References in popular culture
In the episode "Stage Struck" of the ITV sitcom Rising Damp , the character Rupert Rigsby (played by Leonard Rossiter) begins reciting the poem to impress Peter Bowles's character Hilary, who throws him out of the room whilst he is still reciting it, only for Rigsby to barge back in babbling about Mad Carew, to finally be slung out again.
Charles Laughton and Vivien Leigh recite this poem in the film Sidewalks of London , also known as St. Martins Lane (1938). The quote also is referenced in the 2007 Cast album of the film's adaptation, Busker Alley in the "Busker Medley".
A music hall sketch named "Me'em Sahib" features a performer trying to recite this, and keeps getting heckled by two British colonial officers sitting in a box seat, who have just returned and "update" him on the circumstances.
In an episode of Upstairs, Downstairs , Mr. Hudson recites the opening lines at a seaside holiday outing by the staff of 165 Eaton Place on the last day of peace before World War I began.
In the episode "The Fear of Wages" of the long-running radio comedy The Goon Show , characters trying to come up with excuses frequently answer along the lines of; "Well, it's a long story. You see...", and then quoting the opening lines (or variations) of the poem dramatically. In "The Shifting Sands", Bloodnok distorts it again, with "There's a little green-eyed idol to the north of Kathmandu... but the wind blew up the chimney just the same".
John Lennon uses the opening line in the posthumously released song "Nobody Told Me" (changing "one-eyed" to "little").
In Doctor Who , the Doctor uses the opening lines on regaining consciousness in the 4th Doctor story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", although he misattributes them to music hall comic Harry Champion.
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine use part of the opening in their song "Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb", which starts "To the north of Kathmandu there's tiny children sniffing glue".
The poem is parodied in Series 2 of Danger Mouse in the episode "Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God."
Tony Randall reads the poem on the episode of The Muppet Show on which he guest stars.
In an episode of the BBC sitcom Kiss Me Kate , the character Craig Chapman played by Darren Boyd begins reciting the poem with actions, but is prevented from completing it when Chris Langham's Douglas Cameron character refuses to cooperate.
Steptoe and Son actor Harry H. Corbett used this poem as the B-side to his 1963 Pye Records release "Like The Big Guys Do".
In I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again the spoof serial "Curse of the Flying Wombat" is based on the search for the "Green eye of the little yellow dog" in Kathmandu.
In an episode of Duty Free , the British couples enter a talent contest in their hotel. One of their number attempts to recite the poem to the non-English speaking audience, who mistake his earnest performance for a comedy routine. Their laughter is unappreciated, making him retort: "It's not funny! The poor bugger's dead!"
Biggles and the Little Green God (1969) has Biggles seeking a jade statuette believed by South American Indians to be the god Ata-Hua. The poem is directly referenced at the start of the book and occasionally thereafter.
The poem also has a number of references in the 1986 computer game Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure in which various lines of the poem are displayed in banners, where they serve as cryptic clues as to how to solve certain puzzles.
In "The Adventure of the Six Maledictions" by Kim Newman, Mad Carew flees to England with the emerald, pursued by the yellow god's devotees, and turns to the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty for protection. The story was first published in Gaslight Arcanum, and was subsequently collected with Newman's other Moriarty crossover stories in Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles .
In the Masterpiece Theater production of "My Mother and Other Strangers," most of the poem is wonderfully performed in Episode 3.
In the video game VVVVVV , one of the room titles is "The Tomb of Mad Carew."
In her autobiographical book, Moving Mountains, Claire Bertschinger mentions having memorized this poem.
In the novel A Quiet Life In The Country, a Lady Hardcastle Cozy Mystery by T.E. Kinsey, the inspiration of the poem was thanks to Lady Hardcastle solving a murder mystery. "What a story. A golden idol, its shining green eye... I met a bloke once up North. Milton, his name was, Milton Hayes. He writes poems and that. He’d love this one. I might write to him and tell him the story. Might have to embellish it a bit – make it a bit more melodramatic – but it’s got promise."
In his comic ‘’The Far Side’’, Gary Larson referenced this poem for a panel published on 2/21/1988.
In the eighth episode of season two in the comedy series Mind Your Language , Ali Nadeem and Ranjit Singh recite a line of the poem with comedic fervour.
Agnihotra refers to the yajna of offering ghee into the sacred fire as per strict rites, and may include twice-daily heated milk offering made by those in the Śrauta tradition. The ritual has been described by P.E. Dumont as a "fertility charm", and as a "solar charm" which symbolically preserved and created the sun at nightfall and sunrise.
James Milton Hayes MC, known as J. Milton Hayes, was an English actor and poet, best known for his 1911 dramatic monologue "The Green Eye of the Yellow God", much parodied by his contemporary Stanley Holloway and later by The Goon Show. He also wrote and performed many other monologues.
"The Owl and the Pussy-cat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1870 in the American magazine Our Young Folks and again the following year in Lear's own book Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets. Lear wrote the poem for a three-year-old girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend and fellow poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine Symonds. The term "runcible", used for the phrase "runcible spoon", was invented for the poem.
The Kathmandu Valley, also known as the Nepal Valley or Nepa Valley, National Capital Area, is a bowl-shaped valley located in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal. It lies at the crossroads of ancient civilizations of the Indian subcontinent and the broader Asian continent, and has at least 130 important monuments, including several pilgrimage sites for Hindus and Buddhists. There are seven World Heritage Sites within the valley.
Mahananda Sapkota (1896–1977) was a Nepalese social worker, etymologist, linguist, and poet. He received several national awards for his contributions to poetry. His social work focused on education and social awareness particularly in eastern Nepal. A statue of him stands in Inaruwa of Sunsari District.
Siddhidas Mahaju was a Nepalese poet and one of the Four Pillars of Nepal Bhasa. He was at the forefront in the endeavour to revive literature in Nepal Bhasa that had become stagnant as a result of official suppression. He has been honored with the title Great Poet.
Chittadhar Hridaya was a Nepalese poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest literary figures from Nepal in the 20th century.
The Newar language of Nepal has the fourth oldest literature tradition among the Sino-Tibetan languages.
Bouddha, also known as Boudhanath, Khasti Chaitya and Khāsa Chaitya is a stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal. Located about 11 km (6.8 mi) from the center and northeastern outskirts of Kathmandu, its massive mandala makes it one of the largest spherical stupas in Nepal and the world.
"Nobody Told Me" is a song by John Lennon. The B-side features Yoko Ono's "O' Sanity"; both are on the Milk and Honey album. The promo video for the single was made up of clips of footage from Lennon's other videos, as are most posthumous Lennon videos.
"The Face upon the Barroom Floor", aka "The Face on the Floor" and "The Face on the Barroom Floor", is a poem originally written by the poet John Henry Titus in 1872. A later version was adapted from the Titus poem by Hugh Antoine d'Arcy in 1887 and first published in the New York Dispatch.
Thirumangai Alvar, also referred to as Thirumangai Mannan is the last of the 12 Alvar saints of south India, who are known for their affiliation to the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism. He is considered one of the most learned Alvars, and the most superior Alvar in the context of composition of verses. He holds the title Narkavi Perumal, the mark of an excellent poet, and Parakala.
Rani Pokhari, originally known as Nhu Pukhu, is a historic artificial pond located in the heart of Kathmandu, Nepal. The square-shaped tank dates from the 17th century, and was built on the eastern side of the then city limits. It lies just outside a former city gate. The pond is one of Kathmandu's most famous landmarks and is known for its religious and aesthetic significance. Its dimensions are 180m by 140m.
Sankhu is the ancient Newar town located in the north-eastern corner of Kathmandu Valley which is about 17 km from the city center of Kathmandu. Sankhu was formerly divided into three Village Development Committee, namely, Pukhulachhi, Suntol and Bajrayogini. Recently the town of Sankhu has been declared as Shankharapur Municipality merging three above-mentioned VDCs and other neighbouring VDCs. At the time of the 2011 Nepal census it had a population of 4333 living in 928 individual households. Sankhu lies between river Salinakhu in east and Asakhu in the west.
Motiram Bhatta was a Nepalese poet, singer, essayist, publisher, literary critic and biographer. He is considered the first biographer and literary critic of Nepali literature and is credited for starting the first private printing press in Nepal in c. 1888. He also introduced the Ghazal style of poetry and singing in Nepal. Bhatta was a polyglot and alongside Nepali, he had studied in Sanskrit, Persian, English and was also proficient in Bengali, Urdu and Nepal Bhasa.
Sanduk Ruit is an ophthalmologist from Nepal who was involved to restore the sight of over 180,000 people across Africa and Asia using small-incision cataract surgery.
Lekhnath Paudyal is regarded as the founding father of modern Nepali poetry literature in the twentieth-century. His most important contribution is believed to be to the enrichment and refinement of the language rather than to its philosophical breadth. The best of Lekhnath's poems adhered to the old-fashioned conventions of Sanskrit poetics (kavya).
Vishnu Raj Atreya was a Nepali writer and poet, who wrote in Nepali language, Sanskrit language and Awadhi language. He used the title Latosaathi in his poetry works since 1963 A.D. He is considered to be the first person to start writing Haiku in Sanskrit language.
Deepak Shimkhada is a Nepalese-American with a diverse professional background. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and has previously held visiting and adjunct positions at several U.S. universities, including Scripps College, Claremont Graduate University, California State University, Northridge, University of the West, and Claremont School of Theology. His teaching career began in 1980, and while he has retired from full-time teaching, he continues to teach Asian art part-time at Chaffey College.
To the North of Katmandu is a 1986 comedy film directed by Terence Ryan and starring Barbara Bach, Max Boyce, Billy Connolly and Ringo Starr. It was filmed in Kathmandu, Nepal.
