What is the type of torture using "ginger beer" hinted at in Night Watch??? I cannot wonder if its a dig into the torture Mussolini used to inflict with castor oil ... http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_028.html
a quick google reveals..... There has been much confusion on alt.fan.pratchett concerning what exactly constitutes the 'ginger beer trick', and which bodily orifices are involved. Terry says: "To save debate running wild: I've heard this attributed to the Mexican police as a cheap way of getting a suspect to talk and which, happily, does not leave a mark. The carbonated beverage of choice was Coca-Cola. Hint: expanding bubbles, and the sensitivity of the sinuses.
Ah ... I was googling for "ginger beer torture" - and I thought it might be going in another orafice. Esp as Vimes does a similar trick with raw ginger and an Ox's backside later on ...
i remember talking to a friend online once while he was doing shots of peppermint schanpps. appearantly he coughed or hiccuped or something at just the wrong moment... and you know how when you laugh really hard while drinking milk... yeah, he did that with 100+ proof peppermint schnapps. I must say, karmicly, this guy was the sort of creep who'd deserve that sort of agony, but still.. yeouch.
The funniest nose spurting story I ever heard was my Dad's neighbour who did a lot of VoIP chat site stuff using the voice of death... anyway, he was drinking red wine on the internet late at night quite pissed, something someone said made him laugh and he spurted red wine out of his nose. He was so pissed that he then said in the voice of Death: " My brains are leaking out my nose" The image of it still makes me smile...although he tells it much better than I ever could.
I allways thaught the GB was administerred to the backside. I assumed this because in the scene where they trick the Unmentionable they say "Hold his LEGS appart" Somewhat obvious (when reading) to me.
@__@ Me too.... I thought I was involved the behind as well..... Although the other way probably does a better job....
Hm, no, not quite... They're tricking an assassin, and the quote says: It sounds to me like "See you don't get kicked when he fights back." It at least leaves that possibility.
in the occasion in night watch i think that the whole point was just to get the other prisoner scared like the link says, i cant really imagine vimes doing something really bad but meh
Ur... no one said anything contrary. It's too obvious from the books anyway. But the men seemed to have a clear idea what "The Ginger Beer Trick" was working like exactly - after Carcer tought it to the Cable Street Particulars, as far as I remember- otherwise the scaring bit wouldn't have worked so well on them. The question what exactly the "Ginger Beer TrickW was supposed to work like spinned a lot of people's heads.
As I recall Vimes opened the bottle and had someone else scream to make the prisoner outside think that they were tourturing the other prisoner.
The GBT- one of the best moments in NW. I had a loads of fun with that one -Popp!! -Hsssss!! -AAAAHHHHHHH!! Could scare the hell out of anyone.
Sir Gawain you are quite correct but also quite pedantic! an admirable fault in a man/women/vampire/vampiress/troll/trolless(?)/dwarf/uh. . .dwarf.
well I kinda imagined a bottle full of bubbles being shaked, opened and inserted into the man's hide...should hurt like hell...although it's a bit nasty when you think about someone actually shoving it in...
Cows and Ginger Ew. Ow! I also imagined something similar to the "ox medicine" trick... And, by the way, the ox medicine was also used once by Nanny Ogg, on a cow in Lancre. Quote: "Take these two pills. One's for the cow." "What's the other one for?" "Well, you want to catch it, don't you?"
The GingerBeer Trick probably involved use of the carbonation to pump the Ginger into the nasal passages. Done right I'm sure it hurt--but perhaps just the anticipation was enough to make people talk..............especially if they didn't know where ti was going...........................:shock:
You're right, it seems. Although it is, in the book as such, left to the fantasy of the reader... Pratchett sometimes leaves such details open, I seem to recall. I seem to stumble upon a few questionmarkable situations in each book, and not all of them can be blamed on the language barrier...
Hmmm-Well I consulted my family "hexpert" in Pterrian Stuff and he says a Big part of the "The Ginger Beer Trick is that we don't really KNOW what orifice the Ginger Beer goes into (or comes out of) because its much moe frightening to imagine one(or another) as it were.
PTerry's confirmed that it's the nose. It's the Coca-Cola torture so popular in Mexico and other locales. The torturer puts his or her hand over the top of the bottle, shakes it, and then releases it into the victim's nose. agonizing pain follows, but doesn't leave a mark.
Of course, that's what it's meant to be, but part of the torture in NW is the doubt that is left open to the people being tortured about what is going to happen.
The Ginger Beer Trick is just that, a TRICK. In horror films, a lot of the time, the gory details are left out, this isn't to avoid censorship, its because the imagination can do a much worse job than images on a screen. The same is true here. By leaving the most nervous prisoner til last, he can hear everyone else being "tortured," but he cant see, so his imagination makes it horrific. The idea is to get the last prisoner so scared that he gives everything away, without any violence of any sort. As for Carcers torture, I always imagined this to be similar to the Mexican way, but I must say I always imagind it to be up the anus, particularly after the part with the Ginger and the Ox. It just seemed the way it would go.
Ginger Beer Trick isn't the word 'Trick' a bit of a give away? I have heard of it being used by some of our less salubrious nations using assorted carbonated beverages. Brings to mind a very interesting, and not a wee bit disturbing, image. Although i'm pretty sure that there are probably people out there who would quite happily pay for this sort of fizzy enema!
And I think this thread was dragged along a little too long. :smile: The same facts on about every page, with a few months of break in between...:biggrin:
Would love to try the ginger beer trick on some people that I have 2 work with but they keep telling me it not cricket. Owell may b 1 day. irate:
One: Welcome LondonWolf! Two: Please refrain from using Textspeak. Not only is it really annoying, it's also really hard to understand if you are a non-native English speaker or, as some members, are dyslexic. So: - U is usually written as "You" - 2 is usually written as "To" (or "Too" or "Two", but in your above sentence it was "To") - Owell --> "Oh well" - may b --> "maybe" - 1 --> "one" Three: Bold and Italic? If you feel that your post won't stand out enough by content alone... Four: Legitimate question: What is "it not cricket"?
"It's not cricket" means "It's not fair" - the person is not playing by the rules. It's a British expression.
Well, like cricket, really, no-one outside the commonwealth will have heard of it especially you strange people in Dutchugal.
It's also kind of ironic, given recent scandals, that its origins lay in the fact that cricket is supposed to be the epitome of fair play and sportsmanship.
Hah, I bet no self-respecting cricketer would ever call its kitten Socks when it was supposed to be called Cookie though...
XD I just found out what the ginger beer trick is!! I saw it on TV (Dexter to be precise - A mexican guy was torturing someone) - shake up a bottle of ginger beer and fizz it up someone's nose. Sinuses, see? At long last! The answer!
Well, hm. This was posted in one of the first posts in this thread in August 2005: Not at quite so long last, but still, another source...
