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Fred Colon is a fictional character in the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett. He first appears in Guards! Guards!.
Colon is a sergeant in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and appears to have been so for a long time. He was a corporal in the Watch at the time Samuel Vimes first joined, and subsequent to this spent some time in the army (the Duke of Quirm's Middleweight Infantry and then the Duke of Eorle's First Heavy Infantry), before returning to the Watch.
He is described on several occasions as "one of nature's sergeants". He is overweight, and prefers to avoid trouble and exertion. He is also rather unimaginative. When not on desk duty (a post he gets more often than other sergeants, due to working out the rota), he generally "guards" bridges or large buildings against theft.
He is currently the head of the Traffic Squad, which also includes his best friend Nobby Nobbs. This role perfectly fits the above described qualities, especially as the Traffic Squad is "self financing" (i.e. they keep the fines). A brief promotion to acting-captain (in The Fifth Elephant) confirmed what everyone, himself included, had suspected, and he has returned to his previous rank.
He is possibly related to Sergeant Doppelpunkt (interestingly, Dobbelpunkt can be translated as "double-period" or, alternately, colon), one half of the town watch in Bad Blintz, Überwald, nicknamed "Colonesque" by Duke Samuel Vimes (The same person as Ankh-Morpork City Watch Commander Sam Vimes, going by his other title on a diplomatic mission).
Other Media
Colon made a brief appearance in the Cosgrove Hall adaption of Soul Music. In the BBC Radio 4 adaption of Guards! Guards! he was voiced by Stephen Thorne. In the 1988 stageplay he was played by Roger Bingham.
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