
|name= Igor
|age=
|race= Igor

|occupation= Igor
|appearance=

|residence=

|books= many
}}

Igor is the common name of all male members of an extremely extended family in [[Überwald]]. Most Igors are professional servants to mad scientists or noble vampire families. Igors are also extremely good transplant surgeons. They like to pass down good organs and deft hands through the generations much as other old families would pass down heirlooms. Igors also like to do cosmetic surgery; the effects on most Igors are spoiled because they like to leave the stitches in, but the daughters of Igor families ([[Igorina|Igorinas]]) are very beautiful.

''A spare hand where needed'' is their slogan. An Igor expects to do emergency surgery for any patients or accident victims (ex. wounded soldiers, lumberjacks who had trees fall on them, etc), without payment, regardless of religion, nationality, or species. The Igor would replace any limbs that had been detached, sew up any wounds, and possibly even put in a better pair of kidneys if some were available. In return, an Igor expects the healed patient to become an organ donor one day, when he or she passes away and has no more personal use for his/her organs. The Igor always seems to know what day that will be. If, at the last minute, as the Igor stands by the bedside, the former patient refuses to do this final courtesy, the Igor will leave quietly, no fuss, no argument, but no Igor will come and help this family or camp again, ever.

Igors also like to do research in their spare time; research subjects include the uses of electricity, the benefits of doubling the number of certain organs on a transplant subject, and any green liquid bubbling in a beaker. Many Igors consider vampires the best employers, because they sleep all daylight hours and sometimes play dead for decades, and it is easy to cater to a vampire, and unlike mad scientists, vampires seldom ask the servant Igors to go and gather research materials. Working for a vampire can leave the Igor a lot of free time for his own research. Igors are also often very intelligent.

Igors have some sort of a Code of Igors, rules that they have made up for themselves. A good Igor lisps and limps if possible (actually most Igors can also talk without a lisp, but no good Igor would do that without being ashamed). It has been noted that Igorinas lisp less. When called by the employer, a good Igor appears immediately and mysteriously behind the employer or in some corner of the room. A good Igor is very discreet, never gossips about the bad or just weird things that his master has done. A good Igor lends a hand where needed, maintaining lists of donors and recipients for organ transplantation. A good Igor does research in his spare time. Most importantly, a good Igor has no inherent loyalty toward his employer. Although madness is not required in an employer, Igors often work for vampires, werewolves, or mad scientists, all people who break ordinary human moral rules, and are in danger from mobs with pitchforks. An Igor has no intention of dying, like his master, at the hand of a mob; so when the angry villagers break into the master's castle or laboratory, the Igor is never there - they always know the little hidden back door through which they can silently leave when necessary. Through experience with crazy masters a good Igor feels directly impending danger in advance and knows when it is time to pack up and leave to find a new master. It is also 'not done' for an Igor to warn anybody else, although it is not unheard of for them to drop gentle hints that now is a good time to visit a sister some way away.

To the untrained eye, Igors all look identical. They can most easily be differentiated by the pattern and style of the stitches on their face and other visible areas. Also, the pronunciation of the name "Igor" varies slightly for each Igor (or Igorina). It is often confusing when an Igor tells an ordinary man something along the lines of "Take this jar to Igor... tell my brother Igor he can have... I haven't heard from Igor for quite a while, I wonder if my cousin Igor knows..." and so on.

Igors have also started to work in a collective known as [[We-R-Igors]] which finds Igors for marthters across the disc.

<div style="font: bold 150%/1.25em serif">The various Igors encountered in the Discworld books:</div>

===Igor at Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Ankh-Morpork===
The Igor in the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch]] is unique as a pioneer in the field of bioartificing, with the goal of being able to grow individual organs in a tank to use for transplantation, instead of waiting for a suitable donor to pass on.

This Igor is a young man, for the most part, although he has inherited his grandfather's hands. He is unemployable in [[Überwald]] because he is too modern; he refuses to call any man master, he breeds body parts instead of waiting for donors (he calls it bio-artificing) , and he doesn't lisp - at least most of the time: In {{T!}} the lisp is very present, and in {{NW}} it he forgets it only sometimes. At the end of ''[[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]'', this Igor was introduced to Sir [[Samuel Vimes]], Duke of Ankh, Commander of the Watch, then temporary ambassador of [[Ankh-Morpork]] by Igor. Sir Samuel had recently seen an Igor's skills at repairing severe injuries, daily hazards for the Watchmen, so Sir Samuel expressed a desire to hire an Igor. This young Igor, modern in outlook - e.g. Wearing a DA haircut with extended quiff and wearing crepe soles - and independent on donors, suits the Ankh-Morpork City Watch quite well, although he does have a traditional Igor's abilities to come when called, takes instructions for healing a little too literally, performs his own little experiments when he has time, and generally seeks to make people 'better', rather than merely 'well'.

===Igor at Ankh-Morpork Embassy in Bonk, Überwald===
Appears in ''[[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]''. This was the first Igor to greet Sir Samuel Vimes, temporary ambassador from [[Ankh-Morpork]] to Überwald. This Igor came with the house, which used to belong to the werewolf Baron [[Guye von Überwald]]. This Igor's loyalty seemed to be to the house, so at the time, he was loyal to the service of the Ankh-Morporkian embassy. He was the one who told Sir Samuel about some of the local customs, cooked him the excellent local dishes, and reminded him of the very important point that Ankh-Morpork Embassy was considered Ankh-Morpork territory. On an ordinary day, Igor seemed to grumble about the changes that Sir Samuel wanted to make to the house (taking down all the hunting trophy heads, for example) while Sir Samuel exclaimed in shock at the Überwaldean sausages that were all meat. On the day that Igor was unfortunately murdered, he recounted to Sir Samuel which transplant recipients, patients of which Igors, were waiting for which organs. Igor was killed by an insane werewolf. This Igor may be approximately considered an uncle to the young Igor who went off to work in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.

===Igor at the Baron's, Bonk, Überwald===
This Igor is the third Igor to appear in ''The Fifth Elephant''. By the time Sir Samuel Vimes, totally untrained diplomat, meets this Igor, Sir Samuel is able to distinguish between individual Igors and appropriately bring greetings from the other Igors.

===Igor at [[Biers]], Ankh-Morpork===
Not actually an Igor. Just a man called Igor. Be aware, and don't ask him about it.

===Igor at the Lady Sybil Free Hospital===
This Igor enjoys his work at the LSFH and aids in many opperations. He has been able to set up a lightening collector and can retain the charge for a day after a thunderstorm. In these cases he can use this electrik technology to give a life sustaning jolt to dying patients. In {{UA}} he is aware of one mortaly wounded patient who is rushed in, but recovers before Igor can even treat him. Igor recognises the nature of this patient, [[Nutt|Mr. Nutt]] and warns his friend [[Trevor Likely|Trevor]] that "many strange things come from [[Uberwald]]" and that he should expect to hear sceaming in the near future if Mr.Nutt stays around. His case is not helped by Trevor pointing out that Igor also comes from Uberwald, and he remains friends with Nutt. Another blot on this Igor's record would be a disturbing rumour that a few of his experments have gone wrong in the past, including a winged hamster bending the bars and escaping its cage...

===Igor at Jeremy Clockson's, Ankh-Morpork===
[[Jeremy Clockson]], appearing in ''[[Book:Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'', is a member whom the [[Clockmakers' Guild]] in [[Ankh-Morpork]] watches with awe and caution, due to his genius at (extremely) accurate clockmaking, and his tendency to be violent toward people who approach time in a haphazard manner (such as, for example, habitually setting their clocks fast). A mysterious [[Myria LeJean|Lady LeJean]] engages Jeremy to make an absolutely accurate clock, and, at the Igors-R-Us agency in [[Überwald]], hires an Igor to be Jeremy's assistant. The Igors-R-Us agency is run by Igor's aunt Igorina, who realized that an Igor often finds himself unemployed due to no fault of his own, because his employer has recently been killed by a mob, as happened to this Igor's previous employer [[Screaming Doctor Berserk]].

This Igor's grandfather Igor happened to have served an Überwaldean [[Wingle|mad scientist]] who made a glass clock, which would theoretically be absolutely accurate. To Jeremy, Igor imparted the secrets of glass jars of acids for storing tame lightning for the purpose of powering the clock. Igor also made many of the parts for Jeremy's new glass clock.

Like his family members, Igor is good at picking up signs that the employer is insane. Mostly, the traditional signs are gloating, dribbling, mad cackling, and being dressed in unconventional fashions. In Jeremy, Igor spotted the opposite signs: everything perfectly in place in labeled drawers, and having a perfectly timed daily routine. He soon enough worked out, however, that while sticking screws up your nose is definitely insanity, keeping them in carefully ordered jars is not necessarily sanity, and made himself at home - although he did start to get worried when Jeremy ''didn't'' start going "THEY CALLED ME MAD!!!! I'LL SHOW THEM!!!!!" after stopping his medication.

===Igor who worked for [[Wingle|Demented Doctor Wingle]] in [[Bad Schuschein]]===
This is why Igors sometimes get a bad name. Igor worked for a mad scientist long ago in Uberwald in the town of [[Bad Schuschein]]. The fact that his master was known as 'Demented Doctor Wingle' should have given some clue as to his nature, that and the fact he planned to build a glass clock to imprison [[Time]] herself. Despite the intervention of the [[History Monks]], the clock was activated and, for a moment, Time stood still. The clock failed due to the only metal part, a spring, being unable to take stress. What happened next is a mystery to all but the Men In Saffron, but afterwards Igor said that things were different. That his master had never built the clock, but was instead working on a plan to extract sunlight from oranges. Igor would later leave his hands to his grandson Igor, who went on to gain employment with Jeremy Clockson in Ankh-Morpork, where he would begin work on a unique clock, a project that would cause Igor's inherited hands to start twitching in memory...

===Igor at Don'tgonearthe Castle, Überwald===
This Igor appears in ''[[Book:Carpe Jugulum|Carpe Jugulum]]''. He is the loyal servant of [[Bela de Magpyr]], a [[vampires|vampire]] aristocrat of the old school. Igor knows that the true way of life for a vampire nobleman is to be a good sportsman, and so he assists Count Bela De Magpyr in making [[Don'tgonearthe Castle]] a good place for adventurous young men from recently attacked towns to have a good time hunting for the Count. Count Bela De Magpyr flogs Igor every day, an act that Igor considers only good and proper. Igor is in charge of making the doors creaky, making the candles dribbly, and making the dungeons dusty and full of cobwebs, taking dust to scatter on the floor and whipping the spiders into work when necessary. When Count Bela De Magpyr went to sleep and his nephew took over the Count title, the Castle, and decided to be a modern [[vampyres|vampyre]], Igor became very disgruntled.

This Igor, like others, is a good transplant surgeon. He has a dog named [[Scraps]] (in his pronunciation "Thcrapth") who has parts of different dogs, and two tails. Other than being loyal to Count Bela De Magpyr, Igor's deepest emotional attachment is to Scraps.

===Igor at Reacher Gilt's, Ankh-Morpork===
This Igor appears in ''[[Book:Going Postal|Going Postal]]''. An experienced Igor knows how to spot dangerous madness or other self-destructive characters in an employer, and when to pack up and leave before the mob arrives.

Like all good Igors he has the ability to appear behind the master when called. Apparently he once worked for a cruel master with an enquiring mind who would call for him with his back to a pit of spikes - until one day the master forgot about the spikes and fell into them. When he later came to work for Reacher Gilt, Gilt tries a similar test using a bear-trap.

At first sight, [[Reacher Gilt]] had been just a rich man who wanted a very discreet and very skillful servant. Later on, Gilt plotted the deaths of his enemies almost in the manner of one who was panicked. And then, Gilt started boasting to a room empty except for himself, the Igor, and a parrot. Since boasting to empty rooms and your servants is not the best sign of sanity, he packed up and left before his master escaped the city. Igor also bent the Code of Igors to warn the housekeeper, telling her now was a good time to visit a sister in [[Quirm]]. The housekeeper was very skilled with a knife, and an excellent maker of steak and kidney pudding; there was some degree of friendship between the housekeeper and Igor.

===Igor at [[Hobson's Livery Stable]], Ankh-Morpork===
This Igor was mentioned in ''[[Book:Going Postal|Going Postal]]''. Veterinary work is untraditional for an Igor, but it is said that he is doing well. There are some rumors that he assembled halves of dead horses into a new, live horse.

===Igor in the [[Tenth Foot|Ins-and-Outs]], Borogravia===
This Igor appears in ''[[Book:Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]''. In fact an [[Igorina]] with deft hands and an ambition to be a doctor for women's problems, feeling that a woman patient might feel easier at heart to know that the surgeon is a woman. Igorina disguised herself as an Igor by putting her scalp with long hair into a jar, and putting eighteen stitches across the forehead to pretend to be old enough for the army. Like the other recruits, Igorina wore somebody's old clothes at the sign-up, but the clothes that she had found were particularly dusty, as if they might have been in a coffin. Igorina tried to enter the army to gain hands-on work experience (because an Igor must help all patients, friend or foe), so that she can convince her father that she is suitable for setting up independent practice. Igorina signed up with [[Jack Jackrum|Sergeant Jack Jackrum]] of the Tenth Infantry, nicknamed Ins-and-Outs, of the army of [[Borogravia]], and served under Lieutenant [[Blouse]]. Igorina sometimes forgot to lisp but otherwise acted as any good Igor, helping all injured men that she came across.

After the war Igor set up a clinic in Polly's home town of [[Munz]] where she ran a successful practice helping patients who preferred having a female doctor.

===Igor at [[Lady Margolotta]]'s, Bonk, Überwald===
This Igor is the second Igor to appear in ''[[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]''. For a few embarrassing moments, Sir [[Samuel Vimes]], totally untrained diplomat, mistakes this Igor for the Igor who works at the embassy.

===Igor who works for Doctor Thaumic near Bonk, Uberwald===
This was the fourth Igor that Sam Vimes met while in Uberwald during the {{TFE}} and by this time he had gotten the hang of telling them appart - the secret is in the scar patterns. Igor worked for Doctor Thaumic who lived on the other side of mountains from the city of Bonk. Igor was brother to the Igor at the Anhk-Morpork Embassy and father to the Igor who went with Vimes to work for the watch. Igor did not approve of his son's new ideas about 'bio-artificing' and grown spare body parts rather than taking them off dead bodies. He was also dismayed by his son's rejection of the class system and refusal to call anyone 'master' as it made him totally unemployable in Uberwald. Igor begged the Duke of Ankh to take his son with him to the big city, something Vimes was only to happy to do, having been impressed by the medical skill of the Igors.

===Aunt Igorina who runs [[We-R-Igors]] at [[Bad Schuschein]]===
A forward thinking Igorina who has set up a fully clacks-linked We-R-Igors network operating out of the Old Rathaus in Bad Schuschein in [[Uberwald]]. It links up helpful igors to prospective employers and will even ship them there in a crate if required. A useful service, as often an Igor finds himself without a master, through no fault of his own, the master having tragically died due to his windmill being burned down by an angry mob, or his monster having gone berserk, or even lead poisoning due to his being impaled on a pitchfork...

===Igor at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork===
This Igor appears in [[Book:Making Money|Making Money]], working in the [[Fornication|vaults]] of the [[Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork]]. He has discovered how to perform mind transplants, using the mind of a luckless parsnip, although his actual job is looking after the [[Glooper]] and [[Hubert Turvy]].

Between Igor and the somewhat unstable Hubert, they managed to make the Glooper ''absolutely perfect'', to the degree that not only did the city affect the Glooper, but the Glooper also affects the city. But since Igor has not yet discreetly left Hubert's services, it can be assumed that, as the Igors would put it, the mob won't hit the windmill for a little while yet.

[[Category:Discworld characters|Igor]]
[[category:Supporting characters|Igor]]
[[category:Serial characters|Igor]]
[[de:Igors]][[cs:Igor]]

Silver Horde

2014-02-07T05:10:42Z

Thnidu: minor typo & punc. fixes

The '''Silver Horde''' is the name given to a gang of extremely old [[Barbarian heroes]] led by [[Cohen the Barbarian]]. Barbarian heroes usually go around killing mad priests, stealing the riches of hidden temples, rescuing maidens, and so on, and then spend the money on drinks, women, horses, or just the expensive lifestyle in [[Ankh-Morpork]]. Barbarian heroes tend to get rich quickly and then run out of money quickly. One day, Cohen decided to gather a few old Barbarian heroes to invade [[Hunghung]], the capital city of [[Agatean Empire]], for a last grand theft, a retirement score to provide for the last years of their lives.

The phrase "rich in years" is much more than a euphemism in describing the old age of these Barbarian heroes. Each of these old men has decades of experience in fighting and staying alive. Their weapons are kept in Mad Hamish's wheelchair, and are a positively ancient collection of rusty, notched blades. Like the men themselves, however, the worn state of the blades in no way suggests that they are not exceedingly dangerous, despite being wielded by old men who should by no means be able to hold them anymore.

Contrary to expectations, the Silver Horde knows the meaning of fear. It is something that happens to other people.

The Horde are devotees of the Hero's Code, which states that the greater the odds against the hero, the greater the victory. It is this philosophy that leads them to take on an army of 700,000 men entirely on their own and emerge victorious (with some unwitting help from [[Rincewind]]). Interestingly, it is implied that had the Horde attacked [[Carrot Ironfoundersson|Captain Carrot]] during their invasion of [[Dunmanifestin]], they would have lost because of the very Code that had kept them alive so many other times in their careers.

When [[Old Vincent]] died choking on a cucumber in a very un-heroic manner, the Horde decided that the gods needed to be taught a bit of a lesson and decided to return fire to them, with interest, in the form of Agatean Thunder Clay. They invaded [[Dunmanifestin]], disguised as the Gods of Fish (Cohen), Love (Caleb, although nobody really wants to know what kind of love), Swearing ([[Truckle the Uncivil|Truckle]], obviously), Being Sick Again (Boy Willie, as [[Vomita]] was already the God of Being Sick), and Things Lyin' Around ([[Mad Hamish|Hamish]]). Despite a successful confrontation in which Cohen cheated [[Fate]], the Horde decided that maybe blowing up the gods wasn't the best course of action, given that there would be nobody left to remember them (the explosion at Dunmanifestin would have damaged the Disc's magical field and drained all magic away, thus destroying the world). Sacrificing themselves to save the Disc from, well, themselves, they plunged ten miles down into an explosion that turned a mountain into a valley. Despite this, the Horde ambushed the Valkyries who came to take them to the afterlife, stealing their horses and riding off to find other worlds to conquer, inspired by a quote about Emperor [[Carelinus]]. Before they left the Disc, they freed the First Hero, who stole fire from the gods and was imprisoned and cursed to have a vulture eat his liver every day, and gave him a sword. As Cohen said, they don't think they're dead, and when have they ever cared what anyone else thought?

The members of the Silver Horde are:
*[[Cohen the Barbarian]], or Ghenghiz Cohen
*[[Boy Willie]]
*[[Caleb the Ripper]]
*[[Ronald Saveloy]], or "Teach"
*[[Truckle the Uncivil]]
*[[Old Vincent]]
*[[Mad Hamish]]

==Fighting style==
The Horde's fighting style as described in [[Book:Interesting Times|Interesting Times]], whether intentional or not, is similar to the sword style invented by the Lonely Invincible Swordsman in Louis Cha's novel ''The Smiling, Proud Wanderer''. That is, it involves no acrobatic movement, or any specific move, but the practitioner always manages to move himself out of harm's way and strikes at the opponent's weaknesses. In Terry Pratchett's novels, the Horde gained this simply by having enormous experience in not dying. The Horde's survival is simply put down to being exactly where they want to be at any given time (i.e., not where the opponent's sword is).

==Appearances==
*''[[Book:Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]''
*''[[Book:The Last Hero|The Last Hero]]''

==Annotations==
The name clearly alludes to [[Roundworld]]'s {{wp|Golden_Horde|'''Golden''' Horde}}, a term referring to a division of the Mongolian Empire made after the death Genghis Khan. The territory of the Golden Horde at its peak included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the right banks of the Dnieper River, extending east deep into Siberia. On the south, the Golden Horde's lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Ilkhanate.

The origins of the name "Golden Horde" is uncertain. Some scholars believe that it refers to the camp of Batu and the later rulers of the Horde. In Mongolian, Altan Orda refers to the golden camp or palace (Mongolian: Алтан Ордон, Altan Ordon = Golden Palace). Altan (golden) was also the colour connoting imperial status. Other sources mention that Batu had a golden tent, and it is from this that the Golden Horde received its name. While this legend is persistent, no one is positive of the origin of the term. In most contemporary sources, the Golden Horde was referred to as the Khanate of the Qipchaq, as the Qipchaq Turks comprised the majority of the nomadic population in the region (the Ulus Jochid).

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Groups]]
[[de:Graue Horde]]

Bledlows

2012-05-07T18:20:36Z

Thnidu: /* Annotation */

{{Character Data
|title=Bledlow
|photo=bedlowmcabremine.jpg|Bledlow McAbre by [[user:darkplush|Kit Cox]]
|name=
|age=
|race=

|occupation=Security for Unseen University
|appearance= Hefty men, uniform includes a bowler hat

|residence=

|death=
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=

|books= {{TLC}}, {{UA}}
|cameos= {{TLH}}, {{ER}}
}}
The '''Bledlows''' or "lobsters" are the policemen of the [[Unseen University]]. They are mostly former watchmen and soldiers, heavy-set and have quite a good turn of speed for their age. Like watchmen everywhere, they believe in the universal guilt of everybody -- in their case, the students.

They have a time-honoured and arcane ceremony at two in the morning which is akin to the Changing of the Guards in other cities of the Multiverse, only louder and more obtrusive, involving the Patting of the Pockets, the I'll Swear They Were Here This Morning, and the Stone Me, They Were Here All Along, and ending with the signing-over of keys between the incoming and outgoing porters. Attempts to get them to turn the volume down a bit are regarded as gross insults from people, who while they might know the value of a good night's sleep, have no respect for deeper values such as Tradition.

In {{TLH}} and the {{SOD1|Science of the Discworld}} series, the Bledlows are used by Ridcully to prevent [[Rincewind]] from running away. (When confronted by a potential act of heroism, Rincewind follows his better instincts by turning and running.} He doesn't get very far before being (gently) restrained by grinning Bledlows, who are noteworthy in that they have succeeded where other, younger, guards with more weapons and attitude have failed. They are, in short, the one body of men whom Rincewind cannot outrun or evade, which says a lot for all the practice they get chasing down students.

The one person they have thus far been unable to restrain is [[Granny Weatherwax]], as demonstrated in {{ER}}. When Granny ''really'' wants to get into the [[Great Hall]] and see the [[Archchancellor]], nothing (not even Bledlows) is going to be able to stop her. The Bledlows also know better than to argue with [[Glenda Sugarbean]] and tend to retreat from the [[Night Kitchen]] when she is irritable.

==Known Bledlows==

*Head Bledlow [[McAbre]]
*Bledlow [[Bledlow Nobbs|Alf Nobbs]]
*Bledlow [[Frankly Ottomy]]
*Bledlow Hipney

==Annotation==
It is clear that the Bledlows are based on the proctors and porters of the older British universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. Although UEA Norwich (est. 1963) had its characters in the Porters' Lodge too...

Knowing TP's preference for the German language (see Mr.[[Nutt]]'s booklist in "[[Unseen Academicals]]") the term could be derived from "Blattlaus" which is a vine louse.

The Changing of the Arch-Chancellor's Keys, and the Bursar's ineffectual complaints about it going on under his window has its resonances in other ways in which Tradition allows those of lower rank to tweak the noses of their social superiors. In the Gordon Highlanders, for instance, the pipe band was allowed to sound reveille on Friday mornings to awaken the barracks. Always, without fail, the full pipes and drums would assemble in ''absolute'' silence beneath the windows of the junior officers' quarters, and, at six in the morning, awaken their lieutenants with a shattering rendition of ''"Johnnie Cope"'', the Scottish Army's traditional "Charge!", from fifteen feet away. Attempts to remonstrate the band were inevitably futile... this was recounted by author George McDonald-Fraser, who served as a subaltern with the Gordons and who is one of Terry's favourite writers.

Throughout ''Unseen Academicals'', Bledlow Alf Nobbs is referred to as "Bledlow Nobbs (no relation)", after he has stated that he is no relation to [[Nobby Nobbs|"Nobby" Nobbs]] of the Watch.

[[Category:Discworld characters]][[de:Brüller]]