Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

slammed shut as the wind screamed past. "We're sorry about that," said a cabin attendant over the
intercom, but it will be much less turbulent once you are through the airbridge."
"Awwww, mate," came from the back of the plane. "I trapped my fingers, mate."
Terry Pratchett's last novel (Hogfather) was mostly plotless and pointless, merely an excuse for
stringing together a few rather poor jokes. Jingo, on the other hand is mostly plot, and is so pointy that
at times it threatens to impale you to the floor as it shouts in your face. And nothing wrong with that I
say. Pterry has always been at his best when his books are about something, rather than when he is
just noodling around. This one is about war and politics, and that is one of the great themes, one he has
worried about at length before (in Johnny and the Dead).
The sunken island of Leshp has arisen from the sea midway between Ankh-Morepork and Klatch and
both are claiming the territory. Klatch is a desert kingdom (a good excuse for jokes about Saddam
Hussein and Arabs in general) and Ankh-Morepork is not (so we get jokes about politics instead). As
always with the best Pratchett, the game of "spot the reference" is enormous fun. For example there is
a whole sub-plot all about the Kennedy assassination in general and conspiracy theories in particular.
Mind you it is possible to take this too far. One of the Ankh-Moreporkian sea captains is called Jenkins,
and this being a time of threatening war I kept looking for jokes about ears, and I didn't see any. Which
means either I blinked and missed them, or Pterry decided it was all too obvious and didn't bother in the
end. Perhaps the absence of the joke was the joke? Mind you, once you get into recursive meta-humour
like this anything goes!
The Byzantine convolutions of the plot are sometimes rather hard to follow (don't blink, you'll miss the
clues) but it's worth making the effort. The ending is rather a let down; but then it was building up to that
all the way through -- once we learn about Leonard of Quirm's clandestine visits to Leshp the climax
becomes relatively obvious, rather like an aunty I suppose (I did that, not Pterry).
But in summary, Jingo has lots of jokes, lots of subtle references, and a theme that is strong enough to
support the surface layer. Hogfather represented the low point of the Discworld books; Jingo is one of
the highest.
We filed off the plane into a completely deserted international terminal (there being no international
flights scheduled). Toilet doors beckoned seductively and many passengers availed themselves of the
facility. The rest of us crawled like sheep, following the stewardess who beckoned us onwards.
Suddenly we stopped and milled around in confusion. The exit doors were all locked and bolted. What
now? "I'll be back in a moment," shrilled the stewardess encouragingly and raced off in the opposite
direction. Obviously she immediately fell into a black hole and spent the rest of eternity in the eighth
dimension for we never saw her again...
More toilet doors beckoned (Wellington International Terminal has an inordinate number of toilets and
was obviously designed by an incontinent architect). But the safety proved illusory for these too were
locked.
At one end of the corridor was an illuminated sign that said "Baggage Claim" with an arrow pointing
purposefully at a (locked) door. It seemed an obvious place to gather and so we did.
"Awwww, it's locked, mate. It won't open mate. Awww, mate!"
The delightfully titled Moab is my Washpot is Stephen Fry's autobiography -- or rather it is the story of
his first twenty years. Doubtless there will be another volume in due course detailing the next twenty
years. Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, he faces beatings, misery, love, carnal violation,
expulsion, criminal conviction, probation and university. I laughed out loud at this book -- I even laughed
at the tragedies (and much of it is tragic); though I think I was meant to laugh rather than cry. As soon
as I finished it, I went and re-read The Liar (his brilliant first novel) and I was amazed at how skilfully he
wove his autobiography into that book.