Stickleback: England's Glory Part 10 References

Page 2: Gordon of Khartoum and "Dicky" Sharpe

Major General Charles George Gordon (1833-1885) was a real British army officer, famed for his military campaigns in China and Africa. He was killed by the army of the Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed when they broke the ten-month siege of Khartoum; British forces arrived to support him only two days after his death.
"Dicky" Sharpe is intended to be a descendant of Bernard Cornwell's fictional napoleonic-era British army rifle officer Richard Sharpe (1777-?), who appears in a series of 24 military historical novels published between 1981 and 2006. In the UK, Central Independent Television network has produced 15 television series based on the books, Starring actor Sean Bean as Sharpe. A 16th series is due to be broadcast in the autumn of 2008.


Page 2: Cyclops

This guardian monster was inspired in part by the Cyclops monster created by animator Ray Harryhausen for his classic 1958 fantasy film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Equally, certain of his attributes (including the shaggy legs, random suckers sprouting from skin and the upright vulvoform eye) belong to the final mutated form of character Wilbur Whateley from H.P. Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror.