The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 103: Night Watch Pt. 2 (Notably Damper)

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

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 2 of our recap of “Night Watch”. Skulls! Tigers! Moist Puddings!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:/u/abbot_everett's reddit quantum comment - /r/TTSMYFAt the Chippy - Victoria Wood - TikTok (sorry, the YouTube version has been taken down)Craniometry - Wikipedia  Pic o’ the Week: Baby Swordfish - Oceanwire Slumgullion Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Lapskaus: a Hearty Norwegian Stew - Nordic NibblerWet Nelly - Foods of EnglandPeterloo Massacre - Wikipedia Six Acts - Wikipedia Disruptive coloration | zoology - Britannica List of camouflage methods - Wikipedia "The Tiger" By Nael, Age 6 - Know Your Meme —Protest is a Human Right - Amnesty International UK Safety of journalists covering protests : preserving freedom of the press during times of turmoil - Unesco G20 protests: full video footage of police tactics - Guardian  Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

Gloves are a weird thing in that I am completely fine with them and then will suddenly if I'm even mildly stressed need to rip them off to focus properly. You're going to be like me in the car when you drive, you'll get these moments of turn the music down. I can't see. Um, so do we have anything to talk about that's, uh, vaguely anything related? What, like related to Terry Pratchett in the podcast? Yeah.

Uh, God, no, nothing whatsoever. No thoughts, head empty. Good. Absolutely. Good. Well done. What's happening in life? Oh, I'm getting a car tomorrow.

Yay. I'm excited for you. A little tiny thing, one liter engine. It's even smaller engine than my last one. So it should take between two and three years to get to 60 miles an hour on the motorway. So that's good. Nice.

But it will be a very easy to park, which is actually good. I tell my colleagues, I'm now would it be cheaper just to get 6,000 horses? Yeah, possibly, but they don't come with Bluetooth. So yeah. Okay. But would it be, I don't think it would be cheaper to get 6,000 horses. I mean, you probably could. Might be a small toy horse, which isn't really helpful for transport.

Unless you tried a bunch of them together to make a raft. Yeah. I think on the whole, I'll probably just get the car. My brain is totally blank. I've had one of those horrible days where just I cannot focus on anything. And my brain just loves to wander off, which bodes so well for the podcast. That's why I'm drinking Diet Coke at seven o'clock at night. Well, I'm fairly underprepared, but I am quite focused.

No, I was supposed to have a dentist appointment yesterday or a hygienist appointment that got cancelled because she was sick. So it got moved to today at a slightly earlier time. And you know, that whole thing of like, I can't do something because I've got an appointment. It's just completely thrown two days off me because somehow I couldn't do stuff after the appointment because my morning had gone in a different direction. Obviously, I wish I could say I don't understand, but I do.

I put my phone in one of the kitchen cupboards and wasn't allowed it back until I'd finished planning the podcast. Oh, that probably works. Yeah. Thankfully, I have signal on browser so I can still chat to you. Oh, yes. Good. Yes.

Well, we were talking about the podcast, which I think is OK then. Yeah, that's all we were talking about. Yeah, mainly. I'm not going to pull up any evidence right now whatsoever. Well, no, no, now I'm getting distracted because there's a message that. Oh, that's right. I want to get into stenography. He sent me another another mechanical keyboard thing that's like a stenographer's

thing and you know how I was briefly obsessed with the idea of that the other months and I thought about it for my own good and I remembered it. And I found a website where you can kind of practice on a QWERTY keyboard. So I'm going to try that. And then if I like it, I can think about it further rather than just spending like a hundred quid on a stupid keyboard. They look so stupid, but I want to tie for two hundred quads a minute. Do I need to? Not really.

I want to. Maybe the transcripts would finally get done. Oh, I should be wearing my gloves. No, I won't. I won't wear my gloves. They're in my back. I'll have to go through a whole thing. Yeah, no, they live in my back now because they're very good. Thank you.

Oh, yeah, I'm glad you like them. They're like wearing they're like wearing the big long sleeves. I always used to wear as a teenager with the thumb through the hole. It's that length. I'm glad the length was right because obviously I had to guess because I couldn't exactly go. Can I measure your hands? Yeah, I mean, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it.

But yeah, it's a new version of phrenology. I'm inventing. I just do what my fans say, really. Becky plaster casted my hands once or twice, covered me in ink and printed me once. I just go along with stuff. Yeah, wasn't she studying art at the time? Well, yes, but you do art things.

Yeah, right, fair. Shall we make a podcast? Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the tree shall make you fret a podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. One is Simon in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan and I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of Night Watch.

It is. We are watching the night. Not on spoilers before we crack on. This is a spoiler like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book Night Watch, 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. Hopefully not through the roof of a watch house onto a bed of nails. Never go in through the privilads. Never. Have we got anything to follow up on? I've got something on quantum. Avert Everett on Reddit willfully disregarded your express wishes and has explained some quantum stuff in extreme depth, which I found very

interesting, but I won't read out here. It is about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and lots and lots of things about quantum that I really I don't know enough about to summarize, but I'll link to the comment. It's quite good because he's tied it back in with a lot of the actual passages from the book and things. Yes, I'll go and have a proper read of that and try not to learn anything. As is my want.

I also have to issue a formal apology for not naming Buggy Swires on his heron as the helicopter last week. Yeah, yeah, you did get told off of that. I will do better. Also, a correction that I said we first met Buggy Swires in Feet of Clay and I mixed him up with Wee Mad Arthur. Oh, yeah, me too. Two different characters.

All right, yeah, sir. So I think we actually first met Buggy Swires and his aerial division in Jingo. Could be. So, Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Night Watch? Sir Samuel Vines is moving up in the world. Well, he was before a magical storm sent him down through the glass ceiling and right into the past where the air is thick with lilac and revolution. Oh, and he brought a madman with him for extra spice.

Vines stands in for his former mentor, prematurely deceased Rip, looking out for his younger self and shaking up the Night Watch. He's changing history just in time for everything to go banana shaped. But I know my fruits. Beautiful. I haven't pointed this out yet, but as you just did it, name of the thing in the thing. Oh, name of the thing in the thing, Night Watch. People were discussing on, I read it a few weeks ago,

which of the Discworld books has the highest proportion of name of the thing in the thing. And I think this one might be up there. Yeah, it's got to be up there. Yeah, it's just the name of the thing. Yeah, the name of the thing is the name of the things. Ah, the name of the things, the lesser known original draft of the Tolkien story that eventually became the Simerillian. Good.

Oh, we should say where this section starts and finishes, I suppose. We should. This section starts on page 163 with a sentence. Cars liver. Now that's where the last one ended. Yes, I know that's where it starts, you said. Oh, whatever. The beast remembers is where this starts.

You correct me, but it's literally the next word. People can work it out. I like to be clear and ends on page 257 with a little more champagne. Cars liver, champagne. What a gourmet day we have had in this section for a given value of summarising. Vines sleeps and remembers swing. History is happening in the Revolutions imminent, what do you stall for? He wakes, he meets a pie seller and is inadvertently slipped a piece of paper

about Morphic Street. Young Nobby's on Vines' tail, but he's quickly caught. Lady Mezzarole, Rosie Palm, snubs of Cable Street and Ned Cote's all want Keele kept an eye on. There's been a break in at Triculmine Road and a silver inkstance briefly missing. While at the Assassin's Guild, Downey bothers Dogbotherer and burns a book. There's a rumour that our Keele's a spy and young Sam's repeating the politics of our mum. While patrolling Morphic Street, Vines arrest an unmentionable and apparently interrupts a meeting of dangerous anarchists.

Morphic Street particulars arrive, led by Sergeant Carcer, but young Sam rings the bell and acquires an audience. Vines has changed history, he thinks, and he takes his arrested unmentionable back to the Watch House to prepare for war. Time flows in strict courses and potential riots have moved to other places with new causes. Vines opens up the Watch House and lays traps for the unsuspecting unmentionables before confronting the man on the street. As two irregular get caught in the Watch House, Vines steps out and stays away from the man with a handful of glass. Dr Lawn is sent for, but he's too late to help the dead crossbowman that lands in the street.

There's riots in the streets and other Watch Houses are under siege. Vines sends out for some ginger beer. Meanwhile, a rooftop assassin joins Lady M in a coach. The young veterinary fills her in on Sergeant Keele and informs her he's found a way into the palace. Vines begins interrogating and Ferret confesses everything, while the other two are regularly delivered to Cable Street. The Agniance grabs Sam. He's knocked up and wait, knocked out and wakes.

Knocked up and wakes out. Wakes up among the seamstresses. An interview with Madam Mezzarole has revolutionary undertones and an offer of command, but Keele's been making enemies. Undertone. Vines. Undertone, overtone, one bullet. Wondering for it.

Good. Vines goes home, but veterinary was watching. The Anger will make a handy diversion. That's where he learned that trick. Yep. So helicopters and loincloths this time. A lot of flying fruit, which as we all know is a breed of helicopter, but I'm specifically going for the apple held at veterinary's head and caught on a fork.

Excellent. Yes, I like that. We also had someone falling through a roof, someone else falling off a roof. Many things have gone through the air, but I think the apple is, yes, your helicopter. The apple is my helicopter. And we have a mention of lilac silk, which could be a very fancy loincloth. What was it?

As the coach passed a torch, there was a suggestion of lilac silk. A suggestion of silk. Definitely a loincloth. Yeah. Also, just it's got a very saturation vibe, isn't it? Also, as I like keeping track of these things, the events of this book are taking place in the year of the Dancing Dog. Okay.

Just so we know. Quotes. Mine is a quick silly one because it's all going to get dark. And depressing later. And this is one of my favourite Pratchett jokes ever. Okay. No, please. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, the man yelled.

Really, said Vines? What's the orbital velocity of the moon? Did we find out? Sadly, no. Well, they might have already. Because the last zero. Well, yes, but the last zero is in the future. Oh, yeah.

Well, Sam, I know already. Sam, I'm being so familiar with him now. I don't know if I ever called him Sam before this. I feel like we know him now. Vines-y. Vines. No, I don't like that. Sorry.

Give us a pretty quote for our scene. Give us a pretty one. Okay. Beyond the walls of the yard, the real night had closed in. The old night with its tendrils of fog and crawling shadows. He relaxed and wore it like an overcoat. That is very pretty. It is.

I enjoy it. We both highlighted that one. And Joanna was gracious enough to grab a different quote. Because I was, as I say, in the chippy. Don't keep saying chippy or I'll start sitting in the Victoria woods. I was watching that on TikTok earlier. I was so pleased from Victoria. Wood came off on TikTok.

It's great. I've done a plat. Right, effective that. It looks great. It's really great. Fuck. Right, sorry. Characters, characters.

Let's talk about Sam Vines. Or Sam, as you apparently call him. Sam Vines is feeling a little guilty about how good he's feeling. Yeah. Or about how into it all he's getting. Right at the end when Lady Mesaral offers him command. And he sort of thinks that he could. And the second thought is, oh, maybe not in this city,

not under snap gaze. And then he remembers Sibyl. Yeah. And you didn't think, he tells himself, you didn't think about Sibyl until thought three. Yeah. Oops. But you know, that's, I think he's being a bit hard on himself there.

Obviously, that's his motivation. And given the chance, he would snap back straight away. But you do the job that's in front of you. Yeah. The refrain keeps coming back in this section. You have near the beginning as he's thinking about what's to come. You did the job that was in front of you, like unimaginative coppers always did.

And then later in that conversation with Lady Mesaral towards the end of the section, I'm going to finish the job that's in front of me and then I'm going home. So we've also got Vines kind of building up the legend of Keele here, haven't we? And we never really, we don't know exactly how much his legend chimes with Keele's, but there's definite deviations. So the rest of the fours now think that he's there to hunt down Khasa,

which he is for different origins. Not for different reasons, even from different origins. And he's kind of going off a 30-year-old memory as well. And so even the things he's remembering and trying to do the same are going to be this guy who's lionized in his head. And so you just kind of got this like Keele- And remembers through like tinted spectacles. Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, he's doing pretty well, I think, all things considered, although he is becoming aware that he's slightly untethered from the correct stream of time. Do you tell yourself to a stream? You don't, never mind. You can't help being the person that he is. So you have things like the Vimes roulette with the ink stand, where it's been stolen and obviously someone's trying to set it up

by having it in his locker. The moment of he's got half a brick in his locker and says he's saving up for a house. It's really good because it's a good fracture bit because it's a moment of extreme tension. Everyone's wondering where the ink stand's going to be, but you have the brick and you have Colin's locker that has something educational in it.

Extracurricular reading, good lad. But the way he kind of fondly remembers it because he's thinking about, you know, the teenage version of him that's there now would have been wide-eyed and blushing and it would have been passed around the younger members of the watch. Yeah. And then we get that nice little bit of foreshadow when he's like, oh, we didn't put it in Coat's locker.

I've already found that. Yeah, that's a really good build-up of tension. There's lots of fun build-up of tension, especially because you have things like other people saying, oh, some people think you're a spy. And then there's the argument of spy for who. Yeah. And you get him managing Tilden when the ink stand,

he's put it back in the safe and he gives Tilden that moment of, okay, it's mild embarrassment, but it's better than it being in someone's locker. He's so smooth with it all that you don't see the bumps in the road coming, which is quite cool. Yeah. And again, it's not the sound, but I've got a bit of sympathy for Tilden again

as he's struggling to flow along with the revolutionary tide and as much as he can bring himself to say because he's not been raised to question orders is some of the orders we've been given lately have not been thought out properly. What? Yes, yes. And especially it's hurting him to know that a lot of it was like,

well, one of the big things was his old regiment. Yes. That's going to hurt. That's really going to hurt. And then bless, you've got young Sam as well. Yeah. Oh, he's doing all right. He's getting a little bit political around the years.

A little bit political around the years. He's like, oh, yes. Well, if he'd found a slip saying he was a revolutionary, that definitely would have proved it. Wouldn't it, Mr. Keele? Wouldn't it, Sarge? Wouldn't it, Sarge? Mm-hmm.

Yep. Not going to bring you down for the ginger beer. It's a charade. All right. Not there yet. Oh, look at that. And the politics his mum's learned in the fish shop. Yeah.

The angry masses. Chewing Keele's ear off about it. Like, yeah, I'm lucky. I'm not a fucking spy. The angry masses will rise up and throw off their shekels, the fish monkey says. Which is quite sweet because we were talking last week about going back and dealing with our younger selves.

And Sam sums it up quite nicely. When you got older, you found out that you now wasn't you then because you then was a twerp. Yes. And a special bonus points for twerp, which is an underutilized word. I agree. I like twerp.

Twerp, twit. I try and use twit. It's a good one when I'm correcting myself from saying twat. So usually I say, what a twit. The pause is important. And the moment where young Sam's inviting Keele over for tea. And very sweet. It's very sweet.

And he says no, but it's really hard for a second when he says, oh, besides, I know he's all he's thinking to himself. I know she's been up in small gods these past 10 years. I'd rather put one hand flat on the table and give swing the hammer that walked down Cockville Street today. Yeah. Parts of his life he just doesn't want to. Just doesn't want to.

Which I respect. Yeah. And I like that that's not explained. You get to project onto that a bit. Yeah. And I think it's largely just to keep that intact as a memory. Keep it intact as it was and not put a weird layer on it. Yeah.

You don't need to go kicking through your proper childhood, do you? As much as he might want some distressed pudding. Speaking of insults, Skag, had you ever heard Skag outside of this? Like a bit of me feels like I must have, but maybe I've just read this so many times that Skag lives in my brain. It sounds a lot like Skrag as well,

like scragging someone's neck. It's just, it's good and violent. It's a good boarding school insult. Yeah. But yeah, speaking of young Sam and jumping forward to Karsa, the moment where Karsa realises that that's baby Sam Vimes, that's a chilling moment. Yes.

Have you got the quote? Yeah. It tried to appear as if nothing had happened. Tried to pretend that the world had not cracked open and let in the cold winds of infinity. And you can feel that, can't you? The moment where something's gone horribly wrong. It just, it doesn't show on your face yet,

but all your insides just disappeared. Yep. Everything is sort of on fire and frozen at the same time now, isn't it? Oh, good. Can also be summarised quite neatly with fuck. But yeah, I think Karsa does another lovely demonstration of being like completely unhinged here. So one of them calls him Sarge,

and then he goes through the whole of the rest of the scene. It's literally like a whole two page spread. I was about to say the same thing. It's great. Yeah. Because when I first, when I read it, I had to go and find where someone called him Sarge. Me too.

Yeah. I had to flick that. I was like, huh? Oh, oh, good. Very nice. And I bet everyone did. And I bet that was deliberate. Yes.

But yeah, Karsa, good scary villain. Speaking of villains, find these swing. We get a bit more context. We get a bit more context where I'm right at the beginning of this section when Vimes is kind of sleeping and dreaming on swing. So we learned that he was trained at the assassin school and as Vimes puts it, had too much brain to be a copper.

But it impressed Wanda, promoted captain immediately, probably because the officers were offended at seeing such a fine gentleman pounding the streets with the rest of the oaks. Yeah. Yeah. And it talks about his, it calls it craniometry that he's doing.

Yeah. I like that you came up with a different word for it. That's his word, isn't it? No. Oh, okay. No, this is a very quick Google. I read the Wikipedia page. I didn't learn a lot.

Craniometrics, which in the book is amusing calipers to test personalities find criminal elements. It's distinct from phrenology. Craniometrics basically means measurement of the cranium, but it has been used to measuring the cranium, has been used to measure intelligence, often incorrectly in anthropology, extensively practiced by racists.

I'm shocked. It's a close cousin with phrenology, but phrenology is more about facial peaches and craniometrics is measurement of the cranium separately, and I didn't have time to go down this rabbit hole. I was about to say, I wonder what the difference is with the lumps and bumps on the skull,

because I may do that with the phrenology. Yes. Artists from about the 15th century onwards have made a big study of craniometrics to attain greater accuracy and representation. And I didn't go into the rabbit hole of the two arthitists who really began that practice, but that's the thing for another time.

15th century, you say? Yes. That's interesting. That's when they started having kind of a revelation in perspective, like we were talking about with the medieval bestiary stuff. Yeah. So craniometry probably has something to do. Also, just a quick reminder that we have already experienced

on the disc retro-phrenology, where someone has taken the logic of... Oh, that didn't come back to me at all till now. Too many mallets to the head. Yes, someone has taken the logic of the shape of your head to find your personality and extend it one text further too. You can use a mallet to change your personality by changing the shape of your skull.

I love that. Yeah. That is, again, one of my favorite disc world jokes. I'd definitely be one of those cases, like for someone who's had too many plastic surgeries and it's just ended up much worse than it would have been. I'd have been someone who had so many mallets to the head that I've just kind of found a new set of letters

to go on the end of my ADHD. Anyway, so dibbler. Dibbler. Dibbler has a pie. Dibbler sells a pie. Pay off from the line in the first section where Dibbler mentioned selling one of his first pies and he ate the whole thing.

What a hero. And I like it because you get the moment where he's running after him and you're sort... Well, my first thought is always, oh, he's gone to give him the one with real meat in instead. Because, you know, he's made mates with him now, but no, it's something cooler. But also I like that, you know, Dibbler fondly remembering

that he sold a pie to this man and the man ate the whole pie and the reason Vime's ate the whole pie is to make sure that he could keep that bit of paper. Absolutely. With the password, swordfish. Swordfish. It's always swordfish. Apart from when it's, fuck,

the elucidated bread from one. Oh, hang on. Have you just got that next to you? Yeah, I was looking up something else relevant to this and now I want to see if I can find the... We've done loads of really early books, rowbacks recently, haven't we? It's all coming together.

It's all connecting. Oh, here we are. The significant owl hoots in the night. Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men. Hooray, hooray, for the spinster's sister's daughter. To the ax-man, all supplicants are the same height. Yet, verily, the roses within the thorn. The good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy.

Are you sure that the ill-built tower doesn't tremble mightily at a butterfly's passage? What about the caged whale? Oh, you want the elucidated bread rather than of the ebb and night. Three doors down. Sorry, I didn't need to read the whole thing, but once you start...

Oh, yes, you did. That's definitely a run-on. Nice callbacks. Guards! I saw some pictures of baby swordfish recently and that was nice and good and everyone should look for those. They get their nose very quickly. They just look like tadpoles with huge noses

and it's very cute. As long as your homework is to look at pictures of baby swordfish. Yep, I'm a very nice homework setter. Well done. We meet young Nobby. Baby Nobby. Mild noises of attempted maternal feeling. Even if it's a bit slimy. Oh, because even though his dad's horrible to him, oh.

That was a dark moment. We were talking about, like, a lady mezzarole caught him. What was he doing? Something inappropriate involving a molly? Snicking it, whatever, I've got it noted somewhere. Snickering her molly? Nolly. He doesn't want to go to the Tanty

because Skona, his father's in there and Vimes remember, oh, and he used to break your arms. Like, that was a fucking dark moment. And he doesn't weigh anything and he gets fed and he's a good boy. No single feature in itself. He's even passably ugly, but the combination was greater than the sum of the parts.

Yeah. It's also interesting to see the age gap between Nobby and Colin. Like, I know there is one, but because Nobby's age has been probably 30 since guards' guards. And Colin is, I think, like, recently wed here, I believe? Yeah. So I'm guessing he... I've put Colin in my head as 21 here. Yeah. And Nobby, I've put around nine, eight or nine.

Yeah. He's very young. Which, yeah, makes sense, doesn't it? Yes. Winding forward. Yes, because Colin sort of... Fast forwarding. Colin takes on...

I said, rewinding, post-winding, pre-winding. Fast forwarding. Colin takes on a bit of a, like, older, more superior experience to watchmen. When you're a man of the world like me, Nobby. Which is great because you can tell he's been playing off that age gap since it was significant. Yes.

Speaking of Nobby, who got caught robbing Lady Meserell. Is that how you pronounce that? No idea, but I don't know that. I don't... That's one of the ones where my brain didn't try and pronounce it in my head. So... Yeah, I think I've mostly been referring to her mentally as Lady M. Yeah, yeah.

Meserell. Meserell. Is that a word? Meserell. But yes, she's great. Got a punch on her like a mule? Of course. Which is what I look for in a woman.

Natan Champagne. I like it when... This sounds sarcastic, but it's not. I like it when... Champagne is a character trait. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. She's got that similar vibe as Sybil of kind of moving like a ship in full flight,

although we mostly see her sat down. Yes. Yes, even so. I very much enjoyed the sort of champagne drunk out of a big blue mug with a teddy bear on it. Absolutely. I like the champagne as a character trait. Is it allergic to diamonds then? So the cat thing, one of our listeners tweeted like,

Oh, I'm disappointed you pointed out Morris' tabby because I thought I'd spotted a cameo in Nightwatch and I'm assuming he was referring to this cat. Oh. It is to describe this ginger. But it could be Morris. It could be Morris' friend. There's such a thing as dye. Yeah.

If you want to head can it in it as Morris, I'm not going to stop you. Speaking of dye, I noticed that Sam Bomes said, But a lady's hair could be any color tomorrow. Sam Bomes, you are thinking with two narrow minds, anyone's hair can be any color tomorrow. Men's hair is not special. It can. Even when society does not debit normal,

be dyed for meanings, for use of disguises. Slash weights. It's a top tip for you, head of the watch. Top tip, Sam Bomes. I don't mind that though, because he is discussing her specifically as a lady and I think he's talking specifically about how certain ladies might want to. No, absolutely. It was genuinely just a moment.

Let's go. I really enjoy where she's interviewing Keele and says, Oh, you're thinking old seamstress, aren't you? And he says, actually, I was thinking bespoke tailoring. Love that. Love that. It's like a high-class escort thing, isn't it? Yeah.

And the thing is, I think she isn't. And I love the fact that she finds that fluttering almost. Yes. We're very pro-sex worker in this book. We are very pro-sex worker. I enjoy the pro-sex weakness. She also makes a comment about having business in Uberwald, but things are very unsettled there at the moment.

Shall we think werewolves and vampires are probably at each other's throats quite a bit right now? I imagine so. If you think about... That's not one you want, like your throat less. The political upheaval in Uberwald pre... There were some contracts and there were some treaties and things. The diet of bugs. Yes.

Yes, quite so. That's probably happening around now. I imagine. You're correct. And we haven't split up into the little nations that they're talking about later with Borogrovia and... Moldavia. Moldavia, yeah.

And I like that she's... As she's speaking to Keele, she sort of does the, are you one of us? Do you know what we are? Yes. This section also gets the references to Ken Follett that I was talking about. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Follett with his magnificent head of hair and apparently a very good lute player. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a delight. Oh, churril. Sorry about that. Yeah.

What did you think of the little whiskey test? I think Vynza's experienced a lot of those tests in his time now, but I think it's interesting that that's what they went for. Because that's also what Lady Margolotta went for, yeah. Not quite, because she just said, do you want a drink? I know you don't. Yeah, she kept offering. Yeah, just putting the whiskey right there.

I don't know. Seems a bit. Doesn't seem above. No, I don't suppose it seems. It doesn't seem. It doesn't seem below them actually. Now I think about it, because obviously Lady Mazzarola's getting people drunk as her default way of dealing with them.

Yes. Worth a try. Also, it feels like it's not, they're not just trying to get him drunk, but they put the whiskey there to test him. But I don't think there's so much testing him as they're testing the strength of their intel. Yes, that's a good point. One of the things they have been told is that he doesn't drink

and they want to see if that's true. Yeah. Or that's an interpretation of it. Yeah, I like that one. Okay, good. Good. Who's next? Vesenari.

Oh! Dog-Botherer. Sorry, Dog-Botherer. I'll pull Dog-Botherer. Considering what he grows up into, I think he can cope with being called Dog-Botherer a bit as a child. Well, sure. Still don't like to see bullies.

What a moment. Sorry. I enjoy the fact that the bully is the man who eventually becomes head of the Assassin's Guild. This is it. I want to know what kind of tension that caused. And I mean, obviously, Downey did get taken down. He gets some scag-painted tiger stripes on his face.

No, I mean, later, he's the head of the Assassin's Guild that tries to get in on the plot to take down Vesenari, isn't he? Or is that someone else? Oh! No, I think he was the head of the Assassin's Guild after. I think he's the newer one. I think he is the one that deals with the auditors in Hogfather. You're quite right.

You are. Well, even more interesting than because he's allowed to get into that role. And although Vesenari, of course, doesn't have any direct say over the goings on the Guild, and of course, he would never even pressure anybody into, for instance, never letting his school bully into a position of power. But now, of course, he's exactly where he wants him and he gets to enjoy the fact that they have to work together every day while Downey knows he was a right twit.

Yeah, I think Vesenari is on the surface. Vesenari is not petty. If Downey's the best person for the job, Downey should be in the job. But no, Vesenari is petty as fuck. Yeah. And enjoying the fact that Downey probably squirms a bit whenever he has to deal with him and that Downey still, deep down, feels that Vesenari is, in fact, a scag.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And yeah, he does get a small comeuppance. But it's entirely for Vesenari's own satisfaction because Downey wakes up thinking he just got too drunk and some scag painted on him like if you got written on your face at night kind of thing. But Vesenari gets to go, haha, paint him like a tiger. Yeah.

Vesenari's like scheming from a young age, but he's not the Vesenari we know yet. So we have, you know, he's reading about camouflage and he's quite pleased that they destroyed the book so he didn't have to. Yeah. So no one else knows these things he's learned. Yeah, he's already definitely a step above your obvious emotions stuff. Yeah. Two of the funniest moments in the section.

One after he's taken out the would-be assassin, his movements could be called cat-like except that he did not stop to spray urine on things, which is a nice callback to amazing Morris and militia's attempt at moving like cats. Sneak. Are we going the visuals again? Listeners. Sorry. We did.

Little cat poses there. Oh, you know, the other bit that made me laugh is the fact that he was failed on his concealment classes because the professor didn't see him now. Yeah. And he's trickery in his exam. Of course I did. Isn't that the point? And then I like also that Vimes has this little moment of speculation about what Vesenari's

round is somewhere then after we've already met him in that. Learning that little smile of his. Yes. Of plummeting down to the other end of society. Ned Coates. Yeah. Ned Coates is an interesting one because we're mostly seeing him through the lens of knock in this section.

He was himself just a bit of a sad wanker. Yeah. Winsborough. Winsborough. I mean, it's no wonder he came out the way he did with a name like Winsborough. Yeah. At least we got to see yet another moment of Vimes holding. I know what you did, but I'm going to pretend to be all chummy.

Just add in these up. And he knows at this point that Nock thinks he's a spy, asks what Nock thinks of Coates and Nock immediately throws Coates under the bus. Yeah. Troublemaker, barrack room lawyer, rebel sympathies could be sir. I wouldn't like to see the lad in trouble. And obviously we know that there was something in Coates locker. We know there's something more to Coates.

And also he's paying Nobby to spy on Sam. Yeah, I would. If it was cheap, just see what's going on. It's like a soap. They don't have Netflix. I do like the, oh, this one only paid me half a penny to watch you, so I don't watch too much on his account. That's it.

We'd probably tackle actually. Yeah. And then I suppose we'll talk about Coates a bit more later. So on to Ferret. Ferret. The sort of little twerp who got a kick out of showing his dagger to women in bars. Yeah. So to speak.

No, actually. Bratchett is really good at making these characters who are just irritating and kind of gross enough that we don't mind something nasty happening to them. But at the same time, they're just sympathetic enough we can feel sorry for them when the nastiness happens. We can do a little bit of both with them. Yeah. Yeah.

Although we do know this one's torturer, adjacent at least. Yes. But yeah. Yeah. The little details just to show, we all know this dude. He's like, he's wearing rings. Assassin's Day wear rings. That's stupid.

They go shiny. But he's wearing rings. He wants to look like an assassin. He's cool, he thinks. And he is definitely compensating for lack of personality. Yes. He's drawn one on instead. And it's not a very nice one.

And then we don't meet this character, but we start getting some build up to Snapcase, the future patrician. Yeah. And it's quite a sad note to the book because Vimes is changing history a bit willy-nilly, but we know that this next guy is just as bad. We know that we still have to go through this shit guy. Yeah. Better in some ways.

Yeah. Just another winder. I think that some of the really fascist stuff seems to be out, doesn't it? But he's just... He's still an unpleasant... He's not the revolution incarnate. Yeah. Another winder with fancier waistcoats and more chins.

Yeah. The same cronyism, piggy ways, stupid arrogance. One more leech in a line of leeches that would make veterinary seem like a breath of fresh air. Yep. And with that, you get, again, in that conversation with Sam and Lady Mezzarole, a new patrician needing new friends, fast-lighted people who want to be part of a new future. And they're very much pointing out that the action on the streets is a distraction from the political revolution happening in closed doors, which is just turning people against

winder and to Snapcase. Yes. And obviously, no one is as fast-lighted as Vimes. No one can look at this and go, no, Snapcase is just as much of a bad idea because he is the best they've got at this point. Yeah. I wonder slightly because I'm half remembering here. But we...

But Nari's aunt is mentioned early in the books, isn't she? He's got an aunt somewhere. Oh, yeah. Indirectly referenced in several other books. Yeah. So that is her. So this does several decades later culminate in Vettanari saying being like a breath of fresh air.

I wonder how foresighted she is. If she wants to set Vettanari up as the future. Yeah. Probably not. Probably not. That idea probably comes a bit later. No, I feel like he's more a piece on the board to try and manipulate things into better futures.

And Vettanari actually being the one to take control is probably more his idea. But in very much, you know, when someone's doing something badly and rather than showing them how to do it, you just want to take it off of them and do it properly yourself because it's frustrating to watch. Yeah. I feel like that's how Vettanari became patrician. Oh my God. I'll do it.

Right. Everybody, calm down. Have some gilds. You gild. You gild. You scorpion pit. Yeah. I haven't mentioned any locations for this week because you don't really go anywhere.

Oh, you wanted to speculate on some other characters though. Oh, yeah. So, like, where do you agony aunts come from? Because we see them later briefly in one of the modern books. But they're already dairy aunty by this point. We don't know how oddly they are. They might just be dressed like older women and that's a cool disguise because I think that would be good.

That would be something I might do if I was trying to... Well, also, you know, there are some people who become like a dairy type aunty at the age of like 40 and then stay that way for another 50 years. I feel like they could be those. Yeah. There's also a possibility, I feel like, that they could be like... Oh, there's got to be a better way of putting this. But like James Bond, they just get replaced by...

New dot season series. Yeah, yeah. And so maybe Miss Batty could become one of them later. But as long as there's always an agony aunt. Listeners, please write in with your agony aunt head canons because I find them very fun characters. I enjoy them. Little bits we liked.

Oh, yes. Lobby's slang. Lobby's slang. I just thought it was rather nice. Probably, but I ain't done nothing, mister. Bime spent down to look into eyes that peered out at the world through a mask of grime. How about whizzing wipers, snitching tinclothes, pulling wobblers, flogging tumblers and running rumbles?

What's pulling wobblers mean? That's stealing trifles, small items, isn't it? Nah, nah, that's tottering nevels. Oil of angels, the bribe. And a dimber. Could be a head beggar. Could just be a handsome man. But you don't know how to flea gajade, though.

And that's a little bit of foreshadowing. That is a bit of foreshadowing, actually. I completely didn't notice that. One of the things I loved about the horrible history books that I still remember is that there were often like little bits of slang like that. So it's a bit about like Victorian chill crime kids, whatever. And there were whole sections about slang like that. And I like it.

I didn't think to do it until now, but I have the amazing dictionary of euphemisms that you got me for Christmas next to me and I didn't look any of those up. Ah, well. Well, we'll do a follow-up for that. Yes, we'll follow up on euphemisms. Whizzing wipers does get honourable mention. It was nearly my helicopter. Oh, yeah.

No, absolutely. But no, Pratchett does have an incredible ability for just putting a bunch of silly words together and making it incredibly funny. Yes, absolutely. As I talked about, a great length in The Last Hero. With the dragons, yes. Lovely. Lovely.

You've got another little one and we have just got little ones today, haven't we? Yeah, we've kept this to a minimum because there's just so much to fucking talk about, isn't there? This was originally something I noted in that it was another fun selection of silly words. Slum gullet, boiled eels, lob scouts, wet nellies, slumpy and treacle billy. Ooh. Okay. The sorts of foods available at this hot chair eating place that Vines takes nobby to.

But I did decide to check some definitions. Oh. So slum gullet, I'm assuming is a reference to slum gullion. Ooh. Ooh. Got it. That's a fun word to say, which is American English. I think it's not as commonly used these days.

It's a bit old fashioned, but it's a term for like a cheap stew. Okay. But it originally meant the refuse from processing whale carcasses. Mm-mm. Whale-y good. Gullion appears to come from quagmire or cesspool. So slum gullion is just along those lines. Lovely.

Yeah. What a satisfying sentence. Slum might have meant syndrome to charm as well, I imagine, at some point or, yeah. Yeah, quite possibly. I didn't go deep into the etymology of all of these. I'm glad because that sounds gross. Lob scouts, a few of our listeners might have heard of, especially Welsh and Liverpoolian because it's still used as a term for a sort of meat and potato type stew there.

Is that whale of a puddle intercaled scousers? Yes. Scouse is another name for a dish, but they do all seem to overlap and have similar etymologies. But lob scouse comes from lap scouse, the Norwegian word. Hmm. And this sort of, again, cheap stew meat and potatoes seems to have ended up landing in the UK in poor cities on the West Coast from Northern Europe. Interesting.

There's a lot of words for it in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, that sort of thing. Hmm. I wonder what the Scottish variants are. Yes. Well, a Scottish variant, slumpy. Oh. That's a Scottish dish, again, sort of stew thing made with minced beef. There's a recipe for slumpy.

That's one I know, I think. There's a recipe for slumpy and cutie dumplings in Nanny Oaks Cookbook. There it is, that's right. Yeah. And masquerade. Slumpy is dished up to the opera singer. Yeah. Enrico Basilica.

We also have wonderful pudding. Wet Nelly, a type of bread pudding made with sewet and dried fruit that became popular during World War II rationing. It is a cheaper and notably damper, because it's a soggy bread pudding type thing. It's a notably damper version. It's never something I want to hear on a menu, to be honest. Yeah, it's a version of a Nelson cake, which is a term for a fruit cake from Lancashire, hence why it's called a Wet Nelly.

Okay. Or a damp Nelson, if you're posh. I'm not. I think. I think I prefer Wet Nelly. This was a weird one, though, because when I was typing Wet Nelly into Google, one of the also-completes was Elon Musk, and I really wasn't sure of the context. So it turns out Wet Nelly is also the name of a car that turns into a submarine in the

Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me. Oh, all right. Specifically for the Carnards listening, it's a Lotus Esprit S1, and the car used in the film is now owned by Elon Musk. I see. Hence the autocomplete. Wet Nelly. As far as I'm aware, Elon Musk has very little connection to damp bread puddings.

Except in vibe. Treacle Billy was an interesting one because Google took me in a weird place to an analysis of the, there's an album called Dublin Street Songs by a man called Frank Hart. I've not listened to this yet. And the page Google took me to was an analysis of the lyrics to songs on this album. And a note on the lyrics for the song, The Twang Man, says, A light-hearted murder story from the middle of the last century. I am told that Twang Man was a kind of sweet meat and that Treacle Billy was a kind of

toffee made from treacle. Okay. However, Green's Dictionary of Slangs says Treacle Billy is Irish slang for a lodging house. Okay. Could be better. So, Irish listeners, if you've ever had the term treacle Billy. Yeah, I'll check some of my random dictionaries as well.

And we'll, we'll meet back here next week, guys. I'll take the euphemisms. You take the, some obscure reference book that you've got. I already had a few, but this podcast has massively expanded my shelf of esoterica. So, I have many a place to check for this kind of absolute nonsense. What a wonderful world we live in. Where people write such books. Absolutely delightful.

And you had a question, didn't you? Oh yeah, I thought, because I was thinking about like, oh, it'd be weird to bump into a young Benara if you were Sam. If you were catapulted back in time, back to our previous question, but less depressing this time. Who would you track down? Who's young self would you track down out of curiosity? First of all, in Discworld.

Oh, so in Discworld, I mean, I'm enjoying young Rosie Palm here. Young Granny Weatherwax and young Naniog, especially young Naniog, I think that would have just You want to go make friends? I want to go be friends with young Naniog. I mean, I want to be young Naniog and then old Naniog. I want to be Naniog. You want to be Naniog. That's fair, I understand that.

I think, yeah, I had Granny Weatherwax on there and I think also one of like the other witches. So like either Black Alice or Old Mother Dismass or someone who's now either a legend or not really on our plane of existence anymore. Yes. Just to see what the last generation of witches were like. Young Ridcully, I feel like could be quite entertaining. Oh, yeah.

Because he was outside the university, wasn't he? He was off terrorizing wildlife. He was a village where he was a country wizard. Yeah, and like in real life, then. I mean, as I'm reading Marksburg London Boys at the moment, I feel like young David Bowie would be an obvious one. Oh, yeah. Nice, nice.

I think, I mean, if we're just taking Terry Pratchett as a given, I think I would like to meet. See, I was thinking of like real life ones and now I know like real life like people I know. Oh, yeah. I'd quite like to meet my mum at my age or not my age because she'd had me by now. Oh, God, crisis, crisis. Yeah.

Like, yeah, I'd like to meet my mum and my grandma or something. Yeah, like Teenage probably. Actually, I'd love to meet my great aunt when she was younger. Oh, yeah. Oh, the mad one. The good mad one. What's the word when it's fun? Eccentric.

Eccentric. She was eccentric. She was full of gin. She was a chef and married to a lovely Italian man who imported lots of quartz. I just think she was probably quite a lot of fun in her younger years. I know she was. I think she was. Very much opted to not have children so that she could work in kitchens and then go on lots

of nice trips. I mean, I feel like obviously I've got roast into spectacles here for all I know. She was an absolute asshole. Oh, yeah. But if you're just there for a holiday. Yep. Okay, good. Good.

All right, shall we go on to the big stuff? Yeah. Yeah, so talking about grim. All right, let's get on to the depressing aspects of this. There's some historical context. So the Dolly sisters, right? In this one, it's kind of a spark on the tinderbox. Yeah.

So even though he's averted the Morphic Street conspiracy event, which might itself correspond to several conspiracy events, I was thinking maybe the Kato Street event, which is tied into the massacre at Peterloo. So it was Peterloo that practice had in mind for this and he said as much. I said it was Peterloo that I had in mind as discussed here, here being the fan group some time ago. But as a general rule, when things look bad, there's always some dickhead who can make them worse.

Yeah. Which is very true. Sending some twats with weapons into a tense, dense crowd is a bad idea, I would say generally. You think stadium crushes is another example, but most relevant here are things like strikes and protests that turn into massacres and riots. And it is so often just because you send some idiot in to corner everybody at once. In this case, it's cavalry specifically in Dolly sisters, I mean, it's idiots on horseback. Yes.

Yeah. Which is a massive problem because cavalry is very intimidating and kind of elevates the aggressors as well in a way that dehumanizes the people we're slashing at. And I think that became evident here. So Peterloo was at St Peter'sville, Manchester, 16th August, 1819. 18 people died, some later on from their injuries, due to the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. Say it was drawn charging their horses into a crowd of 60,000 people.

The rally had been like an attempt to bring mass pressure to bring about parliamentary reform without resorting to insurrection was the point. Like Dolly sisters, it happened against like a background of hunger and overpriced foods for a lot of people who would have been there, would have been there just, you know, they've been fucking starving for a long time. There's not only political radicals here, although there are a lot of them. But it was by design a peaceful rally is the thing. The organisers had prohibited weapons entirely, defensive and offensive.

And that's not to say some people didn't bring them anyway, but the point was, it was not a violent rally. It was only when the mounted cavalry came into arrest, Henry Hunt, that they started slashing indiscriminately at people. The first person who was killed was a two year old who was thrown from his mother's arms as the cavalry just knocked her down. And yeah, and missiles like bricks started flying eventually. And yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people were injured, hundreds of people were injured.

And when you hear like 18 dead and 400 injured, you kind of automatically minimise the injury debate in your head. But I mean, a sabre injury, this is a lot of people who would have been permanently fucked up. These are people who are now unable to work. Yeah, exactly. So exactly. So that is an interesting one in English history, actually.

And I might go down this for a rabbit hole because there are so many interesting characters. There are a lot of real twats. And I should mention, actually, the Yeomanry and similar regiments where there's a kind of thing we were talking about in Jingo, where the government allowed these regiments to come up in times of emergency. And then this time it was because people didn't want the fucking government. So that was enough for military law, good fun. Very nice.

William Hullton, sorry, another absolute twat. He was the head of the magistrates who ordered the charge. And yeah, but we've got events like this all through history. There's a whole Wikipedia page called List of Food Riots, for instance. And a lot of those, and that's not me looking for protests that turned into riots because the police were twats, but a lot of them are. Well, it's the point that Vimes makes. Tilden says, the riot was over the price of bread, I understand.

And Vimes' inner voice, no, the protest was over the price of bread. The riot was what happened when you have panicking people trapped between idiots on horseback, another idiot shouting, yeah, right. Yeah, absolutely. It's almost like sending the cavalry into a protest is a bad idea. I can't imagine when it would be a good idea. I think I sent you probably a rant after the last horrible stadium crush where a couple hundred people died the other month.

Yeah. And just the list of the most fatal incidents like that, almost all. This crowd was slightly rowdy because they sat at the other and some absolute pricks came in and fired tear gas and hundreds of people died. Yeah. And it's just, oh, it's awful to sing it again and again. And I can see very much here, we'll go on to what you want to talk about because you can find so many examples of this and so many examples of everything being so

godawfully handled that I can see Pratchett just going, do you know what, this is how I would do it. This is how I would do it. I'm going to fucking fanfic this. Yeah. I'm going to fanfic history. I'm going to head cannon. I'm projecting myself into vimes, into keel for a bit.

And I'm just going to fucking sort this briefly. Yeah. And then we'll go back to more realistic term of events. Fine. And Vimes does some extraordinary things. He does. He really does. It's really fascinating.

One thing I noticed actually when you were talking about the piece of the massacre is you pointing out that people were asked not to bring weapons. And one of the things early in this section talks about where everything has gone wrong under winder and everything has gone wrong with swing as a captain. Swing brought in the weapons law. And this idea being that citizens weren't allowed to carry weapons, so citizens should hand their weapons in. And law-abiding citizens did.

And citizens that already didn't care about the law obviously fucking didn't. That's an interesting one because that's an anti-gun control argument. Yeah. Very much so. And I don't agree with it, but I agree with the way Vimes is making the point here, which is that then people started carrying their own weapons again. And then obviously it was only the people who didn't really, who wanted to obey the law, who found themselves arrested.

And the line, he says, the city had plenty of laws. It just didn't offer many opportunities not to break them. And this is this incredible look at, that's the beginning of the pressure pot that's now coming to the lid flying off and knocking a chunk out of your ceiling, and is why I went and have a pressure cooker. I'm kind of scared of them. I got my electric one, which is as far as I can tell. Oh yeah, the mother ones are all safe.

But it makes the odd noise that does make me kind of leave the room till it's finished, whatever it's doing. I'm pretty sure you're fine, but I'm just going to get next door. But what's great about having Vimes being, as you said, kind of Cherry Pratchett's avatar, for fuck it, I'm going to sort this out, is that he obviously wasn't like this. We have seen this growth from guards, guards. And I keep coming back to one point you made when we talked about guards, guards, that I don't think I'd noticed, which was Vimes being okay with police brutality.

He sends Kara in to beat up a bunch of guys who haven't really done anything other than their jobs. And obviously here, he's grown and he's thoughtful, but because he's had to. Because the Vimes who's opting to do that in guards, guards, the reason I have the book handy is I was looking for a kind of talk about the old night watch. And I won't read a bunch for Alex, it's very depressing. But one of the things Vimes is thinking about is, God, there's only three of us, there used to be hundreds. Yeah.

And obviously. So it's grown and shrunk again. Yeah. I know Pratchett didn't have this book we're talking about now in mind when he wrote Guards, Guards, but at the same time, you can imagine that this is what Vimes was thinking of. Yeah. I think with the him being better, and we'll talk in a bit about how there's still some issues.

But yeah. I think a big part of it as well is even in Guards, Guards, where he was a captain, captain of the night watch at that point. I believe so, yeah. He wasn't punching down. No. By the time he's commander of the watch, anyone he uses his, I'm going to hit you with a chair instead of diplomacy my way through this, is him a person of power hitting down.

Yeah. Even if he went and punched Mayonnaise Quirk. Which is a satisfying way. It would be the Duke, the commander of the watch, the most powerful man in Admiral Valk's second event, Nari. Yeah. And I think Pratchett probably realized that as he gave him promotions. And I think that that was very correct because you can't have somebody become that powerful

and remain likable if he keeps his like hilariously violent tendencies, I think. And he lets it out elsewhere against supernatural things and against proper, criminals like Carthorne, even then he doesn't want to hurt an unarmed man. Yeah, no, he's very essentially trying to do everything with Carthorne by the book, but in his way, not in a charity way. I also quite like the contrast between, and he says it in this book for in a different way, but I think it was either in Guards, Guards, or Men at Arms, something like everyone's guilty of something.

And it's kind of said in a joke way, like we can get them on whatever, we'll find something. And I didn't like that. But here it is, everyone is guilty of something. And also, it's because there's no way not to break the laws. Like it's entirely the establishment's fault that everyone's guilty of something. Yeah. And it talks about the fact that swing is no interest in rehabilitation or making things better. It's just about making as many things as illegal as possible.

But yeah, to talk about like the big moment of this section that we kind of danced around, but not so much the Dolly Sisters' riot itself, which again, that page is just a very tough read when he's talking about a child's hand slipping out of his mother's as the horses come in. That hurts to read. But obviously, he prevented the events that happened at Morphic Street, which obviously turned into similar actions. And all that's happened is it's moved to a different place. He's worried he's completely untethered history, but history is going to history

because people are going to people. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how Lutze would put it. Yeah. But what this turns into, because we don't see the riots itself, instead we see the aftermath of the riot. And what they're told is that watch houses are going to be attacked now. There's rampaging mobs on the streets. And what you need to do is be a euphemism, be mindful of the curfew. Double down.

The orders from above are saying there's a threat of revolutionaries now. Mindful of the curfew means if we get people coming to complain about unarmed citizens being attacked by soldiers, we have to arrest those people. And what he does instead is open everything up. He tries to create total transparency. And it's impressive because you see all these cogwheels going. He's trying to capture the unmentionables that are going to come for the one they've got in the prison, hence putting the trap in the loo and another trap somewhere else.

The upended door full of nails, which admittedly is a bit harsh, but I feel like we can accept that for the unmentionables. Yeah, no, absolutely. There's two very different threats to deal with in two very different ways at the same time, which is quite the multitasker considering you and I today were like, oh, I cannot cope with life and also podcast. Yeah, TikTok. So his instructions for colon and wadi to go and be two guys who stand outside the door,

and he instructs them that under no circumstances draw your swords. And he wants people to look at them and see, Fred Colum, my old mate, wadi drinks down the pub. Put all the lights on, show your face, put your weapons away. If they just see a couple of men in uniform with swords, you'll be in trouble. And if you draw those swords tonight without my order and survive, you'll wish you hadn't done either because you'll have to face me. And yeah, he opens the door.

A closed door is an incitement to bravery, a man drinking from a mug under a light, and apparently enjoying the cool night air is an incitement to pause. Sort of slightly, slightly similar to Kars as what you're going to hit Nanama. Yeah. It's the again with the anti-Karser actions outside of the coin. Yeah, they both know how to throw someone off their balance, but in Vimes' case, it's helpful. Yeah, and it's considered, I think in Vimes' case, rather than a weird instinct.

And he, when this guy has got this bottle and he's obviously going to try and smash it and come for Vimes, he's encouraging him not to, but he's also making very much a point of making sure he has a cigar in one hand and a mug in the other and staying still. So when this guy injures himself, which Vimes was expecting, like, yes, he could have tried to take the bottle off the man and stop the injury, but the man still could have gotten injured and it would have looked like his foot. And now it's the policeman, yeah, absolutely. And he pauses for a couple of seconds before going to help so that the tabloids in everybody's

mind, he knows how people's memories work. Yeah, there was even still ash on his cigar. And then when Lawn comes to help the guy, he makes sure that people from the street come in and see it. He's not taken behind closed doors because he's so aware that that's what Cable Street are doing. It made me think of, well, actually speaking of fresher cookers, it made me think of a release of pressure or more specifically kind of the right way to deal with a deluge or a flood, which is not to board up your doors and hope that the house or the building

can stand against the ocean because, of course, it can't. You open the windows in the bottom floor, you open the doors in the bottom floor, and you allow it to flood through. Yes, very much so. And they're the metaphor ends because I don't think I can turn any of these people into fish. Oh, no, we had this conversation a bit earlier and I pointed out that he's swept away. It's a point of revolution, sorry. Vimes is swept away on the current of a slightly alternative history.

That's it. Well done. Thank you. Thank goodness I've got Hugh here to extend my metaphors. That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. So you have this progress, you have this incredibly open and honest policing, but it's still not, and I'm purely talking about policing in the discord context here because I think if I try and compare this to one policing in, say, the UK, we're all going to get very sad and angry, aren't we? But you do then have Vimes doing dodgy stuff.

He doesn't take young Sam down to the cellars for his version of the ginger beer trick. Because I think it's described in the book as it's not illegal, but it's the same shade and color and smells illegal. And this to me is very much using the power of being an insider to do bad things, because you know what's on the wrong side of that law. And these days, in modern times, it would absolutely be illegal because that is a coerced confession. Yes, very much so.

And obviously, they don't do whatever Carcer is talking about as the ginger beer trick. They just make Ferret think something horrible is happening. Oh, I looked into it, by the way. Yeah, there was a reference to it in annotated Pratchett. Oh, OK, cool. You got it? Not directly in front of me if you've got it. To save debate running wild, I've heard this attributed to Mexican police as a cheap way of getting a suspect to talk in which happily does not leave a mark.

The carbonated beverage of choice was Coca-Cola, hint expanding bubbles and the sensitivity of the sinuses. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch confirmed that this kind of torture is regularly reported as being used by the Mexican police. Lovely. Well done, Mexican police. But yeah, it's all very implicit. Yeah, nothing is directly described,

but it is something of a psychological torture for Ferret. And there's obviously, as you said, it's a coerced confession. Yeah. And you can't feel that bad for Ferret on account of the fact he is a torturer. Or at least torturer adjacent. Yes. But obviously, it's hard to be entirely on board. There's a sense of relief in going back to the other room and seeing that the corks are all still firmly wired down on the bottles of ginger beer. Like, you know that that's not really the sort of thing that vimes would do.

You know he wouldn't actually do something as horrific as whatever the ginger beer trick is. But for half a page, it really looks like he's telling you he did. Yeah. And it's horribly tense. And you kind of need that moment of relief before you go, oh no, what he did was still really fucking horrible though, wasn't it? But then you also have the revelation from the ginger beer moment that the mentioners have been told to mix in with mobs and throw things at coppers. Yeah.

They're effectively there to incite and make things worse. But again, it's something that has happened in real life. Yep, very much so. But is spotted quite easily by someone like Vimes, but probably not by any other... Colen. Well, maybe even by Colen, although I'm sure it's just that he'd be able to go there. But I think a lot of the people on top of being willfully blind because they want things to be bad enough to bring in the next set of laws.

Yeah, very much so. I mean, going back to Peterloo, there were some incredibly totalitarian laws brought in the Six Acts, I think it was called, in the wake of Peterloo, despite the fact that it was entirely the authorities who made the problem. Yeah. If you look at the anti-protest laws that are trying to be brought in in the UK at the moment that are so bad, Amnesty International is campaigning against them. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's... Sorry, that's really depressing. No, yeah, my brain is ticking over whether I'm going to start a rant on that and I'm not right now. Not right now. Maybe next week, maybe. Yeah, we've still got like half the books. I feel despair over that, to be honest, and I'm not sure that's the vibe I want to end on.

No, I don't want to end on despair. I mean, this is... Let's go back to talking about how good the book is, because really, that's the main talking point for all of these. I don't agree with all of Vimes' actions, but I think it's an incredibly good read. And the way the tension is built in the Vime scene, where he is sat down with his mug of cocoa and his cigar, but underneath that, you feel the tension building up in the city as a whole.

That is an incredible piece of writing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And to go from that to him being interviewed by Lady Mezzarol. And obviously, Pratchett did not prescribe where we've ended these various sections. No, but it is, again, a very... It's not an end to the tension. It's not a release of the tension, but it's an odd pause to the tension that makes you go, oh, okay, okay, let's focus on this for a sec, I guess, yeah, okay.

And it adds another layer to the tension. The fact that everything that settles who the next leader will be is happening with glasses of champagne, with Lady Mezzarol entertaining Dr. Follett. It is not happening. The riots, the revolution, this is a distraction from the real change of power. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's very sad. Because history has to be of every...

Vimes can't change the past. That's the point. He needs to leave a Vimes shape hold to go back to. Yeah, but he's not really trying to stop himself much. No, what the book is doing is him wrestling with, do I do the job that's in front of me to go home? Or do I do the job that's in front of me and try and make things better, but maybe erase my entire future existence in the process.

To carry that alongside that, the inevitability of... As a reader, I feel like you know that Vimes is going to be all right, because otherwise, what would the point of this book be? Pratchett does not want to do a big depressing ending. Sad endings, yes, but not depressing. Yeah, no, it would be very odd. But it's a good book to the point where you don't really think about that as you're reading, you're genuinely frightened for him.

You're frightened and you're really caught up in these riots and in this revolution and in this feeling of change, even though you know the future is a foregone conclusion, that's what's so incredible about this book. I'm going to end that Francine. Yes, I have an obscure reference for Neil, except it's not very obscure. It's really an excuse to talk about things I want to talk about. But briefly, I promise, when Downey chucks Bertinari's book into the fire, the tiger burned brightly.

And of course, a little nod towards William Blake's The Tiger with a Y. Yes. Which goes, Tiger, tiger burning bright in the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry? Thank you, William Blake. The best words start with them. Yes, I know the vowel shifts, whatever, whatever.

But the point is, I like the whole thing about camouflage and clearly Pratchett does as well because it's a little running theme that doesn't have that much to do with things. I mean, it's woven in throughout, but it's a lovely little addition rather than a plot mainstay. Bertinari's very into camouflage. I like the fact that Sam Vimes knows how to stare into shadows and he sees there's a deeper shadow because someone's wearing black and people think that blacks are good camouflage, but it isn't. And that's true.

Bertinari is practicing a far more sophisticated form of camouflage, which is to wear colors that would appear in nature. Yeah, dark greens and grays. Yeah, dark greens, grays, all of that. If you wear black in the night, then you will blend in with things that are black. The night is not black is my point here. So that set me off reading about camouflage in general. And that's quite a fun subject.

Disruptive coloration is the name for it with the stripes like your tiger. So it basically works by breaking up the outlines of whatever it is. So like military gears, all like stripes and camo and all that stuff. And it's just to get rid of that silhouette. And obviously it's found everywhere in nature. And it sometimes looks quite unlikely. So you get some like some fishes that have eye masks on like and sometimes quite bright splotches. And you'd think, oh, well, that makes it easy to spot.

But no, not really, because you do get random blotches of stuff in places. And having one distinctly fish shaped block of any one color is going to be way more noticeable. And anyway, I'm going to look to a couple of fun articles about camouflage. Because it's fun to me. And I like the fact that the whole field is all cryptsis, because I didn't know that. I mean, specifically the tiger thing, the orange and black in a green forest, because I read it in this book, it has since become my, yeah, no, that's camouflaged. And I'll die on this hill as a running joke with our mutual friend.

Yeah. Who hates the idea of a tiger being camouflaged. Well, apparently, apparently, I'll be the well actually person for a minute. But apparently it's because the ungulates and things that it hunts are generally red, green, colorblind. So they are a variety of browns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure that explains why they're orange or orange.

I'm not sure how many orange things there are. Maybe it's just because that particular desaturated tone blends in very well with the green. I know you add a bit of red to green to make it look more natural. I think I'm straying into a different area of color theory here, though. You are. To bring us quickly back to tigers, though. I'm sorry, Johanna, I didn't mean straight too far from tigers.

Please never stray too far. No, I was reminded of my personal favorite poem about a tiger. Oh, good. I'm glad we've all got one. And that I've seen on Twitter many times. And this is The Tiger by Nail, age six. The tiger, he destroyed his cage. Yes, yes, the tiger is out.

Genuinely fucking genius, to be honest. Right, yes, yes. I will never write anything that good in my fucking life. Anyway, listen to this, send us your best tiger poems. And we might talk about them on the podcast next week for section three of Nightwatch, which starts on page 257 and the Corgi paperback with Vimee slept in a corner standing up and ends, oh fuck, I marked two potential places where we're going to win. So I'm going to make that decision now.

No, I'm going to fucking decide. Lies, bad men. Ends on page 356. We don't have to make a big fuss about being the best, sir. We just know unless I decide to change the ending. But imagine a flag. I know this book so fucking well. I've been wondering throughout whether it's probably a combination of both,

but whether I see every scene so clearly because it's quite so well described, or whether it's because I've read this book so many fucking times. So I've had time to ruminate. Bit of column A, bit of column B. Yeah. Anyway, until next week and the tiny flags, send us your favorite tiger poems by communicating with us on Instagram at the true shall make you fret on Twitter at make you fret pod on Facebook at the true shall make you fret.

Join our subreddit community, r slash t t s m y f. Be careful about explaining quantum physics and the rules. It's all right if I find the comment. Yeah, I'm not allowed. Hurts me. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, tiger poems, whatever else you fancy, flying fruit, the true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com. And if you would like to support us financially, go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall

make you fret and exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. Including by the time this is released, I promise I'll have edited your rabbit hole on person boots. Oh, I forgot I recorded that. Yeah, it'll be out soon. I've had a very busy week. I'm so sorry, guys. Until next time, dear listener, don't let me entertain you. How does one with a wiper do you think?

Carefully.