The Annotated Pratchett File, v7a

The Man from Snowy River (see annotation for p. 137) describes the pursuit of a horse identified as “the colt from old Regret”.

+ [p. 146] “Snowy’s nostrils flared and, without even pausing, he continued down the slope.”

Rincewind’s ride across the canyon, while the rest of the gang can’t follow, again echoes The Man from Snowy River.

+ [p. 148] “Where was it he wanted to go, Clancy?”

Clancy of the Overflow was another poem by Banjo Patterson, and Clancy also plays a major role in The Man from Snowy River.

+ [p. 154] “It was the front half of an elephant.”

In the early 1990s, the British artist Damien Hirst caused much controversy by exhibiting animals cut in half and preserved in formaldehyde.

+ [p. 155] “Beetles?’ said Ponder.”

There are over 400,000 distinct, named species of beetle in the world, and possibly twice as many unnamed ones.

When asked what his studies of Creation had revealed to him about the nature of God, the Scottish geneticist J. B. S. Haldane (1892-1964) supposedly answered: “He seems to have had an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

(According to science writer Stephen Jay Gould, the quip is undeniably Haldane’s, who often repeated it, but the story of it being a riposte to an actual theological question cannot be verified.)

Haldane was also the author of a children’s book, My Friend Mr Leakey, which has a very Pratchettian tone, and is strongly recommended.

+ [p. 157] “Big bills, short bills, bills for winkling insects out of bark [...]”

One of the key things Darwin noticed, which led him to his detailed theory of evolution, was the slight differences in bills between finches on different islands in the Galapagos group.

+ [p. 161] “Embarrassment filled the air, huge and pink. If it were rock, you could have carved great hidden rose-red cities in it.”

‘Petra’ (a Greek word meaning ‘stone’) is the name of an ancient pre-Roman city in Jordan. Victorian traveler and poet John William Burgon describes the city in his poem Petra, ending with the line: “A rose-red city, ‘half as old as Time!”

+ [p. 170] “Once a moderately jolly wizard camped by a waterhole under theshade of a tree that he was completely unable to identify.”

Banjo Patterson’s (see the annotation for p. 137) best-known work, by some margin, is ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Unfortunately, his words are not the same as those sung to the world-renowned tune. Even more unfortunately, although every Australian knows this song, no two of them seem to agree on all the lyrics, so this version should not be taken as authoritative:

“Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of a coolabah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited for his billy boil, ‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’

CHORUS:

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, Who’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me? And he sang as he watched and waited for the billy boil, Who’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me?

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong, Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee, And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tuckerbag, ‘You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.’

Down came the squatter, a-riding on his thoroughbred, Down came the troopers, one, two, three. ‘Whose is the jumbuck you’ve got in your tuckerbag?

You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me.’

Up jumped the swagman and leapt into the billabong, ‘You’ll never take me alive,’ said he, And his ghost may be heard as you pass beside the billabong, ‘You’ll come a-waltzing matilda with me.”

The astute reader will have noticed that the last sentence of Terry’s paragraph (“And he swore as he hacked and hacked at a can of beer, saying ‘What kind of idiots put beer in tins?”) fits both the tune and the structure of the song. The expression “waltzing Matilda” existed before the song, meaning to hump or carry one’s belongings with one, like a tramp.

+ [p. 174] “No, what you got was salty-tasting beery brown gunk.”

Rincewind has invented Marmite, close cousin to the milder Vegemite.

+ [p. 184] “It even does me good to have a proper criminal in the cells for once, instead of all these bloody politicians.”

Politicians in Australia have an even worse reputation than those elsewhere in the Anglophone world, but in fact their rate of conviction is not all that high. There was a particularly notorious scandal in the late 80s involving Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson, premier of Queensland; several of his associates were jailed, and the premier himself was accused and (briefly) tried on charges of perjury. The trial was aborted.

+ [p. 185] “Only it’d help me if it was a name with three syllables.”

The balladeer is in luck. See the annotation for p. 170.

+ [p. 185] “Reckon you might be as famous as Tinhead Ned, mate.”

Ned Kelly was a legendary Australian bushranger of the 1870s who, at his famous last stand, wore a suit of armour to stop bullets. Unfortunately for him, the police noticed that he didn’t have armour on his legs... Famous also for his reputed last words: “Such is life.”

+ [p. 187] “Meat pie floater.”

As Terry later explains, this is a Regional Delicacy found specifically in South Australia.

+ [p. 194] “Remember old “Dicky” Bird’?”

Terry suggests that everyone named Bird probably attracts the nickname “Dicky” at some point in their lives, but the most famous (and appropriate, in this context) is a legendary, now retired, cricket umpire.

+ [p. 197] “Dibbler’s Cafe de Feet”

There is a place in Adelaide called the Cafe de Wheels, which is famous for its meat pie floaters (see annotation for p. 187). Dibbler’s version also puns on ‘defeat’, which seems appropriate to his general attitude.

+ [p. 197] “I just came up Berk Street.”

The main shopping street in central Melbourne is called Bourke Street.

+ [p. 198] “”Hill’s Clothesline Co.””

Real Australian company that makes the world famous Hill’s Hoist clothesline.

+ [p. 199] “[...] ‘cos Duncan’s me mate.”

From the Australian song ‘Duncan’, which was a big hit for singer Slim Dusty in 1958: “I love to have a beer with Duncan, ‘cos Duncan’s me mate.”

+ [p. 199] “The way I see it, I’m more indigenous than them.”

It has been suggested that Dibbler’s politics are inspired by those of the radical Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who also came from the fast-food industry.

+ [p. 202] “That’s going to make the one about the land of the giant walking plum puddings look very tame.”

There’s a famous Australian children’s story called “The Magic Pudding”.

+ [p. 203] “well, it had to be a building. No one could have left an open box of tissues that big. [...] a building that looked about to set sail [...]”

Both descriptions have been applied, at various times, to Sydney Opera House—which is, indeed, on the waterfront.

+ [p. 213] “She’s... her name’s... Dame Nellie... Butt.”

Dame Nellie Butt has two aspects: Dame Nellie Melba, of Peach Melba fame, and Dame Clara Butt, an English singer who moved to Australia.

+ [p. 215] “I give you... the Peach Nellie.”

Rincewind has invented the Peach Melba, named in our world for Dame Nellie Melba, a famous Australian contralto.

+ [p. 218] “You mean this whole place is a prison?”

It’s often said—not least by Australians—that they are the descendants of British convicts who were sentenced to “transportation” as a penalty only slightly preferable to death, and indeed the earliest European settlements, from 1788 onwards, were penal colonies. However, separate “free colonies” were established not long afterwards, and the transportation of prisoners stopped in the mid 19^th century.

+ [p. 219] “This is the Galah they keep talking about.”

Rincewind seems to have stumbled into the world-famous Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. A galah is also a small pink parrot with a grey head. They are apparently very gentle and inoffensive birds, which makes it harder to understand why “galah” is also a Australian slang term of derision meaning “likeable fool” or “simpleton”. Apparently, transvestites are not entirely welcome in the Sydney Mardi Gras.

+ [p. 223] “Rincewind leapt from the cart, landed on someone’s shoulder, jumped again very briefly on to someone’s head.”

At the end of the movie Crocodile Dundee, our Australian hero makes his way across a packed New York subway station platform in this fashion.

+ [p. 233] “A sarong.’ ‘Looks right enough to me, haha.”

The Dean is trying, with rather too much desperation, to make a joke that requires him to have a pseudo-Italian accent for it to work. If Chico Marx were to say “That’s wrong”, it would sound something like “a sarong”.

+ [p. 239] “When Darleen sings “Prancing Queen” [...]”

The heroines of the film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert perform (well, playback to) a repertoire of Abba songs. See the annotation for p. 131.

+ [p. 240] “Look, it’s the new brewery because we built it to replace the one over the river.”

The Old Brewery in WA is situated by the Swan River, on or near a sacred site (depending on who you ask). Neilette’s brewery is positioned on possibly the most definitively *un*sacred site in the continent...

+ [p. 241] “My dad lost nearly all his money.”

Brewing is a financially dangerous business. Alan Bond (see the annotation for p. 266) lost a fortune in the 1990s, when lessees of his pubs objected to his plan to sell them all off for a quick return.

+ [p. 247] “Now look,’ said Ridcully. ‘I’m a man who knows his ducks, and what you’ve got there is laughable.”

It’s been said, cruelly, that a platypus is what a duck would look like if it was designed by a committee.

+ [p. 248] “”Nulli Sheilae sanguineae””

“No bloody Sheilas”.

+ [p. 249] “Er, I had an assisted passage.”

“Assisted passage” was the term for the financial support given to British immigrants during the 1960s.

+ [p. 252] “We used to call them bullroarers when I was a kid,”

Bullroars were apparently used traditionally by the aborigines as a means of communicating and signalling over distances of several miles. Its use is demonstrated in the movie Crocodile Dundee II, where he uses one to call for help from nearby Aborigines.

+ [p. 253] “You’re trying to tell me you’ve got a tower that’s taller at the top than it is at the bottom?”

Once again, a nod to the classic BBC TV series Dr Who -- characters were forever remarking on how the Doctor’s ship, the Tardis, was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Given that the outside was the size of a large phone box, this was just as well.

+ [p. 253] “We’re a clever country—”

Australia once tried to sell itself to the world as “the clever country”, to attract the right kind of immigrants.

+ [p. 254] “”Funnelweb”? ‘s a funny name for a beer.”

It is, of course, the name of a spider. One of Terry’s favourite Australian beers is “Redback”, another spider. Probably best not to inquire too closely as to the recipe.

+ [p. 263] “He sloshed wildly at the stone, humming under his breath.

‘Anyone guess what it is yet?’ he said over his shoulder.”

Rincewind is imitating Rolf Harris, a scruffily-bearded Australian singer and artist who used to present kids’ cartoon programmes on UK TV. Before each cartoon, he’d demonstrate how to draw the leading characters, humming as he sketched and often asking ‘Can you guess what it is yet?’ over his shoulder.

See also the annotation for p. 129.

+ [p. 266] “There were more important questions as they sat round the table in BU.”

The natural assumption that BU stands for “Bugarup University” is entirely logical, but the fact that it’s not spelt out gives us license to speculate wildly about many alternative resonances...

First, it’s worth noting that there really is a BU in Australia: Bond University, in the Gold Coast, was financed and named after Alan Bond, the well-known Americas Cup winner, colourful businessman and ex-gaolbird. His principal business interest was in brewing: he owned the Castlemaine Tooheys brand, before running into trouble in the late 80s. (See also the annotation for p. 241).

Adding a second dimension to the name, one could note that “bu” is the past participle of the French “boire”, to drink. Third, there’s the well-known drinking expression “bottoms up!”—an exhortation to fellow drinkers to quaff harder. Even more improbably, there’s the notion that never fails to raise a laugh in primary schools in the UK that Australians, being upside-down, all walk on their heads, i.e. with their bums uppermost. Of course, most likely BU does stand for Bugarup University. But all that was worth thinking about, wasn’t it?

+ [p. 267] “The Librarian sneezed. ‘...awk...’ ‘Er... now you’re some sort of large bird...’ said Rincewind.”

Possibly a Great Auk (an extinct species of flightless, penguin-like sea bird).

+ [p. 268] “He could save up and buy a farm on the Never-Never.”

Puns on the “Never-Never” (a name for Outback Australia) and “buying on the never-never” (i.e. on hire-purchase).

+ [p. 269] “If we could get to the Hub we could cut loose a big iceberg and tow it here and that’d give us plenty of water...”

This has been seriously suggested as a way of supplying more water for Australia.

+ [p. 271] “There were classes for boats [...] propelled by the simple expedient of the crew cutting the bottoms out, gripping the sides and running like hell.”

At Henley-on-Todd, Alice Springs, there is an annual regatta on these lines. This event usually has about twenty teams that take part in a race up and down the Todd river bed. The teams are sponsored by local businesses and they are normally made up of people that work for the company that sponsors them plus other family members. Team members run up and down the river bed carrying a cardboard cut out of a boat with sails and masts. This looks quite a sight when you see boats on a dry river and all these hairy legs sticking out of the bottom of the boats. The final race is between two large boats on tractor bodies. These boats have cannons fastened onto the side of them and large fire hoses joined to water tanks on board these are used to fire flour at the other teams and the crowd. Mix this with water, and it makes a lot of mess and a great deal of fun for all.

Once every seven years or so, it rains, and the event has to be cancelled because the river is full of water.

+ [p. 272] “One spell, one bucket of seawater, no more problem...”

Desalinated seawater plays an important part in the water supply of many desert countries. However, it is (as Ponder objects) very energy-intensive.

+ [p. 274] “Can you hear that thunder? [...] We’d better take cover.”

From the Aussie group Men at Work’s 1983 hit ‘Down Under’: “Can you hear that thunder? You’d better run, you’d better take cover.”

+ [p. 280] “Near the centre of the last continent, where waterfalls streamed down the flanks of a great red rock[...]”

Uluru, or Ayer’s Rock, is regarded as sacred by the Aborigines so they never climb the rock, although many tourists do.