(back to the doctor who bewildering reference guide)
cat's cradle: witch mark
author:    andrew hunt
isbn:    0 426 20368 2
confusion quotient: .969

Text in this style was submitted by Andrew Hunt.
p.1
Bathsheba: Bathsheba is a biblical character from the 2nd Book of Samuel.  King David commits adultery with her against her husband Uriah the Hittite, and she becomes pregnant.  Then Uriah dies an all-too convenient death.  David marries Bathsheba and God is displeased.  Bathsheba's son is Solomon, and in the 1st Book of Kings David confirms his promise to Bathsheba that Solomon will be his heir.
As well as all that (and at one stage, the whole biblical thing was going to have much more significance) Bathsheba Everdene in Far From the
Madding Crowd - which I'd just read at school.
Sîan: (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Sian's a common-ish Welsh name. So's Huw, come to that, a variation of Hugh.
Father had then given her the job of going round the field, after the grain had been flailed from the stalks and the hay stacked, to pick up all of the stray grains which had fallen: This is commonly known as gleaning, the original use of the word.
Dinorben: Check p.48
the Tuatha De Danaan: I wanted specifically to mention that although fantasy elements have been only rarely used in the New Adventures, two Canadian fans submitted a proposal for a fantasy novel in 1995.  James Bow and Joseph Keeping used the Sidhe, the Tuatha de Danaan and a few other bits and bobs.  The proposal, entitled 'In Tua Nua' was sent back with detailed comments from Gareth Roberts.   It was eventually published by the  Doctor Who Information Network as  Myth Makers Presents #1, with an interview and commentary about NA proposals with Kate Orman and Lance Parkin, and lavishly illustrated by Martin Proctor, Pat Degan and Erin Noteboom (now James' wife.)  (Text submitted by James Bow) The Tuatha De Danaan are almost the alternate collective name for the Faeries of Ireland.  More correctly, they refer to the very noble, elf-like Faeries that appear to be at the top of the Faerie pecking order.
In reality, they may have been an actual Bronze Age people who inhabited the island of Ireland before the Celts invaded.  If the legends are anything to go by, the Celts were in awe of these people, but because the Celts were an Iron Age civilization, they had little trouble defeating the Tuatha De Danaan and setting up shop on Ireland.
The Tuatha De Danaan are described as slender, red haired and green eyed. It is a bit of a mystery what happened to them after the Celts invaded, although it's more than likely that they were assimilated into the new culture.  In thelegends, the Tuatha De Danaan hid in huge underground palaces, feasting and fighting and venturing forth occasionally to abduct nubile young women and children. These sites were typically described as small, rounded hills (almost like domes), and such sites are considered supernaturally dangerous to this day.
(Text submitted by Erin Bow) I think you're is right about all of this, but it might behoove us to check.  There was a stone-age people displaced by the bronze-age people, too, and some of the legends may well relate to them.  And those hills--they really are domes; passage graves built into the shape of hills and gradually covered by grass etc until most of them look like hills.  But the legend of them being buildings persisted until archeologists began to take legends serious, towards the end of the nineteenth century.  However, I think these might be stone-age, not bronze-age, structures.
(Text submitted by James Bow) Erin is right about this. I'd forgotten about this fact, but: the Tuatha de Danaan were themselves conquerers, snatching Ireland from a Stone Age tribe, and these stone age people may have a place in the Celtic legends as well -- they become the trolls and goblins of the stories.
The 'In Tua Nua' cover page.
p.2
General Nuada:
the kingdom of Tír na n-Óg: On p.79 the Doctor says that Tír na n-Óg was the kingdom where the Celts retired to when they died. (Text submitted by James Bow) That's another suggestion in the legend of where the Tuatha De Danaan fled to after Ireland fell to the Celts.  It is said to be a place located somewhere under the sea, that rises periodically from the waves. Humans who go there (often taken there by Faerie lovers) are said to not age, until their foot touches earthly soil again, at which time the full weight of their years catches up with them in minutes.
(Text submitted by Erin Bow) Under the sea or floating above it, but specifically westward.  For the Celtic peoples, who might be from Phonecia-ish originally, west has historically been the direction of the unknown.  Then, too, in Ireland the various displaced people have always fleed west, to the less- hospitable counties in the west of Ireland itself and to the nearly- uninhabitable islands off the coast.  The big bad unknown ocean is west, and west is the direction the sun goes, so sailing west has become a metaphor for traveling into the unknown, into the supernatural, into death.  Tir-na-Nog is also something of an afterworld.
(If you're a Tolkien fan, this is why the elves sail westward at the end.)
(Text submitted by goofy) Tir na n-Og is Irish Gaelic for "Land of Youth".
the Sidhe: From p.94, they are humanlike in form, but their bodies are covered with red hair and their heads are like the head of a wolf.  A similar description stands in 'Autumn Mist', a recent BBC Book by David McIntee.  The Sidhe in these two books are mutually exclusive.  McIntee's Sidhe are physically similar to Hunt's; on p.107 Sam describes them as furry humanoids with heads like shaved cats.  They are first named as the Sidhe on p.122.  They are ruled by Titania and Oberon, although that might be because the Sidhe are defined in relation to human mythology.  Actually, McIntee had intended to use the Sidhe in 1994's 'First Frontier', but the editors nixed that because of 'Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark'.  So he made up the Tzun instead.
(Text submitted by James Bow) The Sidhe are sort of the Scottish version of the Tuatha De Danaan. They are courtly Faeries, who tend to ride in huge processions during dusk. I'm no expert, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the Sidhe are retellings of the Tuatha De Danaan legend imported by the Scots who left Ireland for what was then Caledonia. As far as I know, the Picts were not a Celtic people and didn't have any Faerie legends of their own.
You might want to make known that there are subtle but distinctive differences between the Faerie legends of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany. Scotland in particular has more than its fair share of nightmare faeries (could this be due to the harsher nature of their existence, perhaps?). The Nuckelavee, which I did not make up, is a Scottish creation, as are the Unseelie Court (Ireland has no opposite for its generally benign but amoral Tuatha De Danaan as Scotland has for its Seelie Court).
(Text submitted by Erin Bow) What you say is true--the Sidhe and the Seelie court are both Scottish terms, and you can think of the Sidhe as being the knights-errant of the Seelie Court, or as including all of the elf-like fairies.  So really "Seelie" and "Sidhe" are functionally equivalent.
However, I don't think there's a linguistic connection between the words. "Sidhe" is connected to the Irish word which in English is usually rendered "Shee", meaning fairy or ghost, as in Banshee. "Seelie," on the other hand, is strictly Scottish/English, and descends from an old word for "holy" or "seemly."  Perhaps "sidhe" and "seelie" have some common root back further than this.  Or perhaps "seelie" in this context is a confusion of the two words, the way "martyr" confuses the unrelated Greek for "witness" and Latin for "memory."  In any case, I don't think it's simply a difference in spelling.
The Welsh have their own distinctive Faerie legends. I know a lot less about these legends than I do about Ireland and Scotland's but I do get the impression that they are different. They have different monsters, for a start, like the Water Leaper (a carnivorous flying fish) and their own courtly faeries.  However, the Welsh do not have legends about the Tuatha De Danaan.   That name is specifically Irish.
I've not read much of "Witch Mark" myself.  When I started writing "In Tua Nua", I deliberately avoided it to prevent myself from being influenced by it.  I've heard it said, however, that "Witch Mark" is about as Celtic as Manitoba. As I said, I haven't read the book, so I don't know for sure. What little I have heard, however, suggests that the plot involved taking some Faerie names, throwing them in a pot, and dumping the lot in Wales with little regard to the nuances of the Faerie legends there.  I like to believe that 'In Tua Nua' is a little more researched....
Well, you got me bang to rights there guv! No regard to the nuances whatsoever. One of my aunts had a 'Big Book of Mythology' on her
bookshelf - I took a few names from there - and the rest is from dimly remembered bits of a series of books by Kenneth C. Flint. Of course, the
point (he claims retrospectively) is that it was never intended to be an accurate reflection of Celtic mythology, more the half-remembered bits
mixed in with a vague liking for books like The Lord of the Rings. And I'm not under any illusions as to my skill as a writer. Sorry!
 
As for further comments, I'm not quite sure how to cover them but I'll do my best...
the Fomoir: Men of stone, grey-skinned and with the strength of the earth and the sap of the mountains for their blood.  They rest when the sun is at its zenith.  They sound like trolls or dwarfs, dwarves if you must.
Goibhnie:
Gabriel:
Huw:

p.3
the power of Arawn: Arawn's chariot pulls the night-sun, Arawn's Wheel, across the sky.  The night-sun and the day-sun are components of a binary star system, not just sun and moon.

p.4
Dagda or Silvanus: are local gods, so it's only polite to leave a place set for them just in case.  In Jewish tradition part of the Sader is to leave a place set for Elijah.  According to p.5 Dagda's war chariot pulls the day-sun across the sky.

p.5
Druffud the troll:

p.8
Priss:
Aquila: Eagle constellation in the Northern summer sky.
Beelzebub: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) In Judeo-Christian mythology, Beelzebub is The Lord of the Flies, one of Satan's sidekicks. He may have started off as Judaism's interpretation of the Mesopotamian god Baal, who, being the object of worship of a bunch of heathen foreigners, was obviously a demon of some kind.

p.10
Ceffyl: Unicorn.  And they're time-sensitive.
I believe that Ceffyl is the Welsh word for horse. However, all the Welsh bits in the book were donated by my friend Sian. And she
subsequently told me that some of them were wrong. So when I did research stuff I didn't do a very good job.
Rush:
Swift:

p.13
New York:The previous book, 'Cat's Cradle: Warhead' took place in New York City, admittedly a decade or so in the future.
away from the bulls and bears and headhunters: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Bull and Bear are stock market terms. A bull market is when prices are trending upward, and a bear market is when prices are trending downward. A headhunter is a professional recruiter of personnel for a big corporation.
the butterfly effect: I can't remember who came up with the idea, but it's a tenet of chaos theory.  The fluttering of a butterfly's wings in New York could cause a hurricane in Japan.  Or whatever they call them over there.  p.75.
the Eye of Harmony: Source of the Time Lords' time travel power.  Check 'The Deadly Assassin' and the TV Movie.
a planet called Gallifrey whose history is tied up with the Earth's far more than its inhabitants appreciate:
there dwell a people whose upper echelons are self-styled Lords of Time: Not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords with regenerative cycles.  They might not even all have two hearts.
the Panopticon Hall: (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Big ol' space on Gallifrey (in the Capitol), where all the important things happen, like Presidential retirements (and assassinations). It was absolutely enormous in 'The Deadly Assassin', but then it shrunk quite a bit later on.  Perhaps in 'The Invasion of Time' it was smaller, but the advent of the full-length novels has resulted in making it more of a St Peter's Basilica than a Westminster Abbey.  In 'The Infinity Doctors', especially.
artron energy: Mysterious Gallifreyan power source first vaguely referred to in 'The Deadly Assassin'.
Time Scaphe: Early Gallifreyan TT Capsule.  'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'.

p.14
the Doctor's TARDIS was losing its link: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) To the Eye of Harmony?  Lynx?
non-Euclidean geometry: Euclid was an ancient Greek philosopher who organised rules of geometry on two-dimensional planes.  Mercator projection is an Euclidean interpretation of the non-Euclidean three-dimensional globe.  Although even a simple globe is non-Euclidean, since HP Lovecraft the phrase has become something of a cliché for the nature of extradimensional monsters.
delta flows:
Like Scylla clinging to her rocky home against the demon pull of Charybdis: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) "Between Scylla and Charybdis" is a saying meaning "with a great peril on either hand"; it comes from Greek mythology, where Scylla and Charybdis were two monsters living on either side of a narrow strait that ships had to pass through. If a ship got too close to one side, it was sucked into Charybdis' whirlpool; too close to the other side, and Scylla started picking off crewmen.
the TARDIS's cloister room: (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) We saw it in 'Logopolis' - a nice stony-and-pillary area of the TARDIS with vines and benches and whatnot. It turned up in the TV Movie as well, a lot grander...but then, everything was.
she found a workshop which had been occupied quite recently: I think that this was a reference back to 'Invasion of Time' - the notion that it was quite recently occupied suggesting that time flowed differently in the depths of the TARDIS.

p.15
Above her a bell started tolling: Cloister Bell.
the tiny marks were a cat's pawprints:
'Lynx'?: A wild cat.  The 'Cat's Cradle' cat's name is Lynx.  Check p.254.
He was over seven hundred years old: In 'Remembrance of the Daleks' the Seventh Doctor claims he is over nine hundred years old, as does the Sixth Doctor in 'The Trial of a Time Lord'.  In New Adventures continuity, the Doctor celebrates his thousandth birthday while locked in a dungeon in 'Set Piece'.
Universal ennui: Like cosmic angst, mentioned in 'The Five Doctors'.
mysterious alien Process: from 'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'.

p.16
"I've just come from there,": The sound of the cloister bell has never been restricted to the cloister room.
Block transfer computation: 'Logopolis' and 'Castrovalva'.

p.17
"No one else has their mathematical skill and so TARDISes require morphologically unstable living organic matter for their block transfer function.":
"Perhaps Axos, even Nestene matter might work.": 'The Claws of Axos', and the two Nestene stories.
cupboard set into one of the wall roundels: There have been bits like that over the years: the Visualiser in 'The Wheel in Space', the manual door handle in 'Death to the Daleks' and the thermostat in 'Castrovalva'.  It's not quite like the wall unit incorporating bed from 'Planet of the Daleks'.

p.18
Cheiron:

p.19
five hundred ells:
he already knew that it was broken:

p.20
Inspector Anderson:
oilseed rape: It might be political correctness, but rapeseed is now known as canola (at least in Canada; I have no idea of the political incorrectness of the word "courgette" as opposed to "zucchini".)

p.21
Mr Selwyn Hughes from Llanfer Ceiriog:
Condicote Hospital:
Llanfer Ceiriog is (you may have guessed) probably a nonsense name in Welsh. Directly inspired by the village of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog (I
think, but its a long time since I've been there) where similar events took place. And Condicote is a place referred to in John Masefield's 'The
Box of Delights'

p.22
Sergeant Yardley:
Marks and Sparks: Marks and Spencer's.

p.23
Canute:
The last time the TARDIS materialised in a pasture surrounded by cows was in 'The Invasion'.  And in the first scene of 'Planet of the Spiders', Mike Yates looked at some cows.

p.24
the Black Swan: There's also a Black Swan pub in Cheldon Bonniface in 'Timewyrm: Revelation'.
Gwydyr:
"Bore da, Doctor!": (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) 'Bore da' is Welsh for 'good morning'.  Yes, but how's it pronounced? (Text submitted by David Whittam)  It's pronounced Borra Da' (Like Borrow but knock off the ow and add an 'a' as in 'cat' sound and Da as in Dad withought the last 'd'.  If that makes any sense whatsoever)
"It's not exactly New York is it, Professor?": A reference to 'Cat's Cradle: Warhead', not p.13.
"None of the old Detroit perfume.": Smog?
"The squeaky one had enough of you, is it?": Charming reference to Mel.

p.25
"Just keeps a few of those Swaledales now.  The old Welsh mountain breed's not good enough for him, eh?": Swaledale's in Yorkshire.
milk fever:

p.26
two bottles of calcium boro-gluconate:
it was a bay, brown with black points:

p.27
:Caught it on that, didn't he,": She.

p.29
Veterinary Record:
TREATED UNUSUAL ANIMALS?  Superior intelligence (ability to say 'sausages' not a qualifying factor)?:
Please ring 01-356247: Telephone numbers in the UK aren't always standard.  In North America the tradition is a three-digit area code, and then a local number of three and then four digits.  (000) 000-0000.
wellies: Rubber boots, named by tradition after Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington.

p.30
giant black panther in Derbyshire:
Alsatian or a Rottweiler: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) An Alsatian is a type of dog, as is a Rottweiler. The Alsatian comes from Alsace, near the French-German border, and is also known as the German Shepherd or the "police dog". The Rottweiler is a large breed of cattle dog.

p.31
He got up and warmed his rear on the Aga: Agas are big coal-powered ovens that farms and countrified posh people's houses have. Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley (I think) write books which some refer to as Aga-sagas.

p.32
blown-up still from Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Steven Spielberg film.
Zodiac:
Despite resistance, he had managed to persuade the Chief Constable to be exorcised, and the crimes stopped:

p.34
A black and white collie: Lassie is a collie.  The Lassie TV series used to be made in black and white, but apart from that I've never seen a black and white collie. (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Probably a border collie, a breed that is actually entirely or mostly black and white. (Though a 'black and white collie' isn't how they're usually described...'border collie' tends to do the trick...)
"What is it?  A dog or a bitch?": (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) A boy or a girl?  Yes, and it's also a poke in the eye for people who don't like gratuitous cussing in Doctor Who.
"Trout-tickling,": A tricky method of catching fish.  By holding your hand under the water with your fingers slightly curled and wiglling a bit, you attract fish which swim above your hand to get tickled.  Then, when their guard is down, you slap them out of the water.  I first saw it on Hamish MacBeth.  My grandfather is supposed to have had the skill.  I've never fished in any kind of river, and lake trout and rainbow trout here in Ontario are much rarer than bass.

p.37
"You can't shoot me, you know.  It's against the law.": p.182.

p.38
mock-Tudor façade: (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Designed to look like it was built in the Tudor era (ie, 1483-1603), only it wasn't.
David and Jack: David Gibson and Jack Pilgrim.  David's name is significant because it was his idea to come to Wales; St. David is the patron saint of Wales.  There's been some speculation that David and Jack are lovers.
Which is, as far as I'm aware, completely untrue and the lads would be mortified by the implication. They're also related to Jack and David from
'An American Werewolf in London.'  a..Um, I'm sure I heard it somewhere...  I'll be damned if I can remember where though..
"I hope you get tyre rot!": Since David and Jack are American, this should be tire rot.
red and yellow sign of a post office: Royal Mail insignia, vans et cetera are red and yellow.
malignant melanoma: Cancer connected with sunburn.

p.39
"Well, we're somewhere between Oswestry and Portmeirion.": Although Portmeirion has a special attraction for Cult TV fans (The Prisoner was filmed there (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) as was 'The Masque of Mandragora') and eccentric architects, geographically it's a speck.  And I don't know where Oswestry is. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) It's in Shropshire, if that's any help.
'Men of Harlech': (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Considered a typically Welsh song by many people who aren't Welsh.  Hmm.  What about "We'll Keep a Welcome"?
'It is against the law to sell cigarettes to under-18s': In Canada the age limit for cigarettes and alcohol is 19.  In the 'States the age for alcohol is 21.  Sucks to be them.  I don't know what the age for cigarettes there is.
Ordance Survey map: Because they're backpackers.  Otherwise they'd probably have a road map.

p.40
a small, utterly forgettable town, nestling happily in a twist of the Rhine: I stayed in a very similar town once.  After a day's tour boating up the Rhine from Koblenz, we alighted at Bacharach, presumably the ancestral home of Burt Bacharach, the brains behind "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head".  We stayed at a B & B with a family from Utah who, by an extreme coincidence we met a week later in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and again a week after that in front of the Mona Lisa in Paris.  It was the strangest thing.  Also in Bacharach at the restaurant we went to, we had an Irish waitress who said the Germans aren't very keen on bread: that's rubbish, the Germans almost have more kinds of bread than they used to have autonomous principalities.
drought afflicting the entirety of Continental Europe:
doing things to donkeys that even a Spaniard would balk at: Good grief!  In Ontario we usually draw the line at cow-tipping.

p.41
"Even the French aren't sicko enough to eat the whole frog.  Only a Pennsylvanian would do that.": I can't think why, unless it has to do with the largely central-European-descended population of that state.  There's a lot of Amish people.
"Maybe it's not a frog, maybe it's a toad.": Frogs are green, toads are brown.  Frogs are smooth, toads are lumpy.  Frogs jump a lot farther than toads.

p.42
whippoorwill or nightjar: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Insectivorous birds, hunting at night or twilight. What the difference between a whippoorwill and a nightjar is, I'm not sure; Webster's dictionary suggests that it's that the whippoorwill is American and the nightjar European.

p.43
Lake Michigan: Stands apart from the other Great Lakes in that it's the only one completely contained by the United States.

p.45
Flash Thunderbolt, Leader of the Freeforce Warriors:
the Loathsome Clawmen:
the evil Gagnak:

p.46
centaur:  (Text submitted by David Whittam)  Any of a race of creatures fabled to be half man and half horse and to live in the mountains of Thessaly.

p.49
Gildas:
Hugh-bach:

p.51
forty-two pence: For a half of mild?  That's good value.  In Canada a half-pint would be at least three dollars, whch is worth about a pound anyways.

p.52
Tom Jones' love life: Apparently this famous Welsh pop singer became a father at age 16.
Dungeons and Dragons: Role playing game.

p.53
Meibion Glyndˆwr: Sons of Glendower - Welsh freedom fighters who burn the holiday homes of the English oppressors. Sort of the paramilitary wing of Plaid Cymru.

p.54
perfused: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Filled full or to excess.

p.55
"Lucretia...Stephen...Ah yes, Elizabeth's coronation feast was good.": The Doctor means Elizabeth I's coronation in 1559.  Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) didn't really have a single coronation.  She was the daughter (yes, I know) of Pope Alexander VI, AKA Roderigo Borgia.  Alexander VI also fathered Cesare Borgia, who he made a cardinal.  Cesare was Machiavelli's prime example in The Prince.  In 1493, at age 13, Lucrezia married Giovanni Sforza.  The Sforzas were the dukes of Milan.  That marriage was annulled in 1497, and Lucrezia married Alfonso of Naples the same year.  The French had conquered Naples in 1495, but Alexander VI had helped to drive them out.  Alfonso was murdered in 1500.  Also in 1500, the French conquered Milan and defeated the Sforzas.  In 1503 Lucrezia married the Duke of Ferrara, and she doesn't seem to have shaken anything else up in the way of marriages and coronation parties until her death.  p.31 pea soup
royal wedding street party: When Prince Charles married Diana Spencer.  
"If only Essex hadn't started throwing drumsticks about.":
watching the coronation on the television: Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953.
"Bit on the backside by a bloody great spider and died out there,": Redback?
"Nasty things, some spiders," the Doctor said.  "I seem to recall one almost killed me.": 'Planet of the Spiders'.
"You must give me a sample so that I can program it into the TARDIS food machine.": Invented by David Whitaker in Serial B, and several other serials as well.  During the New Adventures it gets done over a couple of times, at least once by Ace ('Set Piece), so that eventually it can be chased by Wolsey the Cat.

p.56
a furlough: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) A leave of absence.

p.57
gibbous moon: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) More than half full.
"The only thing you're passionate about is those sheep.": I couldn't just leave this passage unremarked-upon.
"A friend of mine once came to Wales," Ace told the Doctor.  "He stayed in a place called Colwyn Bay.":
"There's a wonderful little fish and chip shop in Rhyl whose Spam fritters can't be equalled this side of the Crab Nebula.":They have Spam in the Crab Nebula?  It doesn't surprise me in the least.  But Spam isn't exactly gourmet; all Spam was created equal.

p.58
"I don't like Spam."  "Well, I'll have your Spam then, I love it.": Spam spam spam spam spam spam.....   (Monty Python's Flying Circus)
"Did I ever tell you about the time I visited Wales in the fifties?": (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) In 'Delta and the Bannermen'. That's where he met Garonwy, too.
"I must look up old Garonwy sometime.  That 1928 Hibiscus Blossom you finished off was made by him.": (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Garonwy kept bees, and he gave the Doctor a jar of this vintage honey.  And in 'Remembrance of the Daleks' the Doctor chides Ace for eating it, as a sort of gratuitous reference to Season 24.  Which is almost as bad as cussing, when you think about it...

p.60
deffrwch:
have a dekko: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) A look.

p.63
"Genes, isn't it?" the policeman told them.  "Had to be destroyed.  No telling what damage it might have done.": The policeman's bluff is remarkably ahead of its time; in 1992 resistance to genetically engineered foods and BSE was far from a big protest issue.  He's more likely playing on paranoia than science.  Hughes.

p.64
"There aren't any wolves in Wales.":

p.66
Spotter:
Its front cover bore the headline "What a loony!" followed by a story about the president of the United States who, apparently, had taken to bathing in cranberry sauce.: Yes...  this is one reason why the date of this story has never accurately been pinned down...
Was originally going to 'King talks to trees - Phew, what a loony!' which is a quote from Blackadder the Third, but for some reason I changed it.
In its original form it was skitting Prince Charles - which would have helped pin the date down, I suppose. The Daily Spotter was reminiscent of
a trashy newspaper I used to deliver when I was a paperboy - but I think it was called the 'Weekly News'
eThe Blackadder reference, of course, refers to George III, who suffered from some sort of dementia.  The theory in the play/film The Madness of King George suggests that it was porphyria, which also turns yer pee blue.  There's a historic anecdote about George stopping his carriage while being driven through the park, getting out and addressing a tree as the Emperor of Prussia.  As for the current Prince of Wales, 'King likes trees' may be more appropriate, or 'King made of wood'...  or even 'King dreams he is a tree'.  That one would work for Clinton too!  Freud?  Oh damn, there goes my imagination again...

p.70
Doctor frying bacon: Current theory is that the Seventh Doctor is a vegetarian, reinforced by the Doctor's list for Bernice in 'Human Nature'. 
spoor: Telltale signs an animal leaves behind bushes, trees and fire hydrants.
"There was a meteor shower from the direction of Aquarius;": The Eta (h) Aquarid meteor shower peaks on May 5.  The Southern Delta (d) Aquarids peak on July 29.  It's prolly the latter.
Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Cliff: Richard.  Pop stars from the fifties and sixties.

p.71
"I used to be a waitress, you know,": On Iceworld.  Ace was also a cashier at a McDonalds in the Tottenham Court Road, probably at an unusually young age.  Check 'The Crystal Bucephalus'.

p.72
the witch's bane, the trusty rowan:
Dinorben, ancient home of farmers bearing the red rose:

p.73
cobbled shoes: The old kind, with nail thingies in them.  (Phew, that was a toughie!  Hopefully you're not reading this site for details like that...)
"Well, well, well."  "Three holes in the ground," said Ace: I heard that one at least ten years ago.  But perhaps Sophie Aldred likes jokes like that; one such has made it into her standard patter with Sylvester McCoy: What do you call a man with three planks on his head?  Edward Woodward.

p.75
In the woods a branch fell from a tree, but there was no one there to hear it: If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
He knew what he had heard - the gossamer touch of a butterfly's wings crashing together and silenced in a moment: P.13

p.76
tabards: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) A tabard is a type of sleeveless tunic worn by knights; it went over their armour, with their coat of arms on it so you knew who you were attacking. Heralds also wore a type of tunic called a tabard, after the one the knights wore.

p.77
"Geroff!": "Piss off!"
Have to question your interpretation of this. In my cosy BBC universe Ace wouldn't swear. This is more, 'Get off!' (I assume you knew that)

p.78
"What did he mean by 'contamination'?"  To her the word had unpleasant undertones - her mind fled back to a handsome young sergeant in 1963 who had wanted to keep the outsiders out: Mike Smith from 'Remembrance of the Daleks'.  Smith was a sergeant in the Army's Intrusion Countermeasures Group and a neo-nazi in Ratcliffe's Shoreditch Association.  Although racism was one of the themes of the story, it didn't mention Enoch Powell.
"No sewers," the Doctor told her.  'Look around you.  There must be a couple of thousand people here.  That's a lot for one small valley.  It's bound to create some smell.": Correct, but primitive settlements of two thousand people are thin on the ground.  This is a fortress town; most people probably live well outside the walls, or in farms in adjoining vallies.  If the two thousand people are spread out over more than two square kilometres, there should be ample room to construct proper kyboes or outhouses with hardly any smell at all, as long as they have some odour powder and lime.  On the other hand, Dinorben is beseiged, much like Athens was during the Peloponnesian War.  At that time the populations from all the Athenian estates came and lived inside the city walls, mostly in squalor.  In the cramped quarters disease spread and one of the first massacres of the war was a plague inside the walls of Athens.
"Gallifreyans developed a respiratory bypass system which could miss out the olfactory organs.":First time we've heard that the bypass can skip the nose.  It was first mentioned in 'Pyramids of Mars', IIRC.
It was a look which stirred strange feelings in her because of her experience as one of the hunters on the planet of the Cheetah people: 'Survival'.

p.79
"If memory serves me right, King Arthur was just mythology.": 'Battlefield'.

p.80
She had only ever been able to distinguish the Plough, Cassiopeia and Orion's Belt, and so these were her only reference points: And none of them are the brightest stars in our sky.  Orion's Belt is only visible in the evening in winter, or early morning in summer.
Fairly distinctive constellations though (or parts of them) And most people recognise constellations more than they would individual stars.

p.81
Caeryon: His name sounds like a play on words from a Kenneth Williams film, and he talks like Pilate from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Yes, for some reason he was named Caeryon simply so that I could have a line along the lines of, 'Caeryon, screaming, ran into the room.' or
'Caeryon, regardless of what was going on around him, had a poo.'  Cosy BBC universe, he said...

p.83
all gold was gone from the council chamber: The Tuathans from 'In Tua Nua' are allergic to iron.  Can witches perceive things through gold?
I think the point with the gold was that they were taking all their gold to Earth and using it to buy stuff like houses/clothes or whatever so that
the refugees could fit in more easily.  That explains the suitcases full of money, if not how they were converted.
Dryfid:
Cyllell:

p.84
Chulainn of the Clyr: p.137.  Also guardian of the virginity of Brigit.
Barras of Teirion:
the Firbolg: From p.94, they have the head, arms and trunk of a true man, but below that they are horses.  They're centaurs.

p.95
"that's a unicorn."  Rhys gave her a strange look.  "Aye, that is what Herne called them.":
"'a rose by any other name...'": Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 2.  Er, the balcony scene.
the forests of Coed and the plains of Porfa: p.165
as regular as a wyrm's wrigglings through the underworld: Perhaps wyrm is a genuine archaic use of the word worm, and not just a device picked up for the first four New Adventures.
I think it was a little bit of both. Wyrm as in (as you say) an archaic use and a word that was used for types of dragon. And probably because of
the Timewyrm as well.

p.100
5: An Unexpected Party: The first chapter of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit is entitled "An Unexpected Party".  Tolkien played on that again with the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings, "A Long-Expected Party".
When Jack and David had reached the Black Swan, they had booked a room, bought several cans of Newcastle Brown: It's a bit odd to buy canned ale in a village pub.  An off-licence might be more appropriate.  Ale is not drunk chilled; lager is, but it's not informally classified as beer.  I drink it all chilled; tepid ale is terribly sour.  In my experience pub accomodation rates are a bit steep, but only really on weekdays.  I stayed above a pub near Bristol for two nights at a weekend single rate of £20, including en-suite bath, toilet, TV and tea set, but not breakfast, which would have been about £3.  Fortunately or unfortunately, there was a McDonald's down the road with £1.69 breakfasts.  The pub's weeknight rate was £50.

p.101
Swansea: South Wales coastal city.
"I did, though, manage to get the landlord to give us breakfast -' he looked at his watch - 'seven hours late.': No mean feat, I can assure you.
"Yeah," agreed Jack, tugging a sweater over his head.  He pulled it down tight and then spread its edge, revealing a picture of a sheepdog tracking a sheep.  "What do you think?"  "Very cute, yes.": At best, this is shakey evidence that Jack and David are gay.

p.105
young Doctor Snape:
mosquitoes: I didn't encounter a single mosquito in all of England and Wales, despite camping outside Truro and hiking through Snowdonia and the Lake District.  I did see a deerfly while camping, and the others assured me they have horseflies as well.  Which makes sense, there were lots and lots of cattle and horses swishing their tails.  And it was mid-August; the big bug season is in May and June.
I get swarms of them in my back garden in Liverpool during the summer.
swore at them in Welsh: First off that's a bit out of character; but Welsh curses would be extremely hard to distinguish from the rest of the language.  Have you ever listened to TV Cymru?  I'm always ready to learn new words, though.

p.106
found himself skating on an icy pond like a figure by Brueghel: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Either Pietr Brueghel the Elder, 16th-century Flemish painter, or  Pietr Brueghel the Younger, his eldest son. I don't know enough about their respective styles to hazard a guess which one.

p.107
There were some signs of malnutrition: That's suspicious.  The Doctor and Ace enjoyed that potato and leek soup just hours before.

p.108
6: A Journey in the Dark: Sounds like the title of that chapter in The Hobbit when Bilbo gets lost in the goblins' mountain and meets Gollum.
the Horse of the Year Show: If you're expecting a Camilla Parker-Bowles joke, I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken; she gets far too much flak.  But a whole television programme devoted to a single horse seems a bit silly.  We don't even have televised sheepdog trials in Canada.

p.109
bays:
white triangle:

p.110
Circadian rhythm:

p.111
Chawradd:

p.112
"When you've read the entirety of Greek literature, and written some of it for that matter, you pick up a few facts.  Like, for example, what a notoriously proud race the centaurs were.":

p.115
"Oh yes, I even helped with one of the lines.  How did it go?  I think it started, "In the beginning...".  Something like that anyway - it might not even have been the Bible, there are a lot of things that start with, "In the beginning...".  The Book of Rassilon for one.":

p.116
"G'night, John-boy.": The Waltons.

p.118
"My body is poor and weak and it is said that you, like Goibhnie, are able to heal, that you protect the weak.": This story is shaping up into a bit of a quest for the Wizard of Oz.

p.119
The Doctor explained to her that it was an ancient belief amongst the Celts that the head was the seat of the soul and so warriors collected the heads of their enemies as trophies and to take on the strength of the dead men:

p.120
Ydvig:

p.122
"Foxes are carnivores, right?":
"Erich Weiss never tied knots like these.": Erich Weiss was Harry Houdini.

p.123
"I imagine that the only thing that's staving off a collapse into permanent arctic conditions is the massive heat reserve stored in the oceans.": Which we haven't seen.  The ambient temperature of the ocean is very low anyways, although it's warmer near shorelines and estuaries, sometimes.

p.124
vasodilation: Veins-getting-bigger-type-thing.

p.126
Eructate: Burping. Cows do it.

p.131
"Yeti!  Saw them in the London Underground twenty years ago.":'The Web of Fear'.
"Mermaids?  Grandpa was rescued from the Marie Celeste by one.":By this point Stevens is taking the piss;  The Marie Celeste incident was in 1872.  If Grandpa was on board, he must have been the baby.  So he probably wouldn't remember the Daleks being there; though there was another explanation for the Marie Celeste in another program, or maybe it was a comic strip.  I've heard two theories of how the mystery really happened.  The ship was carrying a cargo of concentrated industrial alcohol, and when the ship was found the hatches were missing and a few barrels of alcohol had been breached, and there were pools of water in the hold.  The ship had probably been in a storm.  The theory is that some of the alcohol spilled in the storm and the crew abandoned ship fearing it would explode.  The hatches may have been removed to allow the alcohol to evaporate more quickly, or they may have been blown off by a minor alcohol explosion.  The second theory is that if the crew was hired at the point of departure, they could have made an arrangement with another ship to meet in mid-ocean, abandon the Marie Celeste and still get paid, or collect insurance, or something.

p.133
"Just watching Elinor,":

p.134
"How'd you like bed and breakfast at Scotland Yard's expense?": Interesting pick-up line.

p.137
men of the Allan Clwff and the Rhylmeth:

p.138
mead: honey and water mixture, not necessarily alcoholic.

p.142
Baddawd:
"Bog off!": Possibly the first use of the phrase in the New Adventures.  It's gone on to have its own webzine courtesy of Kate Orman, but the service seems to have been discontinued.

p.143
When she had been transported to the planet of the Cat People her mind and body had been influenced by the strange forces at work there.  She had thought that the change had been only temporary, but the seed still seemed to be inside her: In Part 4 of 'Survival', or on p.134 of the novelisation if you please, the Doctor says "You can never completely leave the planet because you carry it with you inside yourself."  And to be precise it's the planet of the Cheetah-People, although 'Invasion of the Cat People' wasn't written until years later.

p.146
"I mean, to me witches are old biddies who fly around on broomsticks wearing pointy black hats.":

p.147
"The eyes are the window on the soul.":

p.148
Dianecht:
Lugh:
Rhyl: (Text submitted by David Whittam)  A seaside town in North Wales.
Simon Groom: One of the presenters of Blue Peter, a BBC children's programme. Ace has a Blue Peter badge on her jacket. The other two presenters at the time were Peter Duncan (who was in the film of Flash Gordon) and Sarah Greene (who later appeared in Attack of the Cybermen). Simon Groom
was a farmer's son from Derbyshire and probably the one (of the three) who Ace was least likely to fancy.
 
 

p.149
"Greetings, Ace.": How Ace can be accepted by unicorns is unknown; it's already been established that she's not a virgin. (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Isn't the legend only that virgins are the only ones who can tame/control unicorns rather than simply get along with them? (I'll admit, my unicorn mythology is shaky at best.)

p.152
They formed a series that told the story of a journey there and back again: An autographed series of The Lord of the Rings is an extremely valuable find.  Bernice gets a signed first edition of The Hobbit as a wedding present in 'Happy Endings'.

p.153
about as much use as a chocolate kettle: When you pour hot water into it, it melts.

p.154
"This is England, isn't it?": No, it's Wales.  The same joke appeared in 'Delta and the Bannermen'.

p.155
"I thought it was rissole time for me.": Americans don't know what rissoles are.  Neither do I, but they must be some kind of meat product. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Meatballs, basically.

p.156
"Have they come across little green men from Mars?  Crop circles?": Then the story is dated from before the Martian invasion in 1997, and it's July or August, when the wheat is high enough for crop circles.  If wheat is  a crop in that part of Wales.  According to p.177 it is summer.
A china cat from Rhyl: I don't know if Rhyl is near clay pits; I can't find it on a map.  Clay is also present in estuaries; Portmeirion in Merionethshire has its own line of china, and it's on a tidal estuary.

p.157
white hessian: Cloth, as in the klansmen outfits the cultists were wearing.

p.159
10: Many Meetings: The first chapter of the second book of The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Frodo recovers in Rivendell and meets everybody.

p.161
catabolic processes:

p.162
every crystal of snow was different: Another chaos theory thingie.
Ferllu of Daffyr:
Allan and Chrawd:

p.169
"I once saw someone on the television saying that nobody likes a refugee.": Enoch Powell?

p.172
quorum: The number of members necessary for an official meeting.  Join a board, you'll find out what it means.
quadratic equation: Ace left Earth in her mid-teens.  Quadratic equations aren't taught in Canada until age 16 or 17, I think.
touchstone:

p.175
the town of Pontarcwai: I'm not sure about this but it looks suspiciously like (sort of) a Welsh version of 'Bridge on the River Kwai'

p.177
A health-conscious person would have balked at the sight of the plate - fried bread, tomatoes, sausages, bacon, mushrooms, baked beans and, now, eggs: That's the big breakfast.  A great bargain if you're B&Bing it.  Then you skip lunch.

p.179
portable phone: Is somewhat of a danger to driving.  It's illegal to drive while using a hand-held one, but there are special car-phone types that stay on the dashboard.  Speaker-phone types.

p.185
"I did encounter one on the planet Svartos.": 'Dragonfire'.

p.187
"Aim for the eyepiece?" the Doctor suggested: His advice to Ace and the ICMG for incapacitating Daleks in 'Remembrance of the Daleks'.
aqueous humor: the fluid inside the eye.

p.189
"Tell me, Ferllu, why do you have a Troifran numeral on your flank?": Goibhnie is from Troifres (p.213).
And, from the Big Book of Mythology (lent to me by my Auntie). Troifres is a shortening/corruption of Trois Freres (I think) which is where that
cave with the early cave paintings was found.

p.194
"Discretion would definitely be the better part of valour.": (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) Discretion being the better part of valour usually refers to running away.  Yes, but who said it?  It sounds like Shakespeare. (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) It is Shakespeare. 'Henry IV', Part 1, Act 5 scene 4: "The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life." (By playing dead, rather than running for it, incidentally.)

p.196
hypervitaminosis A: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Hypervitaminosis is a medical condition resulting from ingesting too much of a vitamin. Hypervitaminosis A is one of the serious ones.

p.200
13: The Land of Shadow: Chapter 2 of Book VI of The Lord of the Rings.  It's about halfway through The Return of the King.

p.201
"Like Ghostbusters?": Ivan Reitman comedy with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver.  Also a cartoon series.  Reitman, Aykroyd and Moranis are all Canadian.  There was a sequel too.

p.202
"Not an alternative to Weight Watchers?": Weight loss program, like that one the Duchess of York promoted.

p.203
"And I'd like to see the American ambassador," David requested.  "Well, it doesn't work in the movies," he whispered to Jack: Revolutionaries or rogue governments are not the best of hosts for American diplomats.
My god, what a memory you have!": Goon Show line?

p.207
14: There...: Check the title of chaper 17.

p.208
quarter rotation of star Q76:
Samuel Morse's system: Morse code.

p.220
contra-temporal existence: Merlyn in E.B. White's Arthurean retelling The Once and Future King is contratemporal.  And a similar Merlyn attends Bernice's wedding reception in 'Happy Endings'.  What about Herne?
Actually, both of them attended the wedding (I'm pretty sure of this)

p.222
Galactic Constitutional Regulations regarding interference with species - paragraph #4654, subsection (wegla):
"Earth is widely regarded as one of the causal nexus points in this galaxy...": This is the first mention of one of the themes of the more recent New Adventures, although Peter Darvill-Evans and the rest of the pool of authors probably helped articulate it.  Eventually the People are banished from the temporal nexus in the Treaty in 'The Also People'.
And the Earth as a causal nexus point comes (at least in this case) from something in the FASA Doctor Who Roleplaying Game.

p.224
Ydvort of the Sidhe:

p.227
mangonel: (Text submitted by Paul Andinach) Catapult. One of the big ones, used for hurling rocks and/or javelins.

p.235
random bursts of chronons and antichronons:Possibly the first use of the word 'chronon' in the New Adventures, although it had probably already been used in the TV series.

p.247
"You haven't any holy water.": Does one need holy water for an exorcism?
Probably not. Another case of inadequate research. My Dad's a vicar and he wouldn't tell me how exorcisms are performed (which wasn't very
helpful of him)

p.248
protoplasm: Whatever is possessing David is acting a lot like the Master's Morg soulsnake (it's an 'Eight Doctors' thing, the TV Movie novelisation is no less glib) from the TV Movie.  Not quite as much like an N-form any more.

p.251
"Lethbridge-Stewart is very fond of horses.":

p.252
"Siwt mai, Doctor?":

p.253
"Duw mawr!": (Text submitted by Daria Sigma) More Welsh: 'Great God!'
His fingers grew slack and let slip the book he had been reading ... As far as she knew though, they didn't live in holes in the ground: Sidhe are like Hobbits, and Old Davy has been reading The Lord of the Rings.

p.254
Lynx: The Silver Cat of Cat's Cradle is named here for the first time.  Its manifestation here is the most like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.  Funny how there were so many Alice metaphors and similes at the beginning of 'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'.

p.255
like a moth drawn to a lamp in Central Park at midnight:
 


Copyright  Eric Briggs 1999, and thank you Andrew Hunt!