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Chimeria

2022-07-06T02:01:34Z

Narrativium: Moved a comma

{{Nation Data
|title= Chimeria
|picture=Blank.jpg|
|established=
|motto= may come when the inhabitants learn to read

|neighbours= live a long way away
|features=mud, peat bogs, more mud, wattle and daub longhouses

|population= robust
|size= variable depending on who won the last border skirmish
|capital= not likely
|government= effective anarchy

|notablecitizens=[[Hrun]] the Barbarian; possibly also [[Cohen]]?

|imports= jewels, gold, wenches, cattle
|exports= Heroes

|anthem= We're Going To Cut Your Tonkers Off (accompanied by beating of spear-butts on shields) and ''The Dewy Dewy Fog''

|books= informally imported and used as firelighters and cigarette papers
}}

Mentioned in {{COM}}, {{MM}} and {{J}}, "'''Chimeria'''" is a mist-shrouded homeland which exists only as a place for heroes such as [[Hrun]] the Barbarian to come from. Apparently, like [[Skund]], it moves around a bit and is impossible to precisely pin down. Current wisdom enshrined in {{CDA}} is that it is Hubwards of [[Llamedos]] and neighbours [[Hergen]] and has allowed formerly landlocked Llamedos (which in the time of ''The Discworld Mapp'' was inland) access to the coast and for [[Pant-y-Girdl]] to become a significant seaport. {{CDA}} notes "the mist makes it hard to tell for sure" where Chimeria begins and ends, and notes that Sealy Bay is notorious for shipwrecks of vessels disorientated by fog and mist. The borders are "ill-defined" and the prevailing foggy gloom makes surveying well-nigh impossible. the language appears to be Llamedosian or something related, as the country has male-vocie choirs which are a hit at Eisteiddfods.

==Annotations==

Chimeria is a direct parody of the [[Roundworld]] author Robert E. Howard's {{wp|Cimmeria_(Conan)|Cimmeria}}, whence comes {{wp|Conan_the_Barbarian|Conan the Barbarian}}, who is the model for Hrun. By the next book in the series, TP had [[Cohen the Barbarian]] as his parody, but Hrun was the prototype.

"Chimeria" also evokes the Greek myth of the {{wp|Chimera_%28mythology%29|Chimera}}, the mythical monster, and something "chimerical", ie existing on the very fringes of objective physical existence.

[[Category:Discworld geography]]
[[de:Chimära]]

Ankh-Morpork Mint

2022-04-22T01:59:03Z

Narrativium: /* The Story So Far */ Corrected book reference to Going Postal

==The Story So Far==

The Ankh-Morpork Mint is named in [[Book:Going Postal|''Going Postal'']] as an organisation in as much trouble as the [[Post Office]] was before [[Moist von Lipwig]] took over. [[Reacher Gilt]] had a chance of freedom while re-organising it, but he chose the wrong door. More was expected about the Mint in 2007's [[Book:Making Money|''Making Money'']].

==The Building==

Physically, the Mint takes the form of quite possibly the ugliest building never to have won a [[Guild of Architects|major architectural award]]. It is described as a gaunt brick and stone block, its windows high, small, many and barred, its doors protected by portcullises, its entire construction saying to the world: '''''Don't Even Think About It'''''. Sticking out of its roof, giving the impression of a coin half-inserted into a very large piggy bank, is the [[Bad Penny]].

On the inside, the "factory floor" is surreally composed of randomly built ramshackle wooden sheds, which are the preserve of the [[Men of the Sheds]].

==The Reformation==

A hint of the future may be gleaned from the [[Patrician]]'s satisfaction at [[Moist von Lipwig]]'s achievement at the [[Post Office]]. For the Mint has a problem: the [[currency]] it makes in various combinations of metal is costing too much. For instance, the cost of making [[Elim|one small coin]] is nearly two hundred times the face value of that coin. Multiply this by several tens of thousands, and the Mint itself can be seen to be one enormous drain on...well, the Mint. Obviously this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue for much longer - or as [[Vetinari]] phrases it - "[[no great rush]], 'do' take your time".

Moist, in introducing stamps to pay for the cost of a letter, has inadvertently created a crude but serviceable form of paper [[currency]] (described by [[Mavolio Bent]] as '''''the revolutionary unsecured one-penny note''''') which passes all the standard economic tests: ie, it represents the full economic value of the service provided and may be exchanged for an equivalent value of goods. And, crucially, people have now been conditioned by Moist to believe a piece of paper does have a monetary worth, far beyond that of the paper it's printed on.

It is not a long step from ''a dollar stamp, redeemed at any time, will buy you a dollar's worth of postage, backed by our absolute promise to deliver'' to a more universal ''I promise to pay the bearer on demand''. If people believe a piece of paper is worth its face value in gold, and everyone confidently participates in the illusion, then we have a [[Paper Money|paper-based currency]].

Which is just as well. Reflect on what has been unkindly (but maybe accurately) said about the [[Ankh-Morpork]] dollar: that it contains less gold than an equivalent volume of seawater. Such a state cannot go on indefinitely in any economy. People might lose confidence, which, in the last chapters of {{GP}}, we see is the trick of managing an economy.

==Annotation==

What was it that [[Reacher Gilt]] said, among others (cf Roundworld satirical writer [[wikipedia:Robert_Anton_Wilson|Robert Anton Wilson]])

...'''''Reality is what you can get away with.'''''

Which, when you think about it, explains paper money. Otherwise, why else would a farty bit of paper with some (generally ridiculous) squiggly lines on it actually be worth the equivalent in commodities? Swapping $20-worth of beer for a piece of paper with "$20" written on it seems ridiculous - and in fact ''is'' ridiculous unless the whole community buys in to it.

Hence the [[wikipedia:Goon_Show|Goon Show]] joke (for our non-English readers, the Goon Show was a ground-breaking radio show in the 1950s, '60s and '70s which operated on the outer edges of the realms of the possible, and to whom all subsequent "alternative" comedy owes a huge debt - one that TP himself readily acknowledges):

Shopkeeper: "That'll be £3.50."

Customer: "OK - here's a photograph of a £5-note."

Shopkeeper: "Thanks. Here's a drawing of £1.50 change!"

Which is both a very clever social comment on the perception of values (why should a photograph of a $5 note be less valuable than the note itself?) and a relatively funny joke in its own right.

For an example of how a whole community might buy into an idea and give it collective legitimacy, consider the case of [[wikipedia:Emperor_Norton|Emperor Norton]].

In most societies, a patently insane person proclaiming himself Emperor of the United States would either be sectioned, or ignored and left to wander the streets ranting and raving. There must be something in the air in San Francisco, as the populace fell in with the joke and humoured him, to the extent that the currency issued by His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I was honoured - even by the banks - as if it were real. Which of course, in San Francisco at that time, it was as everyone colluded to treat it as such. Reality ''really is'' what you get away with - and what other people are prepared to treat as real.

[[Category:Ankh-Morpork Businesses|Mint]]
[[de:Königliches Münzamt]]

Crispin Horsefry

2022-04-19T21:14:37Z

Narrativium: Spelling corrected

{{Character Data
|title= Crispin Horsefry
|photo= Crispin.jpg|Crispin Horsefry, as drawn by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]]
|name= Crispin Horsefry
|age= young
|race= Human
|occupation=financier
|appearance= running, leaping and vaulting to obesity
|residence= [[Ankh-Morpork]]
|death= by Banshee
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status= S?

|books= {{GP}}
|cameos=
}}

Crispin Horsefry of Ankh-Morpork Mercantile Bank is a vile young man with huge appetites. He puts one in mind of an overweight, yappy pekingese. He was one of those few who bought into [[Reacher Gilt]]'s vile schemes to defraud the rightful owners of the [[Grand Trunk]]. The sight of him eating pot-au-feu was an "unforgettable one" according to Lord [[Vetinari]]. He wore pink shirts that were $100AM each - this when a [[City Watch|Watchman's]] monthly salary was around $30AM. Stupidly he brought his secret financial records (you have to keep records of your tracks so that you know how to cover them) to Gilt when drunk, and was rewarded with a visit from Mr [[Gryle]] the [[Banshees|banshee]].

==Annotation==

The picture suggests a link: to the now deceased British Conservative politician Lord Hailsham, who was renowned for his appetite to the point where he would eat two six-course dinners back-to-back. Weighing well over forty-five stone (nearly 600 pounds for Americans)when he died, he set about sculpting his gargantuan figure early in life. He was renowned for his dog-like devotion to Margaret Thatcher and for his singular lack of any original political or indeed other thought (that's maybe stretching a truth - Lord Halisham was bright enough to side with Churchill against Chamberlain, fought and was severely wounded in WWII, and wrote quite an interesting book, attacking a man named Victor Gollancz - yes, THAT Gollancz). He bought into, and was a prominent spokesman for, the Thatcherite school of extreme ''laissez-faire'' economics, which argued that the risk-taker and entrepreneur who generated a nation's wealth should be allowed to do so, unencumbered by any of those pesky little rules and regulations that got in the way of his making money. He should, this school of thought opined, have as near to absolute freedom to generate wealth, and be taxed as lightly as possible by a State that should not interfere with the freedom of Capital. Formerly publicly-owned enterprises, in fact, should be sold off to such men, as the State had no business in managing business. The Thatcher government put this into practice on many occasions - including the privatisation of the telecommunications industry.

The concept that the absolute freedom of capitalists to make money might infringe the quality of life and/or civil liberties of those lower down the line was regarded as an unimportant consideration... (now doesn't this remind you of the subtext of {{GP}}?)

Hailsham was touchy about people making fun either of his weight or of his right-wing politics: an early action in the 1960's as Quintin Hogg MP was to attempt to sue jokester pop group The Bonzo Dog Band, who on one of their LP's made an unflattering porcine reference to his eating habits.[http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A3647630] (''see "Controversies" section at the end)'' He is now deceased, and this is fair comment...

Note the similarity of the name Horsefry to {{wp|Horse-fly|horse-fly}}.

[[Category:Discworld characters|Horsefry, Crispin]]
[[Category:Human characters|Horsefry, Crispin]]
[[de:Pferdeschmorr]]

Ankh-Morpork Post Office

2022-04-19T18:07:44Z

Narrativium: Spelling corrected

Located on Widdershins [[Broadway]], opposite the Patrician's Palace, occupying the whole of the block delineated by Hill Street and [[God Street]]. They operate the [[Ankh-Morpork Postal System]], under the current Postmaster General [[Moist von Lipwig]].

==History==
===Downfall===
Captain [[Carrot Ironfoundersson]] of the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch]] once called the '''Post Office''' the ''Royal Mail'', for this government office is derived from offices that were in existence back in the time of the kings of Ankh. Like many other divisions of the city government (ex. the Watch and the ''[[Ankh-Morpork Mint|Royal Mint]]''), the Post Office has been a little-used, neglected, inefficient office for many decades. The history of the Post Office is sketched out largely through explanatory footnotes and sidebar comments in the {{AMPOH}}.

For the Watch, the dwindling had been due to the legalization of the [[Guilds of Ankh-Morpork|Guilds]] by the [[Patrician]], Lord [[Havelock Vetinari]]; the Guilds essentially took over most Watch duties and the Watch became unnecessary. For the Post Office things were different. Many decades ago, the Post Office was a proud institution, where the Postmaster General, Chief Postal Inspector, and everybody working there wanted to provide good service to the citizens. The place bustled with customers and employees. There were branch offices throughout different areas of the city. One day, disaster struck, or rather, was acquired by Postmaster General Cowerby. He was a man for efficiency, so he acquired a ''Mail-Sorting Engine''; it had been designed by [[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]] who originally intended it to be an organ (musical instrument). The ''wrong-ness'' of the Engine went beyond serving a different purpose than originally intended. By some amazing stupidity, Johnson managed to make the Engine tap through many layers of the space-time continuum, and the Engine spewed out mail that the postal workers didn't put into it. There were letters from the future, mail from alternate universes, and notes that people swore they had written and posted but had never, really. For a while, Postmaster Cowerby entertained that this enabled the Post Office to deliver mail before it was posted, only that wouldn't be very polite, so they would hold the mail, and then once it was posted, they would go out and deliver it. However, the mail from the Engine overwhelmed the working capacity of the postal workers. One day, Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow beat up the Engine until it stopped spewing mail, but there were already mountains of letters filling every room, every corridor in the five-story building of the main Post Office. Things went downhill after that. The Post Office was closed in all but name. All furniture had been stolen. The pay to the employees stopped arriving from the [[Patrician's Palace]]. Feral pigeons colonized the Post Office building. Postmen retired. Enthusiastic citizens put graffiti on the walls. There were no more customers.

===Revival===
When mountains of undelivered mail were gathered in one place, all the unread words strove to be read. The words reached out into any mind available in the vicinity, writing themselves across one's inner vision and whispering to one. The letters also created illusions of the good old days – the counters, the chandeliers, the upstairs balconies, the staff, the customers, the postmen, the bustle; the lights, the noises, everything. The Post Office came to be considered as haunted. A few months before its revival, there were only two men on the staff: Mr. Tolliver Groat (Junior Postman) and a young man named Stanley (Apprentice Postman). There was no pay, and Mr. Groat scraped together what he could, even renting out the pigeon loft on the roof, to feed himself and the apprentice. There were no postal pigeons, although there were many feral pigeons colonizing the building. On the other hand, the mail coaches, which had always taken paying passengers on the international mail runs, had continued to prosper as a coach service, run by former coachmen and now separate from the Post Office administration.

One day, the [[Patrician]], Lord [[Havelock Vetinari]], decided that he wanted the Post Office back in business. One after another new Postmasters were assigned, and one by one they died of ''accidents''. The manners of the deaths were such that the Watch had been called in, but no traces of a murderer had been found. It could be that the very old junior postman despised the new postmasters who had not a drop of Post Office ink in their blood, and killed them. It could be that the shady lodgers in the pigeon loft killed the new postmasters, who had been sniffing around and perhaps discovered their secret businesses. In fact, the new postmasters had died of hallucination while they explored the building, for example, stepping on what was a floor decades ago but was now a stairwell. Four new Postmasters died in five weeks, and one of these new postmasters may well have been a fully trained [[Assassins' Guild|Assassin]] in whom Lord Vetinari had confidence. If even an Assassin couldn't deal with the secrets of the Post Office, who could live long enough to bring it back to life?

===Four men dead in five weeks===
* Mr Mutable - Described as a decent chap, fell to his death into the big hall from the fifth floor.
* Mr Sideburn - Fell down the back stairs and broke his neck at 3 o'clock in the morning.
* Mr Ignavia - Found dead as a doornail, his face all contorted like he'd seen a ghost. The Watch & their [[Angua|werewolf]] were forced to conclude it was death by natural causes, and that no one had been near the body.
* Mr Whobblebury - A [[Dark Clerk]] in the service of the Patrician, he was always snooping around. He found and closely inspected the Mail Sorting Engine just before his death. The post office staff were first alerted to this when the cat, [[Mr Tiddles]], came in carrying a bit of him. In the words of Stanley; "His head was all over the wall!!".

Lord Vetinari then installed [[Moist von Lipwig]], a convicted and to all appearances executed fraudster, as the next new Postmaster. With a good insight in business, and nowhere to run, Mr. Lipwig decided to start by cleaning the building and delivering the mail while he slowly tried to entice the secrets out of old Junior Postman Groat. By effort and careful design, Mr. Lipwig earned the trust and allegiance of old retired postmen who had gathered to give him a harsh initiation into a secret society of postmen. Retired pensioners who volunteered when the Post Office first started getting back on its feet included:
*[[George Aggy]], senior postman
*Bates, senior postman
*Bill Thompson, senior postman
*Jimmy Tropes

===New Growth===
Mr. Lipwig also had the services of Mr. Groat, young Stanley, Miss Maccalariat (a now elderly granddaughter of a formerly famous counter staff), and a golem named Mr. [[Pump]], a.k.a. Pump 19. The golem was assigned by Lord Vetinari as Mr. Lipwig's parole officer, to watch that he did not run away, but Mr. Pump did save Mr. Lipwig from a few ''accidents''. Mr. Lipwig also hired more [[golems]], as they were wont to work ceaselessly, and were immune to things that had injured countless postmen down the ages: toys and dog crap on the sidewalk, dog bites, and mail slots with sharp edges, set low in the doors. And then, Mr. Lipwig successfully negotiated with the coachmen and had them resume the old mode of mail coaches, that was, to take mail as well as paying passengers.

Mr. Lipwig also invented the postage [[stamps]], little pieces of paper with pictures; a customer could purchase them from the Post Office, and when stuck on an envelope, the little piece of paper promised that the Post Office would deliver the envelope. Interestingly, the stamps went far beyond the function of a promissory note. People began to buy stamps just to own them, and even to stick them on envelopes addressed to themselves, so that the stamps would then bear the rubber stamping that the Post Office used so that a paper stamp could not be used again. Many people also began to use the postage stamps as paper currency, an idea hitherto unknown on the [[Sto Plains]], and indeed an idea so attractive that the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Lord [[Havelock Vetinari]], considered making changes to the [[Ankh-Morpork Mint|Royal Mint]] to replicate it.

Mr. Lipwig also pushed for the other Sto Plains cities and even farther-off countries to have organized postal relationships with [[Ankh-Morpork]]. The phenomenon is as he puts it: a succinct message can go at hundreds of miles per hour to reach its recipient at an expensive price (if and when the [[Grand Trunk]]'s [[clacks]] are working properly), or a letter sealed with a kiss, or a gift with wrappings and ribbons, or a package such as a book, can reach the recipient in several days at a low price.

==Current Staff==
*[[Moist von Lipwig]], Postmaster General
*[[Tolliver Groat]], Postal Inspector & Acting Postmaster
*Miss [[Iodine Maccalariat]], Leader of counter staff
*[[Stanley]], Head of Stamps
*[[George Aggy]], Senior Postman
* Bates, Senior Postman
* Bill Thompson, Senior Postman
* Jimmy Tropes, Senior Postman
*[[Harry "Slugger" Upwright]] and [[Little Jim "Leadpipe" Upwright]], leaders of the coachmen
*[[Glenda]], Counter Staff
*[[Gladys]]
* Frank and Dave in the Dead Letter Office
*[[Mr Tiddles]], Official Post Office Cat

...and new counter staff and new postmen, including daughters and sons of retired postal workers, and members of any nationality and species who care to apply for a job and can read and/or write, and get money from the postal customers, watch over the inkwells, or deliver a letter. The ethnic diversity is such that, currently, the Post Office hires more [[golems]] than the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|Watch]] does. Whereas the Watch had initially hired members of ethnic minorities because Lord Vetinari forced it to, from the get-go Lipwig himself insisted on hiring anyone who could do the job.

== Location:- ==

The Post Office is located opposite the [[Patrician's Palace]], on the corner of Widdershins [[Broad Way]] and Hill Street.

== Sub Post-Offices:-==

{{CAM}} gives the useful information that sub-post offices have progressively been re-opened around the City in the following locations:-

* Fiveways;
* Buttermarket;
* Treacle Mine Road;
* Cockbill Street;
* Monkey Street;
* Basket Way;
* Gleam Street;
* Short Street;
* The Soake:
* Lower Broadway:
* Salis Street;
* Park Lame;
* Long Wall;
* Five and Seven Yard;
* King's Way;
* Scoone Avenue;
* Brookless Lane:
* Water Market;
* Nap Hill;
* Edgeway Road.

{{CAM}} is silent as to whether each sub-post-office has its own guardian Maccalariat. But from context in {{GP}}, this is a distinct possibility.

==Heroes Of The Post Office:==
These are past and present members of staff who have gone over and beyond the call of duty and whose actions are still cited today as inspiration to postal staff and examples to emulate. Any postman actually dying in the course of duty is assured of a place in the Roll of Honour. Really meritorious acts of valour may be rewarded, sometimes posthumously, with the Post Office Medal of Valour. Recipients include:

* Extremely Senior Postman [[Anghammarad]]
* Postmaster-General [[Elwes]]
* Miss [[Honoria Maccalariat]]
* Temporary Hogswatch Postman [[Rodney Postlethwaite]]
* Senior Postman [[Desmond Pontefract|Granville Roberts]]
* Postman [[Henry Sloop]]
* Miss [[Alexandra Willet]]
* Miss [[Amelie Willet]]

[[de:Postamt (Ankh-Morpork)]]
[[Category: Ankh-Morpork Businesses|Post Office]]

Bouffant

2022-04-19T17:55:50Z

Narrativium: Missing apostrophe added.

'''Bouffant''' was a famous [[philosopher]] of the Disc. He is well known for his book ''[[Thoughts]]'' which states that freedom is man's natural state. His most famous dictum is, "If any man is not free, then I, too, am a small pie made of chicken." It has led to a considerable amount of debate. His ideas are he opposite of the the philosopher [[Freidegger]].

[[Category:Discworld characters]]

Rufus

2022-04-11T18:57:45Z

Narrativium: Typo

Mountains and oceans separate and isolate geography and peoples and those who live beside them are often enticed to a little illicit importation, exportation, or communication with their counterparts on the other side of the sea or range. It's a hard living in the [[Octarine Grass Country|Octarine Grass]] foothills and the distance from everything else is an implacable enemy, unless you turn it to your advantage and find a way to bridge the gap in some small area - and make some money at it.

[[Renata Flitworth]]'s father was a smuggler when he got a chance and an honest, hard-working farmer the rest of the time. Renata's lover and betrothed in her youth was a lad named '''Rufus''' (family name not provided), who was a local celebrity in the smuggling business. He had done so well that he promised to retire from the business on the profits from his last trip before their wedding.

You can guess that he didn't make it back from that last trip; killed in an avalanche, they said. This is Discworld; no [[Narrative Causality|opportunity]] for comedy or tragedy passes harmlessly. Miss Flitworth's life ended then, while her body continued for two generations. She built up a local legend in the Multiversal tradition of the bereaved bride / lonely old maid (without actually walking about in a black veil or white shroud). Many believed that she had chests of treasure in her house from Rufus's exploits.

There were occasional whispers that Rufus had merely grown cold feet and taken them to Genua, but [[Death]] knows otherwise.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[de:Rufus]]