#
#
#
-%title Jingo (2)
+%title Jingo (12)
%passage 1
-It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to
+It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to
think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault.
-If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be.
+If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be.
I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks
-of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do
-the bad things.
+of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do
+the bad things.
[Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# pp. 23-25 (Harper Torch edition) [transcribed from some other edition]
%passage 2
-#contributed by Boudewijn
There was a general shifting of position and a group clearing of throats.
+
'What about mercenaries?' said Boggis.
-'The problem with mercenaries', said the Patrician, 'is that they need
-to be paid to start fighting. And, unless you are very lucky, you end
-up paying them even more to stop--'
+
+'The problem with mercenaries', said the Patrician, 'is that they need to
+be paid to start fighting. And, unless you are very lucky, you end up
+paying them even more to stop--'
+
Selachii thumped the table.
-'Very well, then, by jingo!' he snarled. 'Alone!'
-'We could certainly do with one,' said Lord Vetinari. 'We need the
-money. I was about to say that we cannot /afford/ mercenaries.'
-'How can this be?' said Lord Downey. Don't we pay our taxes?'
-'Ah, I thought we might come to that,' said Lord Vetinari. He raised
+
+'Very well, then, by jingo!' he snarled. 'Alone!'
+
+'We could certainly do with one,' said Lord Vetinari. 'We need the money.
+I was about to say that we cannot /afford/ mercenaries.'
+
+'How can this be?' said Lord Downey. Don't we pay our taxes?'
+
+'Ah, I thought we might come to that,' said Lord Vetinari. He raised
his hand and, on cue again, his clerk placed a piece of paper in it.
-'Let me see now . . . ah yes. Guild of Assassins . . . Gross earnings
-in the last year: AM$13,207,048. Taxes paid in the last year:
-forty-seven dollars, twenty-two pence and what on examination turned
-out to be a Hershebian half-/dong/, worth one eighth of a penny.'
-'That's all perfectly legal! The Guild of Accountants--'
-'Ah yes. Guild of Accountants: gross earnings AM$7,999,011.
-Taxes paid: nil. But, ah yes, I see they applied for a rebate of
-AM$200,000.'
+
+'Let me see now ... ah yes. Guild of Assassins ... Gross earnings in
+the last year: AM$13,207,048. Taxes paid in the last year: forty-seven
+dollars, twenty-two pence and what on examination turned out to be a
+Hershebian half-/dong/, worth one eighth of a penny.'
+
+'That's all perfectly legal! The Guild of Accountants--'
+
+'Ah yes. Guild of Accountants: gross earnings AM$7,999,011. Taxes paid:
+nil. But, ah yes, I see they applied for a rebate of AM$200,000.'
+
'And what we received, I may say, included a Hershebian half-/dong/,'
said Mr Frostrip of the Guild of Accountants.
+
'What goes around comes around,' said Vetinari calmly.
-He tossed the paper aside. 'Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like
-dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with
-the minimum of moo. And I am afraid to say that these days all I get is
-moo.'
+
+He tossed the paper aside. 'Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy
+farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the
+minimum of moo. And I am afraid to say that these days all I get is moo.'
+
'Are you telling us that Ankh-Morpork is /bankrupt/?' said Downey.
-'Of course. While, at the same time, full of rich people. I trust they
-have been spending their good fortume on swords.'
-'And you have /allowed/ this wholesale tax avoidance?' said Lord
-Selachii. 'Oh, the taxes haven't been avoided,' said Lord Vetinari.
-'Or even evaded. They just haven't been paid.'
+
+'Of course. While, at the same time, full of rich people. I trust they
+have been spending their good fortune on swords.'
+
+'And you have /allowed/ this wholesale tax avoidance?' said Lord Selachii.
+
+'Oh, the taxes haven't been avoided,' said Lord Vetinari. 'Or even evaded.
+They just haven't been paid.'
+
'That is a disgusting state of affairs!'
+
The Patrician raised his eyebrows. 'Commander Vines?'
+
'Yes, sir?'
-'Would you be so good as to assemble a squad of your most experienced
-men, liaise with the tax gatherers and obtain the accumulated back
-taxes, please? My clerk here will give you a list of the prime
-defaulters.'
-'Right, sir. And if they resist, sir?' said Vimes, smiling nastily.
-'Oh, how can they resist, commander? This is the will of our civic
-leaders.' He took the paper his clerk proferred. 'Let me see, now.
-Top of the list--' Lord Selachii coughed hurriedly. 'Far too late for
-that sort of nonsense now,' he said.
+
+'Would you be so good as to assemble a squad of your most experienced men,
+liaise with the tax gatherers and obtain the accumulated back taxes,
+please? My clerk here will give you a list of the prime defaulters.'
+
+'Right, sir. And if they resist, sir?' said Vimes, smiling nastily.
+
+'Oh, how can they resist, commander? This is the will of our civic
+leaders.' He took the paper his clerk proferred. 'Let me see, now. Top
+of the list--'
+
+Lord Selachii coughed hurriedly. 'Far too late for that sort of nonsense
+now,' he said.
+
'Water under the bridge,' said Lord Downey.
-'Deat and buried,' said Mr Slant.
+
+'Dead and buried,' said Mr Slant.
+
'I paid mine,' said Vimes.
[Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# p. 7 (Harper Torch edition)
+%passage 3
+As every student of exploration knows, the prize goes not to the explorer
+who first sets foot upon the virgin soil but to the one who gets that foot
+home first. If it is still attached to his leg, this is a bonus.
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 34
+%passage 4
+Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He'd been to the School of My
+Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands to Reason, and was now a post-
+graduate student at the University of What Some Bloke In the Pub Told Me.
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 43-44
+%passage 5
+"Hey, that's Reg Shoe! He's a zombie. He falls to bits all the time!"
+
+"Very big man in undead community, sir," said Carrott.
+
+"How come /he/ joined?"
+
+"He came round last week to complain about the Watch harassing some
+bogeymen, sir. He was very, er, vehement, sir. So I persuaded him that
+what the Watch needed was some expertise, so he joined up, sir."
+
+"No more complaints?"
+
+"Twice as many, sir. All from undead, sir, and all against Mr. Shoe.
+Funny That."
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 78-79
+%passage 6
+Perhaps it was because he was tired, or just because he was trying to shut
+out the world, but Vimes found himself slowing down into the traditional
+Watchman's walk and the traditional idling thought process.
+
+It was an almost Pavlovian response.(1) The legs swung, the feet moved,
+the mind began to work in a certain way. It wasn't a dream state, exactly.
+It was just that the ears, nose and eyeballs wired themselves straight into
+the ancient "suspicious bastard" node of his brain, leaving his higher
+brain center free to freewheel.
+
+(1) A term invented by the wizard Denephew Boot,(2) who had found that by
+a system of rewards and punishments he could train a dog, at the ringing
+of a bell, to immediately eat a strawberry meringue.
+
+(2) His parents, who were uncomplicated country people, had wanted a girl.
+They were expecting to call her Denise.
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 92-93
+%passage 7
+"What was it, Leonard?"
+
+"An experimental device for turning chemical energy into rotary motion,"
+said Leonard. "The problem, you see, is getting the little pellets of
+black powder into the combustion chamber at exactly the right speed and
+one at a time. If two ignite together, well, what he have is the
+/external/ combustion engine."
+
+"And, er, what would be the purpose of it?" said the Patrician.
+
+"I believe it could replace the horse," Leonard said proudly.
+
+They looked at the stricken thing.
+
+"One of the advantages of horses that people often point out," said
+Vetinari, after some thought, "is that they very seldom explode. Almost
+never, in my experience, apart from that unfortunate occurrence in the hot
+summer a few years ago." With fastidious fingers he pulled something out
+of the mess. It was a pair of cubes, made out of some soft white fur and
+linked together by a piece of string. There were dots on them.
+
+"Dice?" he said.
+
+Leonard smiled in an embarrassed fashion. "Yes. I can't think why I
+thought they'd help it go better. It was just, well, an idea. You know
+how it is."
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 98 (1st "He": Leonard; 2nd "He": Vetinari; last "He": Leonard again)
+%passage 8
+He was as easily distracted as a kitten. All that business with the
+flying machine, for example. Giant bat wings hung from the ceiling even
+now. The Patrician had been more than happy to let him waste his time on
+that idea, because it was obvious to anyone that no human being would ever
+be able to flap the wings hard enough.
+
+He needn't have worried. Leonard was his own distraction. He had ended
+up spending ages designing a special tray so that people could eat their
+meals in the air.
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 155
+%passage 9
+She held the lamp higher.
+
+Ramkins looked down their noses at her from their frames, through the brown
+varnish of the centuries. Portraits were another thing that had been
+collected out of unregarded habit.
+
+Most of them were men. They were invariably in armor and always on
+horseback. And every single one of them had fought the sworn enemies of
+Ankh-Morpork.
+
+In recent times this had been quite difficult and her grandfather, for
+example, had to lead an expedition all the way to Howondaland in order to
+find some sworn enemies, although there was an adequate supply and a lot
+of swearing by the time he left. Earlier, of course, it had been a lot
+easier. Ramkin regiments had fought the city's enemies all over the Sto
+Plains and had inflicted heroic casualties, quite often on people in the
+opposing armies.(1)
+
+(1) It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military
+thinker tha huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other
+side then this is a valuable bonus.
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 180-181 (the same gag was used in the 1968 movie "Support Your Local
+# Sheriff", with a dented badge rather than a book)
+%passage 10
+He rummaged in a pocket and produced a very small book, which he held up
+for inspection.
+
+"This belonged to by great-grandad," he said. "He was in the scrap we had
+against Pseudopolis and my great-gran gave him this book of prayers for
+soldiers, 'cos you need all the prayers you can get, believe you me, and
+he stuck it in the top pocket of his jerkin, 'cause he couldn't afford
+armor, and next day in battle--whoosh, this arrow came out of nowhere, wham,
+straight into this book and it went all the way through to the last page
+before stopping, look. You can see the hole."
+
+"Pretty miraculous," Carrot agreed.
+
+"Yeah, it was, I s'pose," said the sergeant. He looked ruefully at the
+battered volume. "Shame about the other seventeen arrows, really."
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 218
+%passage 11
+"Er ... what is this thing called?" said Colon, as he followed the
+Patrician up the ladder.
+
+"Well, because it is /submersed/ in a /marine/ environment, I've always
+called it the Going-Under-the-Water-Safely Device," said Leonard, behind
+him.(1) "But usually I just think of it as the boat."
+
+(1) Thinking up good names was, oddly enough, was one area where Leonard
+of Quirm's genious tended to give up.
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 274 (passage starts mid-paragraph)
+%passage 12
+"[...] I mean, what're our long-term objectives?"
+
+"Cooking meals and keeping warm?" said Les hopefully.
+
+"Well, /initially/," said Jackson. "That's obvious. But you know what
+they say, lad. 'Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to
+him and he's warm for the rest of his life.' See my point?"
+
+"I don't think that's actually what the saying is--"
+
+ [Jingo, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
%e title
#
#
#
%title The Last Continent (2)
%passage 1
-PEOPLE'S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE
-PROCESS IS CALLED 'LIVING'.
+PEOPLE'S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE
+PROCESS IS CALLED 'LIVING'.
[The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
%passage 2
"When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators, Today Is the First Day of the
-Rest of Your Life."
+Rest of Your Life."
[The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage