The Annotated Pratchett File, v7a

Wings

- [p. 135/121] “The other humans around it are trying to explain to it what a planet is’ ‘Doesn’t it know?’ ‘Many humans don’t. Mistervicepresident is one of them.”

I don’t think anybody in the Western world would not have caught this reference to Dan Quayle, but let’s face it: in twenty years people will still be reading Terry Pratchett, and hopefully this APF—but who’ll remember Misterexvicepresident?

- [p. 150/135] “The humans below tried shining coloured lights at it, and playing tunes at it, and eventually just speaking to it in every language known to humans.”

Refers to the climactic scene of Steven Spielberg’s science fiction movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where contact with the aliens is indeed established by shining lights and playing tunes at their spaceship.