Easter Eggs (Book 3)
*** Spoiler Alert! ***
And so to the Easter eggs in the third book, The Dead Do Lie...
Song Titles
I started with a few really obvious ones, when Gareth, Marv's old friend, is described as the "the love child spawned of an unholy threesome between Tom Jones, Yoda and Ron Weasley". Unsurprisingly, three Tom Jones song titles are hidden around here: Delilah, Sexbomb, and It's Not Unusual. (I use the term 'hidden' exceedingly loosely here - they're concealed about as well as that baby elephant photographed hiding behind a post after being caught eating sugarcane. And the next one's even more obvious.)
With a character called 'Fly', there was no way I could pass up the opportunity (or baulk at the challenge) to include the song title Pretty Fly (For a White Guy). Surely no-one can have missed that one? Other than my wife, that is.
Closely following that one, after Marlborough has been talking to Roxy and Fly in Hell, we find a number of Green Day song titles: Basket Case, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), One-eyed Bastard, Holiday, and 21 Guns, although I had to admit defeat with the second title in that list and split it in two. And feel free to call me a coward, but I bottled it with Wake Me Up When September Ends.
At least I offered a clue to the next set, though, when Paulie's thinking back to his 'manic' early life, with a 'street preacher' for a dad. Accordingly, we have five songs from Manic Street Preachers around here: [A] Design for Life; NatWest, Barclays, Midlands, Lloyds; You Stole the Sun From My Heart; [Of] Walking Abortion; and Motorcycle['s] Emptiness.
In the same area, we have a couple of songs from The Mamas & The Papas, a vague hint to their existence supplied by the name of Paulie's mum, Cass (i.e. Mama Cass): Dancing In The Street, and Words Of Love. ('Cass' is doing some heavy lifting here by also acting as a reference to Only Fools And Horses - see below.)
Then, after Marlborough has met with his line manager, we find four Queen songs: A Kind of Magic, Body Language, Under Pressure, and Play the Game, with the latter three hidden in the same sentence - I'm making this too easy for you now.
Film, Television and Book References
We start early with a tribute to the classic Life Of Brian, when Fly is in the queue to exit the Legow Room, and we have the following exchange between Dieter the Man-eater and the guard, Graham:
"Nice one, guard. Like it, like it."
"Shut up," replied the guard.
"Right, right."
Replace 'guard' with 'centurion' and it's as if Michael Palin and John Cleese are in the room with you.
The references to the film The Shawshank Redemption are generally pretty obvious, I imagine, but I included a hint anyway (albeit an extremely tenuous one) in the sentence "He waited a moment – just to be 'sure' – then pulled a 'shank' out from between the mattress and the bed frame." ("sure...shank" was supposed to lead to 'Shawshank', and the word 'redemption' can be found skulking somewhere vaguely nearby. I know, I know. <Shakes head apologetically.>) In the film, the escape tunnel is hidden behind a poster of Raquel Welch from the movie One Million Years B.C. One of her other films was Bedazzled, hence why Fly hides his escape hole behind a poster of Elizabeth Hurley from the remake of that film. And we have Fly recalling another would-be escaper from Hell, Andy 'Doo-doo' Fresne, who tried to escape through a sewage pipe, much like the main character in The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne. Finally, there's a nod to a seemingly much-discussed potential plot-hole in the film: how did Andy Dufresne reattach the Raquel Welch poster from behind?
Silence Of The Lambs is up next, when Fly passes the cell of Dieter the Man-eater. The interaction begins with Dieter's greeting, "Hello, Fly", his words 'so softly spoken [Fly] might have imagined them' - this is a nod to an apparently common misconception that Hannibal Lecter greets Clarice in the film with "Hello, Clarice." Dieter's neighbour, Multifarious Mick (the Swinging Seaman) is a play on Multiple Miggs, who hurls something unpleasant at Clarice from a neighbouring cell as she walks past. The whole "A sommelier once tried to test me..." bit pays homage to Hannibal's "A census-taker once tried to test me..." speech, of course. And if the link to Silence Of The Lambs is somehow still not clear by that point, I really try to hammer it home with the following in Dieter's monologue as he reminisces about the sommelier:
"'What goes with lamb?'
"Silence.
Subsequent references are admittedly somewhat more subtle, including Dieter having been a lecturer (a play on 'Lecter'), earning his doctorate in Florence (where some of Thomas Harris's third novel of the series, Hannibal, is set) studying Anthropophagy (human cannibalism). Finally, the last two words of the chapter, when Dieter asks of the fate of the guard, are a reference to the FBI profiler in the first Hannibal novel, Red Dragon: Will Graham.
A token nod to Hill Street Blues comes next, with Marv admitting to a bit of the blues and lamenting that it's "hard not to expect some action when the sarge sees you off with a 'Let's be careful out there'" (as per Sergeant Esterhaus's catchphrase in the TV programme).
Dotted around the Manic Street Preachers and The Mamas & The Papas references, we have a few references to the classic sitcom that was Only Fools And Horses: Paulie wondering whether he would be a millionaire this time next year; growing up in Peckham; his parents' being named Rodney and Cass[andra]; and, the simple inclusion of the word 'trigger' - a loose but necessary reference to surely one of the best sitcom characters of all time.
Next, we move on to Fly being on a high from his escape - "his own personal 'great escape'". Cue references to that classic war film: Fly believing it to be the sworn duty of every inmate to try to escape, much as it is stated in the film to be "the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape"; Fly kicking at the dirt below him, his trouser leg shaking as he does so, mimicking the sly disposal of dug-out soil by the 'great escapers'; and, a few paragraphs before, the phrase "every Tom, Dick and Harry" recalling the nicknames of the three tunnels.
Later on, when Marlborough and Islington find Gareth at the parkrun, we have a number of quotes from Star Wars and its sequels and spin-offs: 'I find your lack of faith disturbing.'; 'Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.'; '...you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...'; 'This is the way.'; 'I've got a bad feeling about this.'; 'It's a trap.'; 'You underestimate the power of the dark side.'
Songs Themselves
Whenever there's a song playing in the background, in any of the books, the reasoning for the choice of song is hopefully pretty obvious and doesn't require explanation - and it's really not a good sign if you're having to explain your own jokes. (You definitely got the Ride of the Valkyries and "I love the smell of lip balm in the morning" reference in the first book, right?) However, it appears that one particular song choice in this book is sailing over everyone's merrily oblivious heads. As Fly and his fellow inmates run the Lego gauntlet in Room 1958, an Eels song is playing on a loop: Novocaine For The Soul. Anaesthetic for the sole. Get it? Anyone? Bueller?
Character Names
Both Fly's name (Henry Carrier) and original nickname (Butterfly), and his escape from Hell, link to the book / films Papillon (French for 'butterfly'), where Henri Charrière (Papillon) escapes from Devil's Island. Fly's fellow inmate Louis was named for Louis Dega, Papillon's fellow prisoner.
Zoe's sidekick in the pub, Robyn Grayson, was named for Batman's sidekick, Robin (real name Dick Grayson). There is a slight link to Zoe's name here, and the fact that Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away plays at one point in the pub - Zoë Kravitz played Catwoman in the film The Batman.
The origin of Paulie's name (Paul E. Scobar) should be pretty obvious - Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord. As for Paulie's muscle, Walnut, his name comes from Paulie 'Walnuts' in The Sopranos.
Bunny's cousins, Frank and Tony (initially assumed by Paulie to be Bunny's bodyguards), were named after Whitney Houston's bodyguards in the film The Bodyguard.
Marlborough's line manager, Nelson, was named for a wine region of New Zealand (Marlborough being another such region).
The bartender in The Dealers Arms, Sam, was named for Sam Malone in the TV programme Cheers. (Hence also why, at one point, Sam is watching an episode of Frasier, a spin-off from Cheers.)
The only member of Fergus's 'flock' to turn up to his service, Mrs Merino, was named for the breed of sheep.
When Roxy's in Sink The Pink, Moth mentions a customer called 'Potato'. This is a play on the character Spud from the film Trainspotting.
In the flashback to Fly's demise, Paulie mentions the 'Messier-13 gang'. This is a play on the MS-13 criminal gang in the USA and the Messier 13 (aka M13) star cluster in the constellation Hercules.
Place Names
Amy Dudley House, the building where Roxy died, was named for Lady Amy Dudley (née Robsart), who died falling down a flight of stairs in 1560.
Hell's Room Numbers
Room 1958 (the 'Legow Room'): Lego was apparently launched in its present form in 1958.
Paulie's Crossword Clue
In Paulie's cryptic crossword, 'Boundless Scot and English hold murderer in snow' was the clue to a seven-letter word. If we make 'Scot' boundless, we're left with 'co', 'English' can sometimes represent the letter 'E' in a cryptic crossword, and Cain (from the Bible) is an example of a murderer. So, if 'co' and 'e' hold 'cain', we get 'cocaine', for which 'snow' is a slang term. (Also, it's clue 'one across' in the crossword, written '1A' in the book, and 'A-1' is apparently another slang term for cocaine.)
And that's your lot. For now.
Cheers,
D.C. Barclay
And so to the Easter eggs in the third book, The Dead Do Lie...
Song Titles
I started with a few really obvious ones, when Gareth, Marv's old friend, is described as the "the love child spawned of an unholy threesome between Tom Jones, Yoda and Ron Weasley". Unsurprisingly, three Tom Jones song titles are hidden around here: Delilah, Sexbomb, and It's Not Unusual. (I use the term 'hidden' exceedingly loosely here - they're concealed about as well as that baby elephant photographed hiding behind a post after being caught eating sugarcane. And the next one's even more obvious.)
With a character called 'Fly', there was no way I could pass up the opportunity (or baulk at the challenge) to include the song title Pretty Fly (For a White Guy). Surely no-one can have missed that one? Other than my wife, that is.
Closely following that one, after Marlborough has been talking to Roxy and Fly in Hell, we find a number of Green Day song titles: Basket Case, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), One-eyed Bastard, Holiday, and 21 Guns, although I had to admit defeat with the second title in that list and split it in two. And feel free to call me a coward, but I bottled it with Wake Me Up When September Ends.
At least I offered a clue to the next set, though, when Paulie's thinking back to his 'manic' early life, with a 'street preacher' for a dad. Accordingly, we have five songs from Manic Street Preachers around here: [A] Design for Life; NatWest, Barclays, Midlands, Lloyds; You Stole the Sun From My Heart; [Of] Walking Abortion; and Motorcycle['s] Emptiness.
In the same area, we have a couple of songs from The Mamas & The Papas, a vague hint to their existence supplied by the name of Paulie's mum, Cass (i.e. Mama Cass): Dancing In The Street, and Words Of Love. ('Cass' is doing some heavy lifting here by also acting as a reference to Only Fools And Horses - see below.)
Then, after Marlborough has met with his line manager, we find four Queen songs: A Kind of Magic, Body Language, Under Pressure, and Play the Game, with the latter three hidden in the same sentence - I'm making this too easy for you now.
Film, Television and Book References
We start early with a tribute to the classic Life Of Brian, when Fly is in the queue to exit the Legow Room, and we have the following exchange between Dieter the Man-eater and the guard, Graham:
"Nice one, guard. Like it, like it."
"Shut up," replied the guard.
"Right, right."
Replace 'guard' with 'centurion' and it's as if Michael Palin and John Cleese are in the room with you.
The references to the film The Shawshank Redemption are generally pretty obvious, I imagine, but I included a hint anyway (albeit an extremely tenuous one) in the sentence "He waited a moment – just to be 'sure' – then pulled a 'shank' out from between the mattress and the bed frame." ("sure...shank" was supposed to lead to 'Shawshank', and the word 'redemption' can be found skulking somewhere vaguely nearby. I know, I know. <Shakes head apologetically.>) In the film, the escape tunnel is hidden behind a poster of Raquel Welch from the movie One Million Years B.C. One of her other films was Bedazzled, hence why Fly hides his escape hole behind a poster of Elizabeth Hurley from the remake of that film. And we have Fly recalling another would-be escaper from Hell, Andy 'Doo-doo' Fresne, who tried to escape through a sewage pipe, much like the main character in The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne. Finally, there's a nod to a seemingly much-discussed potential plot-hole in the film: how did Andy Dufresne reattach the Raquel Welch poster from behind?
Silence Of The Lambs is up next, when Fly passes the cell of Dieter the Man-eater. The interaction begins with Dieter's greeting, "Hello, Fly", his words 'so softly spoken [Fly] might have imagined them' - this is a nod to an apparently common misconception that Hannibal Lecter greets Clarice in the film with "Hello, Clarice." Dieter's neighbour, Multifarious Mick (the Swinging Seaman) is a play on Multiple Miggs, who hurls something unpleasant at Clarice from a neighbouring cell as she walks past. The whole "A sommelier once tried to test me..." bit pays homage to Hannibal's "A census-taker once tried to test me..." speech, of course. And if the link to Silence Of The Lambs is somehow still not clear by that point, I really try to hammer it home with the following in Dieter's monologue as he reminisces about the sommelier:
"'What goes with lamb?'
"Silence.
Subsequent references are admittedly somewhat more subtle, including Dieter having been a lecturer (a play on 'Lecter'), earning his doctorate in Florence (where some of Thomas Harris's third novel of the series, Hannibal, is set) studying Anthropophagy (human cannibalism). Finally, the last two words of the chapter, when Dieter asks of the fate of the guard, are a reference to the FBI profiler in the first Hannibal novel, Red Dragon: Will Graham.
A token nod to Hill Street Blues comes next, with Marv admitting to a bit of the blues and lamenting that it's "hard not to expect some action when the sarge sees you off with a 'Let's be careful out there'" (as per Sergeant Esterhaus's catchphrase in the TV programme).
Dotted around the Manic Street Preachers and The Mamas & The Papas references, we have a few references to the classic sitcom that was Only Fools And Horses: Paulie wondering whether he would be a millionaire this time next year; growing up in Peckham; his parents' being named Rodney and Cass[andra]; and, the simple inclusion of the word 'trigger' - a loose but necessary reference to surely one of the best sitcom characters of all time.
Next, we move on to Fly being on a high from his escape - "his own personal 'great escape'". Cue references to that classic war film: Fly believing it to be the sworn duty of every inmate to try to escape, much as it is stated in the film to be "the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape"; Fly kicking at the dirt below him, his trouser leg shaking as he does so, mimicking the sly disposal of dug-out soil by the 'great escapers'; and, a few paragraphs before, the phrase "every Tom, Dick and Harry" recalling the nicknames of the three tunnels.
Later on, when Marlborough and Islington find Gareth at the parkrun, we have a number of quotes from Star Wars and its sequels and spin-offs: 'I find your lack of faith disturbing.'; 'Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.'; '...you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy...'; 'This is the way.'; 'I've got a bad feeling about this.'; 'It's a trap.'; 'You underestimate the power of the dark side.'
Songs Themselves
Whenever there's a song playing in the background, in any of the books, the reasoning for the choice of song is hopefully pretty obvious and doesn't require explanation - and it's really not a good sign if you're having to explain your own jokes. (You definitely got the Ride of the Valkyries and "I love the smell of lip balm in the morning" reference in the first book, right?) However, it appears that one particular song choice in this book is sailing over everyone's merrily oblivious heads. As Fly and his fellow inmates run the Lego gauntlet in Room 1958, an Eels song is playing on a loop: Novocaine For The Soul. Anaesthetic for the sole. Get it? Anyone? Bueller?
Character Names
Both Fly's name (Henry Carrier) and original nickname (Butterfly), and his escape from Hell, link to the book / films Papillon (French for 'butterfly'), where Henri Charrière (Papillon) escapes from Devil's Island. Fly's fellow inmate Louis was named for Louis Dega, Papillon's fellow prisoner.
Zoe's sidekick in the pub, Robyn Grayson, was named for Batman's sidekick, Robin (real name Dick Grayson). There is a slight link to Zoe's name here, and the fact that Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away plays at one point in the pub - Zoë Kravitz played Catwoman in the film The Batman.
The origin of Paulie's name (Paul E. Scobar) should be pretty obvious - Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord. As for Paulie's muscle, Walnut, his name comes from Paulie 'Walnuts' in The Sopranos.
Bunny's cousins, Frank and Tony (initially assumed by Paulie to be Bunny's bodyguards), were named after Whitney Houston's bodyguards in the film The Bodyguard.
Marlborough's line manager, Nelson, was named for a wine region of New Zealand (Marlborough being another such region).
The bartender in The Dealers Arms, Sam, was named for Sam Malone in the TV programme Cheers. (Hence also why, at one point, Sam is watching an episode of Frasier, a spin-off from Cheers.)
The only member of Fergus's 'flock' to turn up to his service, Mrs Merino, was named for the breed of sheep.
When Roxy's in Sink The Pink, Moth mentions a customer called 'Potato'. This is a play on the character Spud from the film Trainspotting.
In the flashback to Fly's demise, Paulie mentions the 'Messier-13 gang'. This is a play on the MS-13 criminal gang in the USA and the Messier 13 (aka M13) star cluster in the constellation Hercules.
Place Names
Amy Dudley House, the building where Roxy died, was named for Lady Amy Dudley (née Robsart), who died falling down a flight of stairs in 1560.
Hell's Room Numbers
Room 1958 (the 'Legow Room'): Lego was apparently launched in its present form in 1958.
Paulie's Crossword Clue
In Paulie's cryptic crossword, 'Boundless Scot and English hold murderer in snow' was the clue to a seven-letter word. If we make 'Scot' boundless, we're left with 'co', 'English' can sometimes represent the letter 'E' in a cryptic crossword, and Cain (from the Bible) is an example of a murderer. So, if 'co' and 'e' hold 'cain', we get 'cocaine', for which 'snow' is a slang term. (Also, it's clue 'one across' in the crossword, written '1A' in the book, and 'A-1' is apparently another slang term for cocaine.)
And that's your lot. For now.
Cheers,
D.C. Barclay
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