ThursdayNext : www.jasperfforde.com
A discussion of all things Thursday !
LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 11:14AM
<HTML>Ladies and gentlemen of the Next, I give you;
<A HREF="http://www.jasperfforde.com/readerjon5.html">LIAGB Notes</A>
Featuring the full scandalous story of Mother Hubbard; more aeroplane puns than you can shake a stick at; and several unresolved puzzles and mysteries that have eluded my meticulous (hem-hem) research. Enjoy.</HTML>
<A HREF="http://www.jasperfforde.com/readerjon5.html">LIAGB Notes</A>
Featuring the full scandalous story of Mother Hubbard; more aeroplane puns than you can shake a stick at; and several unresolved puzzles and mysteries that have eluded my meticulous (hem-hem) research. Enjoy.</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: carla (198.179.227.---)
Date: December 03, 2002 01:49PM
<HTML>didn't read them all really carefully but here are a couple of comments...
p.53; boy bands; I don't recall having boy bands in our 1985. Ah, happy days.
what were Wham? Kajagoogoo? Even Duran Duran...
p.74; Lego; the trade name of a type of plastic brick, made in Denmark, which can be clipped to other such bricks to make fantastic models, should you have the necessary patience. I could never be bothered, myself
Oh I even had a Formula 1 track in Lego! I simply loved Lego, Bea got a huge box when I was born and we added up to it for quite a few years...</HTML>
p.53; boy bands; I don't recall having boy bands in our 1985. Ah, happy days.
what were Wham? Kajagoogoo? Even Duran Duran...
p.74; Lego; the trade name of a type of plastic brick, made in Denmark, which can be clipped to other such bricks to make fantastic models, should you have the necessary patience. I could never be bothered, myself
Oh I even had a Formula 1 track in Lego! I simply loved Lego, Bea got a huge box when I was born and we added up to it for quite a few years...</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 01:55PM
<HTML>Depends on how you define 'boy band'; how about 'anodyne bunch of lads chosen entirely for their looks, created as a commercial enterprise by a record company, with ability to actually sing not necessary, and ability to play instruments not required. No song-writing talent needed (cos that would eat into promoters profits).'
Was there anything like that in 1985? All right, Bros.
Or was I getting confused with 1975? I grow old ....</HTML>
Was there anything like that in 1985? All right, Bros.
Or was I getting confused with 1975? I grow old ....</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: carla (198.179.227.---)
Date: December 03, 2002 02:49PM
<HTML>yes Bros. fortunately when they came along i was getting to old to like those things!
:-)
you can't really say Wham could play and so on... That Wham Rap is just hilarious, even though I still like Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
;-)</HTML>
:-)
you can't really say Wham could play and so on... That Wham Rap is just hilarious, even though I still like Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
;-)</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: All-American-Cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: December 03, 2002 04:02PM
<HTML>we had boy bands here in 1985... New Edition (Bobby Brown, et al), etc. And is everyone forgetting one of the original boy bands?? MENUDO!</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 04:07PM
<HTML>All right, all right, so I was wrong. Sheesh. I had other things on my mind in 1985, is my excuse.</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: All-American-Cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: December 03, 2002 04:27PM
<HTML>p.126; Fusioncell; there was an advert some years ago in which a number of mechanical rabbits played drums. And they all ran down, except for the one that was powered by Duracell long life batteries, which carried on merrily drumming right the way to the end of the advert. (My wife remembered the brand name).
You Brits are SO lucky! We're still inundated with these commercials...although, now it's one bunny beating VERY loudly on a bass drum at the most inopportune moments. Our comedy show, Saturday Night Live, did a parody on it in the early 90's where they took one of the large promo toys and let it march and beat its way off the end of the news desk into a vat of acid. Bravo I say. Too bad Duracell keeps using that inane crap to hawk their product. (I refuse to buy their batteries until they find a new ad!)
[stepping off of soapbox now]</HTML>
You Brits are SO lucky! We're still inundated with these commercials...although, now it's one bunny beating VERY loudly on a bass drum at the most inopportune moments. Our comedy show, Saturday Night Live, did a parody on it in the early 90's where they took one of the large promo toys and let it march and beat its way off the end of the news desk into a vat of acid. Bravo I say. Too bad Duracell keeps using that inane crap to hawk their product. (I refuse to buy their batteries until they find a new ad!)
[stepping off of soapbox now]</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: All-American-Cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: December 03, 2002 04:28PM
<HTML>oops, actually it's ENERGIZER, not Duracell! I knew something sounded wrong!</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: All-American-Cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: December 03, 2002 04:50PM
<HTML>p.164; Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat;.....How would you like it if they moved Washington (DC) into Maryland
Well, as a resident of this metropolitan area, we get sick of hearing about DC's woes with budget, crime and everything else. Most of us think that Maryland should just take their portion back. The Virginia side came back a VERY long time ago and became Arlington and Alexandria. (before the creation of the Federal City, these were cities of their own, along with Georgetown, which is still part of DC and jolly good place to party)
Just as an interesting fact, DC started out as a 100 square mile square of swamp land (too many easy jokes about politicians here) that was taken from both Virginia and Maryland to create the Federal City. It was formed as a perfect square set on corners north to south (think like a diamond) 10 miles per side. Since the Virginia side was taken back in 1846, the District of Columbia now encompasses 68 square miles. Most of us think Maryland should take their side back because the residents of DC have absolutely NO federal voting rights. The highest office they can vote for is for City Mayor. Yet they pay full Federal income taxes and social security taxes. (Besides, the majority of the crime that happens in the city occurs right on the border with Maryland's Prince George's County. And it carries right on over. It's just the tough neighborhoods in that area that are occupied mostly by very poor African American people. Maybe if they became part of Maryland, the crime would be easier to control since it would be just one jurisdiction.)
okay, enough political rambling...just thought you might wanna know.</HTML>
Well, as a resident of this metropolitan area, we get sick of hearing about DC's woes with budget, crime and everything else. Most of us think that Maryland should just take their portion back. The Virginia side came back a VERY long time ago and became Arlington and Alexandria. (before the creation of the Federal City, these were cities of their own, along with Georgetown, which is still part of DC and jolly good place to party)
Just as an interesting fact, DC started out as a 100 square mile square of swamp land (too many easy jokes about politicians here) that was taken from both Virginia and Maryland to create the Federal City. It was formed as a perfect square set on corners north to south (think like a diamond) 10 miles per side. Since the Virginia side was taken back in 1846, the District of Columbia now encompasses 68 square miles. Most of us think Maryland should take their side back because the residents of DC have absolutely NO federal voting rights. The highest office they can vote for is for City Mayor. Yet they pay full Federal income taxes and social security taxes. (Besides, the majority of the crime that happens in the city occurs right on the border with Maryland's Prince George's County. And it carries right on over. It's just the tough neighborhoods in that area that are occupied mostly by very poor African American people. Maybe if they became part of Maryland, the crime would be easier to control since it would be just one jurisdiction.)
okay, enough political rambling...just thought you might wanna know.</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 04:56PM
<HTML>It was just an example....maybe I should have sent Long Island to NY or sumpin.</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: All-American-Cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: December 03, 2002 05:13PM
<HTML>well, you were right on one account...Maryland doesn't exactly WANT Washington....and there it would be similar to your analogy [grin]</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 06:15PM
<HTML>Busy working through the notes out of general pedantry...
Reading... hehehe
Kent = should also be noted it'salso a pair of royal liggers and a posh swearword. As witnessed by 2DTV the other night:
David & Victoria: "We called our house 'Beckingham Palace', 'coz your house is Buckingham Palace."
Queen: "Really? Then feck orf. Oh God, here come the Kents."
Tony and Cherie: "Hello, ma'am."</HTML>
Reading... hehehe
Kent = should also be noted it'salso a pair of royal liggers and a posh swearword. As witnessed by 2DTV the other night:
David & Victoria: "We called our house 'Beckingham Palace', 'coz your house is Buckingham Palace."
Queen: "Really? Then feck orf. Oh God, here come the Kents."
Tony and Cherie: "Hello, ma'am."</HTML>
Re: LIAGB Notes Now Available!
Posted by: fuzz (---.cableinet.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 07:47PM
<HTML>p.7; Schitt-Hawse. Oh, I thought it was pronounced @!#$-Horse, as in, well you get the idea. Damn my brain's alternate pronounciation. Probably why I say Sails-bury.</HTML>
Pedant's corner...
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 07:55PM
<HTML>In the spirit of John 'Small Portions' Birt, it should be noted that the current DG, Greg 'Chimchiminee' Dyke, sent out orders that meetings should no longer have biscuits served, saving an estimated 30,000 quid.
<i>p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother.</i> - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty times...
<i>These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods.</i> should read " among the dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods there are always a few innocents", well, near Worcester anyways...
<i>31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country.</i> - apparently Range Rover now sell cans of mud in aerosols so you can have that gentrified look without having to actually go anywhere near those awful country types.
<i>p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see.</i> - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
<i>Antlers</i> - surely Volescamper is too busy blasting the buggers to care about such things? I seem to remember 'Buck' is the correct term. Or for Volescamper - "Target"....
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
<i>Skyrail</i> - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
<i>Wessex</i> - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
<i>p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now.</i> - and now you also know that <i>poep</i> and <i>stront</i> both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
<i>p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with.</i> - been there! Anybody with a fixation for Rock and Roll conspiracy should note that the area is famed for flying saucers and there is also a place called St Elvis nearby. No, really!
<i>p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive.</i> - note for Yanks: pronounced JAG-YOO-A, rather than JAG-WAAH.
<i>p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia.</i> - latest suggestion (if you care about such things) at [www.sciencenewsweek.com]
<i>Lego</i> - I still play with mine... not pedantry, just me being strange here.
<i>Banoffee Pie</i> - crumble a load of digestives and wedge them into the botom of a pie dish. Cover with toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for a couple of hours. Then top with whipped cream and banana slices. Easy...
<i>Twitchers</i> - the Twitching world is currently up in arms about cheating. The only thing I can think of that would matter to the rest of them is someone bunging a stuffed bird in ahedge and shouting 'Look everyone - it's a Great Awk!' Strange world...
<i>Martlet</i> - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
<i>Victor Borge</i> - heard a piece of his describing opera. Was actually quite amusingly rude about it.
<i>p.127; Darth Vader</i> - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
<i>Introduction
Here as promised are the reference notes to Lost In A Good Book, hereinafter referred to as LIAGB. Items already referenced in The Eyre Affair are not repeated here; see Eyre Affair Notes.
Page references are to the UK paperback first editions, 'cos them's the ones I've got. Annotations are taken in page order as the item first appears. All notes not by Mr. Fforde are strictly unofficial, and all opinions are entirely my own. Additions, corrections and disagreements can be sent to me at brierleyjon@aol.com, because we don't want to stop Mr. Fforde writing, do we? Are you still sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.
Lost In A Good Book
Chapter One
p.1; One More Chance To See!; The late great Douglas Adams wrote a book called Last Chance to See? about various endangered species. It's very good.
p.1; Jackanory Gold; Jackanory was a long-running children's show on the BBC (to 1996), featuring a story-teller (often a celebrity, on one occasion Prince Charles) re-telling some favourite tale in daily instalments. I particularly liked the adventures of Littlenose (a Neanderthal boy with a pet mammoth called Two-Eyes), and I daresay the viewers of Neanderthal Network 4 do, too.
p.2; Desert Island Smells; another immemorial BBC ritual, the radio show Desert Island Discs has apparently been going for ever. The format is, some celeb is interviewed, and has to pick eight records to take with them to a desert island. Was it Maria Callas who picked eight of her own?
p.2; Cordelia Flakk; 'flak' is another word for anti-aircraft fire, from the German contraction for FLiegerAbwehrKanone.
p.4; Penzance; town in the west of Cornwall. The Bronte Sisters' mother was born there.
p.5; President Formby; George Formby (1904-1961) was a Lancashire comedian and singer whose act consisted chiefly of rendering cheerful songs laden with double-entendres whilst accompanying himself on a banjolele (which he insisted on referring to as a ukulele). Thanks chiefly to the shrewd and ruthless management of his wife Beryl, Formby became the biggest attraction in British show business in the late '30s and '40s, and made a string of very successful comedy films. Let those who consider Formby becoming President of Nextian England unlikely remember that the first President of Poland was Paderewski the pianist and the Czech Republic chose Vaclav Havel the playwright. As for comedy actors becoming President, what would anyone in the US know about that?
p.5; Barnstaple; town in North Devon, not terribly handy for Penzance, as it happens.
p.7; Rabone; I'm not sure if this is the reference intended, but one Paul Rabone was a fighter pilot in the battle of Britain.
(JFf Note: This is what I like about notes like these - they miss all the impossibly obscure ones so I can still say, in a pathetically childish manner "Ah-ha, missed that ONE, Jon!" Rabone means nothing on its own but added to Chesterman (of the Bronte Federation) we get Rabone-Chesterman which is, as any ful kno, the popular make of leather-bound rewindable measuring tapes - I used one for fifteen years as a focus-puller in my previous life and wore out one casing and three tapes.)
p.7; Schitt-Hawse; if we may descend to the vulgar, a @!#$-house is Northern English vernacular for an outside toilet, known in other lands as a privy, biffy, or dunny.
p.8; Captain Marat; Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) was a leading French Revolutionary, best known for being murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday. Revolutionary France does appear to be the favoured recruiting ground of the ChronoGuard.
p.9; Leptonic; a real adjective, meaning 'incredibly small', derived from 'lepton', a sub-atomic particle.
p.15; twinset and pearls; a twinset is a sleeveless sweater and long-sleeved woolly jacket combination, much favoured by middle-class ladies of a certain age. A twinset and pearls is the uniform of the militant old bat wing of the Conservative Party. (My thanks to my wife for this information).
p.15; The Master of the Sums; this is a much better name for a finance minister than Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of the top legal jobs in government is in fact called the Master of the Rolls. He does not have an assistant called Comptroller of Croissants, though.
Chapter Two
p.17; informal evenings; Prime Minister Tony Blair (like Harold Wilson before him) is fond of having gatherings of celebs round at 10 Downing Street, presumably in the hope of acquiring glamour by association. He wishes.
p.19; Tess acquitted; Tess Durbeyfield, heroine of Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is hung for murder at the end of the book. There is no way on earth she could be acquitted.
p.19; Max de Winter convicted; in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca it transpires that Max has in fact killed his eponymous first wife, for no very good reason. Never mind convicted; I'd settle for tried, myself.
p.19; Kent; county of South East England, famous for growing hops.
p.20; Reading; pronounced 'Redding', a non-descript industrial town on the Thames in Berkshire, about 25 miles nearer London than Swindon. Has a rotten train service, apparently.
p.20; Salisbury; pronounced 'Sauls-burry', ancient cathedral city in Wiltshire, about 30 miles South of Swindon. It seems like a very nice place.
p.20; Anti-Leylandii Association; Leylandii are very tall plants, aka Leyland Cypress, often planted in garden hedges. So tall are they, they can effectively block all the sun from your neighbour's garden. As a result, leylandii over a certain height (calculated by measuring the distance between a window and the hedge, dividing the result by two and adding two metres) are now illegal. And you thought Jasper just made all this stuff up, didn't you?
p.23; Blind Date truly awful TV show, which sets contestants up with, um, blind dates. So far as I can see the chief object of the show is to get wannabes a free screen test.
p.23; tensionologist; see MadeUp Words. All right, it's made up now, but give it a week and California will be full of them.
p.24; stresspert; see above entry.
p.24; verruca; A verruca is a large wart that appears on the sole of the foot, also called a plantar wart. Apparently the word is not commonly used in America.
p.24; chin-chin and toodle-pip; old fashioned upper class slang for 'goodbye'. Chin-chin derives from a Chinese phrase, qingqing. Toodle-pip is a variant of 'toodle-oo', from the French a tout a l'heure, 'see you soon'. There's education, then.
p.26; smaller portions; not long ago the BBC acquired a new head honcho, one John Birt. He was very keen to purge the BBC of what he saw as waste, and he may have had a point, but like all bean-counters he lost sight of it. Guess what one of his ideas was?
p.27; while he's away; if he carries on emulating his hero to the letter, Byron2 will not return; Byron died while aiding the Greeks in their War of Independence.
Chapter Three
p.29; Shakespeare's handwriting; the fragment of King Lear appears to be fictional. (And the Thomas More is disputed).
p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother.
p.30; car boot sale; OK, what happens is, a park or school playing field is hired out, for a small fee, to people who have junk to sell. These persons then display their wares in the open trunks (or boots) of their cars. These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods.
p.31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country.
p.31; forgeries; there are two lots of resonances going on here. First, being fooled by a crap forgery isn't the sole province of idiots like Mrs. Hathaway34. A whole load of people were conned out of a lot of money, and several experts made fools of, over the 'Hitler Diaries', which were nearly as bad a forgery as this ballpoint Cardenio. Second, Shakespeare forgeries are not exactly unknown in our world. The most spectacular example was that of William Henry Ireland, who ran off a whole series of forged documents and manuscripts in 1794. The enthusiastic reception for these led him to forge a whole new play - not Cardenio, but Vortigern and Rowena. It took playgoers at the premiere about ten seconds to realise that this was not by Shakespeare, and the whole scam was blown.
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see.
p.33; Volescamper; Volestrangler was a character name much used by John Cleese. Volescamper sounds like a name that might have been used in Round the Horne (see entry 'Uncultured Rats' in the Eyre Affair Notes), but I'm not sure if it ever was.
p.34; Gothic Revival; the fondness for over-decorated mock-medieval architecture was characteristic of the period 1850-1914. The Houses of Parliament is perhaps the Revival's greatest legacy.
p.35; Chard; small town in Somerset, some 50 odd miles south west of Swindon. The A30 was the main road to the south-west before the coming of the motorway.
p.35; antlers; Ahem. Antelope don't have antlers; they have horns. I don't think male antelope are called stags, either. Deer, that is. In our world antelope do not run wild in Britain - too damn cold.
p.37; excellent; various other plays have been fingered as being co-written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher (The Two Noble Kinsmen, for instance), but excellent is not a word often associated with them. Were we to find a real Cardenio, I fear we should be gravely disappointed. Fletcher's usual partner in crime was Francis Beaumont, another of that parcel of playwrights who I always feel (Marlowe apart) would have been entirely forgotten had they not been contemporaries of Bill Shaxper.
p.37; manuscript of Edward II; I cannot find any reference to such a manuscript being found.
p.38; Bentley; Bentley were first famous for making racing cars, in the 1920's, but were later taken over by Rolls Royce. Modern Bentleys are just Rolls Royces with a different badge on, which seems a bit pointless.
p.38; Yorrick Kaine; Hmm. I can't find a definite connection between 'Yorick' (he whom Hamlet does the gottle-of-geer routine with) and any sort of cane. Did Michael Caine ever play Hamlet? ("I only told you to blow the bloody arras off....")
p.38; Whig; The Whig party were the distant ancestors of the modern Liberal Democrats, originally being the party of the Hanovers (as opposed to the Stuarts). Whig, or Whiggamore, was a Scottish insult meaning 'one who drives a mare', which is a novel insult at least. (And Tory was a name for an Irish outlaw, so there).
p.38; whale shark; a whale shark is a fish - it's as fishy as a very fishy thing; it's a just damn big one (and entirely harmless, unless you are plankton). None of the other things are in any way fish; silverfish are a loathly species of insect, which feed, among other things, on books.
p.39; South Cerney; village in Gloucestershire, near to Cirencester, 10 miles from Swindon. It's very nice, I understand, although I've never been there myself.
p.39; Skyrail; is, of course, fictional. The Nextian Skyrail may be a monorail, staple of all futuristic sci-fi things about forty years ago; they have proved to be impractical, largely because no-one can work out how to design points for them. That and they cost about three squillion pounds a foot.
p.39; wireless; Bowden uses the old fashioned term for radio, coined in the days when it was contrasted with the wire-bound telegraph.
Chapter Four
p.41; Sir Edmund Godfrey; this story is absolutely true. The guilt of the three gentlemen is open to question, since it relies on the dubious testimony of one Miles Prance, who was originally accused of the murder and changed his story several times. The murder was supposedly part of a 'Popish Plot', a (fictitious) Catholic conspiracy.
p.42; crossed into Wessex; it appears from the evidence that Nextian Wessex can be equated with our Wiltshire; Thursday would be crossing from Gloucestershire (which is pronounced 'Glostershire', btw) into Wiltshire in our world. The real, Anglo-Saxon, Wessex covered a much larger area.
p.42; Cricklade; is a very pretty little town in Wiltshire, on the River Thames, 6 miles north west of Swindon. There is no futuristic whizzo Skyrail linking it to Swindon, but there is a heritage steam railway - part of the way, at least..
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now.
p.43; Justice of the Peace; in England, an unpaid magistrate, authorised to try petty crimes in court. A friend of mine who was a J.P. said it was mostly car theft. (The cases, I mean, not the job).
p.43; Broad Blunsdon; village in Wiltshire, just outside Swindon; the Skyrail appears to follow the line of the A419.
p.43; Pekinese; just in case anyone doesn't know, this is a breed of small dog, squashed of face, long of coat and loud of yap. Originally from China, legend has it they used to live in mandarin's sleeves.
p.44; Kaylieu; the only hypothesis I can advance for the Neanderthal's odd name is that Jasper is a closet Marillion fan (supposing you pronounce it kay-leigh, as Beaulieu is pronounced bew-lee). No, I know it's not very convincing, but it's the best I could come up with.
JFf Note: Okay, puzzlesmiths, this gives you an idea of what to look for. Considering that every name refers to something in my books, it only takes 'Kaylieu' to be added to 'Irma Cohen' to give you 'Irma Cohen Kaylieu' or the vague holorime: 'I'm a gonna kill you' This is Aornis remember, and coincidences rule!
p.45; Wanborough junction; Wanborough is a south eastern suburb of Swindon; we have skirted Swindon to the east (still following the A419) and are now heading away from it, south west wards.
p.45; Diana Thuntress; Diana, Roman goddess, surnamed The Huntress, yes?
p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with.
p.47; Shaw and Purton; small towns to the west of Swindon. We have described a big loop all round Swindon, and are now heading north again.
p.48; Dove soap; real brand. We've got some in our bathroom.
Chapter Five
p.51; congress gaiters; a type of low ankle-boot, with elastic sides, popular with Southern belles in the US Civil War period.
p.51; Diatryma; properly called Gastornis, Diatryma was a large (6 feet/2 metres tall) flightless bird that lived c.50 million years ago. It is supposed to have been carnivorous, but the evidence is disputed. The 'real' urban legend referred to here is that hardy perennial one about big cats living wild in Britain, most famously the 'Surrey Puma'. No hard evidence has ever emerged for these stories, but it is surmised that some of them may relate to sightings of jungle cats, which can interbreed with domestic cats, and so be able to maintain a wild population. Entroposcopes at the ready; a cat found in Leintwardine, Herefordshire, near the Welsh border and close by Fforde country, was reckoned to be a jungle/domestic hybrid. It's name? Jasper.
p.51; New Forest; area of outstanding natural beauty in South Hampshire. It was 'new' when William the Conqueror established it.
p.51; Lambourn; town in Berkshire famous for racehorse stables. Has no Roswell connections that I know of.
p.51; Quantock Hills; a range of hills in Somerset.
p.51; Marlborough downs; a range of low hills in Wiltshire, not far from Swindon.
p.52; Emma Hamilton; further to my note about this lady in TEA, I now discover that Mrs. Next has even more cause to worry, since Emma used to be a prostitute (before Nelson met her).
p.53; boy bands; I don't recall having boy bands in our 1985. Ah, happy days.
p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive.
Chapter Four-A
p.59; Fallon; I suppose this story is true, but I can't find any reference to it.
Chapter Six;
p.68; Mr. Perkup; Mr. Perkupp was Charles Pooter's boss in The Diary of a Nobody.
p.70; half nelson; wrestling move (real wrestling, not the WWF variety) involving twisting your opponent's arm up their back. So called because it renders your opponent 'armless, arf arf.
p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia. The explosion blasted trees down for 2,000 square km around, and the tremors were detected as far away as London. What with wars and revolutions, nobody investigated the site until 1930, but no impact crater was found. It is generally reckoned that a comet or meteorite was responsible, but, hey, guess what the alternative theory is.
p.72; DH-82; The De Havilland DH-82 Tiger Moth biplane was built from 1931 to 1946, and it is reckoned that more people have learned to fly in a Tiger Moth than any other type of plane. I bet you can't guess who flies one.
p.72; tail-chasing; the only film ever taken of a thylacine shows it doing just this.
p.74; Lego; the trade name of a type of plastic brick, made in Denmark, which can be clipped to other such bricks to make fantastic models, should you have the necessary patience. I could never be bothered, myself.
p.76; matter is mainly empty space; this theory is no longer widely held by subatomic scientists. Apparently there isn't any empty space because the subatomic particles are never actually in one place at any given time. And anyway they are not discrete lumps of matter circling about one another like miniature planets, but 'shells' that fit over one another in some way. Search me.
p.76; Banoffee pie; that's banana-and-toffee flavour, for those of you who do not haunt cake shops.
p.79; Tiffany Lampe; a Tiffany lamp is a glass art-nouveau type of table lamp, originally designed by a chap with the wonderful name of Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the well-known New York jeweller and breakfast provider.
Chapter Seven
p.84; Hopkins; Thursday's prosecutor is none other than Matthew Hopkins, the dreaded Witchfinder General of 17th century England. Hopkins was a lawyer and religious maniac who became obsessed with witchcraft, and got a government commission to find witches at 20 shillings a head. He toured East Anglia looking for witches, and surprise, surprise, always managed to find some, usually by extracting 'confessions' under torture. He had 60 women hung in one year in Essex alone. Satisfyingly, he was himself accused of witchcraft, and was subjected to one of his own 'tests'. He was flung in a moat, and floated, thereby proving his guilt. An appointment with a stake and some firelighters followed shortly after.
p.85; Devizes; market town in Wiltshire. Yes, yes, it's near Swindon.
p.85; mammoth twitchers; in England, the kind of person (nearly always male) who goes bird-watching with the sole object of ticking off species of birds seen in his bird book is known as a 'twitcher'. Since a mammoth twitcher only has 249 beasts to spot, they're going to fill their books up pretty quick.
p.85; Druids; this is another breed of nutter. The ancient Britons had priest-shaman-bard types who were known as 'druids'. Let it be clearly understood that nothing whatever is known about Celtic religious practices, other than what can be gleaned from Roman anti-Celtic propaganda, which accuses them of human sacrifice. (Romans always accused their enemies of this, possibly because they had a guilty conscience on the subject). Anyway, 1900 years or so later a bunch of hippies decided to 'revive' Druidism as a sort of New Age religion. Of course they made it all up, especially the cod ceremonies at Midsummer at Stonehenge (which isn't even Celtic). If you meet a Druid, annoy them by asking when the next virgin is having her throat cut.
p.85; right to hunt; there is currently a rather contrived controversy about making fox-hunting illegal, leading to pro-hunting protests in the streets of London. It keeps left-wing MPs and huntin' types occupied, but truth to tell most people couldn't care less.
p.87; you wouldn't like me when I get vindictive; Incredible Hulk? Anybody? Oh, please yourselves.
p.89; Castle Doubting; there's a Doubting Castle in Pilgrim's Progress (home to Giant Despair), and there's a Castle Dangerous by Sir Walter Scott, but I can't find no Castle Doubting, not nohow.
p.89; Joe Martlet; a martlet is an archaic or heraldic term for a house-martin or a swift, but more to the point is the Grumman F4F Martlet, a type of fighter plane used by the US and Royal Navies in WW2. (Note; I may have to assume that any reference not otherwise understood refers to aircraft).
JFf note: Amazingly, not an aircraft reference, this one. Correct answer wins an UltraWord T-shirt.
Chapter Eight
p.96; Dorothy Perkins; a British chain of women's fashion stores.
p.99; King and Nosmo; there are a suspiciously large number of people called Nosmo King. An obscure poet; a music hall comedian; and a Northern Soul artiste. I suspect at least one of these to be a pseudonym. Defense de fumer, mon braves.
p.100; When did you last see your father? The title of a well-known painting by the not well-known William Frederick Yeames (1835-1918). It depicts a very small Royalist being interrogated by Commonwealth soldiers as to the whereabouts of his Dad.
p.102; looped behind the Crunch; proponents of the Big Bang theory of creation sometimes speculate that one day all the energy created by the Bang will run down (entropy), gravity will take over, and all the matter expanding across the Universe will reverse direction, collapsing back onto itself in the Big Crunch. Which will then be followed by another Big Bang, and so on.
Chapter Nine
p.105; goldfishes to predict earthquakes; canaries down mines, yes, but has anyone heard of this peculiar practice, and if so, how does it work?
JFf note: In China, apparently. They get all jittery with the smallpre-shocks that come before a major quake.
p.105; Tickia orologica; a plant only otherwise to be found in Edward Lear's Nonsense Botany; the name is cod Latin for 'ticking clock'.
p.106/107; Houson, Billden; OK, so you're playing Monopoly, and you've bought Park Lane. How do you increase the rental? That's right; you build a house on it.
p.109; Armitage Shanks; no, it isn't rude rhyming slang. Armitage Shanks are a very respectable firm of bathroom furniture makers. With special reference to lavatory equipment. Oh, all right, it's rude rhyming slang as well. Satisfied?
Chapter Ten
p.113; Veronica Golightly; Of course you've never heard of her. She was eradicated.
p.113; Victor Borge; Danish-born Borge did an act involving playing (or more usually not playing) classical music. It was alleged to be funny.
p.113; QT, CG; to do something on the QT is to do it on the quiet, without people knowing. CG stands for ChronoGuard, since you ask.
p.114; Sommeworld; in an as-yet un-published story, Jasper created a theme park which gave visitors the authentic First World War experience. I'd hurry up and get it published before somebody nicks the idea and opens such a park. It can't be any worse than Disneyland.
p.115; Van Helsing's Gazette; Van Helsing was, in the original Dracula, the chief wielder of garlic and stakes.
p.117; amphibious aircraft foreshadowing alert; see where Thursday is living at the end of the book.
p.119; Miles Hawke; yes, it's a type of aeroplane! The Miles Hawk was a twin seat high-performance monoplane made in the 1930's. I think I'm getting the hang of this.
p.122; Delphic Oracle; your actual ancient Greeks put much store in the enigmatic pronouncements of oracles, or people who were supposed to have a hotline to the Gods. The most renowned of these was at Delphi. The Oracle (whose mouthpiece was a priestess) would make obscure and ambiguous replies to questions, which the questioner would then interpret in whatever way suited them. This act was later pinched by every 'clairvoyant' you've ever heard of.
p.122; Ping-Pong; enthusiasts for the game insist that it be called table tennis, and they who speak of Ping-Pong shall be accursed, and cast without. See the Upgrade.
p.123; No ball; and whatever you call it, I'm sure you can't shout 'No ball' at any point; that's cricket, isn't it?
p.124; Faerie Queene; while Spenser was living in Ireland, part of the manuscript was destroyed when the natives burned down the castle he was staying in, an extreme but entirely justified form of literary criticism.
p.126; The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies; is a work by that esteemed writer and illustrator Miss Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), whose little books have sold by the million for a hundred years or more. Mrs. Tiggywinkle was my favourite.
p.126; Fusioncell; there was an advert some years ago in which a number of mechanical rabbits played drums. And they all ran down, except for the one that was powered by Duracell long life batteries, which carried on merrily drumming right the way to the end of the advert. (My wife remembered the brand name).
p.127; Darth Vader; to get this joke you have to know that Mr. McGregor killed Peter Rabbit's father. Darth Vader, on the other hand, never put Luke Skywalker's father in a pie.
Chapter Twelve
p.131; Tunbridge Wells; is a spa town in Kent, generally rather posh, and legendarily the home of retired colonel types who write grumpy letters to the Times. They are generally disgusted and appalled about something (as is Colonel Prongg on p.132).
p.131; corporate manslaughter; in theory such a charge exists in the British legal system. In practice no-one has ever done any time for it.
p.132; Botchkamos Istochnik; istochnik is the Russian for 'source' or 'spring', which equates to 'Wells'. I cannot translate botchkamos but I presume it has some relevance to 'Tunbridge'. JFf: Yes it is; 'Barrel-bridge' in Russian as translated by my chum Sophie. A 'Tun' being an old English name for a barrel, usually containing beer - there are many pubs in Britian called 'The Three Tuns'.
p.132; Fetlar; one of the principal islands of the Shetlands, far to the north of Scotland.
p.132; Brighton; seaside resort city in Sussex, and the gay capital of the UK.
p.133; Cortes; Hernando Cortes was the Spanish conqueror of Mexico (1519); the Aztec city Tenochtitlan lay where Mexico City now is. Keats got it wrong, btw; it was not stout Cortes but Vasco de Balboa who first gazed on the Pacific.
p.133; Oldspot; the Gloucester Old Spot is a breed of pig.
p.135; pair of trousers; this is one of Defoe's most famous bloopers. Crusoe swims to the wreck naked, but when he gets there starts putting things in his trouser pockets. In defence of Defoe he was writing the book in some hurry.
p.135; Majorca; I'd go along with Landen's description, but note that the PC way to spell it is Mallorca. For the geographically challenged, Mallorca is a large Spanish Mediterranean island, much favoured as a holiday destination by Brits (and Germans).
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England</i> - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
<i>Mount Pleasant</i> - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...
more of this in a mo.....</HTML>
<i>p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother.</i> - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty times...
<i>These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods.</i> should read " among the dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods there are always a few innocents", well, near Worcester anyways...
<i>31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country.</i> - apparently Range Rover now sell cans of mud in aerosols so you can have that gentrified look without having to actually go anywhere near those awful country types.
<i>p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see.</i> - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
<i>Antlers</i> - surely Volescamper is too busy blasting the buggers to care about such things? I seem to remember 'Buck' is the correct term. Or for Volescamper - "Target"....
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
<i>Skyrail</i> - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
<i>Wessex</i> - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
<i>p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now.</i> - and now you also know that <i>poep</i> and <i>stront</i> both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
<i>p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with.</i> - been there! Anybody with a fixation for Rock and Roll conspiracy should note that the area is famed for flying saucers and there is also a place called St Elvis nearby. No, really!
<i>p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive.</i> - note for Yanks: pronounced JAG-YOO-A, rather than JAG-WAAH.
<i>p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia.</i> - latest suggestion (if you care about such things) at [www.sciencenewsweek.com]
<i>Lego</i> - I still play with mine... not pedantry, just me being strange here.
<i>Banoffee Pie</i> - crumble a load of digestives and wedge them into the botom of a pie dish. Cover with toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for a couple of hours. Then top with whipped cream and banana slices. Easy...
<i>Twitchers</i> - the Twitching world is currently up in arms about cheating. The only thing I can think of that would matter to the rest of them is someone bunging a stuffed bird in ahedge and shouting 'Look everyone - it's a Great Awk!' Strange world...
<i>Martlet</i> - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
<i>Victor Borge</i> - heard a piece of his describing opera. Was actually quite amusingly rude about it.
<i>p.127; Darth Vader</i> - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
<i>Introduction
Here as promised are the reference notes to Lost In A Good Book, hereinafter referred to as LIAGB. Items already referenced in The Eyre Affair are not repeated here; see Eyre Affair Notes.
Page references are to the UK paperback first editions, 'cos them's the ones I've got. Annotations are taken in page order as the item first appears. All notes not by Mr. Fforde are strictly unofficial, and all opinions are entirely my own. Additions, corrections and disagreements can be sent to me at brierleyjon@aol.com, because we don't want to stop Mr. Fforde writing, do we? Are you still sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.
Lost In A Good Book
Chapter One
p.1; One More Chance To See!; The late great Douglas Adams wrote a book called Last Chance to See? about various endangered species. It's very good.
p.1; Jackanory Gold; Jackanory was a long-running children's show on the BBC (to 1996), featuring a story-teller (often a celebrity, on one occasion Prince Charles) re-telling some favourite tale in daily instalments. I particularly liked the adventures of Littlenose (a Neanderthal boy with a pet mammoth called Two-Eyes), and I daresay the viewers of Neanderthal Network 4 do, too.
p.2; Desert Island Smells; another immemorial BBC ritual, the radio show Desert Island Discs has apparently been going for ever. The format is, some celeb is interviewed, and has to pick eight records to take with them to a desert island. Was it Maria Callas who picked eight of her own?
p.2; Cordelia Flakk; 'flak' is another word for anti-aircraft fire, from the German contraction for FLiegerAbwehrKanone.
p.4; Penzance; town in the west of Cornwall. The Bronte Sisters' mother was born there.
p.5; President Formby; George Formby (1904-1961) was a Lancashire comedian and singer whose act consisted chiefly of rendering cheerful songs laden with double-entendres whilst accompanying himself on a banjolele (which he insisted on referring to as a ukulele). Thanks chiefly to the shrewd and ruthless management of his wife Beryl, Formby became the biggest attraction in British show business in the late '30s and '40s, and made a string of very successful comedy films. Let those who consider Formby becoming President of Nextian England unlikely remember that the first President of Poland was Paderewski the pianist and the Czech Republic chose Vaclav Havel the playwright. As for comedy actors becoming President, what would anyone in the US know about that?
p.5; Barnstaple; town in North Devon, not terribly handy for Penzance, as it happens.
p.7; Rabone; I'm not sure if this is the reference intended, but one Paul Rabone was a fighter pilot in the battle of Britain.
(JFf Note: This is what I like about notes like these - they miss all the impossibly obscure ones so I can still say, in a pathetically childish manner "Ah-ha, missed that ONE, Jon!" Rabone means nothing on its own but added to Chesterman (of the Bronte Federation) we get Rabone-Chesterman which is, as any ful kno, the popular make of leather-bound rewindable measuring tapes - I used one for fifteen years as a focus-puller in my previous life and wore out one casing and three tapes.)
p.7; Schitt-Hawse; if we may descend to the vulgar, a @!#$-house is Northern English vernacular for an outside toilet, known in other lands as a privy, biffy, or dunny.
p.8; Captain Marat; Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) was a leading French Revolutionary, best known for being murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday. Revolutionary France does appear to be the favoured recruiting ground of the ChronoGuard.
p.9; Leptonic; a real adjective, meaning 'incredibly small', derived from 'lepton', a sub-atomic particle.
p.15; twinset and pearls; a twinset is a sleeveless sweater and long-sleeved woolly jacket combination, much favoured by middle-class ladies of a certain age. A twinset and pearls is the uniform of the militant old bat wing of the Conservative Party. (My thanks to my wife for this information).
p.15; The Master of the Sums; this is a much better name for a finance minister than Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of the top legal jobs in government is in fact called the Master of the Rolls. He does not have an assistant called Comptroller of Croissants, though.
Chapter Two
p.17; informal evenings; Prime Minister Tony Blair (like Harold Wilson before him) is fond of having gatherings of celebs round at 10 Downing Street, presumably in the hope of acquiring glamour by association. He wishes.
p.19; Tess acquitted; Tess Durbeyfield, heroine of Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is hung for murder at the end of the book. There is no way on earth she could be acquitted.
p.19; Max de Winter convicted; in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca it transpires that Max has in fact killed his eponymous first wife, for no very good reason. Never mind convicted; I'd settle for tried, myself.
p.19; Kent; county of South East England, famous for growing hops.
p.20; Reading; pronounced 'Redding', a non-descript industrial town on the Thames in Berkshire, about 25 miles nearer London than Swindon. Has a rotten train service, apparently.
p.20; Salisbury; pronounced 'Sauls-burry', ancient cathedral city in Wiltshire, about 30 miles South of Swindon. It seems like a very nice place.
p.20; Anti-Leylandii Association; Leylandii are very tall plants, aka Leyland Cypress, often planted in garden hedges. So tall are they, they can effectively block all the sun from your neighbour's garden. As a result, leylandii over a certain height (calculated by measuring the distance between a window and the hedge, dividing the result by two and adding two metres) are now illegal. And you thought Jasper just made all this stuff up, didn't you?
p.23; Blind Date truly awful TV show, which sets contestants up with, um, blind dates. So far as I can see the chief object of the show is to get wannabes a free screen test.
p.23; tensionologist; see MadeUp Words. All right, it's made up now, but give it a week and California will be full of them.
p.24; stresspert; see above entry.
p.24; verruca; A verruca is a large wart that appears on the sole of the foot, also called a plantar wart. Apparently the word is not commonly used in America.
p.24; chin-chin and toodle-pip; old fashioned upper class slang for 'goodbye'. Chin-chin derives from a Chinese phrase, qingqing. Toodle-pip is a variant of 'toodle-oo', from the French a tout a l'heure, 'see you soon'. There's education, then.
p.26; smaller portions; not long ago the BBC acquired a new head honcho, one John Birt. He was very keen to purge the BBC of what he saw as waste, and he may have had a point, but like all bean-counters he lost sight of it. Guess what one of his ideas was?
p.27; while he's away; if he carries on emulating his hero to the letter, Byron2 will not return; Byron died while aiding the Greeks in their War of Independence.
Chapter Three
p.29; Shakespeare's handwriting; the fragment of King Lear appears to be fictional. (And the Thomas More is disputed).
p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother.
p.30; car boot sale; OK, what happens is, a park or school playing field is hired out, for a small fee, to people who have junk to sell. These persons then display their wares in the open trunks (or boots) of their cars. These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods.
p.31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country.
p.31; forgeries; there are two lots of resonances going on here. First, being fooled by a crap forgery isn't the sole province of idiots like Mrs. Hathaway34. A whole load of people were conned out of a lot of money, and several experts made fools of, over the 'Hitler Diaries', which were nearly as bad a forgery as this ballpoint Cardenio. Second, Shakespeare forgeries are not exactly unknown in our world. The most spectacular example was that of William Henry Ireland, who ran off a whole series of forged documents and manuscripts in 1794. The enthusiastic reception for these led him to forge a whole new play - not Cardenio, but Vortigern and Rowena. It took playgoers at the premiere about ten seconds to realise that this was not by Shakespeare, and the whole scam was blown.
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see.
p.33; Volescamper; Volestrangler was a character name much used by John Cleese. Volescamper sounds like a name that might have been used in Round the Horne (see entry 'Uncultured Rats' in the Eyre Affair Notes), but I'm not sure if it ever was.
p.34; Gothic Revival; the fondness for over-decorated mock-medieval architecture was characteristic of the period 1850-1914. The Houses of Parliament is perhaps the Revival's greatest legacy.
p.35; Chard; small town in Somerset, some 50 odd miles south west of Swindon. The A30 was the main road to the south-west before the coming of the motorway.
p.35; antlers; Ahem. Antelope don't have antlers; they have horns. I don't think male antelope are called stags, either. Deer, that is. In our world antelope do not run wild in Britain - too damn cold.
p.37; excellent; various other plays have been fingered as being co-written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher (The Two Noble Kinsmen, for instance), but excellent is not a word often associated with them. Were we to find a real Cardenio, I fear we should be gravely disappointed. Fletcher's usual partner in crime was Francis Beaumont, another of that parcel of playwrights who I always feel (Marlowe apart) would have been entirely forgotten had they not been contemporaries of Bill Shaxper.
p.37; manuscript of Edward II; I cannot find any reference to such a manuscript being found.
p.38; Bentley; Bentley were first famous for making racing cars, in the 1920's, but were later taken over by Rolls Royce. Modern Bentleys are just Rolls Royces with a different badge on, which seems a bit pointless.
p.38; Yorrick Kaine; Hmm. I can't find a definite connection between 'Yorick' (he whom Hamlet does the gottle-of-geer routine with) and any sort of cane. Did Michael Caine ever play Hamlet? ("I only told you to blow the bloody arras off....")
p.38; Whig; The Whig party were the distant ancestors of the modern Liberal Democrats, originally being the party of the Hanovers (as opposed to the Stuarts). Whig, or Whiggamore, was a Scottish insult meaning 'one who drives a mare', which is a novel insult at least. (And Tory was a name for an Irish outlaw, so there).
p.38; whale shark; a whale shark is a fish - it's as fishy as a very fishy thing; it's a just damn big one (and entirely harmless, unless you are plankton). None of the other things are in any way fish; silverfish are a loathly species of insect, which feed, among other things, on books.
p.39; South Cerney; village in Gloucestershire, near to Cirencester, 10 miles from Swindon. It's very nice, I understand, although I've never been there myself.
p.39; Skyrail; is, of course, fictional. The Nextian Skyrail may be a monorail, staple of all futuristic sci-fi things about forty years ago; they have proved to be impractical, largely because no-one can work out how to design points for them. That and they cost about three squillion pounds a foot.
p.39; wireless; Bowden uses the old fashioned term for radio, coined in the days when it was contrasted with the wire-bound telegraph.
Chapter Four
p.41; Sir Edmund Godfrey; this story is absolutely true. The guilt of the three gentlemen is open to question, since it relies on the dubious testimony of one Miles Prance, who was originally accused of the murder and changed his story several times. The murder was supposedly part of a 'Popish Plot', a (fictitious) Catholic conspiracy.
p.42; crossed into Wessex; it appears from the evidence that Nextian Wessex can be equated with our Wiltshire; Thursday would be crossing from Gloucestershire (which is pronounced 'Glostershire', btw) into Wiltshire in our world. The real, Anglo-Saxon, Wessex covered a much larger area.
p.42; Cricklade; is a very pretty little town in Wiltshire, on the River Thames, 6 miles north west of Swindon. There is no futuristic whizzo Skyrail linking it to Swindon, but there is a heritage steam railway - part of the way, at least..
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now.
p.43; Justice of the Peace; in England, an unpaid magistrate, authorised to try petty crimes in court. A friend of mine who was a J.P. said it was mostly car theft. (The cases, I mean, not the job).
p.43; Broad Blunsdon; village in Wiltshire, just outside Swindon; the Skyrail appears to follow the line of the A419.
p.43; Pekinese; just in case anyone doesn't know, this is a breed of small dog, squashed of face, long of coat and loud of yap. Originally from China, legend has it they used to live in mandarin's sleeves.
p.44; Kaylieu; the only hypothesis I can advance for the Neanderthal's odd name is that Jasper is a closet Marillion fan (supposing you pronounce it kay-leigh, as Beaulieu is pronounced bew-lee). No, I know it's not very convincing, but it's the best I could come up with.
JFf Note: Okay, puzzlesmiths, this gives you an idea of what to look for. Considering that every name refers to something in my books, it only takes 'Kaylieu' to be added to 'Irma Cohen' to give you 'Irma Cohen Kaylieu' or the vague holorime: 'I'm a gonna kill you' This is Aornis remember, and coincidences rule!
p.45; Wanborough junction; Wanborough is a south eastern suburb of Swindon; we have skirted Swindon to the east (still following the A419) and are now heading away from it, south west wards.
p.45; Diana Thuntress; Diana, Roman goddess, surnamed The Huntress, yes?
p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with.
p.47; Shaw and Purton; small towns to the west of Swindon. We have described a big loop all round Swindon, and are now heading north again.
p.48; Dove soap; real brand. We've got some in our bathroom.
Chapter Five
p.51; congress gaiters; a type of low ankle-boot, with elastic sides, popular with Southern belles in the US Civil War period.
p.51; Diatryma; properly called Gastornis, Diatryma was a large (6 feet/2 metres tall) flightless bird that lived c.50 million years ago. It is supposed to have been carnivorous, but the evidence is disputed. The 'real' urban legend referred to here is that hardy perennial one about big cats living wild in Britain, most famously the 'Surrey Puma'. No hard evidence has ever emerged for these stories, but it is surmised that some of them may relate to sightings of jungle cats, which can interbreed with domestic cats, and so be able to maintain a wild population. Entroposcopes at the ready; a cat found in Leintwardine, Herefordshire, near the Welsh border and close by Fforde country, was reckoned to be a jungle/domestic hybrid. It's name? Jasper.
p.51; New Forest; area of outstanding natural beauty in South Hampshire. It was 'new' when William the Conqueror established it.
p.51; Lambourn; town in Berkshire famous for racehorse stables. Has no Roswell connections that I know of.
p.51; Quantock Hills; a range of hills in Somerset.
p.51; Marlborough downs; a range of low hills in Wiltshire, not far from Swindon.
p.52; Emma Hamilton; further to my note about this lady in TEA, I now discover that Mrs. Next has even more cause to worry, since Emma used to be a prostitute (before Nelson met her).
p.53; boy bands; I don't recall having boy bands in our 1985. Ah, happy days.
p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive.
Chapter Four-A
p.59; Fallon; I suppose this story is true, but I can't find any reference to it.
Chapter Six;
p.68; Mr. Perkup; Mr. Perkupp was Charles Pooter's boss in The Diary of a Nobody.
p.70; half nelson; wrestling move (real wrestling, not the WWF variety) involving twisting your opponent's arm up their back. So called because it renders your opponent 'armless, arf arf.
p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia. The explosion blasted trees down for 2,000 square km around, and the tremors were detected as far away as London. What with wars and revolutions, nobody investigated the site until 1930, but no impact crater was found. It is generally reckoned that a comet or meteorite was responsible, but, hey, guess what the alternative theory is.
p.72; DH-82; The De Havilland DH-82 Tiger Moth biplane was built from 1931 to 1946, and it is reckoned that more people have learned to fly in a Tiger Moth than any other type of plane. I bet you can't guess who flies one.
p.72; tail-chasing; the only film ever taken of a thylacine shows it doing just this.
p.74; Lego; the trade name of a type of plastic brick, made in Denmark, which can be clipped to other such bricks to make fantastic models, should you have the necessary patience. I could never be bothered, myself.
p.76; matter is mainly empty space; this theory is no longer widely held by subatomic scientists. Apparently there isn't any empty space because the subatomic particles are never actually in one place at any given time. And anyway they are not discrete lumps of matter circling about one another like miniature planets, but 'shells' that fit over one another in some way. Search me.
p.76; Banoffee pie; that's banana-and-toffee flavour, for those of you who do not haunt cake shops.
p.79; Tiffany Lampe; a Tiffany lamp is a glass art-nouveau type of table lamp, originally designed by a chap with the wonderful name of Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the well-known New York jeweller and breakfast provider.
Chapter Seven
p.84; Hopkins; Thursday's prosecutor is none other than Matthew Hopkins, the dreaded Witchfinder General of 17th century England. Hopkins was a lawyer and religious maniac who became obsessed with witchcraft, and got a government commission to find witches at 20 shillings a head. He toured East Anglia looking for witches, and surprise, surprise, always managed to find some, usually by extracting 'confessions' under torture. He had 60 women hung in one year in Essex alone. Satisfyingly, he was himself accused of witchcraft, and was subjected to one of his own 'tests'. He was flung in a moat, and floated, thereby proving his guilt. An appointment with a stake and some firelighters followed shortly after.
p.85; Devizes; market town in Wiltshire. Yes, yes, it's near Swindon.
p.85; mammoth twitchers; in England, the kind of person (nearly always male) who goes bird-watching with the sole object of ticking off species of birds seen in his bird book is known as a 'twitcher'. Since a mammoth twitcher only has 249 beasts to spot, they're going to fill their books up pretty quick.
p.85; Druids; this is another breed of nutter. The ancient Britons had priest-shaman-bard types who were known as 'druids'. Let it be clearly understood that nothing whatever is known about Celtic religious practices, other than what can be gleaned from Roman anti-Celtic propaganda, which accuses them of human sacrifice. (Romans always accused their enemies of this, possibly because they had a guilty conscience on the subject). Anyway, 1900 years or so later a bunch of hippies decided to 'revive' Druidism as a sort of New Age religion. Of course they made it all up, especially the cod ceremonies at Midsummer at Stonehenge (which isn't even Celtic). If you meet a Druid, annoy them by asking when the next virgin is having her throat cut.
p.85; right to hunt; there is currently a rather contrived controversy about making fox-hunting illegal, leading to pro-hunting protests in the streets of London. It keeps left-wing MPs and huntin' types occupied, but truth to tell most people couldn't care less.
p.87; you wouldn't like me when I get vindictive; Incredible Hulk? Anybody? Oh, please yourselves.
p.89; Castle Doubting; there's a Doubting Castle in Pilgrim's Progress (home to Giant Despair), and there's a Castle Dangerous by Sir Walter Scott, but I can't find no Castle Doubting, not nohow.
p.89; Joe Martlet; a martlet is an archaic or heraldic term for a house-martin or a swift, but more to the point is the Grumman F4F Martlet, a type of fighter plane used by the US and Royal Navies in WW2. (Note; I may have to assume that any reference not otherwise understood refers to aircraft).
JFf note: Amazingly, not an aircraft reference, this one. Correct answer wins an UltraWord T-shirt.
Chapter Eight
p.96; Dorothy Perkins; a British chain of women's fashion stores.
p.99; King and Nosmo; there are a suspiciously large number of people called Nosmo King. An obscure poet; a music hall comedian; and a Northern Soul artiste. I suspect at least one of these to be a pseudonym. Defense de fumer, mon braves.
p.100; When did you last see your father? The title of a well-known painting by the not well-known William Frederick Yeames (1835-1918). It depicts a very small Royalist being interrogated by Commonwealth soldiers as to the whereabouts of his Dad.
p.102; looped behind the Crunch; proponents of the Big Bang theory of creation sometimes speculate that one day all the energy created by the Bang will run down (entropy), gravity will take over, and all the matter expanding across the Universe will reverse direction, collapsing back onto itself in the Big Crunch. Which will then be followed by another Big Bang, and so on.
Chapter Nine
p.105; goldfishes to predict earthquakes; canaries down mines, yes, but has anyone heard of this peculiar practice, and if so, how does it work?
JFf note: In China, apparently. They get all jittery with the smallpre-shocks that come before a major quake.
p.105; Tickia orologica; a plant only otherwise to be found in Edward Lear's Nonsense Botany; the name is cod Latin for 'ticking clock'.
p.106/107; Houson, Billden; OK, so you're playing Monopoly, and you've bought Park Lane. How do you increase the rental? That's right; you build a house on it.
p.109; Armitage Shanks; no, it isn't rude rhyming slang. Armitage Shanks are a very respectable firm of bathroom furniture makers. With special reference to lavatory equipment. Oh, all right, it's rude rhyming slang as well. Satisfied?
Chapter Ten
p.113; Veronica Golightly; Of course you've never heard of her. She was eradicated.
p.113; Victor Borge; Danish-born Borge did an act involving playing (or more usually not playing) classical music. It was alleged to be funny.
p.113; QT, CG; to do something on the QT is to do it on the quiet, without people knowing. CG stands for ChronoGuard, since you ask.
p.114; Sommeworld; in an as-yet un-published story, Jasper created a theme park which gave visitors the authentic First World War experience. I'd hurry up and get it published before somebody nicks the idea and opens such a park. It can't be any worse than Disneyland.
p.115; Van Helsing's Gazette; Van Helsing was, in the original Dracula, the chief wielder of garlic and stakes.
p.117; amphibious aircraft foreshadowing alert; see where Thursday is living at the end of the book.
p.119; Miles Hawke; yes, it's a type of aeroplane! The Miles Hawk was a twin seat high-performance monoplane made in the 1930's. I think I'm getting the hang of this.
p.122; Delphic Oracle; your actual ancient Greeks put much store in the enigmatic pronouncements of oracles, or people who were supposed to have a hotline to the Gods. The most renowned of these was at Delphi. The Oracle (whose mouthpiece was a priestess) would make obscure and ambiguous replies to questions, which the questioner would then interpret in whatever way suited them. This act was later pinched by every 'clairvoyant' you've ever heard of.
p.122; Ping-Pong; enthusiasts for the game insist that it be called table tennis, and they who speak of Ping-Pong shall be accursed, and cast without. See the Upgrade.
p.123; No ball; and whatever you call it, I'm sure you can't shout 'No ball' at any point; that's cricket, isn't it?
p.124; Faerie Queene; while Spenser was living in Ireland, part of the manuscript was destroyed when the natives burned down the castle he was staying in, an extreme but entirely justified form of literary criticism.
p.126; The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies; is a work by that esteemed writer and illustrator Miss Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), whose little books have sold by the million for a hundred years or more. Mrs. Tiggywinkle was my favourite.
p.126; Fusioncell; there was an advert some years ago in which a number of mechanical rabbits played drums. And they all ran down, except for the one that was powered by Duracell long life batteries, which carried on merrily drumming right the way to the end of the advert. (My wife remembered the brand name).
p.127; Darth Vader; to get this joke you have to know that Mr. McGregor killed Peter Rabbit's father. Darth Vader, on the other hand, never put Luke Skywalker's father in a pie.
Chapter Twelve
p.131; Tunbridge Wells; is a spa town in Kent, generally rather posh, and legendarily the home of retired colonel types who write grumpy letters to the Times. They are generally disgusted and appalled about something (as is Colonel Prongg on p.132).
p.131; corporate manslaughter; in theory such a charge exists in the British legal system. In practice no-one has ever done any time for it.
p.132; Botchkamos Istochnik; istochnik is the Russian for 'source' or 'spring', which equates to 'Wells'. I cannot translate botchkamos but I presume it has some relevance to 'Tunbridge'. JFf: Yes it is; 'Barrel-bridge' in Russian as translated by my chum Sophie. A 'Tun' being an old English name for a barrel, usually containing beer - there are many pubs in Britian called 'The Three Tuns'.
p.132; Fetlar; one of the principal islands of the Shetlands, far to the north of Scotland.
p.132; Brighton; seaside resort city in Sussex, and the gay capital of the UK.
p.133; Cortes; Hernando Cortes was the Spanish conqueror of Mexico (1519); the Aztec city Tenochtitlan lay where Mexico City now is. Keats got it wrong, btw; it was not stout Cortes but Vasco de Balboa who first gazed on the Pacific.
p.133; Oldspot; the Gloucester Old Spot is a breed of pig.
p.135; pair of trousers; this is one of Defoe's most famous bloopers. Crusoe swims to the wreck naked, but when he gets there starts putting things in his trouser pockets. In defence of Defoe he was writing the book in some hurry.
p.135; Majorca; I'd go along with Landen's description, but note that the PC way to spell it is Mallorca. For the geographically challenged, Mallorca is a large Spanish Mediterranean island, much favoured as a holiday destination by Brits (and Germans).
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England</i> - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
<i>Mount Pleasant</i> - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...
more of this in a mo.....</HTML>
oops
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 08:02PM
<HTML>oops - accidentally copied a huge chunk into that! Sorry, sorry, sorry - blame the new computer... newly reduced version below....
In the spirit of John 'Small Portions' Birt, it should be noted that the current DG, Greg 'Chimchiminee' Dyke, sent out orders that meetings should no longer have biscuits served, saving an estimated 30,000 quid.
p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother. - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty times...
These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods. should read " among the dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods there are always a few innocents", well, near Worcester anyways...
31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country. - apparently Range Rover now sell cans of mud in aerosols so you can have that gentrified look without having to actually go anywhere near those awful country types.
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see. - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
Antlers - surely Volescamper is too busy blasting the buggers to care about such things? I seem to remember 'Buck' is the correct term. Or for Volescamper - "Target"....
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
Skyrail - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
Wessex - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now. - and now you also know that poep and stront both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with. - been there! Anybody with a fixation for Rock and Roll conspiracy should note that the area is famed for flying saucers and there is also a place called St Elvis nearby. No, really!
p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive. - note for Yanks: pronounced JAG-YOO-A, rather than JAG-WAAH.
p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia. - latest suggestion (if you care about such things) at [www.sciencenewsweek.com]
Lego - I still play with mine... not pedantry, just me being strange here.
Banoffee Pie - crumble a load of digestives and wedge them into the botom of a pie dish. Cover with toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for a couple of hours. Then top with whipped cream and banana slices. Easy...
Twitchers - the Twitching world is currently up in arms about cheating. The only thing I can think of that would matter to the rest of them is someone bunging a stuffed bird in ahedge and shouting 'Look everyone - it's a Great Awk!' Strange world...
Martlet - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
Victor Borge - heard a piece of his describing opera. Was actually quite amusingly rude about it.
p.127; Darth Vader - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
Mount Pleasant - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...</HTML>
In the spirit of John 'Small Portions' Birt, it should be noted that the current DG, Greg 'Chimchiminee' Dyke, sent out orders that meetings should no longer have biscuits served, saving an estimated 30,000 quid.
p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother. - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty times...
These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods. should read " among the dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods there are always a few innocents", well, near Worcester anyways...
31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country. - apparently Range Rover now sell cans of mud in aerosols so you can have that gentrified look without having to actually go anywhere near those awful country types.
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see. - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
Antlers - surely Volescamper is too busy blasting the buggers to care about such things? I seem to remember 'Buck' is the correct term. Or for Volescamper - "Target"....
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
Skyrail - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
Wessex - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now. - and now you also know that poep and stront both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with. - been there! Anybody with a fixation for Rock and Roll conspiracy should note that the area is famed for flying saucers and there is also a place called St Elvis nearby. No, really!
p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive. - note for Yanks: pronounced JAG-YOO-A, rather than JAG-WAAH.
p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia. - latest suggestion (if you care about such things) at [www.sciencenewsweek.com]
Lego - I still play with mine... not pedantry, just me being strange here.
Banoffee Pie - crumble a load of digestives and wedge them into the botom of a pie dish. Cover with toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for a couple of hours. Then top with whipped cream and banana slices. Easy...
Twitchers - the Twitching world is currently up in arms about cheating. The only thing I can think of that would matter to the rest of them is someone bunging a stuffed bird in ahedge and shouting 'Look everyone - it's a Great Awk!' Strange world...
Martlet - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
Victor Borge - heard a piece of his describing opera. Was actually quite amusingly rude about it.
p.127; Darth Vader - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
Mount Pleasant - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...</HTML>
oops
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 08:02PM
<HTML>oops - accidentally copied a huge chunk into that! Sorry, sorry, sorry - blame the new computer... newly reduced version below....
In the spirit of John 'Small Portions' Birt, it should be noted that the current DG, Greg 'Chimchiminee' Dyke, sent out orders that meetings should no longer have biscuits served, saving an estimated 30,000 quid.
p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother. - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty times...
These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods. should read " among the dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods there are always a few innocents", well, near Worcester anyways...
31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country. - apparently Range Rover now sell cans of mud in aerosols so you can have that gentrified look without having to actually go anywhere near those awful country types.
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see. - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
Antlers - surely Volescamper is too busy blasting the buggers to care about such things? I seem to remember 'Buck' is the correct term. Or for Volescamper - "Target"....
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
Skyrail - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
Wessex - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now. - and now you also know that poep and stront both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with. - been there! Anybody with a fixation for Rock and Roll conspiracy should note that the area is famed for flying saucers and there is also a place called St Elvis nearby. No, really!
p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive. - note for Yanks: pronounced JAG-YOO-A, rather than JAG-WAAH.
p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia. - latest suggestion (if you care about such things) at [www.sciencenewsweek.com]
Lego - I still play with mine... not pedantry, just me being strange here.
Banoffee Pie - crumble a load of digestives and wedge them into the botom of a pie dish. Cover with toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for a couple of hours. Then top with whipped cream and banana slices. Easy...
Twitchers - the Twitching world is currently up in arms about cheating. The only thing I can think of that would matter to the rest of them is someone bunging a stuffed bird in ahedge and shouting 'Look everyone - it's a Great Awk!' Strange world...
Martlet - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
Victor Borge - heard a piece of his describing opera. Was actually quite amusingly rude about it.
p.127; Darth Vader - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
Mount Pleasant - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...</HTML>
In the spirit of John 'Small Portions' Birt, it should be noted that the current DG, Greg 'Chimchiminee' Dyke, sent out orders that meetings should no longer have biscuits served, saving an estimated 30,000 quid.
p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother. - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty times...
These events are usually in aid of charity, but among the innocent clearing out the attic there are always a few dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods. should read " among the dodgy characters selling stolen or otherwise dubious goods there are always a few innocents", well, near Worcester anyways...
31; Range Rover; type of luxury 4x4 car (or SUV) popular with the kind of people who like to pretend they live in the country. - apparently Range Rover now sell cans of mud in aerosols so you can have that gentrified look without having to actually go anywhere near those awful country types.
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see. - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
Antlers - surely Volescamper is too busy blasting the buggers to care about such things? I seem to remember 'Buck' is the correct term. Or for Volescamper - "Target"....
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
Skyrail - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
Wessex - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now. - and now you also know that poep and stront both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
p.46; Preselli mountains; the Preselli mountains (Mynydd Preseli, in Welsh) are in Pembrokeshire, South West Wales. They are famed as the source for the stones used to build Stonehenge with. - been there! Anybody with a fixation for Rock and Roll conspiracy should note that the area is famed for flying saucers and there is also a place called St Elvis nearby. No, really!
p.57 Jaguar; very famous make of British sports and luxury cars. Damned expensive. - note for Yanks: pronounced JAG-YOO-A, rather than JAG-WAAH.
p.71; Tunguska event; top X-Files data here. At 0714 on the 30th of June 1908, something swept out of the sky and exploded high above the Tunguska river in Siberia. - latest suggestion (if you care about such things) at [www.sciencenewsweek.com]
Lego - I still play with mine... not pedantry, just me being strange here.
Banoffee Pie - crumble a load of digestives and wedge them into the botom of a pie dish. Cover with toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for a couple of hours. Then top with whipped cream and banana slices. Easy...
Twitchers - the Twitching world is currently up in arms about cheating. The only thing I can think of that would matter to the rest of them is someone bunging a stuffed bird in ahedge and shouting 'Look everyone - it's a Great Awk!' Strange world...
Martlet - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
Victor Borge - heard a piece of his describing opera. Was actually quite amusingly rude about it.
p.127; Darth Vader - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
Mount Pleasant - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...</HTML>
Re: oops
Posted by: All-American-Cutie (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: December 03, 2002 08:06PM
<HTML>Ben, what are you trying to do??</HTML>
Re: oops
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 08:07PM
<HTML>oh good lord....
I think I'm being decidedly klutzy here.....</HTML>
I think I'm being decidedly klutzy here.....</HTML>
Re: oops
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 03, 2002 08:35PM
<HTML>*dons sackcloth and ashes*
Has anyone worked out how to stop it posting the same thing twice?</HTML>
Has anyone worked out how to stop it posting the same thing twice?</HTML>
Re: pedantry
Posted by: Jon (---.proxy.aol.com)
Date: December 03, 2002 08:50PM
<HTML>p.30; Hathaway34; (Ann) Hathaway was of course the maiden name of Mr. Shagsberd's mother. - oh no she wasn't - that was Mary Arden. Write it out forty
times...
<B> wife, mother, mother, wife ...blame my wife for mothering me too much.</B>
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see. - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
<B>Pontefract gets namechecked later - p.175</B>
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
<B>I suspect summat more subtle, myself</B>
Skyrail - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
<B>Skyrail features at several airports worldwide - the Birmingham one has since been replaced...</B>
Wessex - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
<B>Good point!</B>
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now. - and now you also know that poep and stront both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
<B>Yes, and where do you think I got the pappekak ref from?</B>
Martlet - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
<B>I have played with anagrams of Joe Martlet's name, and got zilch</B>
p.127; Darth Vader - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
<B>Oh yes they are - Lola Vavoom wants to play Thurs in the film</B>
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
<B> I don't know that Alf was actually burning scones, as such ...</B>
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
<B>A pun so terrible I'm surprised Jasper didn't use it.</B>
Mount Pleasant - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...
<B>I considered this, but thought it a bit far away - it's in Pontypridd, isn't it?</B></HTML>
times...
<B> wife, mother, mother, wife ...blame my wife for mothering me too much.</B>
p.33; Cirencester; market town in Gloucestershire, about 25 miles north west of Swindon. It used to be pronounced 'Sissiter', but so many incomers live there now that most people call it 'Sirensester'. It's not just foreigners who get confused, see. - Similarly Pontefract was pronounced 'Pumfrit' - as witnessed in Dick the @!#$. For further information, Pontefract is not in Wales, as the BBC often seem to think, but in Yorkshire.
<B>Pontefract gets namechecked later - p.175</B>
Is 'Yorrick Kaine' an incredibly bad pun on 'Hurricane' - famous Second World War workhorse of the skies that did all the work while the Spitfires arsed about doing thier makeup for the films afterwards?
<B>I suspect summat more subtle, myself</B>
Skyrail - wasn't this the name of the device at the Birmingham International Airport that I remember being taken to see as a wonder of the modern world circa 1985? As I remember the future whirrs pathetically while some guy sucks air between his teeth as he tries to think of the biggest number he can... I could be very wrong on this. There is also a monorail system at the Meryhill Shopping Centre. It must be a Brummie thing...
<B>Skyrail features at several airports worldwide - the Birmingham one has since been replaced...</B>
Wessex - Of course in a fiction obsessed world following the county nomenclature of Hardy would be perfectly logical, although this fails to explain the UA of W cat...
<B>Good point!</B>
p.42; poppycock; did you know this word derives from the Dutch pappekak, meaning 'soft crap'? Well, you do now. - and now you also know that poep and stront both mean 'hard dung'. Those crazy Dutch people and their wacky tobacco, eh? (factoid from Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue')
<B>Yes, and where do you think I got the pappekak ref from?</B>
Martlet - the best I can offer is the delicious range of chutneys, whcih would be lovely with cheese, at [www.rayner.co.uk] or it's something to do with Macbeth or a writer named Deblanco, but I can't get a plot description to check this theory out.
<B>I have played with anagrams of Joe Martlet's name, and got zilch</B>
p.127; Darth Vader - possible bloophole here. Did the Star Wars trilogy ever get made in the Nextian world? I'm sure films are never mentioned....
<B>Oh yes they are - Lola Vavoom wants to play Thurs in the film</B>
p.136; Winchester; ancient and very pretty county town of Hampshire. It was never the capital of all England - I suspect there's a joke been missed here - Winchester was allegedly the capital of the original celebrity chef - Alfred the Great, famous for cooking scones whilst hiding from the big hairy norsemen.
<B> I don't know that Alf was actually burning scones, as such ...</B>
p.138 - also the fastest cake in the world. Think about it...
<B>A pun so terrible I'm surprised Jasper didn't use it.</B>
Mount Pleasant - there's a Mount Pleasant chapel a few miles down the road from Mr Fforde. This fits neatly with the chapel mentioned in chapter 13 of TEA, so I'm probably hopelessly out...
<B>I considered this, but thought it a bit far away - it's in Pontypridd, isn't it?</B></HTML>
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