nethack-gwaa-kiwi/nethack
1
0
Fork 0
Code Pull Requests Activity

tribute: Jingo

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
PatR
2015-09-24 18:52:39 -07:00
parent 55e1a50512
commit 08947dcdfa
1 changed files with 245 additions and 44 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

289
dat/tribute
View File

@@ -2172,84 +2172,285 @@ Death. OR THE FAME. OR BECAUSE THEY SHOULDN'T.
#
#
#
%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