The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 101: The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents Pt. 3 (Rat King Roomba)

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 3 of our recap of “The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents”. Control! Mortality! Estonia?Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:How The Amazing Maurice changed the game for Terry Pratchett - Telegraph The particularly good alt.fan.net thread Francine’s on about [direct link to Pratchett’s first reply but keep scrolling for lots more]Pratchett’s note on Maxfield Parrish skiesCute rats on the reddit -  r/TTSMYF A Dictionary of Superstitions - Oxford Reference The Complicated, Inconclusive Truth Behind Rat Kings - Atlas ObscuraMore than a dozen rodents discovered with their tails tied together in rare ‘rat king’ sighting - Independent [cw: it’s a video; the rats are alive and not very happy]Rat Kings in Estonia (PDF)Matagot - WikipediaThe Truth Shall Make Ye Fret Hogswatch 2021 - YouTubeHogswatch 2020: A Hint of Extravaganza - YouTube--Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

I apologise now for the flailing near the end. I just do. Anna's already setting up the corkball behind her listeners. There is the strings, the the pins, the what's that written in blood? Do you know what? Never mind. I don't want to spoil later in the episode. It's not blood. Very red ink. Ha, very good, very good, very nice, very nice.

Right. So tomorrow we're going to meet up in in real life. I say that like we never do, we do. But but but to do a podcast thing, which is the unusual bit. We're going on a the tree show. Minky Frutt is going on a little cinema date, a little field trip five minutes down the road. I love how you're calling it a field trip. I'm calling it a day.

I was going to turn up with flowers. Sorry, it can be both. No, fine. It's a field trip. OK, when are you flowers? I'll bring a permission form. So you've got permission from your mum. No, actually, I usually I usually mention these things. But no, I'm sure she won't mind.

She trusts you. Cool. I can't really get permission from mine because she's dead. But yeah, I'm sure she'd have been all right with it. It'll be fine. I can ask her via the Weege board after we've recorded if you want. No, she'll very slowly spell out why you bothering me with this. You're 30.

No. Yeah, we're going on an actual true show. Minky Frutt field trip to go and see the amazing Morris movie in an actual cinema. We are. We were worried we weren't going to be able to because it's not showing in very many. But we have a little art house. We have a little art house place down the road. Yeah, which we thought it wasn't showing

out until I remembered that the guy who does the programming is kind of useless and does it like really late on a Monday for that week. Do you want to have inside knowledge? I used to work there. To be honest, it's a nice little place with sofas and we can have a coffee. Yeah, we've got like I really I don't look forward to going to the big cinema. I just don't. I don't.

It's always kind of cold. Yeah. Yeah, the whole experience is not. I fall asleep. Yeah, I will not fall asleep through this one. No, because you'll be trying to furtively take notes in the dark. That's why we've got a little sofa right in the back corner with no one sitting near us at the moment.

So hopefully I can get away with note taking. Correct. Absolutely. Probably not colour coded notes, but the problem is, it's like so the draft of the book and I've just written a chapter that's not my best work because it's been like just a weird two months of trying to write that chapter. Something is written, that's the thing you can redraft it. Yeah.

And it's about the right length, which is less stressful than I thought. I thought it was going to be like half the length and I'd have to bulk it out. But I leave notes to myself in initial drafts that are just in capital saying like this sentence is shit, fix it, or that's a really terrible metaphor. Don't use that. Insert hilarious bit here, as practice might do. Yes, very much so. I'm so scared that they're going to be the equivalent of post-its on my screen

and I'm going to forget they're there and submit a draft to that, like still has some of those in. Are they all in square brackets? They're all in square brackets and capsules. Final search and replace will be fun. Yeah, yeah, good point. Write yourself, write yourself. A checklist, a final checklist.

Do it, like start it now and add things as you think of it. You won't remember at the end. But just add things like search and replace for square bracket notes. Add things like search and replace for this typo. I always know I make all this grammatical error. I always know I make. So for me, it's I've set up like a checklist. I've also got to check the entire thing.

Once it's done against this sort of very specific punctuation and grammar guidelines of the publisher. So that'll be like a separate read through and check. Yeah, that's interesting. I did because obviously never published, but I didn't realize that authors were given the style guides. I was reading through like the style guide thing from the publisher and they said something about please try not to use footnotes.

A lot of people use footnotes in a really dry academic way when writing on fiction. I only want to use them to make really dumb jokes or to be like, by the way, the actor I'm talking about here also did X, Y, Z, because I find those connections interesting. But a lot of people don't like the guy who was in a very popular sitcom that somehow only lasted one season, who also it turned out played Rimmer in the thankfully never aired pilot of the American version of Red Dwarf and then ended up in Gilmore Girls.

Because of course. Yeah. Who was the in Gilmore Girls? Digger Styles. Lorelei dates him for a bit in season three. Oh, the rich one. Yeah. The rich one. Yeah. Nice. He's also a marvelous Miss Maisel, but I know you're not that into that one. Well, I tried. Yeah, no, I understand the cringe.

I am so I'm so easy to put off for the TV show. I really am. It's terrible. I still think you should skip the episode and try and watch a bit more of it because you haven't got to the bit with the very handsome man turns up yet. Oh, really? Is there a handsome man? I'm a very handsome man. No, I don't like the handsome man. I will watch a bit of TV for it.

That's about it. That is the most effort to which I will go. Speaking of which, I think I'm planning a letter. Can you rewatch for my week off like between Christmas and New Year? Oh, one of our listeners tweeted us to let us know that it is now available on a proper thing in the UK. It's on itvx, the itv free streaming service. Oh, I don't know if itv have their shit together

and have a PlayStation out there, if not, it's fine. I'll watch on my computer. But yeah, I'll be watching it on my laptop if I wasn't watching it. That's exciting. Thank you, listener. Because Joanna doesn't have a phone up. Dennis, thank you, Dennis.

Thank you, Dennis. I don't know why I just pulled that out as well. I had a Twitter open. Thank you, Dennis, for telling us about Les Kenny. That's what matters. I was watching some edits of Mean Girls earlier. Because TikTok's Romanian, but slightly tempted at my advanced age,

which I'm going to start saying now, I'm saying one, to learn the jingle bell rock dance. Well, that's probably less ambitious than me wanting to learn the Cecil for Me dance, considering I can't tap dance. So yeah, I'll learn the jingle bell rock dance with you. OK, yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, we can definitely kick a boombox off a stage by accident.

The question is, can we do it on purpose? I don't actually have to wear, like, full heels for this, do I? No, no, no, we'll wear it. I'll wear my work boots. You can wear DMs. Yeah, cool. Thank you. Listeners, we're not...

We're going to do damage to the electronics. Listeners, we're no longer doing a Christmas episode, we're just going to do that. Speaking of Francine, would you like to make a podcast? Yeah, all right, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The True Charming Key Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping

every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is the final part of our discussion of the amazing Morris and his educated rodents, the book. It's been amazing. It's been educational.

There's been rodents. There have been several, at least. Many, many a rodent, many a rodent. Note on spoilers before we crack on. We are a spoiler light podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for the book, The Amazing Morris and his educated rodents. But we will avoid spoiling any major future events

in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there so you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Tap dancing merrily down the street to the sands of a jolly pipe. Perfect.

And or crawling half dead through the sewers covered in mark and therefore blind to your opponent. Couldn't decide on which time to go with. So we did both. I like it. Yeah. Follow up. We've got things to follow up on.

We do. We've got loads of follow up today, haven't we? Do you want to go first? Yeah. So first up, Mark Burrow's friend of the pod, sometimes Oracle, just published a really lovely article in The Telegraph about the significance of The Amazing Morris

as a book in Terry Pratchett's Ove. Is that what it's called? Ove? Am I over-frenching it? Maybe. Within his body of work. Good. Correct.

It's a good article. Go and read it rather than listening to me try and summarise it. We'll link to that in the show notes. It is, yeah. I would like to read out a little bit though because just a bit where Mark picks out a few ways that Pratchett fans were described.

Yep. And now I've lost it. I mean, like this bit, not it. I've not lost it yet. I mean, dangerously close. His books were proper real ale stuff, Newsnet review, and NerdFest, City Life, read by fans down at heavy metal HQ

who also enjoyed sexual inadequacy and ram raiding, NME, who were nerdy-looking, anorak-wearing folk, the observer, and the kind of people that find Red War funny, Q. I mean, most of it's accurate. True. I didn't know there was like a large contingent

that thought finding Red War funny was somehow nerdy, like that fit in with the rest of this. Yeah, I thought Red War just was funny. Yeah. Right? Yeah, like it's... It might be that I'm so entrenched in that kind of nerdy that... No, I think it's like a really widely beloved sitcom.

It's very popular. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so it's very Pratchett, but... My sister, who I would point to as one of the most normalist, normy, like, norm-core people I know regularly and obsessively quotes Red Warped at me, so... And mocks me for not recognizing it

if I don't identify the Red Warped quote immediately. Yeah. Sorry. No, I was just going to say, I feel like finding Red War funny is just quite a normal thing. Yeah, agreed. I kind of tied into that. I found some fucking fantastic spreads

in the various news groups, the old alt.fan.pratchett, which are just so in-depth and rambling and argumentative that I'm not going to go into. So I'm going to link a bunch in the show notes, but the feud that Mark mentions in this article, the kind of trumped up feud between feud and Vettocommas between Pratchett and JK Rowling

was kind of echoed in a speech that he made when he got the Carnegie Award. So there was a line in it that was kind of, like, flippant. Here it is, far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the possibility that evil can be diffused by talking.

And everyone took umbrage at the thought that perhaps we were calling Tolkien's work in some way inferior or lacking. And there are some long threads where Pratchett's kind of explaining the value of fantasy and like, I'm a massive fucking Tolkien fan. Paraphrasing. And but he wrote like a massive fucking essay on it

in the news creates and it's really good. I'm going to link to a bunch of stuff. Exciting. I'm going to go to reading all of those. You've been sending me the old snippet today. Yeah. Have we had misses from the round world at all? We have had some misses from the round world.

PD on Twitter made a really good point that I can't believe I didn't think of or make about a bit in the last section at the end of chapter nine. And it's when Hammond pork is about to be thrown into the rapid and there's just description of anger. He could hear his own thoughts, but they were like a little chirp of insects

against the thunderstorm of his senses. And there wasn't any room for any more anger later down the page. And PD pointed out the anger is so vime slash granny that it springs from the page and forces the comparison on you. It almost feels like it was written for either of them and then cut and pasted here. I've got another bit.

I'd like to add to that, actually, which I didn't manage to shoehorn into any of my bits, but where with the dark and dangerous beans, just like managing to run rings around his own demons in his head seems very granny and vibes to me as well. Oh, very much so. Yeah. Jumped off the page of me in that bit.

Yes. Good observation, PD. I did not draw the connection. And then a couple of people drew a comparison that I can't believe didn't occur to me. It was Andy on Twitter and Sandoval on Reddit, both pointed out a sort of similarity between the Pied Piper story in Round World

and the Glass Clock story from Thief of Time. Same old. The idea of this kind of true story lurking in the background that becomes part of fairy tales. Oh, yeah. I had it and you put it. A story that doesn't quite fit with the others that exists as a type of warning.

That is interesting. Especially if we think that the Pied Piper story was, you know, some kind of disease or epidemic or something. Yeah. The idea that it became fantasy in a story but started as more of a warning, a parable. Don't let this happen. Forgive me if you did cover this in your bit

about the Pied Piper, by the way. But I was looking at rats in Fightclaw of Discworld, obviously. There was another little theory, we're very obsessive about this now, that Fracti or Jacqueline Simpson mentioned. Or maybe the date is wrong and the story really recalls how friars came preaching wild sermons to get youngsters to join the so-called

children's crusade to Jerusalem in 1212. They never got there and those who did not down the road ended up as slaves. Oh, no. I think I read about that theory but I was worried that bit was getting a bit too long. But yeah. That kind of overlaps with some of the theories

about the children effectively being illegally sold to Baltic traders. Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's it. I knew I could remember you saying about the recruitment maybe for the military and then it was maybe young men or the forced migration theories and I was like, ah, this is similar.

Yes, very much so. Painting. Yeah, again from the news groups, actually. Fracti just mentioning those beautiful skies. So he says, a guy called Maxville Parrish used a similar trick in the US in the early part of the 20th century. His blue skies were alive because they were underpainted

with pink. Paul Kidby came close to duplicating that in his amazing Morris picture in the current calendar, which I believe was then put onto the book, the one we talked about last week. Yes. Which then makes a bit more sense because that might have been a bit more landscaping.

So I need to track down the original image there. But yeah, the pink underpainting, very cool, very good. I really like when artists underpaint in orange or red as well, so. You know more about that than I do, but I kind of feel like I should look for that now. Yeah, it's cool. And rats?

Oh, one last one, yeah. Dappadork on Reddit posted a picture of his pet rats and it's really cute. So everyone goes to our subreddit and look at the cute picture of rats. Well, I'm going to do that right now. Especially because they also have adorable names. Do they now?

Do they now? Have we seen these rats before? We've seen these rats before and I think I've sent people to our Reddit before. Dinwiddy, Aldrin, Theo, Captain Pancake. Oh. And Goblin Junior. They're very cute.

Look at their little faces. Your babies. Very nice. Rats are very cute. They really are aren't they? Anyway, right, sorry. Let's talk about this section of Amazing Morris which starts in chapter 10 and goes to the end.

But before we start talking about this section, Francine, do you want to tell us what happened previously on the Amazing Morris and its educated rodents? Certainly. Previously on the Amazing Morris and its educated rodents, our plucky young pair starts unraveling the rat captors' plans. But when fighting evil in the real world, daring do, don't do it.

And they're trussed up in a cellar before you can say, ear, what's all that wire netting for? The rats find out as a tidal wave of fear rolling from a room of imprisoned rodents makes the vanguard forget themselves. Morris meets his conscience and admits the unconscionable while Hammond Pawks manhandled and dropped in a pit to fight a terrier.

Things don't look good. Cornred rats don't cooperate. Until now, that is. Darktown's acrobatics allow the leader leeway for an unsportsmanlike exit, but the rescuer becomes rescued as his mad dash ends in a snap. The kids are freed

and Militia repays her saviour by rubbishing his. But a more pressing matter pushes into the minds of all involved. A spider whispers and shouts its pain and fear and anger. It looks like the rat captors, caught short, as a least of our hero's concerns. Ooh. Ooh, suspense, but not for long because summary. Right.

What happened this week, Joanna? It shouldn't be too long a summary. It's only three chapters. Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you? How much could happen possibly in three chapters? How much emotional pain could we really go through in three short chapters? I do want to quickly point out, actually,

I didn't realise quite how big it was until I was doing this chapter, but chapter 11 is really quite long specifically, and I feel like Pratchett almost kind of forgot he was doing chapters because it's a kid's book and just got really into writing it, and then I thought, oh, fuck, right, it's chapter 12. I like that thought.

Yeah. I've decided that's my headcanon for this. Anyway, so. Imagine being the parent reading that one at bedtime. Jesus. Or he did it very deliberately knowing that. Anyway, in this section, in chapter 10, Mr. Bunzie remembers that there are terrible things

in the dark wood. Hammond pork breathes his last, imparting wisdom to dark tan on his way to the bone rat. Morris is searching for dangerous beans, and dark tan wants to find the rat with a plan as well. Spider's seeing through many rat's eyes, and Keith gets militia-wise about masterpieces. Under unseen control,

they begin to let the caged rats out. Peaches is taking care of dangerous beans, but she's seen the surrounding eyes in the dark. Dark tan inspires the clan to action, and Morris is stuck watching as beans confronts spider. The rat king's full of grandiose plans, but dangerous beans is having none of it. Keith and militia come too, too late,

but the clan arrives just in time to handle the chaos of the kikis. It's time to get the fuck out. In chapter 11, Mr. Bunzie's blue coat has been torn up by brambles. The rat king rages, and what's left of Morris slips away in favor of feline fury.

He fights the spider and a fire starts with only Keith and militia to dampen things down. Morris downs the rat king, and rescues a failing dangerous beans, and then he lays his head down and dies. F5. Morris sits up and witnesses... Sorry about that, I'll start crying.

Alright, we had two options. F5, F4, F3. Three left. We're good. Morris sits up and witnesses the grim squeaker at work. He makes a deal with death that saves dangerous beans life, and it seems everything might just be okay, except there's still a piper to contend with, but the clan has a plan.

Dark tan takes charge in taking back the tunnels, and Sergeant Doppelpunt hears a song as the rats pop in. Corporal Knopf joins the sergeant as they greet the piper, and the mayor's worried about militia. The piper's charging extra, but Keith lays down a challenge. The terms are set as the stupid-looking kid makes promises about the rat problem. Keith plays the trombone and Sardine's dances,

and Cottonwall keeps things quiet as the piper plays for Mr. Clicky. Keith and the piper have a heart-to-heart, make a deal, and lead the rats out of the town carefully. Then the clan come forward to discuss a discussion. That was a one-chapter. Yeah, yeah, it was. Well done. Yeah. In Chapter 12...

Did you breathe it at any point there? No. In Chapter 12, the animals of Ferry Bottom congratulate Ratty Rupert on a job well done. There's a crowd in the rat house talking around a table. The watcher found the rat catches food stores, and the unhappy catches themselves thanks to militia. Morris tells a story about a lucky town as militia returns Mr. Bunzie,

and the committee settles in to make new rules. The mayor and Dark Tan have a meeting, and this might just all work, while Keith and militia talk untruths in a slap-up tea. Somewhere, there is a town shared with rats. A young piper dreams of maedam, and Morris finds a new kid. Good.

What a book. Again, a classic. Practice, free-end. It's free-ending. We love it's free-ending. Triple-ending, we'll call it that. Yeah, except like a lot of action within the triple-ending. Right.

Helicopter and line cloth watch. So rat king as our helicopter. Sure. Chris, but okay. Does it fly? No, but it's sort of round and moving, so. Yeah. All right.

That's my least favourite helicopter so far. All right. It's like a rumor more than a helicopter, isn't it? Sorry, I made it worse. Please continue. Rat king rumor. Sounds like a really bad dance. Sorry, for loincloths,

I'm going with Ollie the snake's collar and tie. Oh, sure. Yeah. Because it's going to start slipping off and eventually end up somewhere near wherever. It makes about as much sense as a snake wearing a loincloth. Don't tie things around tube-shaped animals. Also, just on other things we're keeping track of,

of course, we have an appearance by death. Yeah. Who is well-acquainted with Morris, the teams. Well, the nine lives thing makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Although, of course, it takes a special being to meet death personally every time, as we've met, as we know.

The fact that a cat can interact with death and remember the in-betweeny bits, but then forget them during his time back on the mortal coil is quite good. I enjoy that as a detail. I like that as a little bit, yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, death takes a special interest in cats as well.

Yeah, of course. That's just true. And this is a very interesting cat. Yeah. It's a very interesting cat. It's a very interesting cat. Yeah, of course. That's just true.

And this is a very interesting cat. Exactly. What with his education and all. We know, I think, that Morris has a good place in the afterlife when he finally runs out of those last three. He's probably just going to go move into death's dominion. And death, of course, showing a little bit of that flexibility he's learned in his older age.

Yeah. Death's negotiation. Death entering the negotiation and giving, taking two lives and calling things square is something that we see this death doing. We wouldn't even seem like maybe soul music death doing. Yeah. Yeah.

We've definitely had a few more encounters with humanity. Yeah. That's good. That's him. And, of course, the little bone rat. Squeak. Please desist. The amount of indignance put into that squeak.

Oh, I hope that fits in the film. Oh, we're good. I hope so. Quotes, quotes. Are you first to my first? Yeah, good. You're first. I am first.

Mine is, like, it was really hard to just pick one of Darkshan's inspirational speeches because... I know. God. So I'll shoehorn the other one in later. Good, I was going to say. There's some gorgeous rhetoric in the other one here. Darkshan grasped his sword but leaned on it

for a moment to capture his breath. He spoke next, it was almost in a whisper, because we're in the heart of the dark wood now and we found the dark wood in our hearts and for tonight we are something terrible. He took another breath and his next words were heard only by the rats closest to him. And we have nowhere else to go.

It's all gone creepy. Well done, Darkshan. Yeah. What was your favorite quote? My favorite quote was a little atrom. So we've got... When the rats are reunited with Mr. Banzi. It's a lie, said Peaches.

Maybe it's just a pretty story, said Sardines. Yes, said Dangerous Beans. Yes. He turned his misty pink eyes to Darkshan, who had to stop himself from crouching and added, perhaps it's a map. And I don't know any writer who could get as much fucking information into one love.

Like, that was what, two lines in the book? Is that? That's what we got there. Let's break it down a little bit here. I don't often do this with the quotes, but it's a lie, said Peaches. You know, underlining her character development there. Maybe it's just a pretty story, said Sardines.

A more optimistic one, but who's still a bit of a realist. Yes, said Dangerous Beans, agreeing with them both, but not in a defeatist way. Yes, it's a lie. Yes, it's a pretty story. Yes, it's still useful. And then he turns his misty pink eyes to Darkshan, who had to stop himself from crouching in this moment,

who had to stop himself, like, bowing to a superior in this moment. What? And added, perhaps it's a map. And then, of course, Darkshan's love of maps. And he's always acknowledged that Dangerous Beans has the true map in his head. And fuck me, what a good...

Isn't that a great interaction? It's incredible. I read that. I was like, whoa, fuck. It's so fantastic. That's my intelligent commentary there. I read that and I was like, whoa, fuck, more in-depth intellectual analysis

that the tree shall make you fret. I wonder why I never got a degree. Right. Because you didn't go to university. Oh, yeah, that's it. But characters. Don't just give them out unless you're very practical. Unless you happen to be a literary genius, fucks sake.

I could be a literary genius. I just don't want to. Speaking of geniuses, Maurice. Maurice. Maurice. I found it interesting that there's a... I think I made a gas boat comparison before. But I think there's quite a clear gas boat parallel here

where early in the section, in Chapter 10, as he's going through the tunnels, he explains his retirement plan to his conscience. Yes. Of dying himself black and being a lucky black cat that turns up on an old lady's doorstep with a gold coin once a month. Yeah.

That's sweet. It's like... I know the fairy tales. Actually, fuck, that could have been a good obscure reference. If I can find something about that in the coffee break, I'm replacing one. Okay, great. And then much like gas boat,

who gets given a very nice, warm place to live with a lovely collar and a nice food bowl, he completely rejects that retirement plan and decides to bugger off and do his own thing. I know. I love it. To tie into spoilers that a big theme of what I want to talk about this episode is stories.

Oh, really? Fuck. Yeah, I know. Someone like... I know, right? Especially in this story. He chooses his own ending by opting to continue living in stories.

He knows how it goes. He finds the kid with the knotted handkerchief on a stick. Yeah. You want to be Lord Mayor? Which I like the idea of him carrying around some kind of CV as well. Like, so I made this one stupid-looking kid, Lord Mayor, in this weird town full of rats.

So... Yeah. I guess it was hinted at that Keith eventually becomes Mayor, isn't it? Like, he was like, how long did it take to become Mayor? Yeah. But obviously, he's still a kid.

Yeah. Not yet. Not yet, Keith. Also, I quite like Maurice's brief line about the humans going, you can talk and he's like, well, don't expect me to pronounce difficult words like Marmalade or Lombago.

Yeah. I won't be giving after dinner speeches. The bit where Maurice breaks... Yes. ...is very well done, I think. And the idea of the dam breaking, I think comes as a bit of a shock, even though we know that he's been holding himself back

all this time, because he's done it in a very rye together way, apart from like the breakdown where he regretted having done bad things in a second. Yeah. So to see that kind of ferocity that was always underneath, I think adds another layer to the,

wow, you're doing a good job, buddy. Yeah. And luckily, let out at the right time, like the Rat King, obviously, massively did not think it through. Forgot there was a cat there, maybe. Yeah. The rats all,

although they've become more intelligent and have, you know, there's more to them, they still to a certain extent act within their instincts by having a leader fighting each other, waddling on things, whereas Maurice has had to go much further against his instincts to be a predator around prey and not be pouncing.

Yeah. Like the recurring line is you can always trust a cat to be a cat, but he really doesn't get to be a cat very much. No. But what he does get to be is great fun. Oh, yeah. Wow.

Speaking of great fun, Sardines. I was like, which character's next? Okay. No, great fun. Is that good? Yes. He is good fun.

I've been saving this theory till we got to the last section, because there's been so many characters to talk about, but I think it's best moment is here of Sardines having a certain amount of nanny-ognus to him. Okay. Have you looked at how he's interacting with Darktan, explaining like, you need to act as the leader. When Darktan says,

I'm going to have to keep an eye on you. You think like Maurice, he says, don't worry about me. I'm small. I got to dance. You've got to give him a show thing. The way nanny-og kind of supports Granny in being the friendly dancing one behind the power.

Yeah. And the way, like we talked about in The Seeing Little Fishes, the way the committee don't go to Granny, they go to nanny-og to talk about Granny. Yeah. Exactly. The intermediary.

I think there's just, there's a hint of that to Sardines, and I really enjoy that about the character. My note on it, was it reminded me of what you were telling me about the court gestures always being the advisors in history? Oh, yeah.

Very much that too. So he's like the, obviously the entertainer, the little tap dancer. I can't help it dance. But also, Sire, or in this case, Darktan,

perhaps we should do this than the other. So we don't all die. What's the term that we can never remember for the power behind the red? Eminence, grease? Yeah. I feel like, yeah. I think we've read so many nanny-og attempts at that.

I don't actually know how it's pronounced anymore. Eminence, grease? I'm going to stick with Eminence, grease. Nanny-og does it better. Good. Yeah. If you look at nanny-og's relationship to King Varence as well,

just sort of Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very quietly letting you know how the country should probably be run. Oh, meta, meta. Because Varence, of course, was a fool. Exactly. It's gone full circle.

And you reminded me of King Varence by talking about court gestures. Oh, this thing went open. Wake up, people. Right. All right. No, we've got to close it again. Darktown.

Darktown. Just his amazing, like, addressing the troops' moment. Like I have mentioned, his dark wood speech. Mm-hmm. And that's like bone-chilling, especially because it's not a shouty,

come on, we can do this, lads. It's a very quiet, come on, we can do this, lads. Yeah. And he gets... It's very come-on-dos in the... Yeah, it was the same thing I was talking about in the first episode

of him being this kind of very war movie, trope leader. Yeah. When he's trying to get them to go down and return to where spider is, effectively, and find dangerous beings.

And he's talking about, we're in the dark, but now there's something terrible down there that hides behind your fear. We're going to find it and drag it out, and we're going to make it wish we'd never been born. Yeah.

And then he takes the blood from his trap wound and, like, daubs each of the rat's heads with it. I know. It's so fucking... What? I think...

I think that's the same speech as the one I noted. It might have been a little bit before, but the little uno reverse he did with something fearful, something new,

something sudden, said Darktown leaning forward. And it's you. Yes. All of you. I was like, oh, that's a good bit of rhetoric. Love that. Good.

He's a natural speaker. He is. He's a good speaker. I made you say the stupid word. I'm easily led. And I did kind of occurs to me that he reminds me a little bit of Vimes, but it's like a Vimes

we haven't quite met yet. Yeah. Like, Vimes has the capacity to do this and put blood on people's foreheads if he needs to. I'm not sure. OK, now we need to revisit this

in a month. OK, yes. I have thoughts, but I can't do it without spoilers. But then you get this contrast at the end of Darktown, just very tired with the mayor

and very matter-of-factly sort of sort of doing the automatic politician. If you had a nice time in our town, he's like, well, I was in a trap and there was a war. Yeah, not great,

mate, to be honest. But then he sort of realises the mayor needs this and he's like, it's going to work. Like, it's fine. Yeah, and then he takes the mayor's advice as well.

And he asks the mayor about like leadership and things, doesn't he? Yeah. They have a really lovely interaction. Yeah, that was one

I wasn't expecting, but I love the camaraderie between the two leaders. Yeah. It's the hint of done with the shit about the leaders that I enjoy.

Yes, in very different ways. I also got one of my favourite little jokes in the book, which is when Darktown saying, you know, I thought all you had to do to be a leader was blah, blah, blah.

And the mayor's like, it's a bit like that. And I said, you bite them in the neck. Yeah, I love that. There were a few laugh out loud moments in this last section, which I

didn't get many of in the rest of the book. Not going to lie. Oh, certainly the middle part in the front. That was a few. Something this whole section does really well.

There's a couple of different moments is breaks the tension because like for the right up to almost the end of chapter 11, like until the stuff with the Piper really starts, you're like holding your breath.

You've seen all these horrible fights and death scenes and all the stuff with spider. And it's like the book gives you permission to laugh, especially when the Piper plays as Piper. Mr. Clicky comes out.

Yeah. And you get this thing about all the people watching burst out laughing and it's like opening it down for the reader as well. Yeah. I wonder if it's kind of a bit

clearer because it is for children and here's the moment of, you know, it's OK. It's all right now. The bad bits are over. Yeah. Now it's fun.

And for the parents, you can finish reading this chapter and they won't have that much. Yeah. But yeah, and he doesn't, he doesn't do the annoying like Marvel movie thing of

breaking the tension halfway through a tense scene. Yeah. No, he lets the tense scene. Yeah. I mean, you get a bit of the breaking the tension with just Morris talking to death

because especially if you're reading this as someone who's read other disc world books, like it's reassuring when death turns up. Yeah. It kind of gives a new meaning to Gallo's humour, doesn't it?

Yeah. Like literally you're in between life and death, joking around with death and that doesn't, it doesn't get rid of the tension, but it adds like,

yeah, that familiarity there. Allows Morris to still be himself and like. Yeah, Morris goes back to being Morris-y. Yeah. Not Morris-y. Yeah.

Anyway, dangerous beings. Oh, fuck. Yeah, good. Good lad. Good lad. Get some good moments. When he's standing up to Spider

and Spider's talking him into this, like Spider's whole thing is revenge against the humans for treating us like vermin and humans are the true vermin and, but it's with this side of domination and you will submit

to me and I will speak for all of us and create it utopia or whatever. Like it's a very kind of classic villain motivation in a way, like villain that thinks they're doing the right thing and being standing up and being

the, not the hero in the way Darktown is, is the physical hero. Darktown is the one that goes and organizes the war. Yeah. But the,

the ethical hero confronting Spider with, you have plans for rats. Well, I have dreams for them. Yes. And that just belief that's driving him more than any other that he wants to find

the best rats can be, whatever that is. He doesn't know yet, but he knows it's more than Spider's offering and that seeding control is not the way to get to where they want to be. Yeah.

Definitely. I find it interesting that, that he kind of considers human, not humanity, but what we would consider human ethics to be, to be the thing to aim for. Like that's come along with his

intelligence because I thought, I had a moment when I was reading this, this interaction where I was like, just a good point from the rat king when he went, oh, so you think you are a good rat, but a good rat is one that steals most.

You think a good rat is rat on waste code. Little human was fair. Yeah. I'm like, actually, do you know what's a good point? We're being a bit anthropocentric here and obviously we are because

what the fuck? How are you going to write a book about rat morals in a very rat way? I like that Fratchit pointed that out. And I think he did it. Yeah. You know, he didn't have to.

I think he did it in a way where he was acknowledging a, you know, the rat king is not despite at all an unsympathetic character. No. He has, as you say, some classic villain trope

origin story, but done in a very odd way. In an odd way, in a refreshing way, and there's kind of this implication that what the rat king wants wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for all of the horrible mind control. Yeah.

Yeah. If it wasn't, yeah. It's the wild. Yeah. No, it is, of course, really anthropocentric and you can't just make up rat morals, but it kind of goes back a bit to what I was

saying about creating ethics and morality in a belief system from scratch very quickly. And this is how they end up with Mr. Bunze as their tone. But that is the thing. This is still morals and ethics in development.

Yeah. So it's not just about being more human, but it's about being what can be better. And a lot of it comes down to safety and living in peace. Yeah. Which I suppose is more universal,

isn't it? You want to preserve others of your kind. Yeah. And rats in this case are, you know, they're a co-operative species and they do show generosity and they show

reciprocation. I actually, sorry, I've flicked back to the thing I promised I wouldn't read from now. It's just the news group threads because actually practice makes some direct points about this,

which I think we've heard in Ferris forms from him before, but that justice is a story. There's not an atom of it in the universe, but we're committed to a belief in it and legislate on the basis that it exists.

And another comment. The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of fairies and more truly fantastic. In the book, the rats go to war, which is, I hope, gripping, but then they make peace, which is

astonishing. I like that. All of this is in a fucking argument he's having in a thread. Amazing. The justice is fantasy thing. That's straight out of Hogfather,

though, isn't it? Yes. We're getting festive again. Getting festive with death and justice. Growing down every atom of, growing down the universe into its finest parts.

I'm getting the quote wrong. Show me a single atom of justice. Yeah. And then find the bean and run through the forest. Yeah. That's it, right? Yeah.

That's what I'm doing on Christmas. Oh, yeah. There's not much forest around here and finding a bean and running through a nature reserve. Baked bean. You go with what you got. Keith.

Keith. Keith. So, Milisha's been looking for Keith's role in the story through the whole book. You know, he's not the romantic interest. Maybe he's just the man in the

street. And it's the piper who says, it's always a kid like you with a stupid-looking face. Like, Keith had this role in the story all along. And it was to be the kid with a stupid-looking face.

He says, go for your piccolo, mister. I really... I found that exact quote because that was the... You know, kid, he said, this isn't the first time some kid has tried this.

I'm walking down the street. Someone yells, go for your piccolo, mister. And I turn around and it's always a kid like you with a stupid-looking face. I'll come back that bit later because that is a reference.

But I just... Yeah. The first time I read that, I just fucking really giggled at that. Go for your piccolo, mister. And there's always a kid like you.

Like, just the idea of going into town. There's always some kid with a piccolo. Ready to throw down. You know what? It's like you walk into a new town.

I apologise if this steps on your restaurants for later, but... Quite so. Similar, but stepping on my own toes later. I was walking through the living room earlier just for the podcast.

And Tidak said, God, what is it with the stony run rat kings trying my best to say it in the same tone of voice as like Seinfeld might say about airplane food. Just like an observational comedy to see if you'd be forced

to go, huh. But he was like, I don't know. What is it about? I was like, never mind. I'll tell you later. It doesn't work no matter how convincing you try and make it. So that's a clipboard theory

slightly tarnished. I feel like Estonia and Rat Kings is a bit suspicious. Yeah. And the militia, which also one of my favourite lines in the book is when the mayor's worried she hasn't gone home and

the sergeant's like, you worried something's happened to her. No, I'm worried she's happened to someone. Very witchy. And goes into the mystery she's been dealing with. She tracked down the mysterious

headless horseman. He was a very short man with a very high collar. And I won't read the whole thing out, but the mystery of smugglers windmill. Yes. Which

ends on, and there's the whole thing. And Mr. Vagle and Mr. Sheum went round to his house and hid him with a last stand for Mr. Sheum and a last what, sir? It's a last. It's a wooden foot.

Shoemaker's use. Which is one of those really stupid like police academy type interactions. Yeah. But I noticed from the way militias, the stuff militia does and the way militia has been in

this book that although what she talks about is fairy tales, you know, that's I think from her aunts. Everything she does is adventure stories. It's very famous five. Yes.

Yeah. And she's still young. Maybe that's it. Yeah. She might be talking about fairy tales, but the basis for the kind of stories she loves are these adventure stories.

That may or may not even exist in the Discworld. Maybe she's just picked up some inspiration particles from somewhere. Sergeant Doppelpunkton Corporal Knopf. This is the most blatant like I've

nicked a bit from elsewhere in Discworld. Yeah. So that's non-purpose. Apologies for the fact I'm butchering the German, but Doppelpunkt is German for colon as in the punctuation.

Doppeldopp. Yes. And obviously Knopf is Knopf's. Yep. But there before we even get the Mr. Clicky moments, some of my favorite little comedy bits, like they're talking about all

the weird stuff that's happening and Knopf saying there was a rap dancing on my dressing table and Sergeant Doppelpunkton responding with that's odd. I was like, yeah, it's more than odd. No, it's odd.

You've got a dressing table. You're not even married. I've got a mirror. My favorite bit was when he was talking to the mayor. I think he's holding up the rat. No, it's a nice little chap, sir.

Very clean. Reminds me of a hamstrase to have when I was allowed, sir. Well, thank you, Sergeant. Well done. Please go in. His name was Horace. Added the Sergeant.

Helpfully. Thank you, Sergeant. And now it does me good to see little cheeks bulging with grub again, sir. Thank you, Sergeant. Which was very colon in front of veterinary after the sugar

queues. Yeah. That was exactly the same bit I had written down. It's just something about his name was Horace. Said the Sergeant. He could see little cheeks bulging

with grub. Horace. Oh, he does sergeants so well and or these books are my entire basis for what sergeants are. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. And then we've got the

Piper himself having a shave in the fountain while he's greeted. Dressed in black and white. Dressed in black and white. Yeah. No, we had the same thing. He's dressed as a magpie.

Hello, folklore. Yeah. Turning up. One of them. Dressed as a magpie. And then working together. Two of them. And want some gold.

But the whole thing, the Pied Piper was brightly coloured. That's what the Pied came from. Yeah. There's a little superstition just around Pied things in general, interestingly. Yeah.

Well, I was just going to go Pied Magpie. Oh, sure. Yeah. Magpie Pied Piper. This is the Magpie Pied Piper. Magpie Pied Piper. Yeah.

Anyway, sorry. Yeah. No, lots of superstitions about those things. Oh, no, I wasn't going to go into it or anything. Yeah. Yeah.

Was apparently looking at a Pied colour horse was good luck, but seeing its tail was bad luck. Is that Pied like Peerbold? Yeah. The Peerbold Prince. Sorry. Wrong book series.

OK. My Oxford superstitions getting distracted moment earlier. But then you have also, they're talking about, you know, the things the Pied Piper has apparently done in other places. Obviously, there's the

reference to the Hamelin story. You know, he played his pipe and led all the kids off into the mountains. There's also something about when he was hired to get rid of a plague of Mymatis in Clatch. Yes.

Terry Pratchett's consistent loathing of Mymatis will never not bring our joy. Very good, yeah. And there's a brilliant line where the mayor's worried about being late and he's saying, you know, the mayor was late to meet

him in a different town. He played his pipe and turned him into a badger. And then just later down the page, there's a joke about vole and pork sausages. And why do small British mammals make really good punch

lines? I don't know. It's the same reason that specific biscuits do, isn't it? It's the... Yeah. Specificity and the kind of impotence of them and the...

Yeah. But just some... I don't know why I don't know if I was just mildly hysterical by the time I was working on this section, but turned him into a badger. Baldrick.

It's very much that. And then he was... Oh yeah, the mayor, obviously, who when he's first trying to figure out if he's really going to sit down and talk to these rats, gets described as had the slightly haunted expression of

anyone who'd been talked to by Morris for any length of time. Again, just classically fractured line that. Yeah. There's also a great moment later on when he's in his office with Dartan and he takes

Dartan over to the window and says, you know, see the river, the houses, the people in the streets, I have to make it all work. And I thought that was very veterinary. Yeah.

Not in the same way. Like he's not cold and calculating and... But this is like, what if someone else is in veterinary's position and has to make it all work, but isn't veterinary? Yeah.

It's a little town and obviously he's not like the brightest key in the set. Like he's... He means well. He does well. Yeah, he does. But no one, like no one in the

town thought too hard about the fact that... The boot tails and the... Yeah. Yeah. Which obviously veterinary would have been ten... Ten steps ahead.

Yes. Absolutely. Oh, and the last one is just something that delighted me really. I've shown you an extra little bit. But Mr.

Schlummer, who is the very old councilman who sort of wakes up as it's all happening and just goes, you're a cat and Morris is sort of a... Oh, you see, so this is the future. I always wonder when that was

going to happen. Cats talk now too. Well done. Got to move with the things that move, obviously. Yep. Obviously. And I like that this dude is

just immediately like, oh, we're talking to rats. Cats talk. Move with the times. I like, it's the complete opposite of the old man's set in his ways thing. Absolutely.

I'm actually speaking of and going back. The mayor and dark ten interaction. Love the introduction of consent again. The whole, oh, hey, can I pick you up?

No, don't like that. All right. Tell you what, I will stand on your hand. You can lift me up to this point. We'll do this and that. Establishing that very early on.

Very good. Yeah. The boundaries between them. I really enjoy that as well. Just one location bit quickly is not really a location, but right at the beginning of the section is Morris is looking for

the kids. And he's looking underground. There wasn't a lot of earth under the town. Sellers and grating. And bits of forgotten buildings formed a sort of honeycomb. And I brought this up right in

the first section. This is a cool thing Pratchett does with these cities underneath cities, these towns underneath towns. Oh, yeah, yeah. But also I love it as a description of like a kid's

dream. Like in a kid's adventure book with this honeycomb town to explore the underneath things. And I love it. I love it. I love it.

I love it. I love it. I love it. Explore the underneath of Yeah, there's something so captivating about that, like as something in a kid's book and as something that would

be like in adventure book, yeah, I'm very militia an adventure on your doorstep. Exactly. So yes, I just really enjoyed that in the catch. Can get home in time to slap up t medals all round

throws around. You know, we don't get enough medals Trina. transformation, but, supposedly get all of participation Asian trophies. I guess we didn't participate in the right things. We're going on an adventure to the Cinemaster Mario. Can we have a medal for that? Yeah, okay. I might have to fashion our own, but that's fine.

Right, little bits we liked. Francine, do you want to kick us off with masterpieces? I do. I'm in a real masterpiece, said Keith. I grew up in a big city with guilds everywhere. That's how I know. A masterpiece is something that an apprentice makes at the end of his training to show the senior members of the guild that he deserves to be a master, a full member. You understand? There might be a great symphony or a beautiful piece of carving or a batch of magnificent loaves, his masterpiece. And I love that. That's something I've talked about with Jack before, I think he told me about it, because it's one of those interesting

words that's come to mean something not completely different, but dissimilar to the original. So now people use masterpieces to almost mean magnum opus, their great work of their life, when really it's their first, like, qualified views on the face that qualifies them. And of course, it'll probably be more high effects than a lot of other ones. It would be like their dissertation or their... Yeah. Yeah, something like that. So I like that. I think that's interesting. I would like to dig further into what kind of professions had what kind of masterpiece. I learned that fact from this book. Like, that's where I

learned what a masterpiece went, because I read this at such an age. But it does mean I've always been one of those obnoxious people. So like, whenever I hear someone say the word, I'm like, well, actually, did you know? There's a norm zero chance that you told Jack this and he told me. Yeah, it was entirely considering we spent so much of our lives just swapping facts between us all. That's an entirely... There's a strong chance he got it from me. So, Anke Moorporkills, what do we think the masterpieces are? Obviously, we know

how the assassin's graduation works already. Yeah. Okay, what else we got? We've got a full masterpiece. Masterpiece would be, we may have heard this already, but maybe a perfectly executed five custom pie to the face of your colleagues. Just a really peaceful, prattful. Beautiful, prattful, yeah. With a ladder. Yeah, that'd be good. What were the Guild of Candlemakers? Oh, no, okay. Like a really huge pillar candle and incredible candelabra. You know, those candles that kind of melt away in layers? Oh, yeah, maybe. Yeah, so something like that, but

with like a story that's told in between each layer. Yeah, quite possible. I'm not being practical here. I'm just being what you could get away with in a novel. How about beggars? Oh, beggars Guild. I feel like it's got to be managing to claim a really lot. Like if you consider the fact that the Queen Beggar is doing, because you couldn't lend us money for a small mansion. So I feel like it's got to be like a big take. Yeah, but it has to be appropriate, doesn't it? Yeah, like getting away with it in a rich part of town, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Managing to beg like a perfect three course meal, but from like different restaurants or

something. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Okay, let's not do seamstresses. That's for the true show, make you for it after dark. Okay, cool. All right, good. Crop circles. Crop circles. Yeah, this is just a wonderful turning around you get just a yes, it's just like crop circles. No matter how many aliens own up to making them, there are always a few diehards who believe that humans go out with garden rollers in the middle of the night. It's a very, oh, wouldn't it be nice if cameras worked by light instead of evidence? There's also Steve made this comment actually last week and then

remember it wasn't till this section. The bit about crop circles feels like it parachuted in from another book. It feels like Terry, but I'm not sure where it fits in Discworld. Yeah, that's a good point. Ha, agree. How about you? What's something you liked? I like this carries on from the sleuthing Craig has done. I think this might be another little bit of evidence for that misattributed quote in ancient Egypt, council workships, it's God's forgotten this that Morris asks death, is there a big cat in the sky? And death says, of course, there are no cat work cat gods that would be too much like work. So we've got it links to it. It's

obviously not the quote. No, you can see how it ended up this way. But yeah, yes. General murmuring. Oh, this is one of my favorite moments. And I'm going to read out the bit. This is when the kid is standing up to the piper and trying to get him to have let him get him to do the challenge as it were. Oh, sure. Morris is wandering around the crowd shouting, give the kid a chance at least to be cheaper. No, none of the crowd actually joins in. Instead, there was a general murmuring, no real words, nothing that would get anyone into any trouble if the piper turned nasty, but a mustering indicating in a general sense, without wishing to cause

umbrage and seeing everyone's point of view and taking one thing with another and all things being equal, that people would like to see the boy given a chance if it's all right with you, no offence meant for like, for like general punctuationless not speech is another thing Terry Pratchett does really well. I don't know if I've mentioned that before, but he does little bits like that. And I always love them. They're fantastic. Yeah, it's um, like a more polite version of the Ang Moorpork public in the

truth. Yes, very much so. Yelling at the suicidal man. Yeah. Nice way to say that. One of the alt.net ones again. This is about when the piper walks into town and they have that whole exchange like we were laughing about earlier. One of the commenters says the encounter between the stupid kid, what's his name Keith and the professional rat piper? Was that to take on the for a few dollars more scene

where Clint Eastwood meets Lee van Cleef, especially the piper assembling his pipe looked a lot like Cole Mortimer assembling his bundt lined special long barrel revolver. And Pratchett replies, yes, see, I own up to a bullseye. I'm amazed no one else ever mentions it. Although to be honest, that scene was itself based on other cowboy movies. As was the if you beat me one day, you'll be working walking down the street and some kid bit, which is enough of a classic gunfight line to have been parodied by Gary Larson.

So yeah, I didn't see that in there. I was about to say I didn't see that in the annotated Pratchett, but there's very little on this is where the decline of that website has very much set in, which is a shame. Because now we're going to do our own research. I know. Should we talk about some of the biggest stuff? Yeah. So I was looking at rat folklore in general.

I'm going to talk about rat kings, but I thought I'd start off with a nice of it that I found that's also very relevant. One of the superstitions I found in the Oxford Addictionary of superstitions, one of my favorite little nonsense books, is that getting rid of rats and mice apparently often comes down to communicating with them, speaking nicely with them, negotiating. So here's a bit from the Daily Express in 1962, when they made a complaint of mice in the kitchen.

Lady Dowdy got rid of them by talking to them in a kindly way. She sat on the stairs under the hole and just said, you're spoiling my home. It wouldn't be safe for you to come down because we have a big cat. So do you think you could find somewhere else to live? And it goes all the way back to at least the 1500s that I couldn't see even earlier. But yeah, rats and mice can be communicated with, can be negotiated with. And I thought that was very relevant to this. Excellent.

As a nice bit of superstition. Moving swiftly onwards to horrors beyond mankind's comprehension, but possibly excellent creation. Rat Kings. What a fucking horrifying thought, isn't it? Yep. What a visceral, disgusting villain as well in a, in a very, it's such a grotesque. And that in itself, I think is very interesting to use as a villain in a

children's book, especially when the, the horror of it starts long before you know what it is and know that it's that grotesque. So the horror doesn't come from what it is, but it's definitely underlined by that. But to give what a Rat King is, perhaps it's outro to the book, talks about it briefly. Lawther's note at the end. Yeah, yeah. Rat Kings really exist. How they come into existence is a mystery in this book.

Militia mentions a couple of the series. I'm indebted to Dr. Jack Cohen for a more modern and depressing one, which is that down the ages, some cruel and inventive people have had altogether too much time on their hands. There's been a little more prodding into the subject since then that suggests that possibly one or two might have naturally formed over the years. It seems likely that almost all of the examples have been made by man, although not thankfully with live rats, because that would be impossible.

According to rat experts, basically, you can be as good a rat catcher as you like. You are not going to tie conscious rat's tails together like that. And that's nice to know, isn't it? But yeah, no, this is something I don't know if we actually said that there is a like just for any listeners that don't know, there is evidence of rat kings. There are pickled ones in jars and the like. Yeah, that's a very real thing. Yeah, yeah.

So I'll link to a couple of articles. Obviously, content warning there. Pretty grim. There's been a living one found in 2021. It's Estonia and it's. It's not as like grim as maybe this might be, but it's not nice. Obviously, there are some theories as to how these can actually form. The tails could just be exposed to something sticky.

They could tree sap, sebum. Well, this is, I don't know if you remember this. It was quite a long time ago, but we learned squirrel kings were a real thing. Yes, we did. I thought I've read the squirrel king thing before. Where was that? It was because your husband had a dream about them and thought he'd imagined it and then realized that he looked it up the next day and found out they were an

actual thing. I don't remember. It's all fantastic. Yeah. So some zoologists say that a living rat king, certainly, is incredibly unlikely. They would bite each other's tail. They would die of infection, all of this stuff, and that's not saying possible. Again, they did kind of find one in Estonia. However, because of the squirrel kings that have been found,

there's no reason to think that this could never have happened. And perhaps a lot of mythology sprang up because of that. And that seems likely. It seems an odd thing to make up. Yeah. Completely out of nothing in Estonia, as I say, this is where the 2021 one was found. And I keep seeing the country of Estonia just pop up whenever I read about rat kings, which is more often than you think.

So I was like, what is it with Estonia and rat kings? I found a little bit about it. At least one of the things might be because rat kings are more likely in very cold countries because a lot of it is the kind of gluing freezing. So you've got the sap and you've got the freezing. And then once this has kind of happened and the knot gets tightened is the idea. And it's very gross. And also because the black rat, which is not as common in Northern Europe,

but it's found in Estonia. So it's the kind of combination of the black rat and the cold winters because brown rats don't create rat kings because they've got shorter, thicker, less flexible tails than black rats. Right. So your rat king is always going to be one of the scarier looking rats. This is something I very much read in passing and haven't read into in a lot of detail. But I started quickly looking at rat kings and then realized I was going to go down a rabbit hole.

There's some idea that certain cruel actions around animals with tails, say in the example of rat kings tying tails together. It's more possible for humans to be that cruel because they can't empathize with it because they don't have tails, if that makes sense. Like you can't empathize with the physical feeling of something happening to your tail, as opposed to say, you know, you tread on a dog's paw, you understand what it would feel like if someone trod on your hand. Yeah. Now, to me, I get that definitely.

But as I'm thinking about that, I've got a kind of vestigial sympathy. I feel like in my coccyx. Sorry, vestigial sympathy in my coccyx is possibly the best sentence I've ever had. No, I totally get what you mean. Yeah, like you can feel like that. You can feel that that would be horrible and lack of, yeah. But yeah, definitely, it's harder to imagine, obviously, than a punch in the face. I've said some weird things today, Joanna.

It's not getting better. Anyway, sorry, I derailed you. No, I think I derailed myself, to be honest. But yeah, anyway, point is Black Rat, cold winters. Apparently, there's only one exception to that general rule, which is one that was found in Java. So that's why that's what's with Estonia and Rat Kings. More to the point of this book.

And just why do we find this such a disturbing villain? So I had to think about this because there's come up in a few bits of media that I've read. One book I've mentioned before on the podcast, actually, is a young adult book, The Haunting of Elizabel Cray. And that's about various folkloric monsters, to summarize it very poorly. But at one point, this includes a Rat King. And I redownloaded the book just to have a look at this. And it turns out it's just a mention.

It's just mentioned. It's not even one of the monsters, really. It's like an omen. And that stuck in my head from when I read it when I was 13. I was like, why is it so fucking visceral and weird? I said, I don't know what you think. My couple of bullet points on it were the idea of a mammalian hive is very unnatural. The idea of the group thinks of being very much in the warm blooded.

It doesn't go together, does it, really? Just part of the visceral fear it creates is to do with this idea of how it moves. There's something about lots of flowing, especially because I'm terrified of spiders. And this one in particular, yeah. Yeah, the description of how it moves is terrifying. And just the visual of it coming forward into the light. And I'll dive into that. But it's just something about these eight rats.

Yeah, definitely. Eight, by the way. Yeah, eight. Significantly. I mean, I think also that made the spider thing work. Oh, of course, yeah. It's also just an example of the shit that humans can do and a manifestation of maybe what we feel the consequence ought to be.

Yes. As Pratchett has described in many of his things, when something, when a heavy emotion or a heavy bit of belief, can instill life into something or instill a new kind of life into something. And in this case, it is just wanton cruelty. Create this severe sense of outrage. Yeah, the outrage and the overwhelming wish to organize and defend and attack to defend. And just the...

And for what the Rat King sees as justice. Yeah. To take us back around to the justice thing. Yeah, Rat King justice. Yeah. Yeah, it's... Good King justice. Good Rat King justice first looked out.

No, I thought there was something there. I wish I could have ad-libbed something there, but I'm sorry I cannot. But yeah, it's just... It's a fucking creepy villain and it's really well, it's really well done in that it's creepy. Before you meet it, it's creepier when you meet it. The sympathy is still there. The way that it is dissembled and then immediately ceases to be very interesting.

So the power was instilled into it by the pain, by the fear, by the idiocy of humanity. But also by, perhaps, by the magic of hate by the physical... Acres of it. ...magical laws of the disc. Yeah. Yeah, just really fucking creepy stuff. It's really incredible writing. And you've kind of thought a bit more about fear, haven't you?

Yeah, no. So to go into, like, full flail mode. Like, we spent a lot of last week just repeatedly saying in a very incredulous tone of voice, like, this is a kid's book. Yeah. And I want to talk about why this fear and horror and this mortality, mortality stuff really works as a kid's book. Okay.

But just those moments of fear, of sheer horror. Early in the section where Peach is, she thinks alone we're dangerous beings and she likes a match and she sees the eyes surrounding her. And there are eyes everywhere and Peach is thinking to herself, what's the worst part that I can see the eyes that I'm going to know they're still there when the match goes out? That is terrifying. That is very much a face of the window vibes.

Yeah. So much so. Which is my personal biggest fear when I'm alone. That's why my castings are closed. Oh, yes. And I've got blackout curtains because it's fucking cold out. But this stuff with spider is a villain. As you were saying, it's a terrifying villain.

It's the movement. It's the anger. It's the fact that it's this villain that has come as a result of human actions. But the other thing is a lack of control is a really fundamental fear. And that's why I think embracing that fear really makes this work as a children's book. Because when you are a kid, there is so little that you have control over that it can become a fear. So this idea of this revenge plan and when it comes forth, like I said,

it's so creepy. It steps into the light and the tails were twisted together into one huge ugly knot. Each rat was blind. As the voice of spider thundered in his head, the eight rats reared and tugged at the knot. Like everything about that is horrifyingly visceral. But the big fear of it is he's taken self-control away from all of these rats. He is controlling them. He wants to take it from dangerous beings as well.

He's presenting it as a good thing. While he's presenting that as a good thing to dangerous beings, Morris is stuck unable to move knowing that the rat king could stop his lungs at any moment. There is a repeating theme of control, isn't there? And as you say, Morris is very controlling in his way. It's very manipulative. You pointed out last episode, the amount of character motivation that was given to Militia just by mentioning that she wanted to control her story.

Yeah, exactly. It's such a powerful theme for all this time. That the pike are controlling things with a fucking pipe. Oh, yeah, that's the thing. That's kind of an obvious one that I didn't think of, so thank you. But yeah, so you can genuinely see how terrifying this lack of control is, even as it's being presented as a good thing to be dangerous beings. And dangerous beings' response is eventually that he can feel the rat king trying to take

over his head and finds a place in his head the rat king can't get to. You're so cool. He says, I can control the dark inside, which is where all of the darkness is. And if I am not more than a rat, then I am nothing at all. And I eat the darkness inside. It's so good to go back to that when we were just talking about it in Thief of Time. But it's here. It's that finding that really incredible inner power of,

I know what the darkness behind the eyes is now. And that means I... And it's so many parables to Lady Lejeune. Especially when you consider that throughout this book, dangerous beings has been shown to find so much comfort in the light and to be unusually fond even for the new intelligent breed of rats of light. Yes. And now he embraces the darkness, which is more in tune with his, let's say, face ratness.

Yeah. But then he's found a way to integrate it with the intelligence and the empathy. Absolutely. And the way this pays off the conversations earlier in the book about how, you know, once they light the candles, the shadows freak them out and the candles go out and they know the shadows are still there. Yeah. Yeah.

Such a good payoff to that conversation. You know where the shadows are. If you create the dark... Sorry, sorry. You flail. You flail. The other fear it goes into is this mortality fear. And especially to handle that in a children's book, because there's always a sense if you're

reading a book that's aimed at slightly younger readers that things are going to be okay. And by Hammond pork dying, like he dies right at the beginning of the section, that's that, hey, characters cannot survive this. Named characters. Characters with lots of dialogue. Yeah. Because we've already had a couple of very minor character deaths. But yeah, sorry.

But yeah, there's a difference when it's the main character that puts into your head, this idea that these other characters aren't safe. It's the like, Game of Thrones is one of the really like big examples of this, like killing off Ned Stark at the end of the first book slash first season. And that's very like, yeah, even Sean, well, okay, Sean Bean, but even this big character that who is a main character for the majority of this book can just fucking die. No one's safe, get used to that. And I feel like Hammond pork dying is similar thing here.

And it puts you in this kind of sense of almost anxiety for the section. The bit from the book that stuck with me from the very first reading as terrifying was there was a thin bright red street curling gently in the water. Yeah, like that terrified me. I was so upset. And of course, you have the payoff, but it's more down to the same time that it's not a dead body. It's not blood.

It's Mr. Bunzy. But then on top of that is the, but they wouldn't drop this unless something. And that was a wonderful, just that whole bit actually was a very, you are in the moment moment. It's that moment of stillness where finally Morris gets to breathe and have a drink of water, but we're not letting the tension go yet. No. Yeah.

And then just a bit later, you go through this massive fucking emotional roller coaster with Morris because you have Morris reverts into this angry fury, a furious spitting, snarling, bloodthirsty cat catching up on Katniss, that thing we were talking about. That's like seeing the character die. As far as you know, there's no way for Morris to get his Morris-ness back. His, oh, that's me. His, his mirror test farsing-ness. You get a test, taste of what had freaked dangerous beans out so much in the

exactly this idea that you could lose that. And of course, it passes. He saves dangerous beans. And then the bit that genuinely has made me cry more times than it hasn't made me cry when I've read this, then he put his head down and died. And like the first time I read this, I remember I was genuinely like, it's less than a page until he's up and about again. But I had to put the book down after that because I was so upset.

And so I didn't know he was okay. And obviously, eventually I went back and read the rest of it. And I was like, oh, Morris is fine. Good, of course he is. But because I didn't know discworld, I didn't know death turning up means things might be okay in some way. Yeah. And yeah, obviously he does come back.

But you really believe by that point, you've already kind of seen the character die once by reverting to the cat form. Like you can just believe the character is gone. And the fact that it's, he's gently brought dangerous beans forward and very gently laid down and sort of prodding it to see if he'll move. Because we've never seen a cat do that action in a very different way or not with all, but I think more people than haven't. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's the dark tan resurrection moment as well. That's a similar thing. Yeah, kind of. And that came before Hammond pork's death, didn't it? Yeah, that was towards the end of the last section. Yeah, just the whole way. Yeah, first of all, you see the miraculous.

See, I remembered vaguely that one of the rats died, like one of the name rats. And I was like thinking, oh, of course it's Hammond pork. And then that happened to dark tan. I was like, fuck, maybe it was dark tan. Yeah. And you can believe it. You really believe it might happen. Yeah.

And then, then it's even more of a shock when Hammond pork dies. Exactly. And to kind of revert back to our incredulous tone of voice from last week, like this is a kids book, but it uses fear and particularly, like I said, this fear of mortality in a way that people think kids books are afraid to do, except a lot of them do do it. Like there's deaths in the hobbit. And okay, the hobbit is whether or not it's a kids book is arguable, but it was definitely not necessarily written with grown-ups in mind.

And I read that as a kid. Like this Narnia handles death in a fairly intense way in places. Like Pullman's trilogy. I was sort the Northern Lights that trilogy. And yeah, a lot of Philip Pullman's work. Yeah, a good kids writer, a good children's book writer. Handles this stuff and does it well.

But I think no one's quite. Oh yeah. No gay man. Absolutely. Gravy Oddburg. Yeah. Chris Riddle's another good one. Fucking.

I'm just looking at my books now. Got what it's called now. Yeah. But yeah, the best kids are fucking Jacqueline Wilson. Oh, so much. Those are trauma books. I'm still kind of traumatized by the illustrated mum. Yeah, no, you're right.

You're right. A lot of these books do. And I think it's not as traumatizing as you think it is as an adult. Because I can say now, because it's only really in the last few years that this has been unlocked within me, but the real emotional response to a lot of these things isn't necessarily there as a child. I'm sure it is for some children.

But for a lot of them, you're learning. And it might be upsetting, but it's not the same as reliving something. Exactly. Yeah, so reading about grief for you now has a very different flavour. To learning what grief was when I was reading Deaths and Children's Books at a much younger age. Yeah, absolutely. But this is the thing.

This book is doing what kids' books do, but just in a so clever way. I talked a little bit last week about the fact that normally when Pratchett does a thing like when he was doing Gothic literature in Carpe Giaculum or when he was doing Shakespeare way back in Weird Sisters, he perfectly handles this is exactly the shape of that thing. And that means I can fill it with nonsense. This isn't that. No, it's a new thing.

It's a completely new thing. It's not the shape of an adventure story. It's not the shape of a fairy tale, but it uses stories like a weapon. Or maybe it isn't kind of a weird nesting doll thing. It's got the shapes in there. Oh, it's got bits of it. Yeah, but it's using them rather than being them. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So like just a couple of examples, but like when Keith and Milisha are talking about like the rats out and spiders kind of interfering and talking about how the pipe and they're like, oh, it's fine. The pipe is going to come and all the rats go in the water. And Keith starts almost remembering that rats can swim and spider says, don't think, follow the story.

You've kind of got a hint of the sort of kids book act structure in that you've got this set of resolutions at the end. Like it's all done. Yay. Oh, we've still got to fix the pipe or shit. That's all done. Yay. And now the admin's still ongoing. Which is a really pratchet thing.

And I like that it ends on admin and not happily ever after. Keith presenting the challenge that like makes the story more story shaped right at the end when he does the go for your piccolo. Until Milisha starts hammering it home and then the rest of the crowd kind of loses interest in it because they're like, what do you mean about abandoned son of a what? That is a nice running joke that Milisha manages actually the whole telling the truth to make people go away thing. Oh, what?

Like I've told all the rats to sit underground with more in the rear. Oh, no, I've got the rat captures underground tied up in a cellar. Like dare you to believe me. Be kind of pleased if you do, but I know you won't. So that will get me out of this trouble. That is a great like little militia superpower. And then you have like the ratpiper embracing stories as a form of advertising. You have Morris being a realist and saying like, look, you can't go off.

These people aren't philosophers. They're every day. It's a market town. We've got to present this as a capitalist opportunity. But aren't you tired of looking for your island and dangerous beans? Revisiting one of the things we've talked about revisiting dangerous beans. Love wonderful summarizing of one of the things we talked about before, which is diplomacy, which is a resolution.

Is it dangerous beans? He says this or one of the others. I don't remember, but it might be Keith. Oh, Morris, who says this a resolution should be where both people are happy. Not when one person thinks they've lost. I think that might be a Morris line. I'd have to find out that cat. Yeah.

So cats know about people. We have to. No one else can open cupboards. Look, even the rat king had a better plan than that. A good plan isn't one where someone wins. It's where nobody thinks they've lost. Understand? That's the one.

Yeah. Sorry. Yes. So Morris wonderfully summarizes something we've talked about before, which is diplomacy. And that makes sense because he then turns out to be a freelance mediator. Yeah. Stalking up and down the table having a great time as Keith points out.

I think you've had to learn a bit of that from the rats. And you get a really nice kind of tongue in cheek moment as well, where the mayor's talking to Darkshan and saying, I'm talking about his daughter gets too caught up in these story ideas. And again, they've got to be realistic. Stories are just stories. Life is complicated enough as it is. We have to plan for the real world.

There's no room for the fantastic. And man and rat talked as the long light faded into evening. We've got to be realistic. We can't have stories to the talking rat with a sword. Quite. And that is lovely, isn't it? Those pair are the, you know, that we have to rely on reality. Because fantasy won't do it.

There's no time for stories while the rest of the characters are off using stories in their own very useful ways. Yeah. I mean, Morris jumps straight back into a story that he, you know, works for. And the line late in the book, the thing about stories is you have to pick the ones that last. Yeah.

Keith eyeing up how long does it take to become mayor? Because that's what Dick Livingston did. And to bring us completely full circle right back to the beginning of follow up in the article, Mark Rowe, about how this was a turning point in Pratchett's, say, career and critical recognition. This was the one that won the award. Yeah. It's a masterpiece because it does what he's built up to doing so incredibly well.

And I mean masterpiece in that literal sense. Yeah. This is the one where. He's into the literary elite. He's not just into the literary elite, but what he does within the book is just masterful storytelling. Yeah. Like I said, he uses the story, story ideas like a weapon.

He throws them in, he takes them apart. He beats you over the head with them, but so gently that you completely fall in love with it. Flogged with scented bootlaces. Flogged with scented bootlaces. Like rat tails. Fuck. We're floating right at us again.

God, I'm going to let you going off the deep end with this point, but this is the whole thing. Okay, I'm sorry too. It's why I think this is an incredible book and an incredible children's book because it's so unpatronizing. It knows its DNA so deeply that it's ignoring it for most of it. Now, you read this as a child and we've talked before about think little practice things that just live in your head

and pop up every now and then. You don't always know where they're from. You might do with this one. But do you have any moments in here that just more than any of the others pop up unbidden or barely bidden? I think I've mentioned them all already. Like I said, the masterpiece fact, that's my obnoxious one. I will never forget the mental image of the thin red streak in the water.

That to me is still just one of the most horrific things I've ever imagined. Absolutely. Definitely get that. I'm glad one of them was nicer. But I think, honestly, what stuck with me a bit, and I didn't go on to read loads more Pratchett after this because I wasn't at the point where I necessarily stuck to an author religiously the way I do now. You were dabbling, willing and dealing, ducking and diving.

Ducking and diving. Ducking and diving. I did go and read the Brameliad after this. So it got me into Pratchett a little bit. I just didn't start on the disc world. But it really just stuck with me as a book I've always loved. And eventually, you know, I started reading Pratchett. And I think one of the first disc world books I picked up when I started

reading it as an adult was soul music. And they go on tour and they go to Pseudopolis and Stolat. And I went, I've read those names before, and that's when I realized this was a disc world book because they talk about it right at the beginning. But the book has stuck with me as just an incredible story. Yeah. It's just really intense moments of horror and fear and then so much brightness kind of side by side with a resolute dull committee meeting at the end.

Like it's not quite a sunset. It's a, all right, but clause 14b. And your kids, the protagonists, two of the protagonists, we have a nice equal spread of protagonist, don't we? Protagonism, is that what? Yeah, it is now. The two kids anyway, they don't have the innocence preserved as such, but they don't have the magic torn from them.

They're still going off to have a slap up dinner with lashings of cream and medals. And they're off to be kids together and be friends. And like Militia's like, do you want to be mates? I've got a million friends, but obviously there's always room for it. Should we be friends? And they're like, yeah, let's be friends. Like when you're kids and you go, do you want to be friends with me? It's just nice.

And it's unromantic. Yeah, of course it is. Yeah, they are very much children in that respect, I think. There's a bit of, you know, there's jokes about marrying Militia off and there's jokes about you, the romantic lead, but there's no romance. Yeah. It nods towards tropes, not. It's a step on from what Morton Isabel were.

Yeah, and a step backwards. It's a step forwards in writing, a step backwards in romance. Anyway, I've gone completely off the rails. I basically just, that was a really long windage. I don't think you did. I think it was great. I was going to love this book. I really enjoyed that.

Excellent. Francine, have you got an obscure reference for me or for me? I do, and I'm really pleased. So I don't know how much of this I'm editing out and what we even said like outside of the normal recording bit, but. A matigot. A matigot, Joanna. So one point.

Morris is thinking about becoming a black cat. We're taking coin to an old lady, as one does. And as you said that earlier in this very episode, I thought, oh, fuck, I bet that's a good obscure reference for Neil and dump the one I had and then put it in a little bit of light because Cowboys and looked up a cat coin. I thought that sounds familiar actually. And it is.

It's familiar from today when I was reading about rap mythology and folklore. So a matigot is in oral traditions of southern France or a spirit in the form of an animal, frequently a black cat, though rat, fox, dog or cow types are also said to exist. Some are generally evil, but some may prove helpful, like the magician cat said to bring wealth into a home if it is well fed. Traditionally, I'm reading from the Wikipedia, I'm sorry.

A wealth bringing matigot must be lured with a fresh plump chicken, then carried home by its new owner without the human once looking back. If the cat is given the first mouthful of food and drink at every meal, it will repay its owner with a solid gold coin each morning. Did a cat write this? Yes, definitely actually. Now you say it.

This is absolutely Morris who wrote this. It's the fucking chicken. It's Gasphode wrote this, Gasphode and Morris. They're working together to do Wikipedia, fuck. In Gascony traditions, you must not keep the matigot or your lifelong. If the owner is dying, he will suffer a long agony as long as he doesn't free the matigot. Beautiful.

Yeah, and there's a bit more there, but I don't need to keep reading from this one page. And yeah, cool, right? That's a good bit of folklore. Cool, love that. Yeah, I was away from the page initially because it's like I was looking for rat stories specifically and I was like, oh, rats are only briefly mentioned here.

Let's skim. There's way too much rat folklore to be focusing on this. But yeah, this is cool. Yeah, because that was one bit that kind of confused me. Not on an initial read, but like rereading. I was like, I thought black cats were unlucky. That's the thing about them because yeah, where does lucky black cat come from?

That's a different thing. They're lucky and unlucky. As with all superstitions, as soon as you look in with the bees, do you remember the rabbit hole I did on bees? And I was like, and these superstitions are directly in opposition with each other. This is both lucky and unlucky. This is both lucky and unlucky.

This means you will die and suffer great wealth in a long life. This is... Suffer great wealth in a long life. Yeah, although everybody agrees that, well, everybody mentioned in my little books, agrees that having a rat gnaw on your clothes is an omen that you're going to die. So watch out.

All right. I'll keep an eye out for rats gnawing on my clothes. Side... No, unusually for us. Er, gnawring, it's used here. There's a thread in there. I will gnaw you. Gnaw through your eggs or whatever.

Do you ever hear gnaw outside of rodent? No, I don't think... Occasionally, you'll talk about gnawing on a bone or something. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's very specific type of that chewing, isn't it? And that I never seem to see outside of ratty.

I usually hear it in relation to bones. Yeah. If it's outside of rats. Yeah. Right. Okay. Sorry, that's not very interesting. I was just suddenly thought...

Okay. I think that's everything for now, we can say, on the book Amazing Morris and His Educated Rodents. We are going to come back probably on Christmas Eve with our Hogs Watch Special, in which we will be talking about the movie, The Amazing Morris and His Educated Rodents, which we're very excited about.

This episode is coming out the day we record that episode. But this will be coming out in the morning, and we probably won't record that until later in the day. So, last minute, let's to the Hogfather, questions for us. If you've seen the movie, thoughts on that, any of that, get it over to us. Yep.

And even if you miss the deadline, just tell us anyway. We'll put it in follow-up or whatever. Yeah, we'll end up talking about it. So, until Hogs Watch, dear listeners, you can follow us on Instagram, at The True Shall Make You Threat, on Twitter, at Make You Threat Pod,

on Facebook, at The True Shall Make You Threat. Join our subreddit community, r slash ttsmyf. Send us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, letters to The Hogfather, rats, etc. At The True Shall Make You Threat Pod, at gmail.com. If you would like to support us financially, go to patreon.com forward slash The True Shall Make You Threat,

where you can exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. Speaking of Christmas hodswatch stuff, we've done a couple of bonus episodes before that we've videoed the whole extravaganza, so I'll link to those in the show notes of this one if you want to get festive early. If you do fancy getting a bit festive,

I recommend us as the best way. Okay. I don't. Strong. It's certainly a way and very discworldian. It is very Hogs Watchian. Yes. Hogs Watchive.

We're just fucking about with suffixes today, aren't we, God? Until next time. Playing fast and loose. Hansen, let me put a suffix on this fucking episode. Until next time, dear listener, some stories end, but old stories go on, and you've got to dance to the music if you want to stay ahead.

I forgot to mention while we were sort of doping, but it was announced today that there's going to be an actual Mr. Bunzie book released. Oh, is that so? Because Pratchett tagged us and asked if we wanted to reenact the Where's My Cow conversation. Yes, obviously. I did mention it feels like it's our turn to have them over.

Yeah, we should host, yeah. We'll chuck a few of the UBS and the ASCII.