Once More With Footnotes

watch the last orangutans ushered into their domes or cages or enclosed parks to live out their lives in a simulacrum of the real world. They will be ghosts, because an orangutan need s the forest like a fish needs the sea.
     
                  All this for cheap paper and exotic doors.
     
                  Unless, of course, you believe in miracles.
     
                 

In 1998, the BBC, or at least part of it, asked me if the Discworld had a national anthem.
     
    I said no, but the city of Ank h-Morpork had one. And they said: Would you write it for us?
     
    At that led to the first ever national anthem of a fictional city state being played nationally on BBC Radio 4 on January 15, 1999, as the rousing close to a week of programmes about, yes, natio nal anthems.
     
    Carl Davis was asked to do the music and we had several long phone conversations about how the thing should sound, culminating in him ringing me up from a taxi in New York, I think, and playing a stylophone at me.
     
    It was wonderful. It was ex actly what I'd asked for — ponderous, slightly threatening, and full of the joyful pomposity of empire. I think it was the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra that played it, with a wonderful soprano who tackled it cheerfully and made "ner hner ner" sound like s omething by Wagner.
     
    It was never officially played again, for complicated reasons to do with money and copyright, although I think a version did end up on -ine. Some people are such scallywags ...
     
     
     
     
     
T he A nkh- M orpork N ational A nthem
     
                  The anthem of t he sprawling mercantile city state of Ankh-Morpork was not even written by one of its sons, but by a visitor — the vampire Count Henrik Shline von Ü berwald (born 1703, died 1782, died again 1784, and also in 1788, 1791, 1802/4/7/8, also 1821, 1830, 1861, sta ked 1872). He had taken a long holiday to get away from some people who wanted earnestly to talk to him about cutting his head off, and declared himself very impressed at the city's policy of keeping the peace by bribery, financial corruption, and ultimate ly by making unbeatable offers for the opponents' weapons, most of which had been made in Ankh-Morpork in the first place.
     
                  The anthem, known affectionately as "We can rule you wholesale", is the only one that formally has a second verse consisting mainly of embarrassed mumbling.
     
                  The Count, who visited many countries in the course of his travels, noted that all real patriots can never remember more than one verse of their anthem, and get through the subsequent verses by going "ner hner ner" until they re ach an outcrop of words they remember, which they sing very boldly to give the impression that they really had been singing all the other words as well but had been drowned out by the people around them.
     
                  In classical renditions, the singing is normally l ed by a large soprano wearing a sheet and carrying the flame of something or other and holding a large fork.
     
    -
     
                  When dragons belch and hippos flee
                  My thoughts, Ankh-Morpork, are of thee
                  Let others boast of martial dash
                  For we have boldly fought with c ash
                  We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes
                  We own all your generals — touch us and you'll lose
                  Morporkia! Morporkia!
                  Morporkia owns the day!
                  We can rule you wholesale
                  Touch us and you'll pay
     
    -
     
                  We bankrupt all invaders, we sell them souvenirs
                  We ner ner ner ner ner, hner ner hner by the ears
                  Er hner we sing ner ner ner ner
                  Ner ner her ner ner ner hner the ner
                  Er ner ner hner ner, nher hner ner ner
                  Ner hner ner, your gleaming swords
                  We mortaged to the hilt
                  Morporkia! Morporkia!
                  Hner ner ner ner ner ner
                  We can rule you wholesale
                  Credit where it's due.

I'm Dreaming of the Right Christmas ...
     
    [A postprandial