Pages 17-19

This page-by-page annotation is organized by sections, as delineated by the seven squares (sprockets) which separate each section. The page numbers for this page-by-page annotation are for the original Viking edition (760 pages). Editions by other publishers vary in pagination — the newer Penguin editions are 776 pages; the Bantam edition is 886 pages.

Contributors: Please use a 760-page edition (either the original Viking edition with the orange cover or the Penguin USA edition with the blue cover and rocket diagram — there are plenty on Ebay for around $10) or search the Google edition for the correct page number. Readers: To calculate the Bantam edition use this formula: Bantam page # x 1.165. Before p.50 it's about a page earlier; as you get later in the book, add a page.

Finally, profound thanks to Prof. Don Larsson for providing the foundation for this page-by-page annotation.

Page 17

17 which Mother had Garrard's make up for him
Garrard & Co. Ltd., the Crown Jewellers since 1843, are at 112 Regent Street W1, where they moved in 1952. Mrs. Bloat however would have visited them at their former location in Albemarle Street, near the Royal Institution. This elite scientists' club is where Michael Faraday did most of his experimenting and today it houses the Faraday Museum.

Page 18

18.22-23 "Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland"
Song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey, composed for the 1942 film Johnny Doughboy, starring Jane Withers and Henry Wilcoxon. Apparently a popular tune, it lasted 16 weeks on the 1942 Hit Parade and was recorded by Kay Kyser and Guy Lombardo, among others.

See note above at 9.05. Formby was extraordinarily popular in recordings and films in Britain in the 1940s. Weisenburger claims that Formby’s voice was a "high screech," but it was actually a not-unpleasant baritone. Weisenburger may be confusing Formby with the ukulele-strumming 1960s singing phenomenon Tiny Tim. On the other hand, his singing voice did have a rather whiny Lancastrian accent, similar to his speaking voice. You might like to judge for yourself from his own song "She's Got Two of Everything" on YouTube, taken from his 1945 film I Didn't Do It!.

18.26-28 lost pieces...jigsaw puzzles...left eye...Weimaraner

TRP mentions the left eye quite a bit. Vera Meroving, in V., p.237, has an artificial left eye inscribed with a clock and the glyphs of the zodiac; and in AtD Blinky Morgan has a damaged left eye that allows him to be a walking interferometer, able to see light polarization unaided.

The left eye here belongs to a Weimaraner, a dog which European royalty used to hunt big game like boar and bear. Weimaraner dogs are known for their loyalty to family, sensitivity, high intelligence and problem solving ability and have thus been called the dog with a human brain. Famous owners of the breed include founder of modern Turkey, Attaturk, President Eisenhower, French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Brad Pitt and Trent Reznor.

Amber left eye of a dog echoes The Beatles' I am the Walrus': "yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye."

18.30 the skin of a Flying Fortress
Correspondent Stephen Remato adds the following comment: "While detailing the debris on Slothrop's desk, Mr. W. suggests that the bomb which explodes over Hiroshima was dropped from a Flying Fortress. While also made by the Boeing company, it was the B29 Super Fortress, not the B17 Flying Fortress, which was the atomic bomber of WW2. The well-known B29 'Enola Gay' dropped the Hiroshima bomb, while the lesser-known B29 'Bock's Car' dropped the Nagasaki bomb. To those unaware, the superficial similarity in name between these types of aircraft is the main similarity only; they are not variations of the same aircraft but quite distinct."

18.31 G-2
Military or ground intelligence. As opposed to N-2, Naval intelligence; A-2 air intelligence, etc.

18.38 a News of the World
The NOTW was not a daily paper but a highly sensationalistic British weekly tabloid published every Sunday, with virtually no serious news (still being published, and now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation). That "Slothrop is a faithful reader" says much about his intellectual pursuits. The paper's current website. NOTW is mentioned in The Beatles song Polythene Pam : "She's the kind of a girl to make the News of the World, yes you could say she was attractively built..." and The Smiths This Night Has Opened My Eyes, "Wrap her [a dead baby] up in the News of the World / Dump her on a doorstep" Likely many other songs as well.

Page 19

Weisenburger gives this as "a bazaar in Victorian London," but a more fitting setting for Tantivy’s story of "Lorraine and Judy, Charles the homosexual constable and the piano" would be a warehouse or furniture van. See 537.16-17.