ThursdayNext : www.jasperfforde.com
A discussion of all things Thursday !
British Reference Notes Part 2
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 30, 2002 12:20PM
<HTML>I am reminded by Mr Fforde that the first few pages of TEA appear in an annotated format at [www.jasperfforde.com] but having checked this out (having forgotten its existence) I am relieved to report that (Crimea apart) I have not annotated the same things. Phew.
Anyway, chapters 2 through 6 coming up in next posts on this thread.</HTML>
Anyway, chapters 2 through 6 coming up in next posts on this thread.</HTML>
Re: British Reference Notes Part 2
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 30, 2002 12:21PM
<HTML>TEA - Chapter Two
p.11 Gad’s Hill Palace; a typo – should read ‘Gad’s Hill Place’. Even Dickens couldn’t afford palaces.
p.11 ExcoMat containment facility; I cannot at present explain this.
p.12 Haworth House; in our world the Bronte’s home is a mere parsonage, not a grand House. More on Haworth later.
p.12 Chawton; village, in Hampshire, where Jane Austen lived from 1809. Jasper implies it is a building rather than a village. Perhaps should be read as ‘Jane Austen’s House at Chawton’.
p.12 Lydia Startright; Start-rite is a well-known (UK) brand of children’s shoes.
p.15 Lamber Thwalts; at first I thought this was a mistake. Lambeth is a (rather seedy) district of London, and The Lambeth Waltz is (I learn) a piece of music by Australian composer Penelope Thwaites. There is also a much better known music-hall song called The Lambeth Walk (also the name of a street) and that is what I believed Jasper meant to refer to until I looked it up.
p.16; Milton Keens; Milton Keynes (pronounced as in the name of Jasper’s crim) is a ghastly ‘new town’ in Buckinghamshire renowned as the most boring place in Britain.
p.16; Parkhurst; high-security prison on the Isle of Wight.</HTML>
p.11 Gad’s Hill Palace; a typo – should read ‘Gad’s Hill Place’. Even Dickens couldn’t afford palaces.
p.11 ExcoMat containment facility; I cannot at present explain this.
p.12 Haworth House; in our world the Bronte’s home is a mere parsonage, not a grand House. More on Haworth later.
p.12 Chawton; village, in Hampshire, where Jane Austen lived from 1809. Jasper implies it is a building rather than a village. Perhaps should be read as ‘Jane Austen’s House at Chawton’.
p.12 Lydia Startright; Start-rite is a well-known (UK) brand of children’s shoes.
p.15 Lamber Thwalts; at first I thought this was a mistake. Lambeth is a (rather seedy) district of London, and The Lambeth Waltz is (I learn) a piece of music by Australian composer Penelope Thwaites. There is also a much better known music-hall song called The Lambeth Walk (also the name of a street) and that is what I believed Jasper meant to refer to until I looked it up.
p.16; Milton Keens; Milton Keynes (pronounced as in the name of Jasper’s crim) is a ghastly ‘new town’ in Buckinghamshire renowned as the most boring place in Britain.
p.16; Parkhurst; high-security prison on the Isle of Wight.</HTML>
Re: British Reference Notes Part 2
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 30, 2002 12:23PM
<HTML>TEA - Chapter Three
p.21; Landen Park-Laine; in the UK, right, when playing Monopoly, if you want to claim the highest value square before anyone else does, what you want to do is land on Park Lane. (Jasper apparently thought of changing it in the US edition to Landen Board-Walk, but I’m glad he didn’t).
p.25; Acheron Hades; in Greek myth the river Acheron was the chief river of the underworld (Hades). Also apparently a real river in the north of Greece.
p.25; Braeburn; a strain of apple. Very nice, too.</HTML>
p.21; Landen Park-Laine; in the UK, right, when playing Monopoly, if you want to claim the highest value square before anyone else does, what you want to do is land on Park Lane. (Jasper apparently thought of changing it in the US edition to Landen Board-Walk, but I’m glad he didn’t).
p.25; Acheron Hades; in Greek myth the river Acheron was the chief river of the underworld (Hades). Also apparently a real river in the north of Greece.
p.25; Braeburn; a strain of apple. Very nice, too.</HTML>
Re: British Reference Notes Part 2
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 30, 2002 12:23PM
<HTML>Chapter Four
p.31; Dodo; now, we all know dodos are extinct, right? Proverbially so, in fact. Here is some more information re dodos you may not know. (Stop me if I’m boring you). They lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and were flightless, so wings wouldn’t have been much use to Pickwick anyway. They were quite large birds, weighing up to 23kg (50 pounds), so one wonders about their suitability as house pets. They probably ate roots and leaves. Dodos were not noted for brains; the name comes from the Portuguese doudo, meaning simpleton (one for Bea there). I cannot ascertain whether the call of the dodo was in fact plock-plock or not.
p.31; Thylacine; marsupial carnivore, aka the Tasmanian Wolf. Almost certainly extinct.
p.32; Stella Seacow; as the Upgrade says, this should be Steller’s Sea Cow. Bloody huge herbivorous sea creature, related to manatees, and of course extinct. Would only make a pet if you had your own lake.
p.32; should have used dove; amazingly, dodos were in fact members of the pigeon family (the sort of relative nobody ever talks about, presumably).
p.32; pukey and quarkbeast; I don’t know what a pukey is, but it sounds messy, while a quarkbeast is a thing made up by Jasper (see [www.jasperfforde.com]).
p.33; Pontiac; it may not register with American readers that car makes such as Pontiac, Chevrolet and Studebaker are in fact very rare in Britain. Is this a symbol of the total domination Goliath has over Nextian England? Or is it just because Jasper likes big old American cars?
p.33; Jeyes fluid; bleach.
p.34; Filbert Snood; a filbert is a kind of nut, and a snood is a very naff women’s garment with a hood.
p.35; Styx; is, of course, another river in Hades. And an unspeakably vile American rock band.
p.37; Biros; ballpoint pens, from the inventor of same, Hungarian Lazlo Biro.
p.39; Baconians; Baconians exist in our world, too, and while they don’t knock at doors or fight in the street they are as mad as pants and a pain in the arse. Unsurprisingly, the Bacon cult was founded by one Julia Bacon, who was no relation to Francis, but may have thought she was, she being completely barmy. The conversation between Thursday and Capillary gives a very fair summary of the case for and against, and Jasper also provides an elegant demolition of the Bacon case at [www.jasperfforde.com]. Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare; Colonel Next said so.
p.42; cavalry sabre; odd sidelight on Nextian warfare here. They have tanks (or at least APCs) but use sabres. Hmm.
p.42; Cheltenham Gold Stakes Handicap; in our world the Cheltenham Gold Cup is a very important horse race.</HTML>
p.31; Dodo; now, we all know dodos are extinct, right? Proverbially so, in fact. Here is some more information re dodos you may not know. (Stop me if I’m boring you). They lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and were flightless, so wings wouldn’t have been much use to Pickwick anyway. They were quite large birds, weighing up to 23kg (50 pounds), so one wonders about their suitability as house pets. They probably ate roots and leaves. Dodos were not noted for brains; the name comes from the Portuguese doudo, meaning simpleton (one for Bea there). I cannot ascertain whether the call of the dodo was in fact plock-plock or not.
p.31; Thylacine; marsupial carnivore, aka the Tasmanian Wolf. Almost certainly extinct.
p.32; Stella Seacow; as the Upgrade says, this should be Steller’s Sea Cow. Bloody huge herbivorous sea creature, related to manatees, and of course extinct. Would only make a pet if you had your own lake.
p.32; should have used dove; amazingly, dodos were in fact members of the pigeon family (the sort of relative nobody ever talks about, presumably).
p.32; pukey and quarkbeast; I don’t know what a pukey is, but it sounds messy, while a quarkbeast is a thing made up by Jasper (see [www.jasperfforde.com]).
p.33; Pontiac; it may not register with American readers that car makes such as Pontiac, Chevrolet and Studebaker are in fact very rare in Britain. Is this a symbol of the total domination Goliath has over Nextian England? Or is it just because Jasper likes big old American cars?
p.33; Jeyes fluid; bleach.
p.34; Filbert Snood; a filbert is a kind of nut, and a snood is a very naff women’s garment with a hood.
p.35; Styx; is, of course, another river in Hades. And an unspeakably vile American rock band.
p.37; Biros; ballpoint pens, from the inventor of same, Hungarian Lazlo Biro.
p.39; Baconians; Baconians exist in our world, too, and while they don’t knock at doors or fight in the street they are as mad as pants and a pain in the arse. Unsurprisingly, the Bacon cult was founded by one Julia Bacon, who was no relation to Francis, but may have thought she was, she being completely barmy. The conversation between Thursday and Capillary gives a very fair summary of the case for and against, and Jasper also provides an elegant demolition of the Bacon case at [www.jasperfforde.com]. Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare; Colonel Next said so.
p.42; cavalry sabre; odd sidelight on Nextian warfare here. They have tanks (or at least APCs) but use sabres. Hmm.
p.42; Cheltenham Gold Stakes Handicap; in our world the Cheltenham Gold Cup is a very important horse race.</HTML>
Re: British Reference Notes Part 2
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 30, 2002 12:27PM
<HTML>Chapter Five
p.46; Flanker; in British slang ‘to work a flanker’ is to pull some crafty move. A flanker is also a position in a rugby (union) team.
p.55; the book in the pocket that stops a bullet is a literary cliché, particularly in Boy’s Own type stories from World War One, where it is usually a Bible. Often the verse at which the bullet stops is somehow significant. For Thursday, it is not a Bible, but Jane Eyre. Another symbol of the importance of literature in the Nextian universe.
p.56; M4; motorway (freeway) which runs from London to South Wales (via Swindon).
p.58; Stonk; in British slang, ‘stonking’ means powerful, extremely, very.
p.60; Swindon; doubts have been expressed as to the reality of Swindon, but alas it does exist. Our Swindon is a town in Wiltshire of approx. 158,000 people, lying 79 miles West of London. Originally a railway town, it has been extensively redeveloped in very nasty concrete and glass, and now plays host to a multitude of software and computer related industries, being at the heart of the English equivalent of Silicon Valley. It is famous for nothing very much, but is reputed to be very boring. Of the Swindonian items shown on Japser’s site only the Magic Roundabout is completely real, being exactly as shown. That a traffic roundabout is the most interesting thing about the real Swindon should be enough to keep you away from the place. The Nextian Swindon is much more important and interesting and weird, which is kind of the gag.</HTML>
p.46; Flanker; in British slang ‘to work a flanker’ is to pull some crafty move. A flanker is also a position in a rugby (union) team.
p.55; the book in the pocket that stops a bullet is a literary cliché, particularly in Boy’s Own type stories from World War One, where it is usually a Bible. Often the verse at which the bullet stops is somehow significant. For Thursday, it is not a Bible, but Jane Eyre. Another symbol of the importance of literature in the Nextian universe.
p.56; M4; motorway (freeway) which runs from London to South Wales (via Swindon).
p.58; Stonk; in British slang, ‘stonking’ means powerful, extremely, very.
p.60; Swindon; doubts have been expressed as to the reality of Swindon, but alas it does exist. Our Swindon is a town in Wiltshire of approx. 158,000 people, lying 79 miles West of London. Originally a railway town, it has been extensively redeveloped in very nasty concrete and glass, and now plays host to a multitude of software and computer related industries, being at the heart of the English equivalent of Silicon Valley. It is famous for nothing very much, but is reputed to be very boring. Of the Swindonian items shown on Japser’s site only the Magic Roundabout is completely real, being exactly as shown. That a traffic roundabout is the most interesting thing about the real Swindon should be enough to keep you away from the place. The Nextian Swindon is much more important and interesting and weird, which is kind of the gag.</HTML>
Re: British Reference Notes Part 2
Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: October 30, 2002 12:28PM
<HTML>Chapter Six
p.63; Haworth House; unlike Swindon, Haworth is well worth a visit. In our world, the Brontes lived at Haworth parsonage (not House) in the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, not far from Leeds and Bradford. It’s not far from where I live, either, and I know it well. As in the Nextian world, the house has become a museum, but I’m glad to say it isn’t quite as naff as Jasper makes it sound; I’ve never been taken round by a guide, and the staff have always been very pleasant and helpful. (It was until recently run by the very wonderful Juliet Barker, who wrote a marvellous Bronte biography). The exhibits are always interesting and well presented, and change regularly, but, alas, the manuscripts of the novels are not normally kept in Haworth, but at the British Library in London. I did go (as I suspect Jasper did) when the Jane Eyre manuscript was on show at Haworth a couple of years ago, and while I failed to jump into it, it was indeed awesome. Like seeing some holy relic. A final note about Haworth; it has a truly excellent pub (the Fleece).
Small digression; years ago I worked for a coach firm in Manchester, and one of our regular half-day excursions was ‘Haworth and the Bronte Country’. I always wanted to announce to the coachload of Mancunian grannies that anyone who had actually read any of the books could go for free. I swear I would never have had to make the refund.</HTML>
p.63; Haworth House; unlike Swindon, Haworth is well worth a visit. In our world, the Brontes lived at Haworth parsonage (not House) in the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, not far from Leeds and Bradford. It’s not far from where I live, either, and I know it well. As in the Nextian world, the house has become a museum, but I’m glad to say it isn’t quite as naff as Jasper makes it sound; I’ve never been taken round by a guide, and the staff have always been very pleasant and helpful. (It was until recently run by the very wonderful Juliet Barker, who wrote a marvellous Bronte biography). The exhibits are always interesting and well presented, and change regularly, but, alas, the manuscripts of the novels are not normally kept in Haworth, but at the British Library in London. I did go (as I suspect Jasper did) when the Jane Eyre manuscript was on show at Haworth a couple of years ago, and while I failed to jump into it, it was indeed awesome. Like seeing some holy relic. A final note about Haworth; it has a truly excellent pub (the Fleece).
Small digression; years ago I worked for a coach firm in Manchester, and one of our regular half-day excursions was ‘Haworth and the Bronte Country’. I always wanted to announce to the coachload of Mancunian grannies that anyone who had actually read any of the books could go for free. I swear I would never have had to make the refund.</HTML>
dodo
Posted by: ScarletBea (148.177.129.---)
Date: October 30, 2002 01:10PM
<HTML>Thanks Jon, but I suppose it must be a *very* old word, not used anymore. I have no idea of what a doudo is.
On the other hand, nowadays we have the word 'doido', meaning crazy person.
I wonder if it comes from there????</HTML>
On the other hand, nowadays we have the word 'doido', meaning crazy person.
I wonder if it comes from there????</HTML>
Re: dodo
Posted by: all-american-cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: October 30, 2002 03:39PM
<HTML>You know, Jon, I think I may have to copy and paste all your work into a Word document and then print it out and keep it with my books! Or at least give it to the other people who receive the books from me. Great job!!!!!!!
~Twila~</HTML>
~Twila~</HTML>
Re: dodo
Posted by: Terry Peterson (---.proxy.aol.com)
Date: November 01, 2002 12:34PM
<HTML>Excellent job, Jon! More, more, more!
lefseboy
(another appreciative Yank)</HTML>
lefseboy
(another appreciative Yank)</HTML>
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