Talk:Book:Thud!/Annotations

What an interesting way to get people interested in reading! Book trailers are like movie trailers, but for books! You can find them all over the internet now, but here is a site that's featuring them on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/booktrailers

Re: Mr. Sheen. The gag referred to cleaning stubborn surfaces, not polishing furniture, and Mr. Sheen seems to made by something called Reckitt Benckiser. --Old Dickens 13:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

re: 74, 93 – The “Following Dark” symbol which Helmclever makes with his spilled coffee (explained by Carrot later) is a circle with two diagonal lines through it. This is similar to British roadsigns meaning “No parking.” - the sign it remind me of is the "No Stopping (Clearway)" e.g. at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/Signsandmarkings/index.htm?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=96192&Rendition=Web

Yep. See Mine sign. --Old Dickens 21:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

American sorority? British public school?

Hmmm. Americans have sororities and fraternities at their universities, institutions designed to bond likeminded people and for which Britain has no real equivalent. Apparently the more prestigious sororities and frats are exceedingly choosy about who they recruit, and tend to be élitist, snobbish, class-conscious, et c, and reduce their new intake each semester to People Who Are Demonstrably Like We Are. (Yes, I have watched "Animal House").

Meanwhile, British public schools, especially the older and more expensive ones, have already pre-selected on grounds of class, income, social background, et c, and tend to restrict their new intake to People Who Are Demonstrably Like We Are. so, especially at the more prestigious (and now more expensive) universities, there is no need for another selection process to weed out the hoi-polloi and the poor and socially unconnected - That Which Rises To The Top And Which For Politeness' Sake Is Generally Referred To As "Cream" will always know each other, so as to form a coagulation of impressively clotted cream together.

So I'd say both sets of compsrisons to Sybil Ramkin's school and her schoolmates are in their way equally valid. Buntys and Bubbleses exist on both sides of the great divide, after all!--AgProv 21:44, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Although Bunty is peculiarly English, I think, for either sex. American debs tend to sound more like bunny-rabbits: Mimsy, Bitsy,.... I had an aunt nicknamed Bunty (not to her face); I suspect lately that was foisted on her because she was a little too ladylike and upper-crusty for the crowd. --Old Dickens 22:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The former and much-missed BBC radio presenter Sarah Kennedy was an exceedingly upper-drawer woman with a plummy voice to match. In a previous incarnation, she had actually 'been the feared and dreaded Matron at a boys' public boarding school. Her on-air nickname, which she cultivated with listeners, was in fact Bunty. Ah, what we lost when Chris Evans got more power than was good for him...--AgProv 13:42, 2 March 2011 (CET)

"Ankh-Morpork Mission of the Uberwald League of Temperance and red ribbons: "

Black ribbons, surely?

Chrisboote 13:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

ferric chloride

Ferric Chloride is indeed very nasty stuff When dissolved in water, it undergoes hydrolysis and gives off heat. The resulting brown, acidic, and corrosive solution is used as a coagulant in sewage treatment or for etching copper What that would do to the superconductor brain of a troll is anyone's guess - but nothing good!

p181

In Jingo, Nobby extends his drag activities by briefly becoming an exotic dancer called Beti. It does seem unlikely he would have succeeded in this profession whatever his name, but it is a neat reference.

Joseph Wambaugh - an influence on the Watch

Wambaugh, LAPD beat cop turned novelist, chronicles the everyday lives of the LAPD in a series of gripping books including The Choirboys and The New Centurions. The latter, his debut novel, came out in 1971 and chronicles the lives of several new recruits to the LAPD. Several years later, they are variably disillusioned, divorced, about to be promoted to Sergeant, or dead. One of the new recruits is a shy, diffident, not especially physical, not imposing, intellectual called Augustus Plebesley. His tutors point out they want him to graduate as a cop because the force needs - desperately needs - literate guys with business admin degrees who can add up and do the paperwork. But first he has to do street time. Plebesley learns to control his fear and prevent being seen as a coward. His crowning moment (of awesome) is during the Watts Riots - the novel covers both the build-up and the explosion of the race riots in LA in 1967, as seen by the police. During the riots Plebesley repeatedly puts himself in harm's way as he believes this is the right thing to do, once chasing down, defeating, and handcuffing, three black looters each of whom is twice his size. He is made sergeant for exemplary courage and leadership. Reminds you of anyone? AgProv (talk) 20:27, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Third Rock romance?

Nobby's romance with Tawneee is predicated on her being too dumb to know 99% of men are too intimidated by her looks to ask her out - except for policeman Nobby Nobbs.

There's a similar set-up in TV sitcom Third Rock From The Sun, where the equally unworldly Sally (although she is an alien from another world) is not aware that her human body is so stunningly attractive that 99% of men are scared off. She settles for short fat incompetent policeman Don Orville, who is perhaps too savvy and takes care not to make her aware of this.AgProv (talk) 14:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Kings of stone

The "fossilised" king of the trolls and dwarfs reminds me of something, I'm sure it's alluding to something about an ancient king alone on his throne turned to stone by time. Jgharston (talk) 18:11, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Office humor

Re the edit of 19 Feb: I see the connection; they're both lame jokes in a similar vein. I would hate to see Cancel Culture taking hold here. I've always disapproved of annotations within regular wiki pages, but this is the place for them and I don't know why that one was worse than so many others. --Old Dickens (talk) 00:47, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Old Dickens, please feel free to re-include this annotation. I'm less concerned with the off-colorness of the Alien "joke" as with the extreme tenuousness of the connection. Other than being dumb examples of office humor, what's the connection? Is the description of Colon's new position a pastiche of this scene in the movie? Is there any other similarity between Thud and this comment in Alien? Because TP doesn't seem to do mild hand-wavey references.

I like annotations, I appreciate annotations, I'm happy to hear people's thoughts on connections TP is making amongst interesting threads in real or fictional universes. This, though, felt to me something like "Gaspode is a dog, he's gotta be a reference to this dog I saw in a movie once."

All that said... if you see (or if anyone sees!) the connection, please replace what I removed!Moishe Rosenbaum (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. If I had deleted every annotation I thought was lame or downright stupid for the last decade it would be a rather smaller wiki.
So many of the bulk of contributors, however, have been all about the annotations. How restrictive do you want to be? --Old Dickens (talk) 03:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Eight days in a week

I removed this from the annotation for "24/8", because it's clearly nonsense:

"Worth noting too that many European countries have eight days in a week, the current day and then the next seven to get back to the same day."

Right? No-one believes this is true, do they? -- Guybrush (talk) 04:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Some Europeans also add an "h" to the musical scale which I've never understood or been able to find on a piano or anywhere. Never heard of the extra day, though. --Old Dickens (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2022 (UTC)