The Annotated Pratchett File, v9.0 - The L-Space Web

APF v9.0, August 2004
Anyway, there were a few people who felt that Terry was
referring here to Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, where
the main character, Louis Wu, always uses the phrase
“There ain’t no justice” (abbreviated as “TANJ”). Other
people found this connection incredibly far-fetched for
such a generic sentence, and said so rather forcefully.
Eventually, Terry stepped in and short-circuited the entire
discussion by writing: “Mostly in the Discworld books,
particularly Mort, the phrase is “There’s no justice” so
that it can be balanced with “There’s just me/you/us”.
And that phrase is truly generic. Really, so is “There ain’t
no justice” — it’s just that Niven does use it a lot and, I
suspect, uses it because it is familiar to readers.
Admittedly, it’s become ‘his’ via repetition. But there’s a
difference between using an established phrase which
another author has commandeered and using one
specifically associated with one person — “Make my day”
has one owner, whereas “There ain’t no justice” is a
cliché. To be honest, I didn’t have anything particularly in
mind when Charley uttered the phrase — but if you think
it’s a Niven reference, fair enough.”
– [ p. 76/70 ] “ ‘Do real wizards leap about after a tiny
spell and start chanting ‘Here we go, here we go, here we
go’, Brother Watchtower Hmm’ ”
“Here we go, here we go” is a chant (usually sung to the
tune of Sousa’s ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’) commonly
associated with football (soccer) fans.
According to my correspondent it is also used,
historically, by gangs of striking miners just before they
realise that the mounted policemen with big sticks are
coming their way. Definitely a British phenomenon.
– [ p. 91/83 ] “It was strange, he felt, that so-called
intelligent dogs, horses and dolphins never had any
difficulty indicating to humans the vital news of the
moment [. . . ]”
Just for the record: some famous television/movie dogs
fitting this description are Lassie and Rin Tin Tin; horse
examples are Champion, Trigger, Silver (“I said posse!”),
and Black Beauty; the only dolphin example I know of is
probably the most famous of them all: Flipper.
Australian fans have expressed their disappointment that
Terry left out Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, whose ability to
communicate very complex, often extremely abstract
concepts with a bit of clicking and hopping around was
apparently a wonder to behold.
Terry later more than made up for this when he
introduced Scrappy the Kangaroo as a character in The
Last Continent. See also the annotation for p.55 of that
book.
+ [ p. 91/83 ] “And then he went out on to the streets,
untarnished and unafraid.”
“But down these mean streets a man must go who is not
himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” is a
well-known quote — that describes Carrot to a tee — from
Raymond Chandler’s essay The Simple Art of Murder.
– [ p. 93/85 ] “ ‘Who loves you, pussycat’, said Nobby
under his breath.”
Nice amalgamation of TV detective Kojak’s use of the
word ‘pussycat’ and his catchphrase “Who loves ya,
baby”.
– [ p. 94/86 ] “ ‘I’ve seen a horsefly [. . . ] And I’ve seen a
housefly. I’ve even seen a greenfly, but I ain’t never seen
a dragon fly”
Sounds reminiscent of the ‘I’ve never seen an elephant
fly’ song which the crows sing in Walt Disney’s 1941
movie Dumbo. Another similar children’s song is called
‘The Never Song’ by Edward Lipton.
– [ p. 97/88 ] “[. . . ] Gayheart Talonthrust of Ankh stood
fourteen thumbs high, [. . . ]”
The breeding of swamp dragons is a parody of British
high society’s obsession with horse breeding. The height
of a horse is traditionally measured in hands.
– [ p. 99/90 ] “ ‘One just has to put up with the occasional
total whittle.’ ”
Describing Errol as a whittle is actually a quite clever
pun. On the one hand ‘whittle’ simply means something
reduced in size (usually by means of slicing bits and
pieces off it), while on the other hand Sir Frank Whittle
was the inventor of the modern aircraft jet engine.
When Whittle showed his original design to his supervisor
at Manchester University, the latter said, “Very
interesting, Whittle my dear boy, but it will never work”.
– [ p. 103/94 ] “ ‘Just give me the facts, m’lady,’ he said
impatiently.”
“Just the facts, ma’am”, is a catchphrase from the
Dragnet radio series (later a TV series, and later still a
Dan Aykroyd/Tom Hanks movie).
– [ p. 103/94 ] “Of all the cities in all the world it could
have flown into, he thought, it’s flown into mine. . . ”
Pretty obvious Bogart/Casablanca paraphrase, in keeping
with Vimes’ role as the Discworld equivalent of the
ultimate film noir anti-hero.
– [ p. 114/104 ] The bit about the hero killing a monster in
a lake, only to have the monster’s mum come right down
the hall the next day and complain, is a reference to
Grendel and his mother, two famous monsters from the
Beowulf saga.
– [ p. 114/104 ] “Pour encourjay lays ortras.”
Discworld version of the French phrase “pour encourager
les autres”. The phrase originates with Voltaire who, after
the British executed their own admiral John Byng in 1757
for failing to relieve Minorca, was inspired to write (in
Chapter 23 of Candide) a sentence that translates to: “in
this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time
to time to encourage the others”.
– [ p. 116/106 ] “ ‘For example, foxes are always knocking
over my dustbins.’ ”
Terry, at least at one point in his life, lived in the west
country, near Bristol. Bristol has become famous for its
urban foxes (although they apparently operate in all
largish greenish cities in the UK). In the early 80s, BBC
Bristol made a famous programme on these urban foxes,
called Foxwatch.
On this programme, hitherto unachieved photographs of
GUARDS! GUARDS! 37