I've been re-reading Jon's notes about LIAGB< and would like to comment about a couple of entries_

1) Antelopes (re page 35): Jon's right about their having horns not antlers, and the males being bucks not stags... but then Lord Volescamper never actually referred to the splendidly-antlered stag which his father saw as an antelope, he just said that a herd of antelope turned up in its vicinity (and trampled his father to death), after all. There's ample precedent in nature for herbivores of different species coexisting quite happily (see any television documentary about East Africa's wildlife, and you're bound to see mixed herds of Gnu & Zebra... ), so there seems to me to be no reason why the antlered stag couldn't have been a Red Deer despite the presence of antelope too and thus nothing that Jasper wrote there actually needs "correcting". I agree that in our reality antelope don't run wild in England, but considering how many foreign species DO have feral populations here (because they were released for various reasons, or escaped from parks by themselves) such a situation _ even as early as the 1930s. as in that inicdent _ wouldn't be too incredible. Jon suggested that it would be "too damn cold" for them, but although most species of antelope today are found in warm climates there are also two that certainly wouldn't find England too cold: The 'Saiga Antelope' is native to the steppes of CentraL Asia, and crossed the Bering land-bridge into Alaska during one stage of the Ice Age (although it's no longer found there), whilst the 'Chiru' is native to the Tibetan plateau. A herd of Saiga antelope, whose ancestors had been imported & released for sporting purposes, would seem to fit the bill.

2.) Commander Trafford Bradshaw (re page 269)... I'm not sure where the rank or the first name came from, but it seems obvious to me that Jasper took the surname from George Bradshaw (1801-1853), the engraver & printer who started the production of Bradshaw's Railway Guides in 1840... "Bradshaw" was published until June 1961, and separate books covering the railways of the Continent were included in the line from 1847 onward (although I don't know when THEY were discontinued...).

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

1) My accuracy has been impugned .... sounds like a phrase from a French lesson, doesn't it? ... all right, I suppose the stag could have turned up just before a herd of antelope did, but I suspect there would have had to have been a member of the Hades family present to manipulate the coincidences!

2) I gather Trafford Bradshaw is not in fact intended as a reference to anything outside the Nextian universe. (And the surname could just as easily have come from the chap who signed Charles I death warrant).

As more information comes to light, I realise that Jasper loves larding his work not only with references to books, films, aircraft , &c, but also to things personal to himself which the rest of us are never going to 'get' in a million years. It is often hard to distinguish between the two - and sometimes an 'internal' reference accidentally works as an external one, as well.

As a result of all this, when I now read some lit crit that opines that George Eliot (or whoever) 'clearly meant' to mean something by a word or phrase, I simply sneer and say 'yeah, right, prove it, pal.'



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

1.) Coincidence? I was assuming a deliberate plot by those 'big game' animals to kill the late Lord Volescamper before he got around to killing them...

2.) OK, so maybe that WASN'T where the name came from, but the fact that Trafford Bradshaw had produced travel guides (albeit for bookjumpers) made a connection with the Bradshaw of 'Bradshaw's Ralway Guides' _ or at least with those guidebooks themselves _ seem SO obvious. If there wasn't supposed to be a link then in my opinion we're back in entroposcope-checking territory again...

By the way, another possibility for antelopes capable of surviving the English climate would be Eland. The Russains have made attempts at domesticating these, using herds imported into the Ukraine, and I think that the Ukraine often gets colder in winter than does England. Maybe those attempts started at a much earlier date in the Nextian world, and a herd was sent to England after being captured in the Crimea?

If wallabies can go feral in Derbyshire, then anything is possible.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Full marks on the Bradshaw sleuthing.

"Bradshaw's" was a generic hoover-like term for THE railway guide for many decades, as previously stated. BUT it's also an aviation term, now sadly underused. 'Bradshawing' or 'To Bradshaw it' describes using railways for navigation across the countryside; indeed, in the good old days when a compass was an optional extra, lost (*ahem* 'unsure of position') pilots used to swoop down and read the signs on the platforms. I've never done it myself although I have heard of one or two helicopter pilots reading motorway signs which are, after all, a lot bigger. The joke (and I use the term sparingly) we use in aviation since 'Bradshaw's' departed from the vocabulary is that you say you are flying somewhere 'IFR'. Not 'Instrument Flight Rules' which the big boys use, but 'I Follow Railways'.

Commander Bradshaw (the rank gives him a bit of Wodehousian class, I feel) also wrote the booksploring guides before the ISBN navigation systems were brought in. A 'Bradshaw' in the Bookworld would look like a railway guide but actually be full of travel information about trans-book jumping.

Commander Bradshaw also appears in a joke about a baboon and a lion described as an alternative joke for Bowden 'if the centipede goes flat' on page 211 (all of the jokes are real ones that I have heard).

Trafford is sort of like 'Stamford', the middle name of 'Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles' which is very grand and very english - and founded Singapore (you'd have to have done something in your life with a name like that, wouldn't you?)

For more Bradshaw Railway Guide Hi-jinkery, read 'The ABC Murders' by Agatha Christie.

Jasper

As for the Antelope/Buck/Stag/Horn dilemma, *cough* Yes well spotted! A Stag just well, *ahem*, happened to be in amongst the Antelope. *cough*. Onward, ever onward!

Feral wallabies _ Also in West Sussex (from the grounds of a minor 'stately home' called Leonardslee, which I think is somewhere near Horsham), around Whipsnade Zoo (in whose grounds they were allowed to range quite freely) and even by the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond!

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"Some days I diet, other days I eat lasagne."

Bradshaw's guides are also mentioned in Jules Verne's book 'Around The World In 80 Days', where Phileas Fogg consults the one to the continent during the early stage of his journey. Does the length of time for which Commander Bradshaw has been involved with Jurisfiction lead some of the newer recruits to call him "Old Trafford"? (Does a sports-ground of that name exist, maybe for croquet, in Thursday's native version of England?)

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

Talking of random extra links that are hidden away, have a look at what NATO reckoned Flanker was at

[www.wikipedia.org]

Yet another hidden reference, or just time to get shaking?



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

The information about "bradshawing" was interesting. While we're on the subject of aviation, one minor detail in the books that I found mildly ddisappointing was the fact that _despite most of the other aircraft mentioned being rather "retro" in style _ the ChronoGuard turned up at the 'Bad Time' incident on the motorwaywith a helicopter rather than an autogyro... Then again, isuppose taht if anybody going to have more advanced technology than is usual the ChronoGuard are one of the more likely groups for this...

The stag being as well as the antelopes, rather than one of them, seemed obvious to me from the way in which the later Lord Volescamper described the incident. By the way, is the "Volescamper" name from _ or at least inspired by something in _ the 'Ghormenghast" trilogy? I've never managed to get very far into any of those books yet, but from what little I currently remember about their contents it would seem to fit their general style of nomenclature...

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"Some days I diet, other daysthey serve lasagne."

Love the 'Old Trafford' gag. I think I'll slip that in somewhere. 'Volescamper', as Jon so rightly points out, is a 'Round The Horne' style name. 'Round the Horne', being , of course, the sixties weekly radio revue programme chaired by Kenneth Horne, stalwart of light comedy during the war. The Pythons would have listened to 'RTH' when they were kids, along with many others, including the goons. Proto-Python, if you like. For the best book on British radio comedy have a gander at 'Laughter in the air' by the late Barry Took, one of the original writers of 'Round the Horne' - and much more.

Oh, and I'm not old enough to have listened to 'RTH', of course - the tapes are all availble from the BBC. Money well spent. Mind you, I do remember watching 'The Prisoner' and 'Magical Mystery Tour' on TV - just.

Jasper

.... scribbles ... Bradshaw .... navigation ... Oh, hello. I was just amending the Notes to LIAGB. Do you know, I never even damn well noticed the link between Cdr. Bradshaw and the booksploring guides, which shows you how much notice I take of anything. If I had had my eyes open at that point the railway guide reference would of course have become obvious. I will imitate the action of the author and go *cough*. If you want to check your entroposcopes, I was actually given a Bradshaw's guide for Manchester in 1961 yesterday.

I don't remember Round the Horne either, but it has been repeated ad infinitum on Radio 4 (and sometimes Radio 2) over the years, so I caught up with it sometime in the '80s. Fantabulosa.

I think when it comes time to compile Notes to WOLP, I shall get Simon to help me. He seems to be good at noticing things, which will mean one of us is.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I've heard a few repeats of 'Round The Horne' over the years too. I prefer 'The Goons' (and think that I have all of the currently-available CD reissues of these...) but it was definitely worth listening to.
Re the Notes: OK, let me know when...

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

No connection between Bradshaw being a Commander and Dewey (who invented the Dewey Decimal Classification system that's so beloved of librarians) being an Admiral, I suppose?
H'mm, 007 was a Commander too..

"The name is Bradshaw, Trafford Bradshaw..." :-)

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"Some days i diet, other days they serve lasagne."

re the Notes for WOLP .... we'll have to wait until it's published first .....

"The name is Bradshaw, Trafford Bradshaw... and the 10.35 to Midsomer Norton only runs on Thursdays."



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

By the way, regarding the notes for LIAGB and "Cordelia Flakk" _ I suspect that a more probable source for her surname is "Flack", which is _ or, at any rate, was during some stage of the 20th century a slang term (American? specific to the film industry?) for a PR person... I've read a work of fiction by an American author, set during WWII, in which one Hollywood-based member of the profession referred to himself as "a flack for the flicks"...

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

re Flakk, you might think that, but we have it comfirmed from the Man Himself that anti-aircraft fire was intended. See

[www.jasperfforde.com]

Here ... when I went to get that link I find that Bradshaw has been already been added to the Notes. Saves me doing it!



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty