Mike’s looking at the TV because he feels too awkward to look directly at Simone while she’s on the phone. Note that he doesn’t say “Watching the football”: he’s not really engaging with it, because his date’s on his mind.

Scott does this later in the album. Not because they’re on a date, or anything. Basically, there’s this coat which goes missing, and… Oh, just listen to the album.

The “Boy Who Cried Wolf” is a common story taken from Aesop’s Fables. It’s about a kid who’s supposed to be looking after a load of sheep, but keeps shouting that there’s a wolf to get attention. So, when the wolf really does come, everyone thinks he’s just… crying… wolf.

Slim Kid switches this round so it’s now the sheep who’s crying wolf. He’s saying that it’s even more difficult to know who to trust than we usually think, because even the people who are least likely to lie about something can be the ones deceiving y'all.

so lovely in each setting,

Since “araye” can mean ‘setting’ (as in the setting of a jewel) or ‘dress’ (as in apple-bottom jeans, boots with the fur and so on), this description looks forward to the dream sequence in which the pearl is identified as a woman. Dress is an important feature of medieval literature: what you wear can signify what you are, and dressing in white – the colour of the pearl – usually signifies purity.

Like a virgin.

In the Public Enemy original, the government tell Chuck D he’s got to join the army. Fatlip parodies this with a problem that’s not quite so life-threatening: his driving licence has been suspended.

People who’ve refused conscription to the army include Chuck D and Muhammed Ali; people whose driving licences have been suspended include Gérard Depardieu and Amanda Bynes. I know which camp I’d rather be in.

A lot is made of the ‘roundness’ of the pearl. It’s a sign of its perfection, since a perfect circle is an artistic ideal that can never, really, be achieved. But it’s also mirrored in the form of the poem itself, which begins with a narrator who’s awake, then falls asleep, then reawakens; which begins with the image of the pearl and ends with it, too; and which is about the eternal life which comes through life, death, and then resurrection to a new life in heaven.

I smell a rat…

Mike’s dropping a reference to one of the great works of English literature, Old Mother Hubbard:

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she came there
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.

which it delights a prince
To chastely set in gold so bright,

The idea of “paye”, which means ‘pleasure’ or ‘delight’, is one which the poet picks up later in Pearl, and by its associations with ‘pay’ or wages sets up the pearl as something of great value.

The prince is question is the Prince of Glory, or Christ, who appears in person later on. The comparison of a worldly prince with a heavenly one crops up in 1 Corinthians 2:8:

Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The word “clanly” is literally translated as ‘cleanly’, although here it is a pun on the senses of ‘brightly’ (as something clean shines brightly) and ‘chastely’.

Some productions have the Cardinal leave several lines before Bosola says this, so that the Cardinal rudely sneaks off, leaving Bosola to finish off his metaphor to nobody in particular. Right from the first scene it’s clear that the Cardinal only wants to talk to people when he can get something from the conversation. As soon as Bosola’s done what the Cardinal wants, he goes back to ignoring him.