Jingo

And Mr Harris of the Blue Cat Club. His admission caused a lot of argument in the Guild, who knew competition when they saw it, but Mrs Palm overruled opposition on the basis, she said, that unnatural acts were only natural.

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Usually because they suspect the joke's on them.

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Although of course wizards aren't allowed to, because they're not supposed to have grandchildren.

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Comments

1

“By jingo!” is an archaic, jocular oath, of obscure origin, used in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. The word — with derived forms such as ‘jingoism’ and ‘jingoistic’ — became associated with aggressive, militaristic nationalism as a result of a popular song dating from the Turko-Russian war of 1877-78, which began:

We don't want to have to fight,
but by Jingo if we do
We've got the ships, we've got the men,
we've got the money too.

Interestingly (in the light of the circumstances of this particular war), it is also the name of a warlike Japanese empress of the 2nd/3rd centuries, credited by legend with the power of controlling the tides.

2

Fishing rights have been a frequent cause of dispute between the UK and neighbours, most dramatically in the ‘Cod Wars’ between the UK and Iceland (1958, 1973, 1975), in which ships from the two countries sabotaged each other's nets.

3

In the 1963 comedy Mouse on the Moon, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick competes with the USA and USSR to put the first human on the moon. The Fenwick rocket gets there first, but someone points out that this doesn't matter — the glory will go to whoever gets home first. The Americans and Russians quickly make their excuses and leave, pausing only to enter the wrong capsules before sorting themselves out.

4

London's Hyde Park Corner has a very similar tradition.

5

One of Christopher Columbus’ ships was named the Pinta. A UK milk-marketing slogan from the 1980s exhorted people to ‘Drinka pinta milka day’.

6

The English word “assassins” was originally used to denote a group of fanatical Ismailis (a Shi'ite Muslim sect) who, between 1094 and 1273, worked for the creation of a new Fatimid caliphate, murdering prominent individuals. They murdered prominent individuals; hence, “assassin” in English came to mean a politically motivated murderer.

The name derives from the Arabic “hashashin” — Marco Polo and other European chroniclers claimed that the Assassins used hashish to stimulate their fearless acts. For example, Brewer writes:

“Assassins. A band of Carmathians, collected by Hassa, subah of Nishapour, called the Old Man of the Mountains, because he made Mount Lebanon his stronghold. This band was the terror of the world for two centuries, when it was put down by Sultan Bibaris. The assassins indulged in haschisch (bang), an intoxicating drink, and from this liquor received their name.”

For more information, see also the Hawkwind song ‘Hassan I Sabbah’ on their album Quark, Strangeness and Charm.

7

The name D'regs is not only a pun on ‘dregs’, but also refers to the Tuaregs, a nomadic Berber tribe in North Africa. The Tuaregs are also the desert marauders who attack Fort Zinderneuf in the movie Beau Geste (based on the book by P. C. Wren).

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