Eric

12

Refers to an old and rather obscene British drinking song called ‘The Ball of Kerrymuir’, which, according to Terry: “[…] belongs in the same category as ‘Colonel Bogey’ — everyone knows a line or two [sorry… everyone male and in the UK, anyway]”.

The song’s title was changed into the slightly more convincing-sounding ‘The Ball of Philodelphus’ in the small-format UK paperback of Eric.

‘The Ball of Kerrymuir’. This song can, coincidentally enough, also be found in Michael Green’s Why Was He Born So Beautiful and Other Rugby Songs. That version appears to have the dirty words replaced by rows of asterisks — a rather useless form of editorial restraint, since in this particular case it means the song now contains more asterisks than normal alphabetic characters. Enter alt.fan.pratchett correspondent Tony D’Arcy, who was kind enough to fax me an uncensored copy of the song. ‘The Ball of Kerrymuir’ has 43 verses, a small subset of which I now reproduce for your reading pleasure, just to give you a feel for the song. From here on down this section of the APF is rated X.