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Terry Pratchett Knighted
ackthpt writes "Headlines have been popping up on Google News: 'Terry Pratchett declared himself "flabbergasted" to receive a knighthood as he led a group of writers, actors and performers honoured today.' The Discworld author and stalwart adversary of Alzheimers Disease has been a member of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for Services to Literature since 1998. He will be entering the new year as Knight Commander. Well done and Oook, Sir Terry."
Congratulations Sir Terry, a well deserved honour.
I think we can agree that Terry Pratchett has earned an honour of one kind or another.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yet it doesn't stop you coming over in large numbers to hang around outside Buckingham Palace taking photos of the Changing of the Guard.
How exactly can one be a "stalwart adversary of Alzheimers Disease"?
I mean, other than the classic "I will die young, thus depriving it of another victim."...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Congratulations! I'm glad to see that you didn't settle for a new dartboard, even if Detritus does ruin them.
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Just a little FYI. Sorry if we republican (small r) Americans find the whole royalty thing anachronistic, not to mention flying in the face of the concepts of equality and consent of the governed. Who really does care what these inbred people think?
There are many monarchies in Europe, most are stable, democratic countries where individual rights are very well protected... There is nothing anachronistic about keeping traditions...
I've never been a huge fan of the French
What kind of dumb remark is that?
Last time I checked, J.K. Rowling had a vagina.
Anonymous Coward
You checked her vagina?!
In all honesty, I find the idea of a society where everyone is so equal that they can't even be told "hey, you've written some really good books, well done" an appalling idea. I'll keep my birthright based head of state, or even some guy a moistened bint threw a scimitar at over that.
Why not, we all know she's a dirty old woman anyway: http://bash.org/?111338
Why is the QUEEN so special that she can give people special titles?
You're correct of course. Another way of looking at it, though, is that this whole thing is not about the queen of England at all; it's about honouring Terry Pratchett.
The monarchy is sort of like the 2nd amendment; if things just get totally and completely screwed up beyond any hope of repair, The 2nd amendment, and the Monarchy, are the built-in reset switches.
And, just like the 2nd amendment, a bunch of idiots don't realize what a blessing it is that they have that reset switch.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
He's a fantasy author who is best known as the author of the Discworld series.
The king doesn't have power to abolish his seat. The most you could do was abdicate, after which a successor would be found according to a well-defined modified primogeniture succession order. No approval from you would be needed for the coronation -- in fact, you would be in no position to approve or disapprove, having abdicated.
>needs to think on a much longer scale than election cycles
Which is also a large chunk of the reason we have (had) a House of Lords. Blair and his vile mob did their best to wreck all that though and rip out a perfectly functional line of sanity that allowed him to shove through laws that would never have got passed otherwise. Of course, he used his usual campaign of disinformation and whipping up a frenzy of stupidity in large swathes of the people via the Daily Mail etc.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
He's not American.
Or end up suing himself for copyright infringement.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hmmm.. That should make her a Damsel me thinks, for a Dame is a lady Lord. Now I'm gender confused for what a Lady knight should be termed.
No, a Dame is the female equivalent to knight. The female equivalent to a Lord is Lady.
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Yes. We wouldn't want a high signal to noise ratio on Slashdot.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
By throwing money at Alzheimers reserach and on a more personal level by doing all he can to remain as mentally active as possible.
It is worth noting that many believe the cause is now identified and that large pharma companies are working on getting treatments through trials.
I seem to recall a headline on /. linking high blood sugar to the memory loss effect. Hopefully this shows that more research is shedding more light on the condition.
A sad day when a bigoted comment like this is modded up. The American south is home to most of America's black population, and a slur against them is merely a reflection of your [and moderators] tiny-minded ignorance and fear.
When they shoot at light entertainment TV personalities I think that they can be called inbred. Though I note that note of the (self proclaimed) "hicks" in that episode were black.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
it was actually a reference to witches abroad
"'Der flabberghast,' muttered Nanny. 'What's that?' said Magrat. 'It's foreign for bat.'"
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
What 'depriving it of a victim'? Terry *has* Alzheimer's. It's a tremendous loss to the literary world, and to the world at large, that his mental faculties are slipping. I've also met him, he's sharper than Harlan Ellison and a lot more fun to chat with
He's pouring his resources into fighting it out of enlightened self-interest, but he's doing a pretty good job of it, much like Chris Reeve did for spinal injuries after breaking his neck. I'm sure it's why a lot of his most recent work has been collaborative, rather than personally authored from start to finish.
Objectively, he's also very good. His handling of multiple cultures is excellent, his political satire is brilliant, his ability to link human themes such as sexism, aging, outrage at injustice, poverty, fondness of pets, bureaucracy, and courage into plots that are fun for both children and sophisticated adults who appreciate more of the subtlety is amazing. His characters are very human, often very warm, and he successfully captures the attitudes of both heroes and villains.
'Jingo' should have been required reading for the Bush Administration before the recent mid-easter mess, just as 'Making Money' should have been required reading for the loan officers of the USA before the housing credit crunch. The man captures important themes about all sorts of aspects of life.
Not to harp too strongly on this, but reading Rowling, or Tolkien, actually doesn't do much. Reading Pratchett exposes people to all kinds of religious, philosophical, psychological and sociological ideas. He actually manages, not only to make political correctness and liberal tolerance funny, but also attractive. Just compare his ueber-policeman, Vimes, to Jack Bauer, and you see what I mean. Although they're both cardboard, Vimes has depth. He is a middle aged man who has accidentally married into high society and learns to adapt to it, even as marriage to a woman who understands powerful men opens opportunities to him he would otherwise not have had.
Another thing about Pratchett which may reflect his collaborationism: he can view his characters from outside. For instance, Vimes appears in books in which he is not the central character, and then we see him quite differently. Even minor characters do this: we see Cheery Littlebottom as a dwarf coming out as a woman in a gender-averse society, with all the conflicts that causes, but in another book we see her from outside the police force just as another faceless instance of authority. It's depth like this that justifies a knighthood.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You mean, that Iraq war which was started to find weapons of mass destruction that never existed, and were known by the US government not to exist?
Got to point out that the French supported the invasion of Afghanistan, which was a legitimate response to 9/11. Invading Iraq was merely Bush and Cheney's way of beating their chest.
I personally think that the French only tried to claim the moral middle ground; it just looked high from where the US was looking.
As for 600,000 people: I call bullshit. The US lost 416,800 total in WWII, of which 183,588 were in the European theatre. By contrast the Soviet Union - who were responsible for the fall of the Third Reich - lost over 10 million, nearly all in Europe. The US/British invasion was timed to take advantage of weakened defences due to the fighting in the Eastern front, and had the goal, not of freeing Europe, but of stopping Russia. Without the US, the French would be speaking, well, French (the USSR never forced their satellite nations to adopt Russian), but would have been aligned with the USSR. Wait, that's how they spent the 70s anyway!
Want to bring World War I into the picture as well? Then add another 116,708 - more than half of which died from the flu due to poor sanitation in US training camps (both in the US and in Europe). Total number of US deaths that could be attributed to "saving France": 300,296 - about half the figure you named. I'm sorry about your grandfather and all; my own grandfather flew with the Australian volunteers in the RAF. But get your figures straight. By contrast, the Commonwealth nations (Great Britain and related countries) lost over 1.7 million between WWI and WWI, most in the European conflict.
Excluding the US civil war, the US military has claimed 447,137 combat deaths since the start of the War of Independence - well short of your 600,000 total.
(figures sourced from wikipedia)
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Sir Pterry isn't a Knight Commander (which is a title within various British Orders), but a Knight Bachelor (which is a title outside the Order system). Formally, there are no initials he can add to his name as a Knight Bachelor, but many add Kt. So he could be styled "Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE" (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), but not "Sir Terry Pratchet, KBE" (Knight Commander...).
And a couple of hundred years before that, England had a revolution as well. Having put in a ruthless military dictator and El-Presidente-For-Life, they waited for him to die, put the monarchy back in, and dug Cromwell up from his grave so that they could execute him posthumously! (Well, points for effort, guys, but as the assignment was handed in late...)
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
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Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Someone above has written about a world of literature out there. I've read (more than once) Trollope, Powell, Proust, along with all the usual stuff including the Russians in translation and the easier French and German classics, and I find it possible to appreciate them all. On the other hand, I couldn't get into Rowling.
DNA, there I agree with you. I read the books with pleasure but they are comparatively froth. Good froth, but not arise sir Douglas froth even had he not died young.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."