Thud!

1

This was a bit of a slur on Nobby, Vimes had to admit. Nobby was human, just like many other officers. It was just that he was the only one who had to carry a certificate to prove it.

2

As in ‘Ol’ Fred thought he said custard officer and volunteered!’ Since this is an example of office humour, it doesn’t actually have to be funny.

3

Anoia is the Ankh-Morpork Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers.

4

Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could’ve been a republic in a dozen moves.

5

Vimes maintained three trays: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything he was too busy, angry, tired or bewildered to do anything about.

6

The better class of gods, anyway. Not the ones with the tentacles, obviously.

7

Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment.

8

Troll lore says that living creatures actually move backwards through time. It’s complicated.

9

Empirical Crescent was just off Park Lane, in what was generally a high-rent district. The rents would have been higher still were it not for the continued existence of Empirical Crescent itself, which, despite the best efforts of the Ankh-Morpork Historical Preservation Society, had still not been pulled down.

This was because it had been built by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, better known to history as ‘Bloody Stupid’ Johnson, a man who combined in one frail body such enthusiasm, self-delusion and creative lack of talent that he was, in many respects, one of the great heroes of architecture. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have invented the 13-inch foot and a triangle with three right angles in it. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have twisted common matter through dimensions it was not supposed to enter. And only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have done all this by accident.

His highly original multi-dimensional approach to geometry was responsible for Empirical Crescent. On the outside it was a normal terraced crescent of the period, built of honey-coloured stone with the occasional pillar or cherub nailed on. Inside, the front door of No.1 opened into the back bedroom of No.15, the ground-floor front window of No.3 showed the view appropriate to the second floor of No.9, smoke from the dining-room fireplace of No. 2 came out of the chimney of No.19.

10

It was okay to throw your rubbish into the garden, because it might not be your garden you were throwing it into.

11

That is to say, every dragon breeder not currently occupying a small artistic urn.

12

A famous Ankh-Morpork gutter sport, second only to Dead Rat Conkers. Turd Races in the gutter appear to have died out, despite an attempt to take them upmarket with the name Poosticks.

13

Making Fred Colon possibly unique in the annals of jail history.

14

Who wasn’t an Igor, but was merely called one. It was best not to have fun with him on this subject, and especially not to ask him to sew your head back on.

15

Patience is a key virtue amongst dwarfs.

16

They say there’s one in every police station. Constable Visit-the-Ungodly-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets was enough for two.

17

That was a phrase of Sybil’s that got to him. She’d announce at lunch: ‘We must have the pork tonight, it needs eating up.’ Vimes never had an actual problem with this, because he’d been raised to eat what was put in front of him, and do it quickly, too, before someone else snatched it away. He was just puzzled at the suggestion that he was there to do the food a favour.

18

The university porters, or bledlows, who doubled, with rather more enthusiasm, as its proctors. They commanded their nickname for being thick-shelled, liable to turn red when hot, and having the smallest brain for their size of any known creature.

19

And even then had been belabouring mountain goats on apparently sheer cliff faces and, while pebbles slid and bounced around him, was clearly accusing them of obstructing his Right to Roam. Eric believed very firmly that The Land Belonged To The People, and also that he was more The People than anyone else was. Eric went everywhere with a map, encased in waterproof material, on a string around his neck. Such people are not to be trifled with.

20

But as it happened, it was all blamed on people from another world, so that was all right.