Well, PTerry always had a thing for the sidekicks that usually never get much stage time. That's how the Watch became what they are today. There are so many scenes in all movie genre where someone is emptying the dustbins or sweeping the floor and who only has the job of pointing the heroes into the right direction... "There." Being their entire text in the movie. You wonder why none of them has ever seen more...
Not to mention real life.

Also, the sweeping thing reminds me of the "Karate Kid"-movies...
Plus: Somehow, in every cliché monasterypicture in pop culture, there seems to be some monk in the background, sweeping. Or do I only imagine that after reading PTerry?


There's also some kind of tradition of a monk sweeping away your sins for you in Buddhist monasteries, but I have only a vague memory of it.

"Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kindischen Spiel." (Friedrich Schiller)