Good Omens

vaguely expecting a miraculous beard to appear, and she had in fact already laid in a small ivory-handled razor, suitable for ladies, against this very eventuality; instead the Lord granted Beryl the miraculous ability to chatter continually about whatever was on her mind, however inconsequential, without pause for breath or food.
    According to one version of the legend, Beryl was strangled by Prince Casimir three weeks after the wedding, with their marriage still unconsummated. She died a virgin and a martyr, chattering to the end.
    According to another version of the legend, Casimir bought himself a set of earplugs, and she died in bed, with him, at the age of sixty-two.
    The Chattering Order of Saint Beryl is under a vow to emulate Saint Beryl at all times, except on Tuesday afternoons, for half an hour, when the nuns are permitted to shut up, and, if they wish, to play table tennis.

8  The Buggre Alle This Bible was also noteworthy for having twenty-seven verses in the third chapter of Genesis, instead of the more usual twenty-four.
    They followed verse 24, which in the King James version reads:
    â€œSo he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life,” and read:
    25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
    26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.
    27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
    It appears that these verses were inserted during the proof stage. In those days it was common practice for printers to hang proof sheets to the wooden beams outside their shops, for the edification of the populace and some free proofreading, and since the whole print run was subsequently burned anyway, no one bothered to take up this matter with the nice Mr. A. Ziraphale, who ran the bookshop two doors along and was always so helpful with the translations, and whose handwriting was instantly recognizable.

18  The interview was done in 1983 and went as follows:
    Q: You’re the Secretary of the United Nations, then?
    A: Si .
    Q: Ever sighted Elvis?

29  NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:
    Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
    The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.

49  She had. It read:
    A street of light will screem, the black chariot of the Serpente will flayme, and a Queene wille sing quickfilveres songes no moar.
    Most of the family had gone along with Gelatly Device, who wrote a brief monograph in the 1830s explaining it as a metaphor for the banishment of Weishaupt’s Illuminati from Bavaria in 1785.

56  And there was the matter of Dick Turpin. It looked like the same car, except that forever afterwards it seemed able to do 250 miles on a gallon of petrol, ran so quietly that you practically had to put your mouth over the exhaust pipe to see if the engine was firing, and issued its voice-synthesized warnings in a series of exquisite and perfectly phrased haikus, each one original and apt …
    Late frost burns the bloom
    Would a fool not let the belt
    Restrain the body?
    . . . it would say. And,
    The cherry blossom
    Tumbles from the highest tree.
    One needs more petrol.