Technology of The Discworld - Inventors - Bloody Stupid Johnson

Bloody Stupid Johnson

Perhaps the Disc's most notable inventor is Bergholt Stuttley "Bloody Stupid" Johnson, an architect whose ability to get things wrong bordered on mythical. Although evidently able in certain fields, Johnson is notorious for his complete inability to produce anything according to specification or common sense, or (sometimes) even the laws of physics. This fact never stopped him from trying, however. He is also known as Bloody Stupid "It Might Look A Bit Messy Now But Just You Come Back In Five Hundred Years' Time" Johnson, and Bloody Stupid "Look, The Plans Were The Right Way Round When I Drew Them" Johnson.

Johnson was not incompetent, far from it; indeed in many ways he was a kind of genius. Pratchett suggests on numerous occasions that he possessed a kind of "inverse genius;" as far from incompetence as genius but in the opposite direction. Certainly no one else could produce an explosive mixture from nothing more than common sand and water, or create a triangle with three right angles. So, while no sane person would believe for a moment that it is possible to create a circle wherein pi is exactly three (as opposed to "three and a bit," as it is oft described), Johnson managed to somehow twist the laws of the universe to accomplish precisely that in his construction of the Automated Mail Sorter for the Post Office of Ankh-Morpork. As with a significant number of his creations, the Sorter did work, but Johnson's blithe disregard for how the universe is actually put together created some side effects, including (but by no means limited to) the Sorter's ability to sort mail that had not actually been written yet or had never been written.

The most obvious flaw in Johnson's abilities is his blind spot when it comes to marking units on his plans. But while most of Johnson's designs are simply unusual, some of them seem to tap into strange forces, probably by mistake. It has been suggested that he may have inadvertently achieved the exact opposite of constructing in cosmic harmony with the power of ley lines.

The fact that he continued to receive commissions after the defects in his abilities became apparent is considered to be the ultimate expression of the apparent thinking behind the Victorian follies, i.e. an indication that the person commissioning the work can afford to waste money like this. It became quite fashionable to have your house or garden 'Johnsoned'. This view of Johnson's abilities was not universal, however: it is believed that the town house of the Ramkin family – a rather pleasant old house with well-designed gardens – was never worked on by Johnson because he was shot in the leg by the late Lord Ramkin, (Lady Sybil's grandfather,) the then-owner while walking up its drive one day, "before he could do any real damage," as Lady Sybil put it.

Generally assumed to be dead in the time of most of the books, Johnson is never seen, but was certainly alive around the time of the main events of Night Watch: Lord Snapcase took up the Patricianship in the course of the events chronicled at that time, and he could only have commissioned the Ornamental Cruet Set from Johnson after becoming Patrician. This is also approximately when Johnson must have created the ill-fated mail sorter, as dates in Going Postal suggest that this occurred 30 years before the events chronicled there. Given the nature of the sorter, though, timing may not be a problem.

Terry Pratchett has also known the former British Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, for a number of years and is believed to have based B.S. Johnson on him. Cf The Post Office Mail Sorter below - it is no coincidence that Alan Johnson used to be a postman. B.S. Johnson's name and abilities are also a parody of Capability Brown and also, perhaps, a reference to the experimental writer B. S. Johnson. B.S. Johnson's name and work with organ building is also a reference to famous organ composer J. S. Bach, who shares Johnson's initials reversed. Johnson's last name may be a reference to William Allen Johnson, organ builder and founder of Johnson Organs; he also bears several similarities with architect Philip Johnson, best known for building a Glass House. On the same expanse of land that the iconic House is built are several artistic pieces described by some as "Johnson follies."