Men at Arms: A Discworld Novel:15

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This scene resonates with so many bar scenes from television and movies, from Hill Street Blues, mentioned above, to Cheers. Page 52 - "Captain Vimes paused at the doorway, and then thumped the palm of his hand on his forehead. He's got a dream" - another hint that Carrot really is the heir to the throne but also a reference to Martin Luther King's famous "I've got a dream" speech. It was a Dagon temple that the biblical Samson managed to push down in his final effort to annoy the Philistines (Judges 16:23, "Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.

This hyperbole first appeared in Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), “But did thee feel the earth move? Both the White Fang and Silver Fang series deal with dogs that have gone wild and joined a wild dog and wolf pack respectively, much like Big Fido envisages, Pratchett has also hidden a more subtle play on words in the first syllable of each word which when combined spell "Quicksilver" the colloquial name for Mercury. Page 31 - Cuddy describing his double headed throwing ax as a "Cultural weapon" resonates with the debate over the Sikh dagger, the kirpan.Pratchett plays with the way misinformation and rumour spread and create distrust, prejudice and the threat of violence in the way the various groups describe what they have heard the other groups are doing.

Cuddy is therefore absolutely right when he points out to Detritus: "If you can count to two, you can count to anything!This is the Discworld Troll version of an old military yell to get the soldier or sailor up in the morning: "Hands off cocks, on with socks!

This resonates with the Monty Python's Candid Photography ( Nudge Nudge) sketch which Pratchett has referenced in many of his novels, notably A Hatful of Sky and The Truth. As well as being a play on Detritus' helmet fan and a clockwork soldier being a toy that would be in a child's model army, this is also a reference to the New Model Army.

Page 177 - When the Troll Detritus gets locked in the pork futures warehouse, he creates an elaborate "theory of everything" equation all over the walls, in an attempt to pass the time until he is rescued.