Tamar, was that in "Guards! Guards!"? The million-to-one thing? Carrot and Nobby try to make the odds exactly a million-to-one, and at one point they stuff a handkerchief into Fred's mouth. He spits it out when they realise that it's not exactly a million-to-one.
I'm afraid my reply will be long, but Colon and Nobby are two of my favourite characters, so I'll go into some depth. Here we go.
Colon.
Colon never struck me as racist. He's a very experienced copper and he knows the job. The trouble is that he's set in his ways - so when new coppers get promoted above him, he doesn't know how to cope. (Witness his remarks in MAA about dwarfs and trolls, for instance, or in FOC about golems. By the end of FOC, of course, there's a new golem constable - that ought to drive Colon crazy!)
However, despite his small-mindedness about other species, Colon never struck me as racist because:
a) he is too thick to realise whether he's being racist or not; and
b) he is too lazy to
do anything racist.
Despite his nasty talk in FOC, however, we can easily see that Colon is out of his depth when he has the idea about knocking on doors and asking people if they have arsenic. What an idiot idea! Naturally, Colon gets in trouble very quickly, and it only gets worse. However, he does ultimately corroborate what Vimes already knows about the killer.
After the events of FOC, I don't blame Colon for thinking - as he does in J - that other coppers get promoted above him and Nobby, and that he and Nobby should do something about it. That leads to their "detectoring" work. *LOL* I honestly thought that the Colon-Nobby-Vetinari act was one of the best things I've ever read - not because of Nobby's cross-dressing (and we know that Nobby enjoys dressing up), but because of the dynamic between Colon and Vetinari, and the way that Nobby ultimately upstages Colon.
In TFE, Colon was
definitely out of his depth. Both he and we know that he is not ready to be a captain, and he proves it in a few short scenes.
In Thud!, both Colon and Nobby set the plot in motion by investigating the crime in the museum. They react in much the same way as I expected them to - with wide-eyed stupidity - but their report encourages Vimes to look further into it.
I can't remember if they were in Snuff or in Raising Steam. However, both Colon and Nobby were in NW - both their present selves and their younger selves - and I thought they were generally spot on (especially Colon's small-mindedness about other species and Nobby's petty-thieving ways).
Nobby.
In G!G! and MAA, Nobby starts out as a petty thief who sometimes has good ideas. He is street-smart and good at getting out of trouble. He thinks small - small details, small rewards, small ideas (though sometimes good ones). Someone like Lord Rust might call him a "guttersnipe" or a "bottom feeder".
In FOC, Nobby's ideas about the world take a back seat to his tendency for petty thievery. He realises - far too late - that he's been made a patsy, although he doesn't know why. Fortunately for him, his instinct for self-preservation takes over.
In J, we see more of Nobby's instincts for self-preservation (when he tries to persuade Colon not to get in Leonard's Boat). However, this time around, Nobby is obviously smarter than Colon: he pokes holes in Colon's flimsy anti-Klatchian theories, he thinks that bringing home a Klatchian head and sticking up on a pub sign is "nasty", he moderates Colon's anti-Klatchian report, he finds out where the Klatchian army is, etc.
In TFE, both Colon and Nobby play a smaller role. Despite this, Nobby still comes off looking the smarter of the two (which isn't hard). Colon lets power go to his head; Nobby tries (and fails) to get him to stop.
Summary.
I can see why Colon & Nobby reminded Tony of Laurel & Hardy. They reminded me of L&H, too - at least a little. C&N share with L&H their physical qualities (one's fat, one's thin - and they always get into trouble through their stupidity).
However, Colon and Nobby reminded me of another great British institution - Wooster and Jeeves (though much less classy, obviously), with Colon taking Wooster's part and Nobby taking Jeeves's. Just as Wooster constantly talks loftily about himself, and Jeeves constantly knows better than his master, so Colon sometimes belittles Nobby (because Colon is a sergeant and Nobby is a corporal), and Nobby often knows better than Colon about things.
They also reminded a little about Blackadder and Baldrick - at least, in the first series - and for the same reason. Blackadder is a gormless idiot Duke; Baldrick is the smart servant who gets his master out of trouble. In the second, third and fourth series, Blackadder became progressively smarter and Baldrick progressively dumber, but the "stupid master, smart servant" dynamic merely shifted to other characters. In series 2, 3 and 4, Blackadder was always the "smart servant" - to Queen Elizabeth, the Prince Regent and General Melchett, respectively.
So it is with Colon. In G!G!, Colon is smart in comparison to later books (he organises a street protest against the dragon, which fails; he tries to play the role of Bard the Bowman, and fails). However, what's important is that Colon has enough courage to even
try and do something about the dragon. In the later books, Colon is insecure because - in his mind - he is simply trying to hold on to his job, and he's facing competition from all the other species (and complains about that). By "Jingo", Colon has become so insecure that he has to talk down to Nobby: "I'm the superior officer!" / "No you're not, we're in plain clothes!" / "Well, I'm the superior civilian!" etc.
Needless to say, Nobby instantly makes fun of Colon's self-importance.
Anyway, I've written more than enough. What does everyone else think, hmm?
