Marnanel — DWJ stuff — Annotations

Annotations for The Ogre Downstairs

Annotations for The Ogre Downstairs. Please beware a few unavoidable unmarked spoilers below.

D+M = Douglas and Malcolm; J+C+G = Johnny, Caspar, and Gwinny

Dedication

For Richard, who thought of Indigo Rubber, and Micky, who helped with the chemicals: Richard and Micky are the elder two of DWJ's three children. The youngest, Colin, later had Eight Days of Luke dedicated to him

Chapter 1

with a bag of books on one shoulder: Caspar has just come home from school
football clothes: clothes for football (soccer) practice at school
grizzled: mixed with grey
The Ogre was their stepfather: blended families were much less usual in the 1970s than now. Fewer than 10% of marriages ended in divorce, and as here people more usually got married before moving in together
toffee bars: rectangular pieces of toffee, a sweet made from boiling butter with sugar. This is soft toffee, not the hard stuff you have to hit with a hammer. These are described later as having yellow and white wrappers, so they may be McEwan's Highland Toffee, to which I lost at least a couple of milk teeth as a child
council of war: an emergency meeting to decide what to do about a crisis
I bet he listens to commercial pop: Caspar looks down on those who listen to mainstream music; he thinks of his own musical favourites as a thing apart
He's bound to, with low eyebrows like that: taking "lowbrow" very literally
Stepfathers are always frightful: Peni R. Griffin notes: Stepmothers are far more likely to be villains in folktales and stepfathers seldom exist there, but in real life, everyone I knew with divorced parents lived with their mother, and stepfathers were intruders and generally reviled. This appears to have been so in Britain at the time, too. Fathers were seldom custodial except in cases of abandonment. Either way, the problems of blended families were a talking point and an argument against divorce
They're perfect Ogres: man-eating giants in folktales
spirit lamp: a jar with a wick which burns methylated spirits, providing a simple source of heat for warming chemicals (and of worry for parents)
Just like chocolates: chocolates in boxes often have a second layer hidden beneath the first
The LP left ready on the turntable: an LP is a vinyl record with a whole album of songs. It stands for "long-playing"
his favourite group: band
the mounting wail of a synthesiser: electronically-generated music, a fairly recent invention which everyone was experimenting with. When I was a kid in the 1980s, this specifically meant a keyboard, but apparently that was still in the future
Vol. pulv. (etc): the test-tubes don't have enough space for printing the full names of the chemicals. This, and the fact that many of the names are Latin-based, means that the reader is unlikely to be able to figure out spoilers on the fly. The names are Latinate because magic chemicals were studied by real-life alchemists during the Renaissance, when people were also trying to rediscover ideas from ancient Rome. Let's annotate the names later in this list as they're used, where they'll make more sense. If you want to compare a list of chemicals from real alchemists, here are some names from the notes of John Ward in the 1600s, and some more from the notes of Isaac Newton
pipette: a small tube with a rubber teat on one end; when you squeeze the teat it sucks up liquid, and when you let go it drops it again. You can use this to mix chemicals
Then you'll catch it: Then you'll be in trouble
bay jewve: "by Jove", in a parody of an upper-class accent. It's an interjection of emphasis which only occurs in upper-class dialects; see the next note for why Caspar says this. It literally means "by Jupiter", the Roman god
having been at a posh boarding school until this term: class conflict underlies the first part of this story. D+M are of a higher social class than J+C+G. They have been sent to an expensive boarding school by their father until this term, and have acquired accents to go with it. This makes them the target of derision from J+C+G, who attend the local state schools. As we find out later, it also makes them the target of derision from the other local children
Melchior: the name traditionally given to one of the wise men who visited Jesus as a baby, though the Bible doesn't give their names. The other two, as mentioned, are Caspar and Balthazar
old enough for his voice to have broken: his voice is at a lower pitch because of puberty. This happens to different people at different times. These days it's often around the age of 13, but at the time of this story puberty started perhaps a year later on average
Indigo Rubber: a fictional rock band. Perhaps glam rock, given the era, and their cult status in-universe, and the polarised opinions of them. "India rubber" is rubber made of latex; "indigo" is the blue dye used for denim. Kit Thurman suggests a naming influence from Led Zeppelin
toothmug: a small pot kept in the bathroom and used to store toothbrushes, or false teeth, or to fill with water to rinse your mouth after brushing
gasworks: a factory which made town gas (for heating, lighting, and cooking) out of coal. Apparently they smelt terrible. At the time of publication, Britain was in the process of switching from town gas to natural gas (drilled from under the sea), which meant that by 1977 most of the gasworks had gone. The last one closed in 1987
convent: a group of nuns; as Johnny points out, Gwinny meant "coven", a group of witches. The two words are actually related

Chapter 2

Couldn't you lasso me: lassoing someone is to catch them with a rope tied to itself at the end with a slipknot, so that the rope tightens around them. It's familiar in England from cowboy films
herd of blinking elephants!: "blinking" is a mild expletive
on the backside: on the bottom
I can think of a very good use for this: he is threatening to beat the children with it as a punishment. This wasn't considered particularly cruel at the time of publication
What the blazes: euphemism for "what the hell"
Whatever possessed you?: Sally is remonstrating with Johnny that this isn't like his usual behaviour— as if he'd been possessed by another spirit, though it's a conventional phrase and doesn't imply she really thought that

Chapter 3

smelled like a plague spot: like a house where people have bubonic plague (the Black Death)
Quait: "quite"; again, Caspar is mocking Malcolm's upper-class accent
act the goat: act like a fool
parquet floor: made of wooden blocks arranged into a pattern and polished
inkwell: pot of ink for filling pens
blotting paper: paper which soaks up ink. You use it on a page when the ink is still wet, so that it doesn't smudge. But it's also useful in cases like these when the ink spills
Those trousers are ruined: they were part of his school uniform, so will be expensive to replace
drawing pin: small pin for fixing papers to notice boards; called a thumbtack in North America
Vol. Pulv.: "flying powder". "Pulvis" is Latin for powder, and "volans" means flying, but "pulvis volans" would mean a powder that is flying, perhaps because someone threw it. The closest equivalent in Latin to the English phrasing might be using a gerundive: "pulvis volanda", powder concerned with flying
breaststroke: a slow comfortable swimming stroke
what a fast overarm would do: a swimming stroke used in racing, sometimes called front crawl or (confusingly) freestyle
Buzz off: curtly, "go away"
be a sport: be a fair and generous person
I wonder you can hear these: vinyl record players work by amplifying the noise a stylus makes as it lightly scrapes over the record. If a record gets dirty, the stylus will pick up the dirt instead of the music
Brainpan: an old word for the cranium, the bones in the skull which enclose and protect the brain
I've got one of those attachments now: there are things you can fix to a turntable to clean the record as it spins, instead of playing it
The loft was behind a low door opposite Gwinny's: presumably Gwinny's room had been a partial loft conversion at some point
I'll go out of the trap door in the loft: the loft is a storage space at the top of the house, sometimes called an attic. A trap door is a door in a ceiling or floor, not actually a trap. This one leads to the roof. As usual in England, the roof slopes to make the rain run off, and people rarely go up there
dressing gown cord: a dressing gown is worn over pyjamas for warmth when out of bed. They often tie with a rope-like belt. Gwinny wants to use the belt to pull Johnny onto the roof
There was no proper floor, and he had to jump between joist and joist: lofts are commonly built without a floor. The only thing between the joists is the plaster of the ceiling below, and if you slip you can fall through

Chapter 4

offered to wash up: to wash the dishes
We might see some vice going on: Johnny has heard some news report about "vice" in town, which usually means sex work or drugs, but he clearly has no definite idea what it means
Officials and Ministers explained that the country was in a considerable state of crisis: these are political ministers. Highlights of 1974 included: inflation at 17%, recession, an unprecedented two general elections, a three-day working week to conserve scarce electricity, major strikes, and many deaths from an extensive terrorist bombing campaign both in Great Britain and Ireland
my friends are going down town to the Discotheque: to the nightclub. "Disco" is short for discotheque. It came to mean a nightclub in the 1960s; before that, it meant someone's record collection
And put pillows in our beds: so that to a casual observer they will seem occupied
packed into Johnny's bed: a single bed
I banged my head ten times on the pillow: there is a belief that this reminds your subconscious mind to wake up at this hour (maybe when it hears the clock strike). It's occasionally worked for me. Must have been difficult sharing a single bed with someone banging their head on the pillow
he fell to shaking Gwinny: he started shaking her, to wake her up; no falling was involved
lightshade: also called a lampshade on the same page; a partially opaque cover loosely covering the bulb to diffuse the light
television aerials: called antennas in North America; commonly placed on rooftops to get line-of-sight to the transmitter
bent streets looked straight: grid plans are almost unknown in British towns
All its lights were on: there was an energy crisis in 1974, but books take a while to reach the press; also, it was wrongly commonly believed that the act of turning lights on again used more electricity than just leaving them on; also, perhaps the cleaning staff are working
the arch over the Town Hall: the arch high up on the Town Hall, not separate and literally over it
a sort of aerial frogman: a sort of scuba diver, but in the air. Strictly speaking "frogman" usually means a police or military scuba diver
Oh-oh, they've landed: extraterrestrials have landed on earth. "Oh-oh" is more usually spelt "uh-oh"
the hood of his anorak: an anorak is a raincoat, from the Greenlandic Inuit word annoraaq, meaning clothing. Brits seem to have a thousand words for raincoats
wearing flippers: flippers, also called swimfins, are long rubber shoes shaped something like frogs' feet. They assist your feet in pushing the water backwards, so you go further with the same amount of kicking
the Market Cross Hotel: a market cross is a stone cross, put up in the middle of a town to show where the market is. This has been a tradition for centuries. The hotel is in Market Street, presumably right in front of the site of the town's market. The street will be particularly wide here to hold all the stalls
probably put out all the streetlights too: by short-circuiting the sign, and thus blowing the fuse that serves both. This apparently doesn't really happen, which is a relief for people like me who were often told as kids that we risked it

Chapter 5

they could get an electric shock: I think their shoes would probably serve as insulators, though
Abide with me. Fast falls the something sky: this is an evening hymn, and thus is also associated with death and funerals; it was played as the Titanic sank. The line is actually "Abide with me; fast falls the eventide"
The colour just expressed the way they were feeling: blue for cold, and also for sadness
Parv. pulv.: "parvitatis pulvis", powder of smallness
The grains of dust look as big as footballs: dust grains are 0.1mm high, and a kid of Malcolm's age is about two and a half footballs tall. So if he's not exaggerating, this makes him a quarter of a millimetre high
The old boy was watching telly: "old boy" is a jocular, slightly upper-class way of saying "old man"; "telly" is television. Presumably he lived in a flat over the shop, but how could they have counted on that?
Magn. pulv.: magnitudinis pulvis, powder of largeness. Despite Malcolm's confusion, this is not related to the word "magnesium", which gets its name ultimately from Magnesia in Greece
There was the sound of a heavy blow falling: again, not a level of punishment seen as particularly unusual at the time, though a severe one, as Sally's reaction shows. Today this would be a crime
looking a little indecent in just a shirt: the shirt reaches his waist at his usual size, so at this height it only just covers down to where the bottom of his underwear would be if he was wearing any
Flaming pustules: "flaming" is an expletive. "Pustules" are zits, and the word isn't generally used as an expletive, so it's unclear whether Douglas is using an unusual phrase to express his anger and frustration in general (rather like Janet in Charmed Life might), or whether he's calling the other kids pustules as an insult
the bolt go home with a shriek: the bathroom door has a bolt on the inside for privacy. A bolt is said to go home when you use it to lock the door. It shrieks because it needs oiling
this blessed house: "blessed" is an expletive

Chapter 6

had to stand publicly at the back of Assembly: assembly is the morning meeting of all the children in the school— at the time, and still now according to law, an event with religious elements before any notices for the school as a whole. The kids sit in their age groups, so if you arrive late you can't sit in place; it's also a sort of public shaming
he went to the Senior School… down to Juniors: the fact that M+C+J go to a different school from Douglas shows that they go to a middle school. Between the early 1970s and the late 1980s, several parts of England divided schools up into infant, junior, middle, and senior. Middle schools have almost all been merged with senior schools to form secondary schools now. Infant and junior schools, then as now, often shared the same site and were called primary schools
When you come clean: when you tell us the truth
tired to death: exhausted. A standard hyperbole— death is not a risk
Try this experiment with Marble Chips: this is a common experiment in teaching chemistry. Marble (CaCO₃) reacts with hydrochloric acid (HCl) by dissolving, producing carbon dioxide (CO₂) and a solution of calcium chloride (CaCl₂) in water. This demonstrates the conservation of mass. If you dilute the acid by different amounts, or use different sizes of marble chips, you can look for a rule to predict how much faster or slower it dissolves
cut his finger on it: it's made of thin glass
I'd give it to you now: "it" is a beating
Now you go and squidge Malcolm: thump him
Malcolm was tying his tie in front of the mirror: as usual in England, the tie is part of his school uniform (and thus also part of J and C's)
"What do you want?" … "Information.": from the opening titles of the 1967 British science fiction show "The Prisoner", which would have been familiar from repeats
he whistled, gently and mockingly, We Three Kings of Orient Are: a Christmas carol about the wise men visiting Jesus; this is a backreference to his calling Johnny "Melchior"
Everyone knows you're a perfect pill: "pill" means not only a medicinal tablet, such as a capsule, but also a foolish or contemptible goody-goody. Again, this is the sort of language more likely to be used by pupils of private schools than state schools
Misc. pulv.: miscendus pulvis, mixing powder
bitterer than gall: gall is another name for bile, a fluid produced by your liver to break down your food. It's the standard thing to use in English for comparisons of bitterness
Meanwhile they dillied. They dallied.: they delayed. This would usually written as "they dilly-dallied", but DWJ is echoing a famous 1919 song called "Don't Dilly Dally on the Way", which goes "I dillied, I dallied, I dallied, I dillied…"
help your headmaster cane you: hitting students with a cane made of rattan, on the hand or the bottom, was a standard punishment in schools at the time. It was outlawed ten years later, in 1986
one of the masters was going in: master is another word for teacher, much rarer in state schools than private schools. Perhaps it was more usual in the mid-seventies?

Chapter 7

which group Malcolm was in: children of about the same age (a "year group") are taught together. In a large school like this, there are more children than can easily be taught by one teacher, so they are split up into smaller groups. Sometimes this is done by ability level, as here; sometimes it's just random
Mr Martin: the teacher; they are always addressed by their title and surname in British schools
Ah, the Absent-Minded Professor is with us, I see: a clichéd description of someone who mentally dissociates
nought: zero
the first thing he did at Break: generally a school day has a fifteen-minute break in the morning, and an hour's break for lunch, with no break in the afternoon
What lunch are you?: schools generally have more children than can be fed in one go, so some children eat first, then when they're done another set of children eat, and so on. You are in the same bunch of children every time
The last lesson before lunch was Craft: a lesson where you construct things, draw, paint, and so on
3H were an awful lot of kids altogether: most schools have more students in a year group than can fit in a classroom, so classes are named in many schools with a year number plus a letter. Sometimes this is the initial of one of their teachers (possibly Mr Hunter here). At the time this book was written, 3 would have meant the third year of that particular school, which makes C and M about 13. But the numbering changed when the National Curriculum was introduced in 1988 to count total years of education. So the class would be 9H nowadays. "An awful lot" sometimes just means "many", but here it really does mean they're awful
Malcolm's poker-face: his unreadable face, as would be useful if playing poker
An old-fashioned bell tinged: the bell is attached to the door, so that it rings if the door opens. Then the shopkeeper knows someone's come in, even if they're in another room. (This is "ting", the sound of a small bell, not "tinge".)
Early closing today: between 1911 and 1994, shops in England were required to close on one afternoon every week. This was called "early closing day". It compensated for having to work Saturday, and meant that the shop workers could do their own shopping. All the shops in a given town would close on the same day. Since we're on the third of four consecutive schooldays described here, it must be a Wednesday or Thursday
They were so very pink: pink is strongly associated with girls, and a boy having a pink football would invite derision from the other boys
There's the bell: an electric bell, rung to signal the end of break
off his rocker: insane
he's not quite himself today: not coping as well as usual, but Caspar also means it literally
They've both got pink footballs to prove it: people who become best friends sometimes demonstrate it by buying things that match
sucking up to my mother: currying favour with her, being sycophantic
Who was inside right for Sheffield Wednesday in 1948?: Sheffield Wednesday is a football (soccer) club in Yorkshire; "inside right" is a now-obsolete position role for a player. The answer appears to be the splendidly-named Redfern Froggat
Kids don't have strokes: not true, although it's rarer than in adults: it affects about 0.01% of children
ambrosia: the food of the gods in Greek mythology; loss of memory, as Douglas correctly notes, is "amnesia"
our Scots ancestry: Douglas and Malcolm are Scottish names, as is their surname, McIntyre

Chapter 8

Called troikas: a troika is a Russian arrangement of three horses side by side pulling a single carriage. In this case Douglas is the carriage, although unlike an actual troika he only has two creatures in front of him, and he's the one providing the forward motion
Gwinny and Johnny lay like ramrods: a ramrod is a straight piece of wood used to put the ammunition and gunpowder into old-fashioned rifles and cannons. It's a standard simile for something very straight
Animal Spirits: this is a clever one. Chemicals dissolved in ethanol (pure ordinary alcohol) are traditionally called "spirits" or "spirit"— such as methylated spirits, surgical spirits, white spirit, or petroleum spirit (the old name for petrol). Long before that, ancient and medieval medics had a theory about what makes something or someone alive: natural spirits in the liver, vital spirits in the heart, and animal spirits in the brain. "Animal" here means "of a soul" (the Latin word is "anima"). Something which was living would have animal spirits, and something that was dead wouldn't. Later, "animal spirits" came to mean happiness and excitement, which explains why the chemical "makes you feel a bit lively" in chapter 6
You little twits!: you're fools
What a nit I am!: I'm a fool (apparently everyone's a fool today)
Don't be sick in here: don't vomit in here
Break my heart across your knee: just an expression in their family; not known in the wider world
construction kits: this sounds like a mix of Lego, plastic Meccano, and other things
the flat grey bits meant to make an aeroplane: toyshops sell boxes of parts to make models of aircraft. Each has a sheet of plastic which has been moulded so you can break off pieces and fit them together according to the instruction booklet. The most famous company that makes these is Airfix
biscuit tins: at the time, and still sometimes now, biscuits were supplied in strong aluminium tins which got reused to keep things in, often sewing supplies. My grandma used to store fruit cake in them
They're worse than fishing bait: anglers often put live maggots and worms on the end of their hooks, so that carnivorous fish will swallow the creature and get caught on the hook
I think I ought to make holes in the lids: the biscuit tins are airtight, otherwise the biscuits would go soggy. But the creatures need air to breathe
I'd rather like a table which was alive, wouldn't you?: this was published seven years before Terry Pratchett published "The Colour of Magic" where the Luggage is rather like what Johnny describes
It's all evaporated: Animal Spirits is volatile— it evaporates easily if you leave the lid off. This is appropriate: ethanol is volatile, and life can be over all too quickly
Come and play football with a tennis ball: they're playing a "scratch" game of football in the playground with whatever they happened to find

Chapter 9

She was Nature Monitor: a monitor is a child who has particular responsibilities within the class, not necessarily connected with monitoring anything. Gwinny's task is to prepare the classroom before lessons about nature
big table in the centre of the classroom: this is an open-plan classroom, where the children sit around tables grouped loosely around the room, rather than at rows of desks all facing the same direction. This layout became popular in the late 1960s
until it came to a little patch of sunlight: the toffee bars behave like cold-blooded animals
the white and yellow paper split in two: like a lizard or a snake, their skin doesn't stretch, so they must shed it as they grow
its limber brown body jack-knifed: made a sharp turn
gone to earth in a shelf of library books: hidden there. Originally from fox hunting, where an "earth" is a fox's burrow
behind three Mary Plain books: Mary Plain is a series of fourteen storybooks about an anthropomorphic bear. They were published between 1930 and 1965, and reissued in the early 1970s
Bring some biscuits: unleavened sweetened baked goods, called cookies in North America
a packet of Small Rich Tea biscuits: Rich Tea is a kind of sweet biscuit. I think the capital on "Small" is an error
None of your cheek: cheek is insubordination, "talking back"
sleeping off Gwinny's sweaters: sleeping so as to digest them
I suggest you toss for it: throw a coin and guess which way up it lands
I want two volunteers: you and you: a joke from the second world war. An army officer says this to the men: the humour is that he will tell the other officers that these men volunteered, to show how keen they are, but since he's choosing them, they can't be volunteers. The earliest version I've found is from 1942
I advise you to look a little less happy… Our guests can be counted on to eat you: both sarcastic

Chapter 10

the smell an electric fire makes when it has gone wrong: a smell like burning hair or plastic. An "electric fire" is an electric heater, not necessarily one that looks like a burning fire. Coal fires had been the usual way of heating houses until a few years before this, but the government had been pushing for people to replace them with gas and electric heating to reduce pollution
I'll go and bury these in the garden: in a town, a garden usually contains flowers and a lawn
with everyone's face flannels held to his chest: presumably he got the flannels from the bathroom while Caspar was downstairs getting the bucket
Not even over my dead body: without any possibility whatsoever
squits: a rather unpleasant word for people you don't like
Malcolm, I'll need to press your suit: this would be a two-piece lounge suit, like men often wear to offices. Pressing it means ironing it, so that there are no wrinkles and the creases down the middle of the trouser-legs are sharp
Stupid little ass: fool— Douglas seems to have any number of ways of calling people a fool. This is "ass" meaning donkey, not the anatomical sense from North America
Irid. col.: "iridis colores, colours of the rainbow, though some of these colours are not in the rainbow
But it's an ill wind: bad events often mean good fortune for someone— in this case, Malcolm being unwell means that both sides of the family have a representative as a waiter. The full phrase is "it's an ill wind that blows no-one any good", meaning "only a really evil wind would not bring good to somebody out there"
that beastly party: a slightly more polite way to say "that damned party"
showed him a shoebox: shoes come in a cardboard box, about 100cm long, 70cm wide, and 50cm deep (40×30×20 inches), large enough to hold a pair of most kinds of shoe
I have to keep sharpening ordinary pencils for them: pencils go blunt quickly, and the "lead" (actually graphite) in them often breaks. To sharpen them again, you put them into a device called a sharpener. This cuts off some of the pencil, producing wood shavings
cooking something in an old tobacco tin: loose tobacco is often sold in tins, measuring about 10×8×2.5cm (8×3×1in). Presumably the Ogre buys these to fill his pipe
eased off the front of the doll's house: a doll's house is a model of an ordinary house at about one-twelfth the size, which makes the maths easier if you're using feet and inches. So the house is about 50cm (19in) tall. As well as the dolls themselves, it has stairs, wallpaper, bathroom fittings, tables, and so on inside. The front comes off so that you can play with the dolls
Are they ready for their pudding?: pudding is any sweet course at the end of a meal
spooned warmed-up custard into a tureen: a tureen is a large deep dish with a cover, usually used to hold soup for everyone at dinner. It must be a large one for Gwinny to be able to fill it so accurately
You'll curse: you'll say something taboo because you're surprised and frustrated
the large sevenpenny kind: 7p in 1974 is 60p in 2023 money, which sounds about right
they were the size of conger eels: the average adult conger eel is 1.5m (5ft) long, alarmingly
Taran-taran-tarar: the man is imitating a bugle, as would be used to signal a cavalry charge. I think he's drunk

Chapter 11

thick, lumpy porridge which he ate with salt: this is apparently a Scottish thing. I haven't tried it. It serves to show how different the Ogre is to the children, and makes him seem austere
Because she hasn't made her bed: evidently Sally and the Ogre share a double bed, which is why the bed has been slept in even though Sally left the night before
Is your grandmother on the phone?: "does she have a phone?"— it couldn't be taken for granted in those days
Caspar threw down his schoolbags and seized the address book by the telephone. He found the number and dialled: the only phones you could get were the kind with a rotary dial, which you rented from the post office, in a limited number of colours. They had a separate receiver (handset), which you both speak into and listen to, joined to it by a cord. People used to keep the phone in the hall, with a notebook beside it to write down people's numbers
The story of Bluebeard burst into Johnny's head: Bluebeard is a serial murderer in a folktale. He marries repeatedly, then kills his bride. Eventually a bride discovers the pattern before she goes the same way, and has her revenge. This is Aarne-Thompson motif 312
Couldn't tell you for toffee: I'm not able to tell you. A stock phrase, though it usually means not *competent* to do something
soap and soda: there has been quite a bit of disagreement over what "soda" is here. It might be baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, which you mix with water to clean things with. Or it might perhaps be washing soda, sodium carbonate, which you can clean clothes with. Or then again it might be caustic soda (also called lye), sodium hydroxide, which you use to clean ovens
she was sick and tired of you: she had had her fill of dealing with you, to the point of exhaustion; a stock phrase
large quantities of baked beans: these are small beans in a sweet salty sauce. They come in tins ready to eat, so they have a reputation as a cheap convenience food, though they are usually heated
also rather chilly: this was before domestic microwaves were commonly available; Douglas inexpertly heated these in a saucepan over the hob, unless they were on toast under the grill
"We can all do bacon and eggs," said Caspar. "And Gwinny knows lots of things": traditional gender roles were still strong
Noct. vest.: "noctis vestis", cloak of darkness
With any luck, you'll be in prison by Sunday: in British English, "jail" and "prison" are synonyms. (In the US, roughly speaking, jail is where you await trial and prison is where you go after sentencing)
it was high time someone put the Ogre down: "putting something down" means to kill it. It's usually used to describe euthanasia of suffering animals
fetched out the thirteenth cake: it is actually traditional to bake buns and cakes in batches of thirteen, which is called a "baker's dozen": bakers wanted to avoid penalties for selling less bread than they were charging for. But the thirteenth cake isn't normally poisoned!
held up a piece of filter paper: a piece of paper with very fine holes in it, smaller than you can easily see, which is used in chemistry to filter out tiny solid pieces from a mixture. You might also know it from making coffee

Chapter 12

the cistern in the loft…: British plumbing keeps water for the hot taps in a tank at the top of the house, called the cistern, since you can't return heated water to the main. That's where you get water from when you run the hot tap. The water is only heated when the tap's running, which is why the hot tap runs cold at first. The cold taps are fed either directly from the main pipe supplying the house, or from a different tank
…was making a great deal of noise: the tank is noisy either because of dirt in the system making the parts vibrate, or water hammer, which is a shock wave running back and forth in a pipe
with a doily under it: a circular piece of paper with a lacy pattern, put under cakes and sandwiches as a fancy decoration. Originally, they were actual lace
some firelighters: solid blocks of a kerosene mixture, which are extremely flammable. When you light a fire, wood or coal provide most of the heat. But they're difficult to light. So you need to put stuff which burns easily underneath them, called "kindling", and firelighters are an example of this
the burning kind of soda: probably washing soda, sodium carbonate (NaCO₂). Caustic soda would have burned her more painfully just from touching it
wastepaper basket: a small bin, called a trash can in North America. Next to a desk, they actually are used for waste paper. In a bedroom they're used for miscellaneous rubbish
Gwinny twiddled her toes for encouragement: rubbed them together, to soothe herself— it might be called stimming nowadays

Chapter 13

As long as he did not look what he was doing, it was all right: psychologists call this "muscle memory", a kind of procedural memory. Once you understand how to do something well enough (walking, for example), you can do it without thinking. Thinking about it actually makes it more difficult because it moves it out of procedural memory
He must be mad: insane, not angry
going into the bathroom with a dirty shirt: carrying it rather than wearing it; there will be some sort of laundry basket in the bathroom
How the devil do you think things are going to get washed with Sally not here? By magic?: again we see how pervasive gender roles were in the 1970s
expressively tapped his forehead: tapping your temple means you think someone is not completely sane
fuggy: smoky (from the Ogre's pipe)
Caspar got the wrong end of the stick: Caspar was confused
I should think the Pied Piper would be more use: the Pied Piper of Hamelin is an old story, about a man who can play music to lead the rats away from a rat-infested town
They'll know it's only animal's blood: the first test to show the species of a blood sample was invented in 1901, by Paul Uhlenhuth
I'm going to try Plan B: "Plan B" is a standard way to refer to a backup plan
This is going to be real fun and games: "fun and games" means an exciting and enjoyable time, but it's almost always used ironically
wondering whether to cut the flex: "flex" is a dated word for "cable" (short for "flexible")
Caspar mentally took off his hat to Malcolm: a gesture of respect
glen: a deep valley in Scotland or Ireland
tried to remember where Loch Lomond was on a map— this being the only place in Scotland that came into his head: it's in the west. Caspar may be remembering it from the folksong "The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond"
as far as Perth or Dundee: both are on the east coast of Scotland. Caspar has only a vague grasp of Scottish geography
another great-aunt in Fishguard or Land's End or somewhere: further south, Caspar is more accurate. Fishguard is roughly the most westerly point of Wales; Land's End in Cornwall is roughly the most southwesterly point of Great Britain, but nobody actually lives there

Chapter 14

How far do we go on this wild goose chase: a wild goose chase means a pointless effort
you brought the carving knife with you: as a murder weapon. A carving knife is a sharp knife used to cut ("carve") joints of meat
I'll find a lay-by: a lay-by is a space beside a road where you can park the car to rest for a bit
This is a very pretty pantomime: a pantomime is a kind of comic play; the Ogre is calling Caspar a liar

iar things to your mind: this is rather like a story in Plato's Republic about the Ring of Gyges, which magically makes you invisible, and the book discusses whether you would become a bad person if nobody could see you doing bad things

You must have blessed me for that: for "blessed", understand "cursed"
when I threatened to wring his neck: to break his neck by twisting it in different directions with both hands. He's exaggerating
surely he could not have mopped the blood off Johnny's wall and then weltered in the washing without getting his hands wet: DWJ doesn't mention it explicitly, but in both those cases the water is soapy before you touch it
a five pound note: worth £30 or so in 2023 money
fish and chip shop: a standard takeaway food place, selling fried fish and chips (aka french fries)

Chapter 15

while the coast's clear: while nobody else is paying attention
a man from the Council who told Gwinny he was the Rodent Operative: local government ran pest control at the time. "Rodent Operative" is a grand title for a rat-catcher
It's poison. Dries them up and does for them: some rat poisons work by making the rats forget to drink water, so they die from dehydration. Their bodies will be so dry that they mummify, rather than rotting and attracting flies
empty cotton-reels: wood or plastic cylinders with a hole down the middle. Cotton thread comes wrapped around them
To give them a sporting chance?: to make it fairer for them
I talked to Sally until the pips went: on public payphones, the pips were small bleeps you heard on the line when the money you'd inserted was running out. Douglas is calling from the house phone, but apparently there were also pips when you called long distance to tell you when the charge was about to increase
you haven't put in sandwich spread: this is a mix of salad cream (a bit like mayonnaise) and chopped vegetables
you'd be better off with crisps: called chips in North America
a few optional extras like eggs, bread, and butter: he's being sarcastic again
Dens drac.: dens draconis, dragon's tooth. In two separate ancient Greek stories, a hero throws dragons' teeth on the ground, causing warriors called Spartoi to appear
sent him with Johnny to the ironmonger's: an ironmonger sells household goods like buckets and hinges. More commonly called a hardware shop these days
they went to the chemist: the pharmacist
ἰτ θε λιδ ἀνσε υοτιυγετ!: "Hit the lid again and see what you get!" "Lid" is slang for a crash helmet. Everything the bikers say is in London-accented English, but written using the ancient Greek alphabet. This seems to confuse the typesetters: my edition has ν replacing ἰτ here, and goes on to use some letters which aren't Greek at all
Φυλλα σπιριτ, ἀρντθει?: "Full of spirit, aren't they?"
λετσγω, φελλωσ: "Let's go, fellas"
car bonnet: the cover at the front of the car, called the hood in North America
Those look like Hell's Angels: an international club for bikers with a very tough image
He took out a tin of sardines: small preserved fish. A tin is called a can in North America
Hoping the old trick still works: this exact method was used to kill the Spartoi in both the ancient stories where they appear. Possibly the Ogre was clued in by the name of the chemical
Peter Fillus: Gwinny's pronunciation of "Petr. philos.", petra philosophorum, the Philosopher's Stone. This is a legendary substance that can turn base metals (as opposed to precious metals) into gold. The alchemists called it "lapis", a stone, rather than "petra", a rock— but then the joke about calling it Peter wouldn't have worked
Johnny capped that with some fire irons on a stand, disguised as three dolphins: fire irons are iron tools for tending a fire. The three irons here will be a poker for stirring up the fire, a shovel for removing ash, and tongs for picking up burning coals and moving them about
Those spoons say EPNS: electroplated nickel silver. They have a silver coating, so aren't base metal
It's called an epergne: they are decorative centrepieces for a dining table. The ice-cream cornet things might hold various condiments, and the centre cornet might hold flowers. Ice-cream cornets are usually called ice-cream cones these days
He called it a Cow Creamer: these were jugs shaped like cows for holding cream to pour into your tea or coffee. There was a craze for them in England in the 1700s
paid through the nose for it: paid lots of money for it
he was becoming hardened to living in a bear garden: a long time ago, bear gardens were places where a bear would be chained up. Dogs were sent in to attack him, and people would place bets on how long he would live. This was made illegal in 1835. The Ogre is using it to describe the chaos and noise in the house

Thanks

Researched and written up by Marnanel, with thanks to the list. Thanks to Fade for checking my Latin, to Richard Kensinger for explaining to me about procedural memory, and to Farah Mendlesohn, Ann Kittenplan, Kit Thurman, Fay Roberts, Chris Waterous, Karina Coldrick, Philip Belben, Catherine Butler, Peni R. Griffin, and Gill Othen.