The Ankh river in Ankh-Morpork (Discworld)

[GuanoLad]

If the Ankh hadn’t been so thick and mucky, Gaspode would never have survived his attempted drowning as a puppy.

[OpalCat]

Yeah there are various plot points that hinge on the consistency of the Ankh… which is part of the reason I’m curious what other people think Terry Pratchett’s vision of its literal “texture” is likely to be…

[silenus]

A lot of the flooding of Ankh-Morpork has occurred when they City is struck by fire. The close the river gates and let the Ankh flood to put out the fire.

The Ankh is obviously based on the Thames, right down to the bight.

[Chronos]

Which clearly shows that Pterry isn’t using some real rivers I know of as inspiration, because flooding the Cuyahoga, say, would just make the fires worse.

[Yookeroo]

@Mangetout

Concur. (although probably with references to other famous extravagantly polluted rivers thrown in) And the implication is that whereas the folks in London decided to take action to sort it out, the folks in Ankh-Morpork decided they’d do it later, or the funds to address the problem went missing, or the project was against someone’s commercial interests, or something like that.

Pratchett uses devices like this a great deal - take a human predicament and project it (comically) way past the point where roundworlders would already have decided enough is enough.

Ankh-Morporkians sound like the current version of the GOP.

[Shakester]

@constanze

…or that the rowing race is held with bottomless boats and running very fast).

Pterry didn’t invent that particular joke.

[constanze]

I think he used the joke very early, before he went to roundworld -XXXX, though.

[silenus]

He used it in Lords and Ladies, IIRC. Talking about Ridcully the Brown.