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The Discworld Mapp
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Death’s Domain
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Other Annotations
Good Omens
- [cover] The weird blue/red neon thingy surrounding the ‘666’ on the cover of the UK hardcover version of Good Omens is actually a map of the M25 London orbital motorway, mentioned in the text as “evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man”.
If you have Internet access, you can get a copy of the Good Omens cover from the Pratchett Archives.
+ [p. 9/vii] “[...] the angel, whose name was Aziraphale.”
On the subject of the correct pronunciation of the name, Terry says:
“It should be Azz-ear-raf-AE-el, but we got into the habit of pronouncing it Azz-ear-raf-ail, so I guess that’s the right way now.”
And about the name’s origin:
“It was made up but... er... from real ingredients. [The name] Aziraphale could be shoved in a list of ‘real’ angels and would fit right in...”
For instance, Islam recognizes the Archangels Jibril, Mikhail, Azrael (see also the annotation for p. 7/9 of Reaper Man), and Israfel (whom Edgar Allan Poe wrote a well-known poem about), whereas from Christianity we get such names as Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel.
- [p. 11/viii] “It was going to be a dark and stormy night.”
See the annotation for p. 9/7 of Soul Music.
- [p. 17/1] “Archbishop James Usher (1581-1656) published Annales Veteris Et Novi Testamenti in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 BC.”
This is true in spirit, but almost completely wrong in nit-picking detail, which leads me to conclude that Terry and Neil used sloppy secondary sources for their research.
The man’s name was spelled Ussher, the book’s name was actually Annales Veteris Testamenti (Annals of the Old Testament), it was published in 1650, and it was Ussher himself who pinpointed the time of creation at noon, October 23, 4004 BC—not nine o’clock in the morning.
For a fascinating explanation of why it would really be very unfair of us to ridicule Ussher’s findings, I refer the interested reader to the essay ‘Fall in the House of Ussher’ by Stephen Jay Gould, which appeared in his excellent collection Eight Little Piggies.
- [p. 19/3] “[...] all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into ‘Best of Queen’ albums.”
In an interview in Comics Buyer’s Guide with Terry and Neil, shortly after the American release of Good Omens, Terry proposed the theory that, when you’re driving through the country late at night, and there’s nothing on the radio, you find yourself stopping in at an all-night gas station and looking through the tape rack; the only thing there remotely tolerable is a Best of Queen, so you buy that. Two weeks later you can’t remember how the thing got there, so you get rid of it, only to go through the same process again. Neil’s theory was that tapes really do turn into Best of Queen albums.
- [p. 20/3] “[...] he was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were”.
The Queen song ‘Killer Queen’ contains the line: “She keeps the Moet et Chandon in a pretty cabinet”. Freddie Mercury’s pronunciation is indeed such that, if you don’t already know what he’s singing, this part of the lyrics can be extremely puzzling.
- [p. 26/8] “...I will not let you go (let him go)...”
This sentence, and the ‘scaramouche’ line a few paragraphs before, are taken from Queen’s legendary song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. This line is misquoted though. The actual song goes: “*We* will not let you go (let him go)”.
- [p. 32/13] “Sister Mary had expected an American diplomat to look like
Blake Carrington or J.R. Ewing.”
Leading male characters in the 1980s Power Soaps Dynasty (Blake Carrington played by John Forsythe) and Dallas (J. R. Ewing played by Larry Hagman). The general image is of somewhat rugged American masculinity. In a suit.
The Good Omens paperback replaces “an American diplomat” with “the American Cultural Attaché”.
- [p. 33/13] “With a little old lady as the sleuth, [...]”
Not a reference to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, but rather to Angela Landsbury’s character in the TV show Murder, She Wrote (there are not many “avuncular sheriffs” in the Miss Marple books).
- [p. 35/15] “He’d seen a Ken Russell film once. There had been nuns in it.”
This might have been, for instance, the 1971 film The Devils, a study of a French nunnery that had supposedly turned to Satanism.
- [p. 37/17] “Wormwood’s a nice name,’ said the nun, remembering her classics. ‘Or Damien. Damien’s very popular.”
Damien refers to the protagonist of the various Omen movies (see the annotation for p. 67/40). Wormwood is the name of the junior devil in The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. This is a series of letters from a senior devil (Screwtape) to a junior devil (Wormwood) about Wormwood’s attempted temptation of a man in wartime London.
Wormwood is also the plant which according to tradition sprang up from the track of the serpent as it writhed along the ground when it was driven out of the Garden of Eden.
- [p. 41/19] “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
A well-known quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, act 1, scene 2.
- [p. 41/19] “That Hieronymus Bosch. What a weirdo.”
Hieronymus Bosch was a 15th century Dutch painter of religious visions that dealt in particular with the torments of Hell and the subjects of sin and punishment.
- [p. 42/20] “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Errol. Or Cary.”
Errol Flynn and Cary Grant.
- [p. 50/26] “And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles, individually named from errors in typesetting.”
There have been many Infamous Bibles, and all of the ones mentioned in this paragraph, except for the Charing Cross Bible and the Buggre Alle This Bible, actually did exist.
As usual, it is Brewer who has all the relevant information. The Unrighteous Bible and the Wicked Bible are as Terry and Neil describe them. In addition, there is:
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