IntenseDebate - stormwreath

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 6 replies · +7 points

Terminator.

(Which Mark watched recently, so I assumed it would be familiar. Sorry.)

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 14 replies · +29 points

I have an annotation...

"Vivid purple lightning lashed from the empty air and struck the houses on the near side of the plaza (...) as the light revolved it sent out thin zigzag streamers that jittered away across the rooftops. (...) then in a sudden rush it became a sphere of fire which grew swiftly to encompass almost all the plaza, vanished suddenly, and left the night full of ringing, violet shadows and the plaza full of dragon."

I'm sure I've seen those special effects for dimensional travel somewhere before...

Oh yeah...

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 2 replies · +21 points

Bear in mind that what it actually says on the inside page of a passport, in so many words, is "Her Majesty the Queen orders you to let this person into your country [or else]". If she's there in person, she can deliver the orders in person too - and the answer to "You and whose army?" is of course, "My army".

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 11 replies · +27 points

Also worth mentioning: two of the factoids that "everybody knows" about the British monarchy is that the Queen never carries money (she has staff to pay for things on her behalf), and she 'can't answer back' to criticism since that would be seen as ungracious (and an interference of the monarchy with freedom of speech). This book give an Ankh-Morporkian spin on those ideas.

Also, the reference to kings having multiple wives, chopping people's heads off, and throwing half-eaten chicken over their shoulder is a reference to the famous Henry Laughton portrayal of King Henry VIII.
http://youtu.be/v4tOb9J7W2k

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 6 replies · +23 points

Especially if it happens to be one morning in May....

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 0 replies · +10 points

Old enough to leave school and get a job, get married, buy alcohol in a restaurant, drive a car, join the army (under English law at the time Pratchett wrote the book).

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 1 reply · +8 points

I don't think so. Brittany was a British colony established by Welsh-speaking refugees from the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain.

The name Britain - 'Britannia' in Latin, nesoi Pretannike in the original Greek (the 'P' changed to a 'B' when the Romans borrowed the name) was coined in about 350 BCE, long before the Duchy of Brittany existed. We don't know where Pytheas got the name from, though one explanation at the time was that at least one of the tribes in the islands called themselves the Pretani.

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 2 replies · +19 points

He's 16 or 17 by now.

He was "almost 16" when his father told him he was adopted; but after that, there was the writing of the letter to Ankh-Morpork - which is 500 miles away, and there's no regular post service; then the reply; then Carrot walking all the way there. Months if not a year or more could have gone by between the flashback scene and the start of this book.

He's also old/mature enough that his parents think he's ready to live independently and make his own way in the world.

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 4 replies · +8 points

'Great Britain' is called that because it's the largest of the British Isles, so etymologically speaking people from Ireland, Anglesey, Man or the Hebrides are also British. Not that I'd advise EVER calling Irish people that, of course. But the name 'British Isles' was coined by the Ancient Greeks about two thousands years before the country called 'Britain' ever existed.

9 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Guards! Gu... · 0 replies · +16 points

Please excuse the bad artwork!) I imagine the pose as something like this:

And I think Vimes is holding the tail as a trigger. He squeezes it to get the dragon to flame.

IntenseDebate Comment System

Connect with stormwreath

People I'm following

stormwreath