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.