Moving Pictures

1

This is the one that grows only in certain parts of heathen Howondaland. It’s twenty feet long, covered in spikes the colour of ear wax, and smells like an anteater that’s eaten a very bad ant.

2

In fact the Guild of Merchants’ famous publication Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises now has an entire section entitled ‘Soe you’re a Barbaeriean Invader?’ which has notes on night life, folklorique bargains in the bazaar and, under the heading ‘Steppe-ing Out’, a list of restaurants that do a dependable mares’ milk and yak pudding. And many a pointed-helmeted vandal has trotted back to his freezing yurt wondering why he seems to be a great deal poorer and the apparent owner of a badly-woven rug, a litre of undrinkable wine and a stuffed purple donkey in a straw hat. The city has been proof against anything.

3

The alternative was choosing of his own free will to be thrown into the scorpion pit.

4

She was right about that, but only by coincidence.

5

Lit.: ‘Thingness-writer’, or device for detecting and measuring disturbances in the fabric of reality.

6

SUB-TITLE: ‘Vunce again I am fallink in luf (lit., experiencing the pleasant feeling of being hit over the head with a rock by Chondrodite, the troll god of love).’ Note: Chondrodite must not be confused with Gigalith, the troll god who gives trolls wisdom by hitting them on the head with a rock, or Silicarous, the troll god who brings trolls good fortune by hitting them on the head with a rock, or with the folk hero Monolith, who first wrested the secret of rocks from the gods.

7

SUB-TITLE: ‘Vy iss it I now am a blue colour?’

8

SUB-TITLE: ‘Vot is the action I should take at this time?’

9

SUB-TITLE: ‘…I can’t help it. Hiya, big boy.’

10

Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite, former Ankh-Morpork seamstress until her dreams led her to Holy Wood, where she found her skill with a needle was highly prized. Once a darner of casual socks, now a knitter of fake chain mail for trolls and able to run up a pair of harem trousers in a trice.

11

Camels are far too intelligent to admit to being intelligent.

12

Some of them have clipboards.

13

Trolls’ teeth are made of diamond.

14

But were edited out of the finished production.

15

Not for any particular religious reason. They just rather liked the effect when they grinned.

16

All dwarfs have beards and wear many layers of clothing. Their courtships are largely concerned with finding out, in delicate and circumspect ways, what sex the other dwarf is.

17

Trolls have 5,400 words for rocks and one for vegetation. ‘Oograah’ means everything from moss to giant redwoods. The way trolls see it, if you can’t eat it, it’s not worth naming it.

18

It was about a young ape who is abandoned in the big city and grows up being able to speak the language of humans.^[*]

* The Librarian’s script is of course a reversal of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan story. Since Tarzan is supposed to be one of those five or so cultural icons that are so truly universal that everybody in the world is familiar with them, I expect this may well turn out to be the APF’s Most Unnecessary Annotation of all…

19

The Necrotelicomnicon was written by a Klatchian necromancer known to the world as Achmed the Mad, although he preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches.^[*] It is said that the book was written in one day after Achmed drank too much of the strange thick Klatchian coffee which doesn’t just sober you up, but takes you through sobriety and out the other side, so that you glimpse the real universe beyond the clouds of warm self-delusion that sapient life usually generates around itself to stop it turning into a nutcake. Little is known about his life prior to this event, because the page headed ‘About the Author’ spontaneously combusted shortly after his death. However, a section headed ‘Other Books By the Same Author’ indicates that his previous published work was Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches’s Book of Humorous Cat Stories, which might explain a lot.

* In real life, horror author H. P. Lovecraft assures us that the Necronomicon was written by the mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred.

20

Apart from anything else, it gives brother a rather better excuse to fight brother than the normal one, viz, what his wife said about our Mam at Auntie Vera’s funeral.

21

49,873, according to Numbers Riktor’s clockwork Celestial Enumerator.

22

The ones living in stone buildings, anyway.

23

By troll standards, this was Oscar Wilde at his best.

24

In fact he called it ‘oook’. But probably, in translation, it meant ‘home’.

25

Wizards who manage to avoid the ambitious attentions of other wizards tend to live for a long time. It seems even longer.

26

On his part, that is. Their reluctance probably goes without saying.

27

‘We Can Rule You Wholesale’.

28

He had a tidy mind.

29

The trollish phrase is ‘Other maddened grizzly bears to stun.’