The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 138: Unseen Academicals Pt. 3 (Progressive Sleaze)

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

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 “Unseen Academicals”. Chants! Pies! Glowing Gold Woman! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:How Jennifer Lopez’s Versace Dress Created Google Images | GQ Playlist Alternative History created by @joeefoster - TikTok  Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats - Poetry Foundation  FIFA World Cup Trophy - WikipediaThe women that Britain ‘loved to hate’ [the 2006 WAGs] - BBC Culture Erinyes (Furies) – Mythopedia Hillsborough disaster - Wikipedia Hippodrome | Byzantine, Roman & Greek - BritannicaSchmidt pain scale - Natural History Museum  The Great Kentucky Meat Shower Mystery - Scientific American   They think it's all over - Wikipedia Alea iacta est - Wikipedia Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

But I want to know what you think of what's going on in the Magnus Ryse School. I'm enjoying. My red twine cork board of the mind is growing. Your metaphorical red twine cork board of the mind. That's actually how my inner monologue works. I booked my trip to the States and I finished knitting the second sleeve of the jumper I'm making. So it's actually been quite a good week. Is this your masterwork fishing jumper thing? Yes.

Nice. My hands hurt. It's so big. It's so chunky. I can't wait to wear it. You'll have it done just in time for summer. The moment I finish, I bind off the collar, sun's going to come out and that's it for months.

This is the new way to herald a season. Yeah. I make inappropriate clothing. To make the winter appear, if we're in the middle of a long drought, I'm going to have to have you fashion a bikini or something. Yeah, I'll knock up a summer dress. Yeah. I'll find the perfect fabric.

I need to order some fabric actually. I need to make a dress to wear to Buffy Prom. Now I'm actually going. Oh, what kind of thing are you thinking? I want to do something based on a dress that's in the show. There's a dress that Cordelia wears. It's a very nice like green silk dress, but so I'm going to do something like that, but maybe cut slightly differently so it's a bit more flattering for me. But the episode she wears in is like a homecoming dance and as she ends up accidentally getting dragged

through bushes and things, which means if my hair doesn't behave, it'll just look like it's meant to be like that. Love that as a fail save. Yep. I've been watching a bunch of videos on TikTok by this guy called Joe, which doesn't help very much but I'll- Guy called Joe? Guy called Joe. Perfect.

Much shorter song than a boy named Sue. Yeah. The name was Joe, he was all right about it. Before he left, he went, name me Joe. That was just fine. I was all right with that. Had a very normal life. But he does fun little recap videos of pop culture, especially in the 2000s and things. He's been doing a lot of Big Brother Oh fun. summaries and that. It's lovely, lovely callbacks. But one of the things was that green silk

dress that J.Lo wore. I don't know if it was that dress. Oh, yeah, that was actually one. That dress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was the You knew what I meant immediately. Yeah, that's like why Google Images was invented. Huh. That's a, that's a massive broadening of a very simple thing. So many people were trying to find images of J.Lo in the Versace green dress that it was a huge

motivating factor for Google Images. Yeah. Incredible. Yet another thing that was inspired by girls can help. What has J.Lo done for us? Well, the aqueducts, Google images, roads. So you could draw some terrible narrative symmetry between J.Lo building this part of the internet with her very famous ass and King Kardashian breaking it. You could, but should you? Oh no, absolutely not. In fact, I'm ashamed that I've let the idea out into the world. Thank you Francine. What have you brought upon us?

Where are we? It's March Francine. It's the Ides of March. Is it? It's the Ides of March. It's the 15th today. While we're recording. Oh nice. Remember guys, it's not about stabbing, it's about stabbing with your friends. The friends you stab along the way. Oh God.

Should we just, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The True Shall Make You Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one this time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. I'm Francine Carroll. And it's part three of our discussion of unseen academicals. In which we hear the final whistle.

Well done. Well done, Francine. Thanks. You made it worse. I really did. That was horrible. On my part. Now on spoilers before we crack on, we're a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously heavy spoilers for Unseen Academicals, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the 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. On an overnight coach to Stolat having unsuccessfully threatened the driver with a bit of lead pipe.

Follow up, you've got some bits from the Discord, haven't you? Oh yeah, a couple of bits. Sond Vogel mentioned that truth is beauty, beauty, truth, sir, sorry, is also of course the ending couplet of John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn, which makes a lot of sense with the urn and the trophy and all that. That's cool. So it goes, beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all you know on earth and all you need to know. Which is nice. I genuinely thought I'd said that in the first episode and then realised I hadn't. I'd just mentioned The Simpsons and obviously that's the poem they're talking about in The Simpsons and somehow my brain didn't deliver the rest of that information.

It's okay, Joanne, you don't need to mention all the poems. But I will try. And Luxaire says that they do have a spoon or spatula with a hole in the spoon that's specifically for sauces and maybe it aerates the sauce. I disagree. I mean, not that someone has sold it as it does that, but I'm not sure it would do much to aerate a sauce. Why? Because it just isn't going to get that much air into it. You're just stirring with a hole.

I mean, if you really want to aerate a sauce, you want to be getting your whisk out really. Okay. I do agree. Yeah. Also, it just seems difficult to clean. Yeah, I don't like trying to clean holes. Right, okay. Which of us was going to break first? Always a fun game. We'll be saving that clip for posterity and hopefully playing it at my funeral. Previously on Francine, what happened last time?

Previously on Unseen Academicals. Watcha! Juliet, now Jules, is the new heavily bearded face of Aunt Moorpork high or low fashion. Glenda's sherry adds a spark to her inner monologue and allows her to entertain Madame Charn's charms. Back on campus, the unseen academics can barely muster a kickabout until the Cabinet of Curiosity provides a perfect ball and Genua provides a perfect star striker. Nut steps in to sculpt the beautiful game, Ridcully and Henry step back into their decades-old bickering match, and Rintzwin steps out of his sock in case the faculty gets apocalyptically rowdy. Meanwhile, Glenda reckons with a personal attack in the form of a chitinous metaphor.

She climbs out of the crab bucket and into the Great Hall, just in time to see Vetnari charm the local captains into signing their game away. Empowered by the knowledge of imaginary mallets, she walks into the palace to confront Vetnari, who does, it should be noted, have some very real hammers that he could use. But he's talking to a sugar bean and some pies are worth a more benevolent than usual outlook. I agree. I agree. Oh, I still want to pickle down, you know, I forgot to buy some. Yeah, I forgot to buy some.

All right, we'll get there. Notes on my acquisitions. Also, we've got to remember the wild garlic. Yes, we should go picking soon. However, before we do that, we should finish recording this podcast. In this section, which starts where the last one ended and we're going to go all the way to the end. Hooray.

Nut's concerned that the door in his head might open. Chained down with claws growing, he embarks on some self-analysis and remembers the ladyship in the Forbidden Book. The harpies harp on, Glenda screams, and a crowd comes running, arriving in time to see Nutt admit to his orcish ways. Nutt walks away to make his coloured candles, and Glenda organises Trev and Juliet before going to do her research. The librarian shows her an unfortunate woodcut, and Dr Hicks shows her a snippet of an orc in battle but Glenda spots the whips. Nuts missing and Glenda set her crab free. Glenda, Juliet and Trev jump on the late bus to Stolat and find Nuts on the road who's looking for worth. In Stolat, Nuts shoes a horse and Glenda makes an assumption and has a stern conversation.

Back to Aint Moorpork and there are ships growing closer in blanketed conversations. But the upcoming football match is a far more pressing concern. The Times is making inquiries and there's fighting in the streets, brackets more than usual. Andy's playing for the new Ankhmore Pork United and Pepe's offering Trev an edge if he can turn up at midnight. Carter's black and blue and at the Hippo the teams are training while the rules committee confabs and bubbles interviewing Nutt. Glenda wants a word with Vettinari and she interrupts an entertaining Lady M to warn him about the upcoming bloodbath on the pitch, although there's bugger all he's going to do about it. The Unseen University team's having salad for dinner in an early night and they bond in their adversity. Trev goes at midnight, but not alone, and gets some

special shorts. Finally, the day of the match has arrived. Crowds fill the city, but Glenda and Jules are up in the good seats with Madame Sian. Vimes isn't happy, brackets more than usual. The ref's gone magic free and the national anthem sung beautifully by Ridcully. The game begins and William DeWerd notes the action. The UU team starts strong but injuries are rife and Jules has appeared in the stands. Glenda gets down to the team. Trev finally goes on as the crowd chants his name. Fight start and Trev can't score and Henry wants to bring the game to an early end. Glenda has an idea and takes advantage of an old rule to get a tin can in the goal. Then Juliet

turns gold and floats and Trevor floats with her. Religion fills the stands, Andy's thrown by one last kick, Nut challenges the crowd and has worth, shirts are exchanged and there's triumph all around. The relentless epilogues begin with celebratory wizards. Andy meets Pepe, Trev and Juliet find quiet inside of Glenda and Nut. Lady Margolotta and Vettinari dine. Nut asks for worth in becoming, promises to help the other orcs after he's taken Glenda to Querm. And finally, the unseen university commits to assisting Brazenek with their 70 foot chicken. So on to Helicopter and Loinkloth watch. The helicopter goes to the notorious clockwork

spoon devised by bloody stupid Johnson, which could apparently stir coffee so fast that the cup would actually rise up from the saucer and hit the ceiling. Proper helicopter, well done. Very helicopter. Loincloth is, of course, the shorts made out of retributium, which is different from when I said micro-mail a couple of episodes ago because it's a slightly different alloy. It is. It is a different alloy.

Probably at this point mention Mithril just in case any Lord of the Rings fans are being concerned that we haven't heard of it. We have. We have. I'm not sure if Mithril does the bouncy back thing though so well done Ankh-Morporks for getting one off on those pesky dwarves, elves. Dwarves. Quotes. Mine's first, is it?

Yeah. The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, city of cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or at least people setting fire to things. Perfect. I'm so glad you picked that one because it was almost mine. Good. Yeah, I was going to insist you shoehorn it into locations, but I love A, obviously, beautiful imagery, gorgeous. B, really nice kind of macro zoomed out look at Angk Moor Porker's industrial revolutionary.

Yeah. It's not just on fire because they discovered insurance, it's on fire because they've discovered industry. I was about to make exactly the same joke. Oh, and the fucking underground spirits as well. Oh yeah. There you go. Well, that's nice circle narrative.

Quickly, give us a quote. Find this wide open. Right, mine is from Ponder. Yes, we can do practically anything, but we can't change people's minds. We can't magic them sensible. Believe me, if it were possible to do that, we would have done it a long time ago. We can stop people fighting by magic, and then what do we do? We have to go on using magic to stop them fighting. We have to go on using magic to stop them being stupid. Where does all that end? So we make certain that it doesn't begin. That's why the university is here. That's what we do. We have to sit around not doing things because hundreds of times in the past it's been proved that once you get beyond the abracadabra, hey presto,

changing the pigeons into ping pong balls style of magic, you start getting more problems than you've solved. It was bad enough finding ping pong balls nesting in the attic." CHARLEYY Don't ask about the ping pong balls. GERWIN Don't ask about the ping pong balls. Yeah, that made me, you know, I like that theme of the powerful thing being not doing the thing. CHARLEYY Yes, definitely. It's nice to hear it from Ponder. GERWIN Yes, we hear it so much from a witchy perspective that I think, and we know that that's kind of the wizard's vibe as well is not doing too much, but from Ponder who is also the

splitting the Thalm just to see if we can kind of wizard. L. Yeah, you definitely get the feeling he understands it from a few different angles. G. Yes. I think he's one of the characters that I think has had possibly the most growth over the series.