A penguin in a blender? Or am I getting my jokes confused? 
I used to know this. I know that I used to know this. For some reason, my mind blanked.
As to furs: furs are patterns, basically. There’s ermine and its derivatives and vair and its derivatives. Ermine is white with black designs on it, and there are variations of it which are white on black, gold on black, and black on gold. Vair is blue and white patterns.
I used to know this. I know that I used to know this. For some reason, my mind blanked.
As to furs: furs are patterns, basically. There’s ermine and its derivatives and vair and its derivatives. Ermine is white with black designs on it, and there are variations of it which are white on black, gold on black, and black on gold. Vair is blue and white patterns.
One of my first D&D (not AD&D, D&D) characters was known as Algernon the Mad Skinner. He’s skin anything, after he found out how much money some skins and other monster bits commanded on the open market. His shield was azure and erminois on the bend, a bend vair, issuant an axe or hilted argent.
[Darth Vader]I find your lack of hippos disturbing.[/DV]
I must have had a more sheltered childhood. It was a sunburned zebra.
And a nun in a blender.
Vair is meant to symbolize squirrel fur, isn’t it? It looks a bit like interlocking bells.
That would certainly be more pork.
It’s a sad thing, but this makes me think - bacon would be barry wavy gules (red), argent, gules.
On the off-chance that the original answer isn’t known to someone reading our exchange… supposedly it’s “a newspaper”; I was assuming an allusion to Sir pTerry’s journalistic background. (Assuming it’s a reference at all).
Brilliant! Barry wavy gules and argent! Excellent! 
Aside: as an SCA herald some years ago I got on the wrong side of some one whose arms were a black shield, with a big round silver circle, on which was a wolf’s head, by me referring to his arms as “a wolf’s head on a plate”. How was I to know he’d intended it as a full moon / werewolf motif… or that his name was “Ulf”.
Sadly, I keep trying to make a device that’s bacon and eggs, and it’s been too long since I used the vocabulary. The syntax keeps tangling. Something like, divided per fess barry wavy gules and argent over or. That doesn’t look right. Any correction would be appreciated.
That’s not as bad as my worst: seme’ of bears in their natural color. Otherwise known as bearly proper.
Say, in the UK, is a coat of arms something you automatically get when you’re knighted (assuming you don’t have a family COA already)? (The link refers to “the Armorial Bearings granted to Sir Terence David John PRATCHETT of Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, Knight, OBE by Letters Patent of Garter and Clarenceux Kings of Arms dated 28 April 2010.”)
Also, if you get a COA, do you automatically get supporters on it?
It occurs to me that the reason there are no hippos on Sir Pterry’s arms might be that a mere knight doesn’t rate supporters, you have to be a peer or something.
Perhaps something like “Or, a fess wavy barry wavy of five gules and argent”, i.e. a gold/yellow field with a single fat, wavy edged, horizontal stripe, made up of 5 thinner wavy stripes: red, white, red, white, red. (Might be right… been a while since I hit the heraldry books too). 
Ouch! :eek: True heraldic humour.
But it sounds like it was a wolf’s head on a plate. Well, to you & me.
How about…
Party per fess wavy argent a bezant issuant in chief and barry wavy gules and argent.
Unless you wanted scrambled eggs.
How many heralds does it take to change a lightbulb?
You can’t - that’s putting a metal on a metal.
What would an orange background be called in heraldry? (Yes, I’m being lazy, and no, it’s not yellow).
Interestingly enough, orange.
B-b-but… that can’t be! It doesn’t sound obscure at all! JOOOOOO! (Egyptian God of whines)
Peers and Knights Grand Cross get supporters. Pratchett is only a Knight Bachelor and and OBE, so no supporters yet. When he gets a KGBE, he will presumably add the hippos.
Well – tawny orange, the color of a tiger, for example, is tenné, probably the most common of the “stains” Though relatively uncommon in use, it’s not rare. “Orange” is used for spectrum orange, is very rare in British heraldry, and nearly always used as part of canting arms (connection to the House of Oranje, or an orange merchant). In practice, however, heraldic artists rarely make the nitpicky distinction between the two, depicting both as orange.