What is the "Ginger Beer" trick?

Discussion in 'THE WATCH BOOKS' started by WhiteCrowUK, Sep 1, 2005.

  1. WhiteCrowUK New Member

  2. sleepy_sarge New Member

    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.
  3. WhiteCrowUK New Member

    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 ...
  4. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    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.
  5. spiky Bar Wench

    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"

    :D The image of it still makes me smile...although he tells it much better than I ever could.
  6. Smoking_GNU New Member

    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.
  7. Wynci New Member

    @__@
    Me too.... I thought I was involved the behind as well.....

    Although the other way probably does a better job....
  8. Hsing Moderator

    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.
  9. Plugger New Member

    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
  10. Hsing Moderator

    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.
  11. Plugger New Member

    ah right i get ya
  12. LaughingFire New Member

  13. Hsing Moderator

  14. scif1girl New Member

    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.
  15. Sir_Gawain New Member

    Actually, he never opened the bottle. He made the popping noise with his thumb and Colon screamed.
  16. Sir_Vaims New Member

    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.
  17. Angua_rox New Member

    Sir Gawain you are quite correct but also quite pedantic! an admirable fault in a man/women/vampire/vampiress/troll/trolless(?)/dwarf/uh. . .dwarf.
  18. tanatie New Member

    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...
  19. Ninereeds New Member

    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?"
  20. FairyHegehOGG New Member

    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:
  21. Hsing Moderator

    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... ;)
  22. FairyHegehOGG New Member

    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.
  23. Ba Lord of the Pies

    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.
  24. Katcal I Aten't French !

    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.
  25. Ba Lord of the Pies

    Katcal means NW, surely, for Nightwatch?
  26. Katcal I Aten't French !

    Katcal has no idea what Ba is going on about. :cool:
  27. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    I see we can now give a reason for deleting a post. That's a neat solution for double posts!
  28. Hsing Moderator

    Thanks to the "reason for editing"-box, it is indeed. We've never had that before.
  29. nutkar97 New Member

    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.
  30. BadEarthMum New Member

    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! :eek:
  31. Fuzz New Member

    And another bloke made the "fsssshh" noise.

    EDIT: nevermind.
  32. AuntieM New Member

    Yep, you got it. It was just a trick after all.
  33. Hsing Moderator

    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:
  34. Katcal I Aten't French !

    What, so, Gigner beer or Ginger ale ? :biggrin:
  35. LondonWolf New Member

    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. :pirate:
  36. Tephlon Active Member

    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"?
  37. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    "It's not cricket" means "It's not fair" - the person is not playing by the rules. It's a British expression.
  38. Tephlon Active Member

    I suspected as much. I hadn't heard (or read) it before though... :)
  39. Katcal I Aten't French !

    Well, like cricket, really, no-one outside the commonwealth will have heard of it :D especially you strange people in Dutchugal.
  40. Maljonic Administrator

    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.
  41. Katcal I Aten't French !

    Hah, I bet no self-respecting cricketer would ever call its kitten Socks when it was supposed to be called Cookie though... :cool:
  42. thauthageth New Member

    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!
  43. Hsing Moderator

    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...

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