The Proposal:Brontes the Cyclops is literally the only slim piece of reality in the entire book, I think. Let's see if I can dredge a little more life out of it:
Brontes, Steropes, and Arges are mainly mentioned in passing in most of the myths to convey strength in heroes and the fine quality of weapons but are major characters in one other event – their deaths at the hands of Apollo. Zeus struck Asclepius, Apollo's son, down with a thunderbolt for having risen a person from the dead. Apollo was outraged and killed the Cyclopes who had forged the deadly thunderbolt. It appears that Apollo's rage was misplaced, yet by killing the Cyclopes, he was indirectly punishing Zeus. The ghosts of Brontes, Steropes, and Arges are said to dwell in Mt. Aetna, an active volcano that smokes as a result of their burning forges.
What a pity we have science to tell us that a volcano couldn't possibly be smoking from a ghostly forge...
The Vicar's Daughter:
At a Christmas party the children play: Musical Chairs, Blind Man's Bluff and one I had never heard of called Grandmother's Footsteps. After reading the rules it sounded a little like a cross between Mother-May-I and Red Light Green Light, except that when the player who is IT gets to begin the action by saying (in some versions) 'one, two, three, four five jam tarts'. How adorable is that?
Our heroine and hero go to the theatre and see Sunset Boulevard. The musical was staged in 1993 so this would have only been a few years old when they would have seen it. Based on the 1950 film, Andrew Lloyd Weber initially asked Amy Powers, a lawyer from New York with no professional lyric-writing experience, to write the lyrics. A heavily revised and reworked (new writers after she flopped) version is what you see on the stage today.
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