- he arrived in the backyard of a one-time Accredited Witch
- odd how this echoes Witch Week
- a French wizard in Shepherd's Bush
- part of West London
- Jean-Pierre always charges the earth
- charges lots of money
- "Your money or your life," he said to the Postmistress
- give me money or I will kill you. The phrase has been associated with highwaymen for over two hundred years, and it's archaic to use it in a modern robbery. A postmistress is the manager of a post office; if they're male they are called a postmaster
- a desperate character
- not necessarily actually desperate, but reckless of danger, like a person in despair
- She let him clean out her safe
- take all the money
- hailed a taxi in which he drove all the way to Shepherd's Bush
- this is a 53 mile trip. Taxis which you can hail (called hackney carriages) are for short trips, so it's a ludicrously wasteful way for him to get to London— 53 miles away, if we assume that Wolvercote is in the same place as the village of that name in Our World. It would cost him over £200 in 2023 money
- The French wizard shrugged in a very French way
- he raised his shoulders and eyebrows while showing his palms. The English have associated this gesture with the French since at least the 1600s
- I could turn you into a small round stone
- (is this a reference?)
- which world you will grace with your blue chin
- the Warlock is unshaven, which looks blueish from a distance
- he knew the ten of clubs meant that someone would bully somebody
- he's mistaken, at least in fortune-telling in Our World: the ten of clubs means good fortune
- sniffed the delicious smell of petrol
- called gasoline in North America
- a large lady in uniform, with a yellow band round her cap
- she is a traffic warden, looking for illegally-parked cars. Traffic wardens were employed by the police force but weren't police officers. They were introduced in 1955 in Our World, but abolished in 2016 when parking enforcement became the responsibility of local government
- let go of the bonnet
- called the hood in North America
- a small man in a pin-striped suit
- made of a cloth with a repeated very thin stripe— conventional conservative dress for a business person
- That's a toy pistol!
- I wonder how he knew. UK and US law have required toy weapons to have an orange tip since the late 1980s, but this story was first published in 1981
- He changed the front plate to WW100 and the back plate to XYZ123
- despite not realising the plates must match, the Warlock has chosen valid UK plates. Unlike in North America, the sequence of symbols (the "number") must conform to a particular pattern. Two letters plus three dgits was used from 1903 to 1932, and three plus three from 1932 to 1963
- The next knob made voices speak
- he can hear police radio communications. In the 1980s, police radio was unencrypted and you could hear it using an ordinary radio. I remember it was unexpectedly rather boring
- Over and out
- a phrase generally believed to mark the end of a radio conversation. Apparently people don't say this in real life, because it's contradictory: "over" invites the other side to talk, and "out" means you're leaving the conversation
- Why have we stopped for, Daddy?
- the nonstandard syntax marks the child as very young, perhaps under six
- Oh my gawd
- "Oh, my God", but emphasised and drawn out
- Towser will let you go when you drive
- Towser has been a common dog name since the 1600s. Tousing is an archaic word for pulling something about roughly, which suits this dog very well
- Then another voice spoke
- there was a fad for talking cars in the 1980s. The systems were called Electronic Voice Alert ("EVA"), and they sounded like a robot in a film. Car manufacturers gave up making them because people found them annoying
- You have forgotten to fasten your seatbelt… I cannot proceed until you do so
- a system like this is called a seatbelt interlock. They have been around since the 1970s— the United States even made them mandatory in 1973, but repealed that in 1974
- a lever that said forwards
- this car has an automatic transmission, which was and is unusual in Britain. Thus when the Warlock takes his left foot off a pedal, he is releasing the footbrake
- a wide straight road with room for three cars abreast
- a motorway (a limited-access highway)— hence the lack of houses. The straightness is worth mentioning because it can't be assumed in Britain. It seems from later evidence that this is the M40, which is the continuation of the A40 from Shepherd's Bush, and goes to Birmingham via Oxford
- I won't if we all get out and walk
- the Warlock is lucky she didn't let him, for safety. Unlike on almost all other roads in Britain, pedestrians are not allowed on motorways
- large blue notice saying HARBURY SERVICES
- motorway signage is always blue. "Services" means a service station, called a rest stop in North America, and the crossed knife and fork mean it serves food. Harbury is a village in Warwickshire, close to junction 12 of the M40 motorway, though there's no service station there in Our World. Harbury is near Otmoor, so the "low green hills" just mentioned may be the hills around the Moor in DWJ's "Power of Three"
- It did not seem to trouble her that both of them had vanished
- perhaps she's an enchanter, if she can see through invisiblity
- You're the Invisible Man or something
- a character in an 1897 book with the same name by H G Wells, which has been filmed many times
- It is now lighting-up time
- the time of night when you legally have to turn on your headlights— half an hour after sunset
- Towser's going to go sick
- she means "be sick", vomit
- The Willing Warlock squealed to a halt on the hard shoulder
- this is the leftmost lane, where you shouldn't drive, and where you can stop only if there's an emergency
- he got rid of the gateau onto the side of the motorway
- chocolate is toxic to dogs, so it's not surprising it disagreed with him. But it would have taken a lot of chocolate to kill a beast the size of Towser
- I went in my pants… You didn't take me to the Ladies
- she defecated in her underwear— pants doesn't mean trousers in Britain. (In the illustrations in my copy, she's shown wearing a dress.) "The Ladies" means the female toilets; the male toilets are "the Gents"
- a sign saying BENTWELL SERVICES
- I can't find anywhere in Our World called Bentwell. They must be somewhere around Warwick by now, though
- You have to change my knickers
- her underwear
- It was the last straw
- added to all his previous bad experiences, it pushed him over his limit. The reference is to an old question about how many straws it takes to break a camel's back
- That's just a jingle I taught her
- a jingle is a fine-sounding phrase which doesn't mean a great deal
- bar that car
- except for that car
- All Kathayack Demon Dogs do
- this is an oddity. In DWJ's "The Homeward Bounders", Kathayack is the country where Joris the demon hunter was born. If this dog is also from Kathayack, Chrestomanci and the Homeward Bounders share a universe. But the Homeward Bounders would be part of the Related Worlds, because they speak English. It seeems improbable that Chrestomanci would allow Them to continue their game
- Kathusa
- he doesn't appear in any other stories, as far as I know. His name happens to be a form of Катю́ша, the Russian name corresponding to the English name Kathy, but that's presumably a coincidence
- you go and pinch my car
- steal it
- You can do that and go straight
- "going straight" means giving up crime
