The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 15: Mort Pt.2 (State of Mind: Eggs)

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young 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 “Mort”.Breakfast! Lunch! Dinner! BDSM! ASMR! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambiThings we blathered on about:Why is the number 13 considered unlucky? (The Straight Dope)Triskaidekaphobia (Wiki)Thirteen Club (Atlas Obscura)Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Poetry Foundation)Confirmation bias (Investopedia)11:11 (numerology) (Wiki)Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go (YouTube)Apocalypse Playlist (TTSMYF) (Spotify)The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (Goodreads)Death’s Glory replica (Twitter, @Discworldshoppe)Hemline index (Wiki)Baby goat shouting at baby (YouTube)Full steam ahead at Ferrero factory as chocolatier eyes No 1 spot in UK (Guardian)Buttery biscuit bass (YouTube)Cake - Short Skirt / Long Jacket (YouTube)Lusitania (Britannica)I Ching (Wiki)Yarrow (The Wildlife Trust)Bier (Wiki)What is a Catafalque? [includes pics of Voltaire’s and Lincoln’s] (Funeral Guide)Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Oh, squeaky. Right, should I, uh... Oh, we could probably, like, make use of that in dust, I mean. Oh no, now it's gone all pathetic. God damn it. The universe is literally, literally conspiring against us, Joanna. I mean, I feel like you're misusing literally. I'm not. I know what literally means, and I mean it. Have a word.

Cool, so today is... It's Friday the 13th. Auspicious, or like the opposite of that. Yeah, inauspicious, disauspicious. No, it's inauspicious. Disauspicious, it's not all work. Inauspicious, ass-precious. I'll ask your f-precious.

Right thing. Yeah, so it's Friday the 13th. It is. Um, it's also the day after the fifth anniversary of Terry Pratchett's death. Yeah. It's also the day after the end of an era personally for us, as are my husband and our long-time barman. Has finally quit the pub.

Has left the pub to his great relief and everybody else's grief. Yeah. So Friday the 13th is a pretty cool, pretty cool thing. I decided to have a look into you. Just because I didn't actually know why it was unlucky. Yeah, I assumed it was just because something to do with 13 and... Yeah, I mean, yeah, basically nobody else knows either, which is... Oh, that's cool.

The opposite of that. Yeah, there's a lot of what I think is definitely retconning going on. So saying that Friday the 13th is unlucky because the Templars were all fucked up by that French king on Friday the 13th in 1027 or something. And good Friday the 14th. So... Fair enough. Yeah, but Friday itself is an unlucky day apparently in a lot of cultures,

maritime cultures particularly, some reason. Yeah. I'm assuming that is slightly linked to it being the day Jesus died, like for some cultures. Yeah, yeah, sure. I imagine it didn't help. Well, yeah. And 13 is unlucky for, again, just varying little reasons that seem to have stacked

on top of each other. Like in the Middle Ages, people started saying it was because of the last supper. So if you had 13 people meeting, then one of them was a Judas. The phobia, the Friday the 13th is called Frigga Triscaide Decaphobia or Paraschivi Decatriophobia. I've heard of Triscaidecaphobia before. And that's... Yeah, the fear of 13.

Which is the fear of the number 13. So basically, they added both pretty recent invented words. And the last bit, which I thought you'd think was cool, was in the late 1880s, there was a trend for 13 clubs, which were basically one of these posh dinner club things for rich arseholes. But they would all meet up and try and break as many superstitions as possible. That's actually quite cool. Yeah, so there'd be 13 of them, and they would meet on Friday the 13th,

and they'd have 13 courses, and they'd spill salt and smash mirrors. Oh, fun. Yeah, right. I quite like the idea. And got me thinking, do you actually... I don't necessarily believe with your heart and soul in any superstitions, but do you believe enough to follow any of the... I'm kind of a dickhead about it, because it's a bit like...

I know, it's so surprising for me to act like a dickhead. It's this new thing, no. Because I very, very deeply heart and soul believe that all superstition is bollocks. And I've read... It's to do with the heart. But your heart and soul believe it. I do very deeply believe that all superstition is bollocks. And I've read so much about the psychology behind it,

and the fact that if you feel something unlucky has happened, then you are more likely to notice the negative things. Confirmation bias. Yes, that. Confirmation bias. So yeah, so I'm not superstitious in the slightest, but I also, while being really, really self-aware, will notice bad things happening if I walk under a ladder or something.

And I'm also really sad, and every time it's 11-11, I do make a wish. Oh crap, sorry. What was that? So yeah, what about you? Yeah, cool. I try not to walk under ladders, but I feel like that's common sense as much as anything else. When I see magpies, I do give a little salute.

Oh yeah. Morning mist magpie. I do salute a solitary magpie. Because, you know, it's just nice anyway. What if he misses the old respect he used to get, you know? Exactly, yeah. No, I will always salute a solitary magpie. But that's also because I really, really, really like corvids,

and magpies are kind of a Newcastle thing. Are they? Well, because they're football strips, black and white. Ah, nice, yeah, yeah. So yeah, magpies are a bit of a thing. Ah, something, something. Geordie joke. Toon army.

Yeah. Mon the Toon. I don't know, I'm saying Geordie things now. Cool, cool, cool. Oh, Toon, like town? Yeah. Nice, yeah. I can't, I can't ever do, despite the fact that, like,

my family is, well, half my family is from there, I can never do the accent intentionally. I will start doing it unwillingly if I am drunken around northerners, as you have seen me do at festivals. I have, yeah, it's, you know, fairly offensive if you don't know what's going on. Yes, no, it does just seem like I'm mocking the people around me. No, I don't want to talk about,

don't want to talk about when I felt like I was a pro, perhaps it died. It's not going to cheer me up at all. I mean, it is quite depressing. Should I do my follow-up from last week then? Yeah, oh yeah, do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, say follow-up. So last week, I mentioned that I know how to play

Don't Fear the Reaper on the ukulele. You did, and I left it in out of spite. I know, you're a dickhead. I want to point out that I was exaggerating, I haven't played the ukulele for six months, it's not as easy as I remember, and I can't remember how to play the riff. But I'm going to attempt the follow-up anyway.

You are so committed to the cause. Yeah, so all the cause is, it's not that you should be committed to it. So I work this out in like a day, and I don't like playing the ukulele in front of people. So get your strings out for the lads. Get your yukes out for the lads. Yeah, get your twangs out.

Oh no. And then we can all start playing with our twangers. Oh dear. Oh no. Shall we just make a podcast? I wanted to do the Dirty Rainbow website, but fine, let's make a podcast. All the times have come

But now they're gone The seasons don't fear the reaper Nor do the sun and the wind and the rain We can be like they are Come on baby, don't fear the reaper Take my hand Fear the reaper, we'll be able to fly Fear the reaper, baby, I'm your man

I'm trying to not be too enthusiastic because I make the thing go, the waveforms go silly. It can be enthusiastic quietly. I don't know how to do that. Hi. Hi. Oh no, that's much worse. No, that wasn't falling.

Hello and well, fuck's sake. We can do this front scene. I've done this before and I'll do it again. All right. Hello and welcome to The Truth Shall Make You Threat, a podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order.

I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today is part two of our discussion of Mort, the fourth Discworld novel. So section two goes in my paperback from page 75, Mort saying, by myself and death responding certainly, I have every faith in you and runs to page 179

in my paperback with death saying, I must be sickening for something. Note on spoilers. This is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously heavy, heavy spoilers for the book we're discussing, Mort. But we are going to try and avoid spoiling any future events and major stuff from the rest of the books.

And we are saving any and all discussion of the final book, The Shepherd's Ground, until we get there. So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Assuming we're not all dead from the upcoming cataclysm. All the global pandemic. I was putting the 200 same umbrella. No, fair enough. Global pandemic leading to complete cataclysm.

But we will all go together when we go. I was listening to that the other day. I was listening to that in the kitchen today. I put my apocalypse playlist on. Oh, can I peep at that because I'm having a hard time putting one together. Yeah, I need to take some off mine because for some reason I put loads of Marilyn Manson on it.

Sometimes it's just like it's a reflection of the mood you're in when you made a playlist and you have to go back and seriously add it. Yeah, I made it when Trump got elected. So. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Super emo day.

Also, I put Bruce Springsteen on there for some reason. Which one? Born to run. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was a weird time for us all. I think I just listened to The End of the World as we know it on repeat for three days.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's on there like five times. I might go back through it, re-edit it, make it a Spotify playlist and link to it in the show notes for our dear listeners. Oh, please do. Yeah, yeah, and I'll add any that you've missed. Cool, right.

Podcast to podcast. Francie, would you like to tell us what happened previously in MORT? I would like to tell us what happened previously. Brustle, excellent sentences. Brustle, Foley. Previously on MORT. Did that sound sonorous and...

Yes, you sounded like a coffin door slamming. Good, excellent. Death takes on an apprentice, an aptly named boy whose talents, as yet undiscovered, might lie beyond the mortal veil. A makeover montage in the City of Sin tug-as-out poor Mort,

who wakes up in a house with a somewhat inky ambiance. In short order, our hero meets the amiable Albert and icy Isabelle shovels shit, flouts philosophy, pops to a party, kills a king, peeps a princess, and settles into the pedestrian procedures befitting the apprentice to an anthropomorphic personification

of snuffing it. Jesus. When he's granted a half day, our hero uses it unwisely, nearly getting shanked in the shades and then galloping off to meet a girl he's never spoken to, and he still doesn't.

After a brief run-in with a not-yet-worldly-wise wizard, Mort gets news from the boss. He's to have a go at the duty and try a jelly deal, if he fancies one. So yeah, basically, he's just about to start...

He's going to have a go at the duty on his own for the first time. Hitting people with a scythe. Bless him. Well, hopefully he doesn't hit them. I'm not really unsure how all this works. What sort of described as like a thread, it didn't get a bit metaphysical.

Around the ears. Hate it when I get metaphysical around the ears. Ow. Sorry. You're right. My hands are a mess, like to the point where they crack so much they're bleeding.

COVID-19 has ruined our hands, listeners, which I suppose is better than our lungs, but still. Yes, but washing my hands every two minutes is starting to feel a bit sore. Right, so in this section, sorry, let me have a squig. A squig.

A squig of... Squoke. Right, so in this section of the book, yes, we start with Death asking Mort to cover the duty solo because he fancies a nice off cheeky bastard. Right. Yep.

Ignatius cut well, our beloved wizard, in the background, jumps into the water trough because he's accidentally had some of a very interesting and exciting tincture. Beloved's a strong word, but I'll go with it. I'm trying to be enthusiastic.

So Mort goes off to reap the witch Goodie Hamstring before heading to the listening monks to oversee the abbots' passing, learning about reincarnation in the process. We pop in on Princess Kelly, who happens to be the third hour glass Mort has been given for the evening. Mort decides to save her life,

silly Mort. He pops back to death's domain and looks for Kelly's biography, realises that by saving Kelly, he's somewhat fucked it. Somewhat fucked it. Somewhat fucked it because actually the world would have been

a very good place and there would have been lots of united kingdoms and so forth. He hears a gasp. Sounds colonialist to me, Joanna. Oh, for fuck's sake. Can't see me. One day I'll get through a summary.

You're not being accused of colonialism. I doubt that. While Mort is in the library reading Kelly's autobiography, North Autobiography, Just Biography. No, it is an autobiography. I mean, she's not writing it. It's writing itself. Automatically.

All right, fine, autobiography. He hears a gasp and finds a handkerchief. Albert asks Mort to spend less time ogling the biographies of young dead women. The universe hasn't noticed that Kelly hasn't died. She suffers grossness from a vile door knocker as she goes to visit Cutwell the Wizard. After a bit of portrait entailing,

she appoints him the royal recognizer. Mort fails to confess his mistake to death, who's taking another night off. Lazy. He covers for Isabelle, who's been reading books about tragic young women in the library, and they go for a picnic together.

After going out and doing the duty, Mort goes for a pint. Sorry, my neck. Struggle there. It's because it's changed a point on some auto correction. He's just trying to go stuff it there. Mort goes for a point. After covering the duty for death for the evening,

Mort goes for a point. Witnesses a historical event horizon and walks through a few more walls. While fly fishing, death saves a life for later. Mort pops back in on Kelly, ends up having a lovely exposition chat with Cutwell. Death goes to a party and is introduced to the concept of a conga

before joining a card game. Mort tries to talk to Princess Kelly and find a way to save her. Death goes to the pub. Mort and Isabelle go hunting Albert's biography because Mort needs some big magic and he reckons Albert's the place for it. And death realises that he's sickening for something

and may not want to be death. Oh, poor death. Sad death. Poor sad death. It is. Terry practically makes it remarkably easy to feel empathy for a walking skeleton holding a very sharp size.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure how he does that. And by the end of the book, I mean, not a huge spoiler to say he kind of makes you... He rips the empathy from you again. Yeah, I think we're allowed to spoil all of this book. We are, but I'm still trying to... Oh yeah, just in case people are doing what I'm doing.

And reading a third at a time. Like a twat. Yes, and you listener. And you. Like a twat. Calling a listener's twats for unseen. I don't see why not. It's my bloody microphone.

I'm very happy. I just wanted a snack and an albatross. And a castle. Was that too much to ask? I just wanted a castle. I wanted more than five hours sleep and a snack. That would have done it. Yeah, I haven't really...

Actually, I had fish and chips for the night, I see. I'm actually over full, if anything. I'm not sure that helped. I should have tried to run on empty and then... That would have kept the hysteria up. Yeah, but possibly I would have crashed two thirds of the way through the podcast and even had to like...

...operate. Amazingly operate. To me, it's a really quick dummy. Which would be so pointless for Radio. I was going to say that doesn't really work in a non-visual context. You could pretend to be me. I don't know.

Can you do an impression of me, vocally? I mean, I can try, but I don't think our voices are that like... You know, I just don't like me. I can do a very good Theresa May. A very good Theresa May, which sounds a little bit like that little girl from the radio who screams and screams until she's sick. I will squirm and I'll squirm and I'll squirm until I'm thick.

That'll give me the election. Give me 10 Downing Street. Oh, no, Boris Johnson. Yes, just for a change. Francine and I are completely exhausted by the state of British politics. I mean, I went through a pretty good phase of not being, just by didn't have completely ignoring it,

but that's becoming more and more difficult with the concept of we might die. Yeah. We might, you know, have to read the news a bit more often. And because of that, I'm learning things like food banks that are running out of donations. And that's a really big issue because we don't fucking feed the poor on a systemic level.

Yeah, right. Is capitalism the villain again, Joanna? What? Capitalism? A villain. I took, did I send you, no, I didn't because I've accidentally added your husband to a group chat instead of you. I've been on political compass memes on Reddit.

Oh, you did send me that on Facebook. Oh, I did, yeah. I like ended up super left lib. Right. Yeah. But I have a feeling it's going to change depending on what kind of mood I'm in. Like, I feel like if I took the political compass test now,

I would be far more authoritarian because I'm in a terrible mood and don't trust anyone. Yeah, no, that's fair. Like, I always, I'm always to the left, but I definitely kind of go up and down between lib and authoritarian depending on the face of the zoom. It's just a jump to the left and then a step to the left. No.

All right, next, next general election. Interrupting socialism. It's like interrupting starfish, but somehow even more obnoxious. Oh, God, I'm sorry. Where are we? Okay, so that actually comes up in the book as well, doesn't it? The one being executed who calls more a lucky

of the monarchist regime. Yeah, no, no helicopters or loincloths in this section. Keeping the bit. Okay, I mean, it's fine. It's fine. I'll do mine first. His mouth opened and shut. More wanted to say,

Thirdly, you're so beautiful or at least very attractive or any way far more attractive than any other girl I've ever met. Although admittedly, I haven't met many. From this, it was seen that more in eight honesty will never make him a poet. If more ever compared a girl to a summer's day, it would be followed by a thoughtful explanation of what day he had in mind,

whether it was raining at the time. In the circumstances, it was just as well. He couldn't find his voice because I like it. Shakespeare reference. And I think it's another really nice like, yeah, this is Mort's character. He cannot do poetic because he gets distracted by reality too easily.

Yeah, definitely. He's slightly too literal. He's like half of these teenage dudes who post on relationship advice forums. Like, you know, I just said the truth. Like I just, I was just honest. I said exactly what was in my head. Why was that offensive?

In a monologue does not believe it or not. I have to be completely broadcast to everybody around you. But I know it's something I've had to say specifically to men a lot, not teenage boys. The boys I work with are generally quite nice or like if they say mean things, it's in a very friendly spirited way because we have that relationship.

But men I know, men in their 30s and 40s, they all sort of say something. And it's like, they'll comment that my makeup's gone a bit tits up or that address I'm wearing doesn't really suit me. And it's like, you could also have just not said that and the world would have continued. Oh, I'm just being honest.

It's like, no, that's fine, but I... There's a world of, there is a whole spectrum of possibilities between saying everything and lying. The best of which is not talking. Shutting the fuck up. But yes, people don't seem to understand. But what Mort does, Mort manages to keep all of that in his head

because he's too tongue tied to speak. But yeah, yeah. But he does seem to also be learning a few social graces. Like is it that scene he realises that she's more angry than she would have been because it's obvious she has been crying and she knows that? Yeah, he starts picking up on these things and things like he kind of lies for Isabelle

and doesn't rat her out and say, no, I wasn't the one reading Young Women's Biographies. It was her. Yeah, he's definitely gone from kid to young man in the... He does grow up quite well. Space of not very many pages. But it's a nice... It doesn't bother me like it would in some books

where I go, oh, but they've done all this character development without doing it. Like it works here because it works with the pace of the book. Yeah. And with the gravity of what he's been doing in the... But also it shows how quickly someone can change into that kind of person when they're just given the right kind of responsibility.

Yeah. The moment death says, right, I trust you, you can do this. He, I mean, he fucks up. But he flourishes into that kind of person. It's like, oh, that potential was there all along. It just needed the right person giving him the right option. Yeah.

And like even before that, he's gone from a almost complete rural isolation to suddenly learning a lot about all kinds of people in the world. Yes, he gets to suddenly be very cosmopolitan. Yeah, meeting a lot of people briefly, but... Yeah. But yeah, so I like that bit.

What was your favorite quote? My favorite quote was from death. So this is when he, as he said, has learning the conga or as it's called something else entirely. The serpent dance. Yeah. Mind the cream there. It's slippery.

Look, it's just a dance. All right. You do it for fun. Fun. That's right. Da, da, da, da. Kick. There was an audible pause.

Who is this fun? No, fun isn't anybody. Fun is what you have. We are having fun. I thought I was, said his lordship. What is this fun? This is to kick vigorously is fun. Well, part of the fun.

Kick. To hear loud music in hot rooms is fun. Possibly. How is this fun manifest? Well, look, either you're having fun or not. You don't have to ask me. You just know. All right.

How did you get in here anyway? So yeah, I just... To kick vigorously is fun. I just... Yes, I like unexplainable things being explained in Frank terms. It's something I like with the bratchety things. He sort of holds a mirror up to something and go, well, isn't this actually a bit ridiculous?

Yeah. And also, how does one explain fun? Yes, and a conga. Because at the moment someone declares that something will be fun, it will become the worst thing in the world. Like organized fun. Yeah, like New Year's Eve. Yeah.

Any kind of workplace, like a staff party or something, hell. Sorry. Next bit. Happy thoughts. So characters, you already mentioned you really liked her name, but Amalene Hamstring. Yes, I do like her name. It's a good name.

But what I like about her is something that I talk about a lot when we talk about these books and there's good women, is the sort of very, very straightforward bustling efficiency. Yeah. The way she sorted very casually. Oh, I'm just writing a note and I've left the hay out for the horse and there's a drink if you want it. Yes.

Do you think I'll need a shawl? But her transition as well as she passes away and becomes the woman... Super duper sexy. Yeah, that she wants to be. The kiss as insubstantial as a mayfly sigh, fading as she did until only the kiss was left, like a Cheshire cat only, much more erotic. Doesn't that sound like Louise Rannison?

Yeah, so much so. Yeah, yeah. Like especially as I've just been reading all of them. Do you know where the whole Goody thing comes from? Because she's described... She's Amalene Hamstring, but she's also described as Goody Hamstring. No, I don't.

Should we try and look that up before the next witches? Yes, we should. We are introduced to the concept of the listening monks for the first time, which I think now would be a really good time to have a word from our sponsor, don't you, Francine? Oh yes, tell me about something you like. That Francine, I don't know about you, but I'm often incredibly stressed about the innate nature of the universe.

Right? You do know about me, I tell you at length. Not knowing how, when or why the universe has started, has affected my sleep, my eating habits, and even my personal relationships. Luckily, I've had the opportunity to change all of that and put my mind at ease. After a wellness retreat with the listening monks, I'm relaxed, happy, and fully at peace with my place in the great cosmos.

The listening monks offer quiet, reflection, and endless rounds of coin tossing. On my listening monks wellness retreat, I was given time to meditate on the sound of a slice of buttered toast falling to the ground, and they even throw in a marvellous breakfast package of slightly dusty toast. So if you, dear listener, are looking to get away from it all and escalate the meaning of life, sign up for your very own hour retreat today, and use code TRUTHFRET for 10% off your wellness package. Oh, thank you very much, Joanna.

That sounds terribly, terribly loud, or quiet, I'm not sure. I just really like it as a concept and the idea of this whole valley, where you can hear, or like a particularly, well, a valley with particularly good acoustics. And the idea of, okay, well, this is as good a way as any to figure out how creation works is by listening, and the gods not interfering because they're kind of curious as well. I mean, this is probably because I'm a theater nerd, but I get really excited when I go into any space that has good acoustics

and immediately start delivering a speech or something, because it's just really fun. We're having a bunch of renovation work done at the place I work at the moment, because there was this huge, empty bingo hall space that's being turned into new screens. Cool, cool. So I kept getting to go in a couple of times while it was empty. Obviously, I should have had a hard hat on. But the acoustics in there were amazing.

It was like, oh, I'm just going to quickly deliver a speech from Macbeth, because it's oddly satisfying. And also shows that I definitely need to get out more somewhat. So yeah, listening monks. And the fact that reincarnation exists for those who are kind of... It's not even so much he believes in it. It's just very much happening for him. And really, he's quite bored of the whole thing.

Exactly, yeah. I actually know I don't. I really fucking hate the idea of reincarnating over and over again, but only being aware of it in that tiny minute between. Yeah, no. That's really quite a horrendous thought. Have you read the first 15 lives of Harry August? No, that one's been recommended to me by so many people.

Oh, it's so, so, so good. It looks really good. So yeah, so I thought that was interesting. But yeah, I would hate to be reincarnated, but not be aware of it while I was alive. We get to spend a bit more time with Princess Kelly than we did in the last book. She actually gets a name.

Yeah, that's nice for her. It almost feels like the book is trying to make me dislike her, but I do really like her. I'm not sure that it is, because I think despite her tendencies that have been drummed into her, she's kind of acting against them. Well, yeah, I mean, maybe it's not it's trying to make me dislike her, but she's it's a weird one,

because you've got two female protagonists who are very different. But the idea of both of them is that they're quite bitchy. Yeah. And then things work out. So yeah, maybe it's not so much it's trying to make me dislike her, but she's not automatically the most sympathetic of characters. Despite the fact she's kind of dying. And the only real reason Mort cares so much

is he saw her once and thought she was kind of pretty. Yeah. Which is a very weird thing for the entire book to hang on, but also he's a teenage boy. But I do really like her sort of aggressive competence again, of just sort of there's a dead assassin in my bedroom. Could you please have something done about it? Yes.

And it's I love the kind of. Don't say assassin ma'am or dead ma'am. Do something about it. I've got a headache. But I like her determination to defy reality around her. She's like, well, no, I'm going to. It's not going to happen. You'd have to, wouldn't you?

I mean, you're not going to go, oh, all right then. Yeah, I'll just. Fade. We're also introduced to Albert's porridge, which I feel. Yeah, I like you've noted him as a him. Sorry, look, I've gendered him already. I like that you've noted the porridge as a person. Well, it's not so much I've noted it as a person,

but I feel like it does deserve its own note. It certainly has character. Well, it's described as it led a private life of its own in the depths of its saucepan and eight spoons. Yeah. I mean, that sentence also made me really want porridge. I haven't had porridge in forever. There's another one which isn't actually a relevant character at all.

I just really liked that this exists, which is when Kelly is trying to eat lunch and very frustrated that everyone's ignoring her because she's technically dead. And there is someone described as the lady of the small hexagonal room in the North Turret, which is an excellent title. Yeah, I think, you know, and it's like a title you can aspire to.

Yeah. I mean, that is now the title I read. Now I'm going to have to marry the Lord of the small hexagonal room in the North Turret. Fuck off, are you? You can get your own turret. Come on, Joanna, fucking feminism. I know, but like just marrying someone would be so much easier.

We spend a bit more time with Cutwell in this section, but I don't really have a lot to say about him. Like he's, I don't just like him as a character. I don't even think that he's a bit meh. Yeah, he's cool. He's there, whatever. He comes into his own in the third section of the book, I think, when he starts actually moving and having ideas

and trying to make stuff work. I've got to say, I'm actually a little confused by him and his reactions because when Mort first turns up and Cutwell's like, oh my God, you're here, something terrible is going to happen, blah, blah, blah. And there's a little bit hysterical about the whole thing. But then by the end of their little run across town

and conversation, he's all like, yeah, but you know, I'll just go back to where I was a week before and isn't too fast. Like he hasn't really got a very consistent. Yeah, he's a bit all over the place. He feels a bit underdeveloped and we don't, it feels like he's just sort of there as a plot device more than a character.

Yeah, which fair enough. Yeah. At least he was developed enough to be amusing. Yes, he is still quite entertaining. Obviously, checking back in with characters we've already met, but death in this section, I think he's very sweet. He's looking for fun and he's lonely in the time he spends in the pub,

especially near the end of this section. I sort of, I do want to give him a hug. Like it's what you were saying, like it's amazing how much this book makes you empathize with a talking skeleton, but it's also, he's, you know, he's thinking for a hobby, he's thinking about fly fishing, which was a lovely thing I saw actually.

So we were saying yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Terry Bradshaw passing away. The Discord Emporium tweeted, someone made a replica of the Death's Glory fly and they've attached it to the hat in the shop. No, it looks really cool. Like it just looks like a really funky golf fishing fly. All right.

Okay, cool. I love it. It does look genuinely really cool, but also through all of this, he's pushing Morton Isabel together and doing this sort of kindly uncle, oh, go off, have a picnic together. Yeah, but like, and it's almost like-

Cute way, not a trope way. Yeah, it's cute, it's cute rather than gross. It's like he's trying to do an approximation of a trope he's seen on Telly, but not because it's Discord, you know? But he's doing an approximation of things he's seen because he's trying to act very human, which we get really nice insight to

and Isabel's talking about him. He's saying he never feels anything, but I don't mean that nastily, it's just that he's got nothing to fill with, no glands. He probably thought sorry for me. And she's so defensive of him. Well, he's been her dad for a lot longer than her dad was her dad.

Exactly, but she, you know, she really cares about him and I think he does care in his way. It's just his way is- Through so much rather than hormone. Yeah, which I think is quite an interesting thing to take into the book, considering how much she sort of longs

for a bit of being more human. Can you logic yourself into caring about something? Yeah, which he- Apparently, you can if you can. Yeah, which he does. Yeah, that's interesting actually, isn't it? But it's also him pushing more and Isabel together. It's almost like he's trying to give them something

he can't have. He sort of can see that they might need something else. Yeah, that's nice. So yes, I thought that was very sweet. I do like death. That sounds like such a millennial thing to say, but I mean it in a purely anthropomorphic- Personification.

Appreciation way. Anthropomorphic personification, appreciation society. You want to sell them? Yeah, go on. Can we finish the podcast though? Oh, yeah, sure. Cool.

I guess. Spend a bit more time with Isabel, who has- This is- It's in this section, we find out that she's been 16 for 35 years. You imagine. But it's like because she-

Obviously, for the book, she needs to be 16. She needs to act like a teenager. But would you- If you would- If I was trapped in the same body for 35 years, I wouldn't stop maturing. Well, to an extent you would,

because things like hormonal balance and brain development haven't nearly finished by the time you're 16. I suppose, but also- You were being capable of thinking as rationally and like risk-aversely as you do now. But she's also had basically no social- So, because obviously we meet Isabel in The Light Fantastic, briefly.

Oh, yeah. When- When rinse flint- And she's so desperate for them to stay and doesn't want them to leave. And she's so starved for human contact. And obviously in The Light Fantastic, she's kind of a throwaway joke in a scary bit. And then she's developed here,

but she's so miserable and so starved of human contact. And like, I like Isabel. I think she's a really interesting character, but I think there wasn't as much thought put into it as there is when characters are going through horrific things in later books of just how dark and twisted and horrifying that is, that she was kept by this anthropomorphic personification

and then kept forced to stay 16 for 35 years with almost no human contact. Like, that's horrific. Yeah. It's like a weird form of torture. I feel as though if she had been suffering as much as most people would, then either Albert or death would have put a stop to it,

if that makes sense. Oh yeah, no, I know. I'm not... But I wonder what makes her capable of bearing it more than... Than other people would be able to. But I also think some of it's just a choice of, oh, it's interesting to say she's been here for 35 years and she's 16.

And you thought about it a bit more. You'd be like, oh, actually, maybe I should make it like five years or 10. Yeah. Because also, if she's been 16 for 35 years, then she's technically 51. And there's actually quite a big age gap between her and Mort. Right, but not because... I mean, not physically, but...

Magic. No, because magic. And generally, age gaps have a problem because of the life experience gap, which is not a problem here. No, because although she's been alive for a lot longer, she hasn't actually had any life experience, which is, again, kind of being tortured.

Yeah. So I thought that was interesting. Obviously, we hang out with Mort throughout the character. I like the idea of manifesting teen embarrassment as walking through walls as he becomes embarrassingly real. Yeah. Yeah, because when you are suddenly very aware of your own body, it does feel a bit like that, doesn't it?

Like accidentally walking through walls and... Yeah, just not being at all aware of what your limbs are doing at any time, but then becoming very aware of it and everyone's looking at you all the time, surely. Yeah, it's like you develop enough spatial awareness to know where all of your limbs are, but not enough to control them. Yeah, yeah. Especially if like, because you know a fence,

but you were quite lanky as a teenager. Yeah, yeah, no. I was less so. I had sort of more of a circumference. But so mine was more, I'd knock things over with my arse a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas you were sort of a lot of elbow and knee. And then, yeah, we find out a little bit more about Albus in this section. Alberto.

Alberto Malik, who Mort spots in a book and finds out that he... Apparently, this wizard, Alberto Malik, blew himself into the dungeon dimensions while trying to perform the Rite of Ashkent backwards. So we know the Rite of Ashkent. We know from, like, fantastic that that's the ritual used to summon death. So... You summoned yourself to death by saying it backwards?

I'm assuming that's how Albert ended up in whatever kind of deal he now has with death involves him doing the Rite of Ashkent backwards. I guess it must be a combination of him doing that and being a really good wizard, though, because there's no way in hell another wizard didn't try that sometimes in 2000 years. Even if they knew perfectly well, it would end badly because, you know, wizards. Well, I think it's more likely, like, I am completely filling in headcanon here. This isn't... I can't remember now if this gets explained in more detail in later books.

Like, how the arrangement comes about between Albert and death. But I'm assuming the Rite of Ashkent backwards got him to death. Yeah. And then there was some kind of vital deal that then led to the arrangement as it exists. Yeah, yeah. Because obviously he was looking for some kind of immortality. And you said we kind of go to Leshp. Yeah, we do kind of go to Leshp.

It is when Mortis in the pub. Ah. It says, in the sudden hush of the inn, the faint clink of the coin sounded like the legendary brass gongs of Leshp, which can be heard far out to sea on stormy nights as the currents stir them in their drowned towers. 300, the pathems below.

So not only do we go to Leshp, but it is consistent with Leshp as it appears later on. Yes. As in underwater. Yes. So this is a sunken city of sorts that we will eventually, yeah, quite a while from now, revisit. Yeah, but I like the fact that, yeah,

practically either remembered or had it written down or whatever. Oh wait, no, I've done a drowned city. We go back to Kroll where we spent some time during the colour of magic, but this time we're not in, no one's getting sacrificed. It's not as traumatising this time. It's fairly chilled out, but this is Edge of the World and a lovely fisherman. And death goes and hangs out with him before he saves his life. It was a very pleasant way to describe like a really bitter man nearly drowning, but yeah.

Yeah, I didn't want to focus on that bit too much, because honestly, it's so depressing and we're really tired. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guy who's just... I liked his name too. Tepzic Mims. I'm going to start keeping a list of my favourite minor or non-repeating characters names.

So from this one, I've got Amaline Handstring, Igneous Cutwell and Tepzic Mims. Excellent. But yeah, moving on to something happier, like we have the Konga. The Konga takes place at the Patricians party. All right. So we still have...

Death. Which again, not really in keeping with the Patrician, we will eventually get to know and love. I don't know. Do you not think he would... I think he would probably host the parties. He wouldn't actually spend any time with it. Probably not.

I think he would be sitting at the table of honour, very carefully watching how everyone else interacted. Well, yes, okay. You make a good point. Or like standing very still and blending into the foreground. Also entirely possible. I'm looking forward to meeting him. I think we've only got a couple of books to go

before we get to hang out with him. Moving on. Sorry. Not talking about a future book. Moving swiftly onwards to the pub. We've gone to the drum. To the pub, to the pub, to the pub, to the pub, to the pub. To the pub, to the pub, to the pub, to the pub, pub, pub.

The mended drum at the moment. Yes. And we meet, very specifically, the drum's shelf of weird spirits that literally every pub has. So little bits we like. Albert reminiscing about the good old days of wimples. Then Balaclava helmet things.

I just, because I know lots of sad old men, but you always hear these reminiscences about the good old days and things were better then. We had real kings and real record shops and... Wimples. Fucking wimples. I want a wimple.

Women were in shorter or longer skirts, depending on which men you're talking to. And what the economy was doing at the time. Good economy, short skirts or the other way around? So 60s was boom and that was short skirts. So yeah, I think it's like, and 20s as well. Skirts got shorter post World War I. Yeah.

Obviously then there was the Depression in the 30s and the skirts got longer again. Which is weird because you think like more material. Because the finances. Yeah, but I think it's more... I'm feeling confident enough about my ability to pay rent that I can show my knees off. Yeah, and stuff weird stuff to do with social laws

and judgment as well. Yeah, I guess people are just more judgy in times of hardship. I bet that's true actually. Yeah, because they're sort of trying to cling desperately to whatever they can, like a life raft. Yeah, like skirts. Right, this metaphor's gotten weird.

It's all about the long skirts. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Something about clinging to skirts, like clinging to a mother's skirt. Let's get Freud. Let's get Freudian in this bitch. Let's not. So I had a dream about baby goats the night before last.

What does that mean, Jo? That you want to have sex with Freud's mother? I mean, yes, but are you sure that's related? They're so cute. I love baby goats so much, especially the dickhead ones that just jump on you. Oh my god, you know what we should do? No.

We should go to the zoo where they have the petting bit where you can go in and feed the baby goats. Yes, there might be a farm that lets us do that without having to go all the way to Bannon, but yes, let's go see some goats. I tried not to just be like, oh, footnote for every footnote, but also every footnote was really funny

and I like the pizza one. I like the footnotes very much, so I'm happy with this. Yes, but this is the idea that a clatchy and mystic invented the pizza and claimed to have been given it in a dream by the creator of the discworld himself, who had apparently added that it was what he had intended all along. Did you know that the Ferrero Rocher came to the creator

in a dream about God's creation? Prove me wrong without your phone on you. Fuck, I can't, right, yeah. Ferrero Rocher were actually pretty difficult to engineer though because spherical wafers are apparently not an intuitive thing to create. You can ask Jack about that, he'll tell you at length. I don't do it often enough, but I do really enjoy making my own pizza.

Now, yeah, I can make pizza, and it's really fucking easy, therefore, because I can't bake for shit. I can make bread, but I could make pizza before I could make normal bread. Yeah, I mean, you don't even need to let it rise, like... I do tend to let it rise if I've allowed for the time for it, but as you're going to roll it as flat as possible anyway.

I haven't quite become one of those wankers with a pizza stone yet, but I feel like it's in my future. I really like a really crispy base on my pizza. Not on a buttery biscuit base. Base, base, biscuit base, buttery biscuit base. I like the base, base, like the buttery base, like the buttery biscuit base.

Hard, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble. Oh, we'll link to that in the show notes. Like the jiggly eggs. Jiggly eggs, jiggly eggs. Had you heard that before? No, I've never heard that. Yeah, it was explained in here that jiggly eggs is like the kind of half cooked,

so you've still got a bit of, well, not white bits in it. Yeah, so, whoa, whoa, whoa. Snotty eggs is called jiggly eggs. I've never heard that phrase used. No, me neither. I don't know if that's a real thing or if that was made up for the book. It could have used...

That's a weird thing to make up halfway through a breakfast scene, but I mean, it is prattier. Jiggly, jiggly. I always wondered... How do you like your eggs? Jiggly. Get out. Crosscut.

Crosscut. Well, because as we've talked about, talked through the books, I was saying, like, oh, I'd filmed this scene like this. I'd do this like this. It was quite nice that Pratchett had done my job for me and... Yeah, read it up. You're a wizard.

I think there's something you ought to know, said the princess. There is, said death. There we go. Nice. Seamless. This is a cinematic trick adapted for print. Death wasn't actually talking to the princess.

He was actually in his study talking to Mort, but it was quite effective, wasn't it? It was. And it is called a crosscut. Oh, it is. Because obviously, he's not sure in the book and points out that senior technician is called a best boy. The film industry is ridiculous,

and I'm not just saying that because no one's given me a job yet. No, it just, it made me giggle, and you made a note about a show we like that does it. Oh, Archer, man. I've binge-watched basically all of that in the last month, which, by the way, terrible, and why I keep saying I mean and trailing off.

But, yeah, like, through the whole 10 seasons. Yeah. He does the... I do, I like it as a thing, though. I like it a lot, yeah. But it is just when you watch it all at once, it becomes so, so, so. Yeah, the next point is yours.

Oh, yeah, no, it's just a nice... When Mort is kind of talking to himself at length, he goes, she's only met you once, you fool. Why should she bother about you? Yes, but I did save her life. That means it belongs to her, not to you. Oh, that's a nice line.

Yeah, just... I like how Mort kind of almost goes down a lot of these terrible teenage male... Feeling entitled to the princess's attention or... ...catches himself a free time. Yeah. Which kind of, I guess, ties in with the fact he doesn't really act on impulse very often,

as in he's the kind of guy who thinks about how to scare birds. Yeah, it works. It's very good for his character. It also made me think a bit of... And this is something we'll talk about way more in later books, but the whole idea of first thoughts and second thoughts and third thoughts. Like the first thing that comes into your head

is almost what you've been conditioned to, you think. And then the second thought is you actually dealing with that and thinking about what that really means. Yeah. So yeah, we're now at talking points. Yeah, so this is something I've alluded to a lot, but it's something I think this particular section of this book does so well.

The calm competence of the women that Pratchett writes. And not just... I mean, so I already said about Hamstring and how she's very ready to die and has been very organised. And you've got Kelly who's very... Right, well, I'll look for a weapon then. Yeah. Oh, could you just get rid of the assassin for me, dear?

Yeah. And she sort of goes, right, something is wrong, nothing's... I will go down to a wizard. I'll get it sorted. Yeah. And it's something I like... I mean, also, this is just the sort of woman I'm really into.

Maybe that's why I like it, which completely ruins the feminism of it. Cakes, short skirt, long jacket, is the only male fantasy I aspire to meet. Ah, yes. Everything about that song. So yes, now I very much enjoy it. And Isabel, even by the end of this section,

is just very fucking competent. Yeah, yeah. And I just... I like writing women who are good at things. I know it's very easy to go, I'm subversing Trope, so there's no damsel in distress. And no one's brother, as mentioned, through this whole book.

Yeah. Kelly is good at stuff because of a whole load of royal lineage, which you could say is an extension of the I Have Brothers Trope, but I don't think it is. No, it's an extension of being brought up to... Expect assassination. Believe or rather know in your very bones that you are incredibly important.

Yes, which I enjoy. And I like that she's not... As much as I'm saying it sometimes feels like the book isn't desperate for us to like her, it does not poke fun of her for being aware of her own importance. It'd be very easy to write that character and be very snide about it and sort of have the book encouraging the reader

to laugh at her behind her back, but it doesn't, it just makes her incredibly aware of her importance, incredibly competent. Because not being funny, she is literally in Child of the Kingdom, so... Exactly. And it takes joy in it, and it invites you as the reader to take joy in it.

And I think that's a really lovely thing, especially considering this is only the fourth book and I said the first couple, weren't always great with the women. Okay, so this one... Did you get this reference? Because I had to Google this. I did have to Google it,

and I nearly used it as my obscure reference and didn't, so I'm glad I didn't because you... Yeah, so the Lusitania. I'm assuming this is... Lusitania. Lusitania. Well, it was an English ship, so I'm going to pronounce it like a dick

at English person in Spain. That seems fair. Yeah. You wonder why I use your colonialism every summer? Yeah, all right, fine. It is page 97. After the frying pan and into the firewater. He felt as if he'd been shipwrecked on the Titanic,

but in the nick of time had been rescued by the Lusitania. So for those who, like me, don't know, the Lusitania was a ship that was sunk three years after the Titanic sunk. It was an ocean liner, RMS Lusitania, and it was sunk during the First World War as Germany was waging submarine warfare. And this is generally sort of considered to be

the turning point that convinced America to join World War One, basically. Oh, okay. Was this ship being sunk? Because it... You know, it wasn't theirs. Well, it was because it turned public opinion against Germany in so many places.

Oh, okay, because massive civilian casualties. I'm assuming so, yeah. It was like a thousand-dollar people, though, right? Yeah, yeah. It sank in, like, 18 minutes. Shit. Yeah. So I thought it was interesting because I...

It was interesting to look it up because I hadn't heard of it before, and it was obviously a pivotal part of World War One. So maybe, like, people would just talk history better when this was written in the late 80s, because I don't... No, I think, like, he makes a lot of references that... Yeah. We have to look up.

Processing death, Joanna. Processing death. Yeah, this is not some big, serious, interesting thing about grief. I was just... It was really funny when all of these people think Kelly should be dead and he isn't. So the dogs start howling and then stop a bit embarrassed

in the year. The horses that are supposed to drag the hearse get very restless for no reason. Someone's ordered a lot of black crepe and feels very sad. Obviously, everyone ignoring her as well, which is quite funny. Have we all had days where we've accidentally ordered a mile of black crepe and been sent to our rooms to have a crying fit?

The cook had to fight an overpowering urge to prepare simple banquets of cold meat, which eventually he does. Yes. Is that part of the morning period tradition? I would assume so, yeah. Well, you sort of, you don't do big feasts and bruised beef. It's sort of, yes, we'll have calm, simple repast of cold meats.

But if you don't have a bunch of cold meat, doesn't that mean you have to cook meat and let it go cold? Well, I'm assuming there probably is, like, constantly leftovers and things and hams and... As long as you check during the day. Yeah, not at night. But this is lunchtime. So, yeah, I probably didn't really need to be in talking points,

but I did really quite enjoy it. Yeah, we did seem to both of us just spread talking points and little parts indiscriminately this week. The fortune telling bit. Yeah, how does one tell one's fortune on the disc or tell someone else's... Well, Karak cards are an option which we've met already, which are obviously a tarot card, piss way.

The Qing Ling, which I'm going to ignore, I'm not educated or intelligent or awake enough to look at the ways in which it's racist that they've done the Qing Ling. Yeah, because it's obviously inspired by, say, the Karakas based on the tarot cards, the Qing Ling thing with the Yaro Storks being thrown in the air, I'm assuming is based on the Yi Jing, which is a very real, interesting thing.

So, obviously, please, we'll link to better information about this in the show notes than what I remember from my Eastern Philosophy phase, but the idea is you have these set of Storks and you very methodically, it's almost a meditative thing, work your way through them and decide how to arrange them and the characters and interpretations you draw from that help you.

Oh, that sounds like a really cool mindfulness exercise, yeah. I mean, it's an ancient philosophical practice, though, which is basically all very, very well done mindfulness practices, isn't it? Yeah. Thousands of years of working out how to actually do this shit. Yeah, and yeah, and then the idea is, so it's not about predicting the future,

it's about working out what's already in your head by creating a physical manifestation of it. I have some salary. I mean, can I use that? To make a salad? Yes, Francine. Or as nice a frito base for a tomato sauce or make a nice dip for it.

Not to tell my future. No, salary is not very well known. Not a psychically, not a psychically-tuned vegetable. No, I would say Yarrow, yes. Yarrow Storks, yes. Celery, no. Rubab? Depends on the size of your ears.

Leek. Only if you're Welsh. What are the long vegetables? Francine. What is Yarrow? Yarrow is a type of wood. Why does it have stalks? Oh, I don't know.

I don't know, Francine. Or maybe it's, I think it's like a herby stalk or something. Like it's a woody herb. Do you use chives? Yes, Francine. Stand up, chives. I mean, again, I feel like in your life you can use chives for many things, Francine. Okay, but not for fortune-telling.

I would say generally, vegetables, not a good fortune-telling method. Salads, great. Fortune-telling, not so much. Okay, cool. Apart from daikon, obviously. Really radish, very psychic vegetable. Okay. So, yeah.

I've written Unatonin Goose, exclamation mark, which I think is one of the cards. No, Unatonin Goose was the octagram that came up when she was doing the... Oh, like the star sign kind of thing. Yeah, elegance, the Unatonin Goose, which we cross for a second here. And without vertically, wisely, the Cockneal Emperor goes forth at tea time at evening, the mollusk is silent among the almond blossom. Okay, so yeah, my next point. Who's Benedict and Beatrice?

I'm being a wanker here. No, yeah. It's... I know, it's... So, no, so I really hate this trope where the couple argue until they fall in love. Yeah, me too. Like, especially... It kind of works if it's over a long thing. I'm watching New Girl at the moment, which I'm aware is really bad, but I have loads of writing.

I actually love New Girl. Well, no, but I mean, it's like, it's an average sitcom. It's not like a good show. I would say it's not quite as good as... I like it. Zoe and Nick's first kiss is like that. Yeah, that's about where I am right now. Yeah, best culmination of tension for David.

But this is them, like, arguing for a season and a half and then they kiss. Yeah. And the show has already done that storyline with another couple, and I'm only on season two. Yeah, but I like it. If it's drawn out, I'm a sucker for romantic tension. I hate general suspense and tension, but romantic, like, tension I'm way more into. It works better in something like that where it's drawn out, but I really hate it in something like this where you have a couple, they argue, then they get together.

However, this particular argument that I was referencing, which is in this section, where they're going for a walk in the garden and they start... He says he doesn't want to marry her and she said, oh, I wouldn't marry for the last man on earth. And they just very politely insult each other. Yeah, I mean, it's quite a good nature. It's really sweet. It reminded me...

Benedict and Beatrice, which is what I put in the note, is there a couple from much ado about nothing. Ah. But very specifically, in the movie version with Keanu Reeves, directed by Kenneth Branagh, Kenneth Branagh also plays Benedict and Emma Thompson plays Beatrice, and it's while they were still married, and they have amazing on-screen chemistry, and they are this couple that cover these constant bitchy arguments until they get together. I put one of my favorite explainers, which is Beatrice, says, I wonder that you should still be talking, senior Benedict.

Nobody marks you. And he says, what my lady disdain? Are you yet living? And they're just constant dicks to each other. And that, obviously it's not an amic pentameter, but that just very good naturedly insulting each other. Can we put it in an amic pentameter? Are you sure it's not an amic pentameter?

At least I walk as if my legs only had one... No, it's not. As if I walk as if my... As if, at least I walk as if my legs only had one knee each. I mean, Lee had one knee each, you know? Yeah, no, it doesn't quite work. My hair, I put it to you, doesn't look like something you clean... Yeah, no, you can't...

That's not an amic pentameter. I'm having to write a play on an amic pentameter at the moment, and it's exhausting. Do you have to? What do you choose to? I mean, like, we've already advertised that the play is happening, and I... You have to, yes. Yeah, I haven't finished writing it yet, and it's in like a month. Yeah, because sometimes you'll say things to me, like,

I have to write 30 plays in 30 days. It was 28 plays in 28 days. Which is far more reasonable commitment to make when you have three jobs. All right. I like this new whispering into the microphone thing. It's really creepy because it's like you're whispering in my ear. So it's like you're talking about me behind my back to the listeners, but also it's really directly in my ear.

It's like really unkind ASMR. Allow me to insult you in a tingly manner. Jesus Christ, Francine. There are people who will pay for that. Please get in too much. It's like ASMR, BDSM. I'd like to pay off my credit card. Okay, ASMR, BDSM must be a thing.

Listeners, please do not tweet us links. Speak for thine self. Anyway, I maintain that writing 28 plays in 28 days was a totally reasonable thing to do. But not something you had to do. Can we at least admit that? Okay. I didn't have to do it, but I did do it.

But you did do it. And it's amazing. And it broke me and I'll never do it again. Right. Sorry, we've fucking tangents. Francine, would you like to talk about romantic suicide? No, I wouldn't. What's wrong with you?

Which is also the name of my emo band from when I was 13. I'm joking. It wasn't, it was called antipathy. Yeah. Well, actually, this does tie in perfectly with angsty fucking teens because it's like a repeating theme through this section of the book, which is, is about going on about how all these romantic, unrequited love, one of the teenagers,

they're all Romeo and Juliet stories. Yeah, exactly. So and then somebody else mentions Queen Aziril who sat on a snake. I think that's a reference to Cleopatra. Yeah. Everyone's talking about how, you know, killing yourself for love. So very romantic, et cetera, et cetera.

Except there's always someone there saying, well, no, it's normal. Because you're dead after. Yeah. And I, I like it. I like that that's a repeating theme throughout because it's a very teenage and fucking stupid thing to romanticise suicide over love.

Yeah. And it was briefly a trend in music like not long after teenagers became a thing really of like tragic teenage deaths and not suicide so much as just the romanticising of death and therefore one partner being left behind. And also the idea of the one who dies young has sort of stayed young forever and all that. Exactly.

So yeah, the kind of shit you really buy into when you're 16, you know? God, yeah. And it seems so incredibly stupid now when I know I'm going to be immortal. I remember being broken up with one set of teenagers and I genuinely just thought I would die. Could not understand how I would survive it. I thought I would die of the pain.

Yeah. And like, I remember breaking up with my first boyfriend and it was like we got back together but the first breakup was like a mutual one. Yeah. And I got home and I was crying in the living room with my mom and Becky and just going,

it hurts. It literally hurts. Like it hurts inside me like in just absolute shock. Like I had other breakups that were as painful after that but for different reasons and for obviously I haven't had a breakup for quite a while now. But it's easy to take with piss but it seems so real. It was so insanely intense.

Like the fucking emotions you feel at that age and being reminded of all this stuff really does make me double down on hating dudes who chase teenagers when they're proper adults because yeah, you just, like you literally, you don't feel that intensely anymore. No you don't. So it sounds like a shit thing to say.

Like when you're in a marriage and like an objectively far better and stronger and much deeper kind of love but it doesn't fit. Like if God forbid Jack and I ever broke up, I would be devastated and I would have to rebuild my life and it would be awful, truly awful. But I would survive. Yeah.

And you know that and you're very confident. I don't think it would ever feel as bad as that first breakup when you were 14. Because that's such an intense fucking hormone for me. Physical breaking. And yeah, and it's because it's hormones and it's teenagers. And yes, adult men who chase teenagers are scum.

Scum. You're scum. Okay, again, like people are gonna get off on that rubbing. I'm just saying. They're scum too. All scum. Am I yucking yums? I feel like in the case of grown men chasing teenagers,

that's a yum we can yuck. I feel like a nonsense poem coming on here. Scum, scum, yucking yums. Okay, we'll workshop this when we finish the podcast front soon. Sorry. Oh, we're going to finish one day. Yeah.

Do you think? Do you believe so? We're rounding the bend. History unravels gently like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, re-knitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dust as a propaganda.

And it always eventually manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. And obviously this is like in the context of the book, this is talking about the fact that the rest of the world is going on as if Kelly has died and eventually it's going to spring back and she will stop being there even though more saved her. But there's a more general point about what history is

and how it's cut up and put to one side. And the whole idea of it's written by the victors. Yeah, absolutely. I've got into this a bit, looking at more of Australian history recently. Like we talked last week about the fact that there are literally verbal histories passed down that can be traced back for huge geological shifts of Australia.

Which is viking mental. Which is insane. And that culture has been somewhat eradicated, destroyed and generally fucked by colonial genocide. You can say it. Colonial genocide. Sorry, what the fuck. Somewhat fucked by colonial genocide.

Yes, that's the one. But we're not taught that one. We're taught about the colonisation of Australia at school. We're taught about how it was an empty island we dumped convicts on. Yeah, but the overarching point being in 500 years, what history is going to be is that they got genocided by the shitty colonial British. Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah, I liked one of the quotes within that portion, which was, people don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky. Which I find simultaneously comforting and very disheartening. I like being reminded of how small I am within the larger universe. That's why I like the universe. That's what we were talking about last week,

wasn't it? It's kind of putting things in perspective. Yes. In a very, in all seriousness, this is why I kind of jokingly and not so jokingly cover immortality, I think. Just the idea of being such a fleeting, non-entity. Is somewhat terrifying, but also at the same time quite comforting. Yeah.

Or I find it quite comforting. It's quite comforting in that, occasionally, I really can remember that all of this shit is not. So fleeting and temporary. Not important. It's a this to shall pass. Yeah. When I say all of this shit, I mean all of my petty worries, not the various ills in the world,

because there are some terrible things going on. But frankly, I'm not experiencing very many of them. I do find it really interesting as well, like watching, because obviously we're going through such a weird thing at the moment with literal global pandemic. Literal global pandemic. What's happening to financial systems? The fact that it's happening during the run-up to a huge election in America.

Bitcoin, you will be shocked to learn has crashed again. Really? That's so not like Bitcoin. It's usually so resilient. But watching the way the entire financial systems are starting to crash down. And watching it happen in tiny things, like in my workplace and how it's usually affecting us, but watching what's happening on a national scale, it's like, this feels more than anything like I'm witnessing history in a way,

things like say Brexit or Trump being elected felt very distant. This is so immediate. We were compass and just about in the workforce when the last global recession hit. But I was definitely not as economically and politically aware at the time. From my perspective, all I knew was my boyfriend and his dad lost their jobs in the construction company and like bad things were happening, but what's the footsie one? Whereas now it's like we're both quite aware of it. It's really terrifying to watch.

But I also just think about how this will be taught in 50 years. If it will. If indeed it will. Well, there's so much primary evidence now. Depending on how long we think things that are put on the Internet will last, and if they will survive 50 years. Well, it's not so much that as in, will it even seem significant? Well, yes.

What are the horrific things will have happened in 50 years? I like to think this will be significant enough that it will be taught. It will be the first time it really happened on this scale, and we knew it was coming and we didn't prepare for it. Yeah, which is really fun being in a country that's like kind of doing nothing right now. Except me, I've got a cupboard full of microwavable porridge. So fuck you, virus. I've got quite a lot of flour.

And I think I have some lentil left. Oh, good. You need to buy eggs. You need to get a chicken. That's what we need. We need chickens. We need to start a little good life on clave bunker. Yeah, but I'm scared of chickens.

You're scared of chickens. They're really freaky. Well, yeah, they are creepy, but... Okay, I'm not like scared, scared of chickens, but like I don't want chickens. I want to live next to somebody who has chickens, so they can like bring me eggs, but I don't have to experience the chickens.

I'm just not sure how cheesy we can be about real estate, gummy apocalypse. Fine, okay, but I'd rather have goats. I know they don't lay eggs. Not yet they don't, but after the radiation hits. Yay! We will go together. Sorry.

So yeah, so I thought I liked the writing and the nature of history. The longing for a state of mind. I'm longing for a state of mind. Oh, for me, I've gone cheerful throughout, haven't I? I was actually in a good mood when I wrote these notes. It's probably why I thought I'd be fine to talk about the molten set.

I'm longing for a state of mind at the moment, but that state of mind is full of eggs. I'm quite hungry for answering. I guess more to never really felt homesick, possibly, because his mind had been too occupied with other things, but he felt it now for the first time. A sort of longing, not just for a place, but for a state of mind, for being just an ordinary human being.

That's right, for being just an ordinary human being with straightforward things to worry about. But yeah, whereas I've never actually taken on an apprenticeship with an anthropomorphic personification of death, I am very familiar with the nostalgia for a state of mind and a nostalgia for how I used to feel in certain situations rather than the place or even the people themselves. And that's something I've talked about before

when I talk about just being able to live through fantasy and then make believe games and probably something I've mentioned on the podcast about I miss that kind of thing when I used to drink in pubs and have excellent nights sometimes. And it's not that you miss being in the pub, it's not that you miss drinking, but you miss that particular mindset you would be in. The feeling you get on the second drink, possibly third,

depending on how bad the day had been. And I miss being a teenager, like we were just talking about and having those kind of intense emotions sometimes. Yeah, as much as the heartbreak was the pain, like the lows were so low, the highs were so epic when something would happen and you would scream and giggle and not be able to stop for literal hours.

Like these fucking Georgia Nicholson books, we keep referencing because we're just rediscovering a tiny hint of that pride joy. But yeah, the teenage girl ridiculous laughter with tears rolling down your cheeks. And when you cannot stop and like just one of you will say one little word as you start to come down and it goes again and again and again.

And occasionally you get that, like when you get older, but it's never quite the same. And it's replaced with other good things. Yeah, it's a thing like I don't want to really fucking depress any young listeners here because you know what you get instead is a kind of confidence in yourself. You lose the horror that is the hyper-awareness

of your presence. You kind of... Yeah, I mean as much as we're being very reminiscent about being teenagers here, like I would never... It was shit and we were shit at it. Yeah, I would go back to that for the fucking world. No, I mean maybe the holiday. If you could holiday in times of your life,

I think perhaps I'd spend a week here and there in the places I'm talking about. So yeah, that's my... Oh no, my last one was probably should have been a little bit, I like it again really, but all the biographies going all the way back to the ancient Ogonsog one. Oh, the Ogonsog and...

Really tickled my fancy. You know how much I love the unknowable ancient history stuff? Yes. Oh, what would you give for a few days in that library? I couldn't cope with being in that library for a few days because the scribbling noise would freak me out. With some noise-canceling headphones.

Oh yeah, then no, like anything. At least a foot. Yeah. I'm not really using my feet. Yes you are. Not right now, I'm sat down. That's future me's problem, fuck that guy. I'm quite good on crutches.

I literally last night, as I chucked my laundry from the bed to the floor, went suck it, future me. Which is now me. So, god damn it. Fuck you, past me. See, past me bought lots of nice food for various reasons and put leftovers in the fridge thinking, oh well, I'll have leftovers and now...

Past you was being a bro. Yeah, present me. Forgot to eat solid food at home for a while because I was really busy and now I have to bin a bunch of food that's in my fridge. Oh that sucks, I'm sorry. Oh no, I was just being super disorganised. Yeah, but it doesn't make it like less sucky.

No, it does suck. I've got to bin a lot of food. And I don't like waste. No, me neither. No, I need to clear out the veg drawer as well. I hate clearing out the veg drawer. Ew, ew, ew, water. Ew, ew, ew.

Yeah. Ew. Maybe you can tell your fortune as you do it though. I don't think there's anything too much. Meditatively remove the soggy celery. There's no celery in my fucking fridge. I don't buy celery. Obscure references.

Yes, would you like to round us out with an obscure reference finial before I go and eat all the eggs? Eggs are a state of mind. I am the egg man. Coo-coo-coo-choo. Thank you, Francine. So do you know what a state beer is? No, this is beer spelt with an I.

With an I. Not with two E's. Not with two E's. Excellent. A beer, B-I-E-R, which is mentioned when I think they get it out after Kelly does not die. Right. It's part of this whole processing of the death

and I think they get confused as they go. So I wasn't sure what a state beer was. It is a stand to place a corpse or a coffin upon so that the deceased can lie in state. And lying in state, I also had to check what the definition was and I would have got it wrong because I thought that was just kind of like anyone in an open casket would be lying in state.

No, lying in state is something to do with like monarchy, but that's all they really know. Yeah, so it's mainly monarchy, but also now in a more republican world, they're sometimes high-ranking political officials. Oh, I say that actually. I think in the UK, the tradition of it being monarchy doesn't go back very far.

But anyway, they are placed in a state building so that the public can come and pay their respects. In the UK, it's Westminster Hall. Right. And we use a type of beer called a catafolk, maybe, which is movable on wheels. Oh my God. I know.

Voltaire's catafolk, by the way, I'm just going to bring everything around full circle here, was used to move his remains to the pantheon 13 years after his death. And it was, I've actually printed a picture for you, like an old person. It was an all-night three-tin masterpiece. Look it.

That's incredible. And that's exactly what I want to be wheeled into the place in on my funeral. I hope you'd say that because I've built you one. Yay! You get a catafolk. You get a catafolk. You get a catafolk.

Listen, look under your chair. If there's one there, do you really want the f**k? But also well done. I worked hard on this. Jesus' run scene. You're going to terrify the poor loves. Sorry, dear little listeners. Anyway, I just thought that was so f**king extra.

We will treat this picture. And compared to the American one, which is the Lincoln catafolk, which was built pretty hastily after Lincoln. Yeah. Had a bit of the old. You know, yeah. Shot at the theatre.

Oh, I thought you were going to come up with a pretty good innuendo. I was, but it was so sexual. You know, the old shot in the dark. The old, uh, early curtain call. Oh, no. No, it's all terribly distaste. Anyway, it was hastily built and is pretty plain and black

and still used now because tradition, but. Excellent. I thought it was quite nice. Yes. Front front. And Voltaire just had this ridiculous contraption. With three tears. Yeah.

That's marvellous. We will tweet that picture, dear listeners. I'm not quite sure why Voltaire was moved to 30 years after his death. I didn't get that far. Right. Well, I think with that, we could have come to the end really, haven't we?

Which is probably for the best. Is this it? Is this it? Did we do it? Did we finish? I think. Could we get through it all? I think we have done.

I feel like we should stop making the listeners feel like we hate this so much because we have actually had quite a nice time, haven't we Francine? We have actually. We're just very tired. There is. There are very few people on this earth, Joanna, that would rather be sat opposite while in this

kind of terrible mood. Excellent. Very few, actually. So, with that, Dellings, dear listeners, who aren't. Darlings. Irritating to that at all. No, I'm sure you're all very nice.

But from that one, you know who you are. Scum. Jesus wants it. Okay, no. We love you all. We love you all. We love you all deeply. I promise they'll stop using that new trick next week.

No, you fucking won't. I might. Jesus. I'm whispering in my own ear as well, so it's not like I'm not suffering. It's just I'm choosing to go through it to upset you, which what does that say about me? I don't know.

Am I allowed to do an outro now? Oh, yeah, I guess so. Do you promise not to whisper the word scum while I do an outro? Yes. Yes, I do promise that. Thank you, Francine. Okay.

Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Shall Make You Fret. Okay, so that was part two of our discussion of Mort. Next week, we will be discussing from where we've ended, which as I said is death sickening for something, right through to the end of the book, which is at the end where it says the end. If you hit the blurb, you're gone too far.

Yes. If the book is closed, you've overdone it. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to The Truth Shall Make You Fret. You can follow us on the internet. We are on Instagram at The Truth Shall Make You Fret. We're on Facebook, The Truth Shall Make You Fret. We're on Twitter at Make You Fret Pod.

You can email us, The Truth Shall Make You Fret Pod at gmail.com and send us your thoughts and opinions and albatrosses and snacks and castles and things. Please rate and review wherever you get your podcast because it helps other people find us and do subscribe. And it soothes our ego. And we also would like our ego soothed. I like praise.

Thank you very much. Words of affirmation is my love language. I mean, my love language is mostly snacks. I think that's the sixth one. What is it? It's acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation and snacks. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Cool. And on that note, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Fuck's sake.