The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 16: Mort Pt.3 (Horse In My Zen Garden)

Episode Date: March 23, 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 3 of our recap of “Mort”.Commies! Class Warfare! Critical Equine Interference! Canapés?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 @francibambi Things we blathered on about:The Red Hand FilesApocalypse Playlist (TTSMYF) (Spotify)Inside Nick Cave’s Heartbreaking ‘One More Time With Feeling’ Doc (Rolling Stone)The Golden Jubilee (Wiki) Chopstick Etiquette Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway (YouTube)The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why (Goodreads)Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

How the joys of living in old English houses? Everything's made of a spist or some fagash. Right. I mean, we should probably address the elephant in the coronation. I love that. I'm well up for campaigning for that as a replacement for elephant in the room, although it does make me think of like coronation chicken and the elephant in the fridge and the butter. Not again. We talked about this. So yeah, sorry, elephant in the coronation being when recording live in a global pandemic. Are we? Yeah, apparently. No, you know me. I don't read the news. It's fine. My bands are red raw for no reason. Oh, don't. The whole, like, I hate the term self care so fucking much because it's been

commodified like everything that's supposed to exist outside of fucking capitalism. Friendly looking fonts. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Are you getting your daily self care? Anyway, sorry, self care. What? Well, so I, as an active self care earlier in the year, especially with the whole, because the last four years have been like a mess in British politics. I spent the last year or so like trying to really cut down on reading the news because I was just making myself anxious. Yeah. And then of course, with everything that's happened in the last week, I got to the point where I every half an hour I'd open my news app and scroll again and refresh it and see if there

was anything new. Yeah, I'm trying to find a bit of a balance between obviously, at this point, we do need to stay informed. Yeah. But in the same way that washing my hands every half an hour, like, obviously, I need to be washing my hands. When does that slip over into compulsion that I should be trying to curb? Yeah, because you and I both have really bad compulsive tendencies. So I have now kind of made a deal with myself. I've turned off all the notifications for my news apps. Oh, that's a good idea. And I'm allowed to scroll in the morning when I get up and I'm faffing around on my phone for like an hour anyway. It's a really new day before it starts. Yeah. Well, it's just, then I've got the new overnight developments

and then I'm watching the daily press conferences, which I actually think. Oh, I'm not. Yeah, no, they're not really helping my rage. So I'm going to make bread so I can imagine it's Boris Johnson's face as I need it. What do you reckon of this medical dude who's in, who's around all the time now, head medical? Like, basically didn't say anything in today's press conference. I feel bad for him because he is not in a great position, but also like, I don't know, I don't really have an opinion on him. Well, maybe, you know, we'll see some character development as the story goes on. And hopefully Boris Johnson will just keel over on his horse near the end of the book. I really hope Boris Johnson just keels over on his horse near the

end of the book. I really hope we're near the end of the book. I don't even care if the entire world fucking dies at this point, if it means Boris Johnson keels the fuck over. Sorry. Okay, right. Wind it in. I'm still quite stressed. I was going to try and be really like positive and upbeat. Yeah. Well, we've got to genocide and we're not at five minutes yet. So three steps back. So you've closed work now? Yes. So my restaurant's closed and all my shows and theater stuff for the next month is canceled. And the place I do social media for doesn't need me because they've canceled all their events. So that's good. Yeah. So that's two of your three jobs now gone. Yeah. And the third one is kind of hanging away a thread because the restaurant is,

like I said, closed. So I am at the moment being paid to my newly cleaner kitchen. We'll see how we'll see if I can drag that out for three months. Yeah. On the other hand, talking about the commodification of things that shouldn't be, I've got loads of fucking work because I'm a writer. And actually, no, that's very unfair. The clients I work with have been genuinely asking for proper informative articles and nothing. We're in affiliate linky. Yeah. Luckily in the position where I get to choose a couple of clients I like and this is why. And I'm glad that's going well for you. Like genuinely, that sounded really sarcastic, but I'm not like, yeah, no, I mean, it's nice to know there are some assholes and that's one thing,

but I know we will both help each other from when the time comes to it. Exactly. It's nice to know my husband is out on a farm in the middle of nowhere, to be honest. I'm quite looking forward to like the lack of work I have, meaning I can just kind of go for really long walks a lot. Yeah. Because I feel like that's okay with self-isolation. I'm not going to be around people. Yeah, for sure. Depending on where we are with isolating because of our various people, we could go for a walk together at some point for the little log. We could, we very much could. I shall bring Tupperware for World Garlic. Yes, I can show you where the World Garlic grows, which is a far less depressing version of Nick Cave's famous song. Yes. As I'm not highly

even know, I'm assuming you're not going to bash my head in with a rock and leave me dead in the lake. Yes. Whereas if you were Kylie Minogue, of course. I love Kylie Minogue. I would never bash her head in with a rock. Well, tell that to Nick Cave. I would. I've joined Nick Cave's newsletter. Oh, really? Yeah. Have you looked at his website? No. Nick Cave is someone I'm like a passing fan of. Like I'm aware he's incredibly cool. His latest album is very, very good. I have listened to Ghost Dean. Yeah, I have listened to Ghost Dean. Yeah. I listened to that while I was finding apocalyptic songs for our True Shell Makey Fred podcast. Relevant. And I ended up listening to the whole thing all the way through. I was like, oh gosh, this is very, very haunting,

concentrated grief. Yeah, it's beautiful. I think one of the funniest pieces of writing I've ever seen was not intended to be funny. So where I work, we have like a shift planner where the different front of house staff are given tasks for the day. And this was a few years ago. There was a film that came out alongside that album that was about the process of making it. Oh, wow. Oh, I'd like to watch that. Yeah. So we showed it at the independent cinema slash restaurant I work in. Yeah. And quite often when we have special films, we try and have music on in the restaurant that ties in. But it would be up to this manager how much effort was made. So if it was a film he really liked, there would be like a whole theme party, signs everywhere.

We showed dirty dancing. We had like fucking watermelons up the wazoo. Whereas this, the guy was not into Nick Cave. So he just put a note on the shift planner saying, James, please make Nick Cave playlist for tonight, not too depressing. Oh, did you get a picture of that? I feel like that would tickle Nick Cave if you sent it to him. I'm gutted that I did not. But it will forever stay in my heart as one of the funniest things I've ever seen written down. Agree. So do we have any news in our life that's not about the pandemic? Uh, I'm literally trying to think if anything has happened to me that's not related to the pandemic. I'm going to try cooking something interesting involving roast pork and pomegranate

molasses this weekend. Nice. I bought some new watercolor paper. Oh, cool. I'm hoping I'll actually finish my poetry anthology with all the time I have off work. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I should write some poetry too. Yes, I feel like there's going to be a lot of pandemic poetry. Well, yeah, you know, I've been happy for so long that really I haven't written any poetry. But now everything's very stressful. Yeah, this is definite. Um, it's not really caught up with me yet, but I can kind of feel it building behind the protective wall. So it was really catching up to me in the last couple of weeks. And then I think like this week, especially I've come through stressed and out the other side. At least the main, you're very good at that. The main thing that

was stressing me out was uncertainty. And at least like, I know my restaurant is closed now. Yes. Like, yeah, there is that. I've lost some of the uncertainty. Uh, although obviously I don't know how long my restaurant is closed for. But, uh, so that's something. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Yeah, I went to town yesterday that was where the market was quieter than it's been since like the weather made everyone blow away. Yeah, everything is odd and quiet. And I think that's the part that's not sinking in for me yet. Like is, is how long this weird isolation thing will last and especially not going to the pub. Yeah. How much worse everything's

going to get before it gets better is going to be the uncertainty still for me. Like if it's just going to carry on like this with everything kind of shut and the supplies, you know, kind of available, we can eat. It's fine. Like I can't get fucking whatever, like almond milk or the kitchen roll, you know, what the fuck ever. Yeah. Worse comes to worse. There is like a whole river full of dark cleats right now. But yeah, no, that I can live with it. It's the, how much worse it gets and how many more places close and how many more places can't recover afterwards. But also it's weird little things. Like I said, not going to the pub is the thing that's, I know that sounds really sad, but it's a weekly thing for me that I go and meet up with certain people on a Sunday

afternoon. And especially, yeah, especially losing it this coming Sunday, because that's Mother's Day and it's, you know, not going to be a fun day. No, I've been stress cleaning a bit, not that you'd be able to tell by the state of this place, but the corridor outside has been bleach scrubbed. I haven't got around to this room yet. I had a bit of a stress clean on Monday, because I kind of wanted to get ahead of my stress cleaning in case I had to quarantine or something. So my kitchen's super clean now and my living room's really tidy. I've just got three tons of laundry upstairs to deal with. And then I'm, I'm kind of thinking with self-isolation and work doing what it's doing, I'm going to be really caught up on my laundry for the first time

in maybe a year, which is the thing I'm finding like, sorry, I keep talking about the fucking pandemic. Don't mention the pandemic. Don't panic, Mr. Manoring. I'm sorry, that was awful. The thing I'm finding so weird is I've literally gone in three weeks from 40 hours a week. My day job is completely manic. Plus I'm rehearsing two shows, one of which I haven't actually finished writing yet and trying to bring out a poetry anthology and trying to pull together like this whole fringe festival and all the advertising that goes alongside it. It's a pretty normal week for you here. Yeah. And I have gone from that to 30 hours a week at my closed restaurant doing nothing but mind-numbing cleaning.

I have no theatre projects until September. That is weird, yeah. And I don't have my social media job. It's like whiplash. Someone has slammed the brakes and my head is still hitting, the back of my head is still hitting the seat right now. You always feel like you should still be doing something right now that you're not, yeah. I've given myself this week to just kind of be a bit confused and not know what's going on and not try and get a bunch of shit done because I have, I spent two hours. I like scheduled confusion as a concept. I spent two hours on Sunday doing one of my jobs. I need to immediately get a text

when I'd finished saying, hey, delete all of that. We don't have any events now. Well, I guess we don't get to put our first line on this then. Yes. We now have an episode since last existential crisis board. Yep. Which, yeah, I just had an existential crisis. Fine. Was that existential? I don't know. Maybe we can do it. I think it should be post-soft open only. I think I should be allowed existential crises in the soft open because then I get it out of my system before the main podcast. Okay. Speaking of which, should we make a podcast?

Let's make a podcast. Beautiful. Did you just go slightly cross-eyed? I'm trying to find my inner calm. All right. Well, you can do that when we get to the zen garden. I thought Mort doesn't put his feet in it. It was the fucking horse. How are you feeling today? Well, I've got a bit of a horse in my zen garden,

if you know what I mean. Also, there's an elephant in my coronation. I bet you thought I was just pleased to see you. I loved it. You will be unsurprised to hear that I did love the elephant's escape. Oh, yes. I did have a note of that, but I thought we had too many points, but I was concerned for your feelings about the elephant, so I was glad he escaped. Yes. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, podcast, podcast.

Hello and welcome to the true shall make he fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today is part three of our discussion of Mort, the fourth Discworld novel. Quick note on spoilers. This is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, major spoilers for the book, Mort, but we are going to try and avoid spoiling any major events in future Discworld novels. And we're saving 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.

I've come around to it. I like it now. Yeah. No, I kind of like it now. I'm attached to the journey. Yeah. Francine, do you have any follow up from last week? I do. It's not as exciting as it might have looked by my frantic scramble for my phone. It is, we were asking what good he meant. Oh. It's short for good wife, which was similar, but lower status way of basically saying mistress in

the oldie days. Fair enough. Good wife. Good wife. Whatever the chops was. Annabelle. Honey string. Amaline hand string.

Amaline. Amaline. Amaline. Depends whether you're French or... Amaline. Sorry, it depends whether you're French or a... Or a Muppet, do you want to? Fair.

Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Mort? Yeah, sure. On Mort. I actually wrote this before you got here today, so... Oh, I like it when you scramble it as I'm doing the intro. Previously on Mort. Mort takes the side for a spin, successfully reaping soul solo twice before cocking it up. He swarts an assassin and saves a princess, and back at the ranch begins to fret.

After failing to fess up to the master, the guilty apprentice picnics with Isabel instead before getting back to work. Only to find an eerie event horizon bubble crackling across the disc like a really good simile for how badly fucked everything up. Wizard Cutwell tells him that reality is trying to fix his mistake, but Mort's not having it. The next logical step is clearly extortion. So, Mort goes looking for Albert's secret while Death goes fishing,

partying, gambling and drinking. At the end of his bender, it seems that Death is sickening, and it's not just the third row of spirits that did it. Oh, Death. Poor Death. Oh, Death. Right. Right, now let's get to the bit where we don't feel sorry for Death anymore.

I actually am so obsessed with how good Death is. I know he's so fucking creepy, right? I know, it's amazing. Not even creepy, it's not creepy, it's just terrifying. It's just good, Francine. It's very good. It's very good. Yes.

Right. Anyway, sorry. So, in the final section of Mort, Mort and Isabel catch themselves up on Albert's most recent biography, and Albert catches them in the act. Death starts looking for a new job. Mort has a weird-ass dream that involves him stabbing a star. Mm. Death doesn't come home.

Mort, Isabel, and Albert panic about the nodes as Death enjoys a new career path. Cutwell continues to worry, planning the coronation. The Chancellor requests some fireworks. There will be some. Mort picks up the latest set of hourglasses and heads off to do the duty, pausing to threaten Albert, then ask for help, and receiving a spell to slow reality. Mort heads off with Isabel to the Agathean Empire. I want to point out that in the Agathean Empire bit,

where they're throwing this fish back and forth, that at one point the Emperor skewers something on a chopstick, which is really fucking rude. Right. Sorry, anyway. So, Agathean Empire, Grand Vizier, dies. Albert takes matters into his own hands, drops into- Sorry, is it rude as in trying to assassinate one's Emperor?

Well... Yes. Let's say yes. Sorry, carry on. Albert takes matters into his own hands, drops into the university, ends up heading to the drum to find some senior wizards. Mort pops into sort, but not for a dead king. Albert forms up a right of Ashkent team.

Isabel has to force Mort to be human to avoid being summoned by the right, so death is instead summoned to the university and takes Albert home. Bless. Mort goes on a last chance sprint to Stolat to save the princess. The elephant in the room gets pissed and runs away. The Duke tries to hold up Kelly's coronation. Cut well crowns Kelly in a last dash attempt to save her. Mort rescues them against their will as the tiny ahistorical reality collapses

and they all head back to death's house. Isabel declares her love for Mort in front of her furious father. Death strikes Mort. Remember this for later. Much later. Okay. Mort challenges death to a duel. Death flips the hourglass and we end up Mort and Isabel's wedding with Mort,

the new Duke of Stolat. Mort is also shocked to find himself married to a Duchess. Death gives him a universe seed that looks like a pearl. Yeah. So that was this section. And then like it explains a pearl in the detail we know, but don't like to think about what that is. It's mucus.

Yeah, it's mucus around grace. Pretty mucus. Shiny mucus. That serves us right for digging stuff out of all these just tonsils really, doesn't it? So yeah, no helicopters or loincloths in this section. Yep. But I feel like there would have been a loincloth if there hadn't had to be a large ceremonial rubber apron for the elephant sacrifice.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there was probably a loincloth under the apron. I feel like loincloths were implied. Yeah. No helicopters, but implied loincloths. No. Do you have a favorite quote Francine?

Yeah. My favorite quote is when death is in the octagram in the right of Atacent. And what is it? Albert is telling him that Mort's fucked it. Yes. Yes. Very much fucked it. And death, kind of snapping out of his linechef bowl.

Death raised his skull and sniffed the air. The sound cut through all the other noises in the hall and forced them into silence. It was the kind of noise that is heard on the twilight edges of dreams, the sort that you wake from in a cold sweat of mortal horror. It was the snuffling under the door of dread. It was like the snuffling of a hedgehog, but if so, then it was the kind of hedgehog that crashes out of the verges and flattens lorries. It was the kind of noise you wouldn't want to hear twice.

You wouldn't want to hear it once. So yeah, I thought that was very good. It was a very impressive approach to write a paragraph that was really quite chilling while mentioning hedgehogs twice. Yes. Hedgehogs are not often considered a particularly chilling creature. No, but when you imagine a giant hedgehog snuffling after a lorry. Yeah, right.

You can really hear that sound, can't you? Yeah. It's a very chillingly written passage that also describes the exact moment where death has given up on being human again. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. What's yours?

So mine actually kind of goes with yours. Mine is not long after that, and it's more waking up once he's... Isabel's almost forced him to be human again. Malt opened his eyes. There should be a word for that brief period just after waking when the mind is full of warm pink nothing. You lie there entirely empty of thought, except for a growing suspicion that heading towards you, like a sock full of damp sand in an octurnal alleyway, are all the recollections you'd really rather do without, in which amount to the fact that the only mitigating factor in

your horrible future is the certainty that it will be quite short. That is eerily familiar. Yep. Possibly apart from the fact that a lot of the time I don't really get that pink feeling, I kind of wake up and go, oh, fuck. No, that's anxiety for you. I tend to have like a few moments on waking. Well, depending on what I've set as my alarm message for the day, because at least one of

my 6am alarms comes up with the message, go do yoga, you lump of fuck. Really? Sometimes it really helps motivate me. I can usually tell when I go to bed what I need is a motivational message in the morning. So like I have, you know, go and do yoga because you always feel better afterwards, and I also have go do yoga, you lump of fuck. I've never tried calling myself a lump of fuck, but maybe that'll work. I haven't done yoga in three weeks.

I haven't been using- You lump of fuck. No, I can't call you that, that's me. I know from you it's dumbing really. Yes, so sometimes I get the one pink fuzz if I haven't got those specific alarms on, and then I actually start facing reality. Look at my phone and realize that, oh, everything's on fire. Yeah.

Including me. Oh, no. Get out of bed, Joanna. You are on fire. I must stop sleeping in volcanoes. So yeah, that's nice. We're doing well with the positivity here. Characters.

Characters, yeah. So we don't really meet anyone new in this section, but there's some interesting bits for the characters that we've been checking in and throughout. I like that Albert starts this section really bitter about his glory days and refusing to relive them and then gets really wizardy. Yeah, Albert has like a whole fucking arc and 50 pages, whatever. Albert has an amazing arc where he sort of goes, more threatens the fuck out of him in a very weird section.

And then he's like, right, fuck it. I'm going to be a wizard again. And then gets wizardy. He's like, all right, I don't want to go back to death's domain. Actually, I'm quite good at this. Hands on hips and... Yeah, I think it's like the addictive nature of doing the magic that does it, isn't it? Yeah.

I like that he goes and makes himself a hat. Yes. No, I'm not a wizard and I might get out of carpet. When he's at the university and bossing the wizards around and saying there's going to be a fitness regime and dragging them out of the pub, he's a little bit rid-cully. He's a character we've not met yet, but I'm very excited to get to him. But yeah, he gets a whole arc. Obviously, death gets quite a whole arc.

And I like a lot of the moments. But one of my favourites is he, as death starts feeling a bit more human and using for a job, he fails to walk through a wall and feels very embarrassed. He's like, we're out of for being very small and hot. Begins with an M. I like the death can't spell. I suppose he doesn't really have to in his own way. No, no, no.

I did like Mort's weird ass dream. Yeah. I mean, we've all had the kind of God complex dreams, but his takes the biscuit. Because he's literally having a bit of a God moment. And that ties into fun themes throughout the book. The way the book builds kind of the slow horror of Mort transitioning into a human death. As his eyes start changing colour and he kind of can't help himself to do the worst. And he keeps saying, oh, I can control it.

I can control it. And as Isabel, very calmly in the background, like, I mean, you fucking can't make, can you? Jesus. It's very reminiscent of being with somebody who's an addict and starting their habit up again. Yep. Speaking as an ex-smoker. Yeah, how well are you imagining Mort in this point? I'm finding it quite hard to visualise him as he's getting deathier. I kind of have a mental image of how Mort looks that stays fairly consistent

throughout the book. And as he gets deathier, I just sort of imagine him with much better posture. Okay, so he's not, like, going a bit cheek bony? Well, I suppose he looks a bit thinner, but some of that's more to do with losing, like, puppy fat and... Yeah, and not eating for days. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff this book does that works really well because it's a book and that wouldn't

translate to Screenwell. And I think Mort's transition is one of them. Yeah. The whole relationship between Mort and Isabelle as well, I would hate. I normally like those relationships a lot better than on screen than I do in a book, but I just don't think it would work on screen. No, it's so abrupt and weird and it works because it's Pratchett and it's a short book. Yeah. And because you kind of accept, you roll with some punches because it's also a very funny book. Yeah.

Isabelle, though. Oh, as you know, there was one other Mort thing. Yeah. Sorry. I'm finding it so difficult to be focused at the moment. Let's go. We'll just cross all around the place today. I'm quite up for a complete lack of structure. So yeah, sorry. So this bit is Mort's human again. Soon, according to legend, the Guardians would come to life and begin their illness patrol. He knew they would. He remembered the knowledge. He remembered his mind feeling as cold as ice and limitless as the night sky.

He remembered being summoned into reluctant existence at the first moment, the first creature lived in the certain knowledge that he would outlive life until the last being in the universe passed to its reward when it would then be his job, figuratively speaking, to put the chairs on the tables and turn all the lights off. He remembered the loneliness. And it's like an interrogation of that's what death has been going through. This entire book is trying to outrun that loneliness and find some humanity. And the fact that Mort is human again now, but remembers and will always remember that

because you don't forget that. It's so weird. It reminded me a bit of because I haven't reread these books for ages, but I've been in constant conversation about them, the Robin Hob books. And there's this whole idea of if the dragons and humans changing each other by spending too much time around each other. And it's always like death has become more human because of this, but Mort has also become, will always be a bit less human because he will always have that knowledge. I have a lot more thoughts that I can't say for like 10 books time. But I wanted to point up that sequence because I thought it was beautiful. Anyway, so happy notes. Isabel, it really comes into a run on this section.

And I've babbled so much about how much I like the aggressive competence thing. The bit where they're talking about doing the notes and sort of Mort's like, oh, can you help? And she said, no, I can do them and you can help. There's a little bit of femininity there. We like a little bit. Not quite full purple post it, but it's definitely a good moment. Pinkish. There's a really lovely moment where they've all piled back to death's domain. And Isabel suddenly remembers she's a hostess and sort of, oh, would anyone like a drink? Yeah. And I have done this so many times where I have been like, oh, I don't think we've got any normal milk. Is that milk okay? Or I've got green tea.

So mine is more of a, I've been ever so slightly sozzled, piled back from the pub about three in the morning with a bunch of people who have had to help me get back to the house. The moment I get into the flat, something in my brain will click and I'll go, oh, goodness, would anyone like a drink or some toast or a three course meal or a quiche? There's still, still half tin of ginger biscuits left over from Christmas. I've got some chutney. And I do. I turn into like this horrible 1950s housewife maniacal, I must offer you a drink. Yeah. Well, on the plus side, everybody stays sozzled. Well, yes, very true. Also, I'm better at doing that than we've piled back. I've passed out before

I can hit full housewife mode, which means I do it in the morning. Start trying to make cups of tea and realize I am not the sort of person who keeps milk in the house. Yeah, no, there's a reason we drink black coffee. But everyone likes some unsweetened black tea. At least it makes everyone leave early. I mean, there are also usually at least 12 kinds of tea in the cupboard. Yeah. Had some lovely rose black tea today. I don't, there are certain wait times I can cope with the flavor of rose. I was trying to figure out what kind of plague themed baking I could do. So I was thinking like ring a ring of roses. I could do like a sweet and enriched like brioche type dough, but make it as like a as like a wreath. But with like a

water icing with some rose blossom water in so it's like roses and then get some edible posies and decorate it with that. Incredibly, incredibly inappropriate. I love it. Yeah. Well, it was either that or try and make it make me some kind of herb beak out of pastry. Are you thinking like a plague doctor? Yeah, I was kind of wondering if I could do that and kind of stuff it with something really nice and herby. Yeah, I was thinking I might just make myself a plague beak because I've been into that aesthetic for a while and now seems like the time to crack it out. Yeah. So Isabel Rocks in this in this section of the book. I like her here. Where was I? Rincewind. Rincewind. Yes, we see Rincewind in the librarian again. That's a nice little pop in on them. Yes, he's there.

There's Todying as ever. He is. He's now assistant librarian though. Yes, which is where he likes life best, I think. The librarian is sweet and not as angry as he will be one day. He will become a very angry angry librarian when he gets called a monkey. Right now he's just trying to hold hands with Alberto which is sweet. Yes, I want to know rangatang to hold hands with. They're very strong. Yes, good point. It would probably hurt me. They're very sweet and gentle creatures. I really, really going on to the Duke, obviously he's like a super underdeveloped character in this. He's not more than just a villain that exists to add some extra attention and do a lot of killing. But I like how he's dealt with because it was almost very quickly and it's

just it's one of the lifetimers that gets knocked off during the duel and then the Duke is dead. Which what are the chances? Million to one, which occur nine times out of 10. But he was a loose thread in the plot flapping about. Yeah. And those are very hard to snip and I think that was a very nice way. I just thought it was a very neat bit of writing. Yeah, Blinken, you'll miss it, but yeah, he's dead. But it does snip that last thread and then gives more something to do at the end of the book when he becomes the new Duke. Yeah, we're talking about actually lifetime a room is one of the locations we're introduced to. Yeah, I know it's hesitate to introduce tricks. I'm not sure if we ever come back.

Well, maybe in a very long time. We do come back to it. Okay. I will say very, very specifically that we come back to it. Okay. And it's the same reason I said to remember something specific from the summary. Okay. But we'll have to wait till we get something about an elephant and coronation chicken. Got it. Yeah. That's the one death slapping. Yes, remember death slapping more and we will come back to the lifetime of room. I have one other time I'm going to point this out in this book and then I promise to stop potentially spoiling anything in the future. Okay. I really liked the description of the sound. It didn't just enter the body via the ears. It came up through the legs and down through the skull and filled up the brain until all that it could think

of was the rushing hissing gray noise, the sound of millions of lives being lived. Makes me very stressed. It does. It's like the same reason. It's like a fucking microphone going wrong. Yeah. It also is the same reason I hate ASMR, like I hate anything going to do. I know as much as I enjoyed your efforts last week, the sound of something going too directly into my brain, it makes me want to sort of not have a spine anymore. Yeah. Let's not move to a psychic realm. Let's definitely not move to a psychic realm, which is going to be difficult when I become a being of pure consciousness and light. Well, you might have a spine so it won't matter.

Oh yeah. Good point. There we go. Cool. But yeah, I thought the description and the concept of it and the idea and there's a moment where, because Isabel, it's implied that she's not seen the room before and she's kind of the, she's the down to earth human. She's the straight man in this scene because more is becoming less and less human and obviously Albert's a 2000 year old wizard and she's the one that walks in and is horrified and says, but some of them are so small. And it's a horrible thing, but it's such a human moment in a very, I mean, all the books are very, very human, but this one really interrogates humanity. Yeah. And it kind of highlights it by contrast. Yeah. Yeah. So we go to Best Pelagic in the Agatean Empire,

which our lovely dear listeners will remember from that that is the home of Twoflower, the disc's first tourist. Yes. And therefore on the counterweight continent, that's the one. So a bit of a totalitarian empire because there is a giant wall around it and people stamping on fingers, which I rather like and get outside of the wall. And the other new location we visit is Sort. Sort of. Sort of. A pee is silent. Ah, yes, the Somerset Paglobes. Which is later on Jelly Baby. The Jelly Baby. The Jelly Baby. Is that silent? I don't know. Do you know what will come to that?

But anyway, this is in the same way that Clatch is not Clatch in this book, Sort is not Sort. Well, I think it does a fairly good job of being what Jelly Baby becomes. It is, it's just called something else. We have, Sort exists throughout. It's. Oh, does it? Yeah. I need to get them, we don't, oh, I don't have the map here, it's at the other house, but Sort exists as a country. And Jelly Baby, I think is almost like a part of Sort or it's their two neighbouring countries. Oh, okay, okay. But yeah, it's like a parallel of ancient Egypt. There's a pyramid and off of the crocodile god. There's a pyramid and a crocodile god, you know, buried servants.

Again, we'll talk about this a bit more when we get to the book Pyramids, which again, not one of my favourites. No, not one of my favourites, but I think that's just because it doesn't have any of my favourite characters in it. I don't dislike it. It doesn't annoy me in any way, not like soul music or moving pictures do. There's two of my favourites. Yeah, but that's because you understand popular culture references. And we're onto little bits we liked. The description of the food of Ang Moorpork. Yeah, I'm glad we ate today. Yeah, I really want to listen to the half hour you cut from last week's episode that was just

us talking about food. You will. I'm deciding when to release that because, frankly, the kind of strained, almost hysteria of our talking about eggs and bread. I was so hungry last week and so excited for the bread I was going to make it the weekend that then went wrong. Oh yeah, I'm sorry about that. It's fine, it's just because my oven needs cleaning, which I have time to do now, but also all of my shifts at work are now just cleaning, so I don't really want to. Then I'm going to have to if I want to make bread this weekend and I need bread in my life. You can come use my oven.

I mean, it's like two minutes from my house front scene. So did you have a passage in mind about the food of Ang Moorpork? There's a beautiful passage about the food of Ang Moorpork. Yeah. In Ang Moorpork, the cuisines of the world collide. On the menu are 1000 types of vegetable, 1500 cheeses, 2000 spices, 300 types of meat, 200 fowl, 500 different kinds of fish, 100 variations on the theme of pasta, 70 eggs of one kind or another, 50 insects, 30 mollusks, 20 assorted snakes and other reptiles and something pale brown and warty known as the clatchy and migratory bog truffle, which really when it was so not last weekend, I think weekend before

I went and spent the day in Cambridge running around all the different ethnic races on Mill Road, which is, I don't know how much they're staying open with everything that's going on right now, but really support these places because people are still being weirdly racist about going into shops run by Chinese people. Oh, really? It's dying down now, although like not in America, it turns out, but these places are great and there are so many different kinds of food from all over the world and there are so many weird things to get excited about. I know. I haven't been ages actually. Also, spices are much cheaper if you buy them in bulk from... And at the moment, people aren't shopping at them as much, so they've got all the massive bags of rice and

but there's also you can get huge bags of frozen gyoza. So that passage really reminded me of like just spending an amazing day wondering around ethnic races, trying not to spend all of my money. Yeah, it's like walking around London, isn't it? Or Sydney or anything like that is just anywhere where many, many cultures come together and cook food and sell it for cheap. Because I have like stupid anxiety about odd things, I'm very bad at going in places that I don't know the rules, which means I don't always try restaurants that don't look safe and stuff. Yeah, you should have seen me the first few times I had to fill my car up with petrol. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it means like I've had a history in the past of not going into these places

as much as not going into these restaurants as such, because it looks like a slightly odd restaurant. But because I was with a mate who goes into these places all the time and knew like a weird restaurant that looked like a shithole from the outside. That's unfair, not like a shithole, but like it didn't look like anything from the outside. I got dragged in and got to try weird food I wouldn't have tried and just yeah. What did you have? This amazing like claypot beef that was cooked for hours with daikon and yeah. Nice. God, I love food. Yeah, me too. Okay, but we're not going on a half hour time this week. No, we have time this week because I completely fucked my time management again. Pandemics, eh? Bad for one's schedule. Speaking of, I also love the description

of death, spun and well, chopping and slicing and flying, his skillet flashed through the fetid steam. Yeah. The description of him working as basically a line cook. Yeah. And that's because I miss my job already and we only just closed the restaurant. Oh. No, it's not sad. It's because there is an aspect to my job I genuinely really enjoy and that is the middle of the dinner rush when the printer is spitting out tickets and the rack is full and I've got a ticket that needs eight burners and I only have four burners total in my kitchen and I'm... You don't sound happy about it afterwards. No, because it's very stressful at the time and I usually need a beer afterwards but I do kind of love it. You hit like a weird point of zen where it's just like

there are literally only so many actions I can accomplish at once and I will keep doing these actions and then eventually there are no tickets. Yes. Yeah, there is a... And you go into this sort of beautiful routine with it and I normally got really stupid music on in the background so like while we're doing this we're also doing five, six, seven, eight by steps or something. Yeah. Yeah. Better report goes in there. Good stuff. While we're talking about death being a chef actually, should we? Yeah. As you know, Joanna, I am an obligate carnivore who takes personal offence at the mention of chlorophyll so I'm pleased to introduce this week's sponsor, a man who takes the urr out of restaurant urr and replaces it with another side of black pudding,

Sham Harga. Harga's House of Ribs is a spoon so greasy you'll have trouble holding it. A real old-fashioned eatery on the docks of Ang Moorpork. Watch the river sidle by as you tuck into egg, chips, sauce, bacon and a fried slice. Guaranteed to boost cholesterol by whatever amount pisses off your doctor. Talk to Sham Harga and tell him you heard about him on this podcast. With any luck he'll remember our deal and give you a 10% discount instead of a smack round the ear with a wooden spoon. No guarantees. Harga's House of Ribs. Food's so good you won't care what the floor looks like. Thank you, Francine. Yeah, so the next bit I really liked and again, this is just silly little bit, is Cutwell's planned this coronation

and he's so determined that everyone will notice Princess Kelly getting coronated. You're trying to work out the past tense, though. There was going to be, well, yeah. Coron... Coroned? Ground. Ground is the fucking word, Francine. But I prefer coronated. There was going to be bunting in the streets and Cutwell had arranged for the town square's main fountain to run, if not with wine, then at least an acceptable beer made from broccoli. There was going to be folk dancing, at thought point, if necessary. There'd be races for children, there'd be an ox roast. Yeah. And it just made me think of like, do you remember the Golden Jubilee?

Yeah, I think the Queen landed on our fucking playing field and the helicopter or some shit around that time. I was at St. James. It was literally, so we would have both been middle school aged, so like 9, 10, maybe younger. I was 11, you'd have been 10. Yeah. And it is probably the most British thing I've ever done or have, which is this, there was a village fate to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee. Nice. And I won a commemorative Golden Jubilee mug at the coconut shy. Awesome. So British. So I've now got loads of weird silver jubilee stuff in my house from like house clearing and things. Jubilees, by the way, for any of our international listeners are the significant anniversaries of our dear ruler's reign. That's not tyranny.

She's not very tyrannical at all, really. Well, no. Lovely taste in hats. Golden is 50th. Golden is 50th. Diamond is 60th. She's on both of those now. Yeah. Well, she's now the longest reigning monarch. She overtook Queen Victoria in 2000. And like worldwide, I think she's only beat by two others, or maybe even one, the third tyking who recently passed away and maybe one other. I don't know. But anyway, yeah, go Liz. Yeah, I was wondering, by the way, this is vaguely relevant because we talked about London ridges that has fallen. I'm not sure if I left it in or not. We talked about what happens if the Queen dies in this country. Yeah. I was wondering if she died of COVID-19, COVID-19, if she gets murdered by a flock of

crows. Yeah, all of that at this trying time. And who among us doesn't worry about that every time we go to Tesco Express at 6.30? Sorry. All right, now I feel slightly worse about last week's reign of terror. Yeah, anyway, if it happens, like there's this whole thing we're made to go through, there's the media thing. And not just that, we're meant to do lots of public gatherings and the funeral and the lining the streets and the lying in state and all of that. And that's very important for this country. But obviously not as important as not spreading a pandemic. So I'm wondering, like, do they already have a plan in place if the Queen dies during a pandemic? Or are they like hastily scribbling on now? I don't think there's a plan already. And I really want to

know what's being scribbled and what the plan is. Yeah. But it's like there was a rumor going around that Prince Philip had died at some point in the last week. Oh, was there? Yeah. He might have, I don't know, he looks pretty ill. Yeah, I mean, I think that's just because he's really fucking old. Also, I can see him being attacked by a flock of crows. Yeah. I mean, if I was a flock of crows, I'd attack Prince Philip. I liked him for a while there when it was Matt Smith. But I kind of liked Tobias Menzies. I liked him more as Prince Philip than Ebi Attali. Yeah, he was more likeable Prince Philip. But you know me, I like a problematic man who's also played Doctor Who. In that case, I'm sure David Tennant has played a serial killer recently.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And there was that whole film where Christopher Eccleston was Jesus. Great. Alonzi. Alonzi, Alonzo. Rearranging the nature of the universe. Oh, yeah, nice casual. Next point. Oh, no, it's when they go into the Egitean Empire and they land in... Oh, yeah, that is a casual next point. And they land on the rate gravel outside the low, many-roomed palace, severely rearranging the harmony of the universe. Which I just like, because I went through like a whole Zen garden phase when I was doing my cultural appropriation spirituality, but post-wicker pre-Atheism. Cool, cool. It lasted like two weeks. Cool. I'm still kind of interested in Eastern philosophy. That's why we were talking about the Yujin last

week. But yes, it's the whole Japanese rock garden, Zen garden things that are... I didn't realise because I did like a very quick Google on it, that I know they're very small gardens and the idea is they're sort of meant to be like almost a meditative place and that it's meant to be viewed from a very specific spot within the garden, which will be way, way down the line. And I'll probably have forgotten about this by then. Cool. But they will come up again in another book. Thief of Time. Thief of Time and Night Watch. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. Oh, God, I can't wait to read these books. God, I love these books. God, they're really good books only, Jay. So yeah, so I like that bit. I like the back and forth between the Grand Vizier and the Emperor.

And they're both trying to complement each other until eventually he eats this bit of squishy. Yeah. It kind of seems like he was in... Perhaps it was on the same roll as when he wrote the conversation between the two immigrants in Angmorpork when Moat back through the wall. Oh, yeah. It's just the overly flowery, the ridiculously polite and the whole scholar being ranked above princes, but it's still really rude to skewer something on a chopstick. It is. I feel like if you're a boy emperor, you can probably get away with it, but like... Sure. It's possible that the Agathean empire has slightly different chopstick etiquette than China. Well, yes. Okay. Possibly. But it's also very rude in Japan and Korea. Oh, is it? Okay. In that case,

I'm sure it probably isn't the Agathean empire as well. Yeah. I'm really interested in chopstick etiquette. I might read more about it before next week. Yeah, cool. That'd be fun. Oh, well, chopstick etiquette fits in perfectly with sorcery. Source. Okay. Sorry. That wasn't really bad. Speaking of source, not at all. Drum vulnerability? Oh, that's me. Oh, speaking of source, let's go down the pub. Darling. Yes. Segue. That's for the chimpanzee. Oh, fuck. Oh, I haven't had that in my head for a few years. Oh, fuck. Sorry, Francie. If it helps, we've also now got that in all of our listeners' heads. Sorry, guys. We love you. Yeah, so... Do you keep listening?

Drum vulnerability. What I meant by that was I just thought it was quite funny that they had drummers beat it around for at least 2000 years. Yes. Yes, and has kept the bar tab with interest. Yes. Speaking of the wizards and their bar tabs, Berser Pottsin. Yeah, so I know we keep going on about this, but the Berser comes back in later books is more interesting. And it's always nice to spot him. Yeah, yeah. But here he's just a little bit unsettled by Málix's re-appearance. And when Rince Wind fails to give Albert his staff back in time for him to... I don't know what he was intending to do against death there. Sometime past, and then the Berser's voice from Subway near the floor said,

that was very unkind, Rince Wind, losing his staff like that. Remind me to discipline you severely one of these days. Oook. Oh, extra banana rationed that ape, said the Berserler. No, I enjoyed that. That to me is not to stand to the Berser, but enter the start of the wizard dialogue. I am really looking forward to just the fucking... Oh, just I don't even know how to describe it. I'm going to have to look it up and just the comedic device that is just a bad taste that man or an extra banana ration that ape, just something ridiculously solid and inappropriately boring in the middle of whatever the fuck's going on. Yes. Which I think the next, because our next book after this is sorcery, and that's a wizards book, but we don't actually hang around with them

a lot. I think it really kicks in around moving pictures in a fun way. Yeah, I do like the wizard bit in that one actually. Because moving pictures... Oh, we get to have a go at capitalism. Oh, yeah, that'll be fun. All right, yeah, less about the films, more about the revolution. Yay, revolution. It's been so long since I've read moving pictures. I'm so excited to reread that one. Yeah, I really like, sorry, leaping back to death. I really like during the duel. Obviously, I already talked about the hourglasses and it being a nice little way to get rid of the Duke of Stowe-Hellet, but all of the ways in which they sort of get knocked off and Isabel's running around catching them and all of the miraculous near misses that people get. And one of the great

ones is a thargo herder misses his footing and plunges over a thousand foot drop and then cut well catches it, a tree looms underneath him and broke his fall, removing his major problems, death, the judgment of the gods, the uncertainty of paradise and so on, and replaces them with the comparatively simple one of climbing back up about 100 feet of sheer ice and cliff and pitch darkness. Yeah, I like that the book acknowledges all the ways that this very, very petty fight, and it is really rather petty, is affecting the world around them. Yeah, and in a way which I don't really feel like is consistent with how everything's described, but it doesn't really matter because the point is that death has kind of stepped out of this consistency for a bicker.

Yes, because he's, because he's still got some of this humanity in him, the way death, Mort will always have some of that, that point I was making earlier. My last one, before we go on to the bigger talking points, this is the last time I'm going to do this, and again, I'm doing this without spoilers, but for a future book. And also this is great, I mean, it's the turning point of the book, which is Isabel's trying to save Mort, it's right at the end of the duel, death sort of swinging on Mort with the Reaper. Death gave him a surprise look for several seconds, then started to laugh, and then he flips the hourglass. So he's laughing as Mort sort of pinned up against the walls,

and then death turned the hourglass over. And then we sort of smashed cut to Mort and Isabel's wedding. Smash cut. That was, that is just like a really abrupt no, no segue. Yeah, I'm just, bam. Yeah, so I like this as the big turning point at the end of the book, literally being a turning point of him flipping the hourglass, as the way he seems to almost spot something, start laughing, and then decide to turn the hourglass over. Remember that. Okay. Cool. We'll come back to this in like 10 books time. Okay. No spoilers. No spoilers. Which goes on to, still talking about death, but the bigger talking points, which is the nodes and the nature of the universe. Sure. Yeah, I thought that whole idea was very interesting.

And I mean, practice quite a computer-y fella. Yeah. And so I do wonder whether nodes were from programming or from telecommunications, but I'm assuming they are a word that is used in things like that in some way. Oh, yes, they are. But like, generally, there are two main ways you might use the word nodes, and that is in computer programming or in telecommunications. Right, okay. The idea that death has to go and act on these two or three things to generate some sort of balance, I find really fascinating. I like that that's the logic for why death has to do its job and why he's only visible to certain people and his responsibilities work in a certain

way. Yeah. I get too caught up in how things work in books. So I like that it sort of says, well, he only turns up sometimes for reasons. These are the reasons. Yeah, abstract enough that you can't pick holes in them, but here they are. Yes. So I found it very comforting to have that in there. So I enjoyed that. And related to that, obviously, this whole idea is that death or in this case, mort only needs to turn up at certain ones. Sure. One of the key ones, he turns up at this grand temple, but the important death, I mean, obviously, arguably all death is important, but the death that the siding that he has to do for the sake of this being part of the duty of maintaining the balance is not

the king being buried in a grand temple, but a young servant girl. Yeah. Yeah. It's that sort of nice reminder that all human life is equally important. All right, Comey. So I just thought all of that was really lovely. I enjoyed that. Yes. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I like the idea that whatever this complicated mathematical node system is really has nothing to do with class or anything like that. Although he doesn't appear for witches. And wizards. Yeah. Well, I don't think that really works with the nodes. That must be some kind of time thing. Well, there's lots of odd little bits. What are you going to do with death? There's a character that has a near death experience,

which means death has to have a near vines experience. Yeah, but as vines, that's going to be important. Yeah, fair. But yeah, it means the Grim Reaper can still exist as a plot device in lots of silly different ways. Yeah. And I think he does very well in that. Death himself being incredibly furious at a couple of points. Oh, yeah. He, the way his anger is written, it really reminded me of, and I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, something Neil Gaiman wrote about Terry Pratchett about how angry he was and how people sort of thought of him as a jolly little elf. And there's an anecdote about them on some Good Omens press tour where they decided to walk

somewhere and it had gone wrong. And yeah, Terry Pratchett getting silently furious. So the two bits where he's writing death is really angry. It's like, oh, yeah, no, that, that fury was always there. Yeah. But you get the flash of it right at the start with kittens. You do. And I think that builds into what becomes death at the end, which is nice because this death's humanity exists, the bits of humanity that he thinks angry rather feels angry because he doesn't have plans. They are there before he takes Morty in and tries to. Yeah. And I think it's very powerful because it is very righteous anger because he knows everything and he can't, he can never ever think he was wrong.

No, but also he's had to be death in such a way where there's no justice, there's just me where he sort of almost has to be objective. He cannot pursue anger. Yeah. And part of his fury is that someone has taken this thing that has been this duty, that is kind of hung over him, that he was sick of and fucked about with it. Yeah. And allowed themselves to be very human with it, which he has not been able to do. And ruined his lovely day. And ruined his lovely day. He was hanging out with cats. He was hanging out with cats in a kitchen. He was having a nice time. Sorry, but fully there. I'm just trying to find,

because there's two real sections where you get it. The first is where he's been summoned and everything's been spoiled and he's understood what happened and he's pissed off at Mort and ranting about Mort to Albert. Yeah. And the second is when he strikes Mort. Yeah. He says, you know, I invited you into my home, I train you, I feed you, I clothe you, I give you the opportunities you couldn't dream of and this is how you repay me. I'm a bit confused why he's so angry about the whole Isabelle thing,

though, because I got the impression that was the point. Yeah, I feel like it's, I think he thought he knew what he was doing and then didn't like it when it happened. I think it's a combination of that and I think it's a consent thing. There's a difference between him pushing them together and them getting together independently of his influence. Yeah, yeah. And that he hasn't got together with her while also being the boy he was hoping he would be. Yeah.

And it, if it doesn't all go the way I planned, then none of it should have happened. And it's the fact that it's made her then go against him and stand up to him to take Mort's side. So it, which means it becomes a loss of her rather than a gain of him. Yeah. Which actually I'm going to skip a point to get to something else I was going to talk about and come backwards. But this whole idea of him having that rage and something of the humanity. Where was the really, really good section?

I kind of point, I kind of mentioned this already, but the idea of when Mort starts becoming the Grim Reaper, he is death but with human cruelty. And you start seeing it when as Mort's about to run off to do the duty, he starts threatening Albert because he wants some magic to help. Yeah, that was so weird. Like he was just being so mean with the sword. And they have this sort of screaming argument and he's threatening Albert and saying, look, I know what's going to come for you. I know why you're trying to keep yourself alive as long as possible. And I will make things worse for you.

Then there's a quote, Isabel's reading from Albert's book. Albert looked into the blue glow of those eyes in the last of his defiance drained away. For he saw not just death, but death with all the human seasonings of vengeance and cruelty and distaste. And with a terrible certainty, he knew that this was the last chance and Mort would send him back into time and hunt him down and take him and deliver him bodily into the dark dungeon dimensions where creatures of horror would dot, dot, dot, dot. It's just dots for half a page. And the fact that Mort heard that and wasn't put off. I've been hearing yourself described in that way. And we like, yeah, excellent. That's pretty much what I was going for. See you later.

Yeah. But it's because Mort's like almost hyper-focusing at the time. And he's still lying to himself and saying, I can control it. And he obviously can't because eventually Isabel has to punch him in the face. Well, he had it coming. But this whole idea of how the humanity influences death and how death, and if you think about how Mort is able to become that grim reaper, when you think about that passage I was talking about earlier where he remembers the loneliness of it, you can then see like where the mental anger comes from. Yeah, I mean, he's probably just going a bit insane. Well, yeah, I mean, dream sequence is anything to go by.

Human brains are not meant to contain all of this. Like Donna in Doctor Who where she's like accidentally a bit tired looking for brain stops going like that. Okay, so speaking of depressing things. This would have probably been more relevant to last week, but I was just thinking about like the mental image of that historical event horizon closing in. While Princess Kelly is very determined to soldier on and get coronated crowned exactly as a queen should be and dress and without a skateboard and why is there an elephant? And like, I don't know, some vague parallels to do with our current thing where we've all just kind of gone, oh, that pandemic's over there. And then it's hit our country and our country's falling apart because like government

eases us. But like in a very real thing, like we're literally watching history happen in an unprecedented way for our lifetimes right now. And I just was thinking about that historical event horizon closing in and how we've kind of had that. Like I was just trying to think about like the timeline of the last two weeks. Yeah, and it was like, oh, everyone's just saluted Chinese restaurants, stop being racist guys to things that work are getting a bit quiet and there's no films coming out to, oh, yeah, no, like global pandemic and no one should be leaving their houses. Yeah. Like and how quickly. You know how the other day, the other week I was saying about like, in five years, what's this going to

sound like in the pub? Isn't it weird to think that a few years when we're just talking about this time, how weird it's going to seem? It's going to be, yeah, if there are still pubs. There'll be some pubs. Yeah, no, I know. It's, we will rebuild the pubs. Thinking about the things we did in the last two weeks, like obviously we had like a send off your partner who left his job of 16 years. Yeah, that was stupid. That was the last time I've been in a crowded room. So I've been twice since then, but not anymore. Just odd stuff. I was in London like a week and a half ago in a very small crowded theater watching a play I had on. And it's just this huge shift has happened so quickly. It feels like that historical event horizon has crashed into us. Yeah. And I really felt the

parallel reading the scene where the tiny little reality collapses. It's almost like we have been trying to live in this separate reality for ages. And like, like I said, the UK, well, the other countries were taking lockdown procedures, the UK government was like, what's your hands kids? That's a huge simplification of what's happened. Yeah, not much, to be honest. It's been weird here. It's been very weird. Obviously, yeah. I'm not sure what went on behind the scenes. I imagine the vague idea was prevent panic to stop the stock market from crashing, but it just doesn't work when globally they were panicking on a slightly sensible level. It was interesting to see the coin flip in America. Yeah. Because I think whereas we just kind of quickly ramped it up, America did go from

this isn't happening to this is happening and now you're all closed. Yeah, like it was a proper coin coin flip moment rather than a whereas here it's been on the throttle. Yeah, whereas here it's been more of the whiplash thing. Yeah. Which is that thing I was talking about earlier of how I've gotten from like being so busy to having the brakes put on my life. Yeah. I know I'm not the only person that's happening too, obviously. And also, I know, you know, we have a lot of, I'm hoping we have a decent amount of international listeners. And this is, it's all kind of weird for everyone. Yeah, I was talking to Jack last night about how, you know, it's one thing that's happening in Europe. Once it hits south and southeast Asia, then possibly parts of South America, I think that's

when we're going to see the real scale of the drive today, because frankly, the population density and corresponding doctor to population ratio in say Mumbai is just far, far, far beyond anything anything in Europe. Yeah. And whereas it's possibly similar to some places in China that the fact is we just don't know what went on exactly there. No. Not in the same way that we will, when it happens in India, in a place where the population is very online, and the government while not exactly transparent is certainly more transparent than China's. Yes. It's, it's really scary because we are not, we're not at the peak of it in the UK. We're definitely not at the peak of it worldwide. And we're kind of watching this play out in a, yeah, I mean, frankly, what happens here is nothing

compared to what is going to happen in countries like India and Thailand. Very much not. So not from a, obviously the human. Unless we can, unless we can come up with a very quick and easy and easily distributable vaccine is the problem because vaccines exist for lots of diseases that still exist. Yeah. Anyway, on that healthy note. Sorry. Yeah. No, I didn't mean for that point to get depressing. Really? Because the entire point was very depressing. Well, no, I just, as much as everything that's happening is very weird and stressful and depressing right now, a bit of me is, has a sick fascination with the fact that I'm very much watching history take place

in a, I'm not going to say apolistical, obviously politics are involved in this, politics are never out of anything. But all the major historical events that have taken place in my lifetime have been politics first. It's been the war on terror, the crisis, the things in the Middle East, all the things that have been major historical events that have also been close to me in some way. And this is coming from like a really self-centered white Western perspective. That's still on that stuff with them. Yeah. Disclaimers. But Brexit, you know, that's a huge world shatter, not world shattering, but a huge life changing historical event that I've lived through. But it's all been about politics first.

This is the first time I think I've lived through something that is a huge historical event that did not start with politics. Yeah. Which means, which is why everyone is kind of a bit headless. And I don't mean the politicians. I mean, people are sort of feeling very headless chicken and what the fuck do I do? Because it's quite a contrast between seeing people on their best and the worst behavior. I've not seen anybody bitching at each other about politics very much, which is very unusual in Britain right now. Yeah. But on the other hand, I have seen people hoarding food and basic supplies because, well, because survival instinct, I guess, because survival instinct overtaking the reason and empathy.

But then I've also seen so much of people trying to help each other, people looking, people trying to find ways to look after each other, so much of people putting others above themselves. One weird thing that kind of goes back to you missing the pub as a coping mechanism, I think a lot of people right now, a human instinct, and it's very ingrained into us biologically, is to in times of crisis, group together and exchange information is something I read about in the book I've told you about before that does that in times of disaster, whatever, but indirectly talks about how when after the first plane, it hit the World Trade Center, a lot of people spent a lot of time just going and talking in little groups and wondering

exchanging information before they acted. And to that extent, it is such a biological drive in humanity. And it's very odd for us to be in the middle of a crisis and to be told not to go and meet up and try and do something about it. Because, you know, in every other political crisis we've had in the past few years, we've met up with like-minded people and going, all right, well, what can we do about this? Yeah, we've got together in rooms and done things and they've been let's get out the whiteboard. But you can't go and have a huge protest movement against a virus. That's the worst thing you can do. You can't get together in small rooms with a whiteboard when there's a virus. That's a bad thing to do. Yeah. And so the internet obviously is a godsend in a way

here. Everyone is like trying to reach out and find ways to connect and yeah. And yeah, one of the few things it feels like you can do is to go, okay, well, I have this needs this. And someone said, okay, and I have this, the amount of yoga teachers I've seen putting out like free live streams, all the theater stuff's canceled. So like, people are putting on live theater on their Instagram live and living room concerts. Yeah. There you go. There's a bit of positivity out of it. Cheerful. And let's go from that to love, I guess. Yeah, Isabel deferring her love for more. How did you feel about that? But I liked it actually. I thought if it was going to happen, I liked it that way. Just Isabel being very frank about it. Yeah, quite sorry. Let me just

totally fully because although obviously, I don't love the idea of her falling in love with him. She's 16. I fell in love with all kinds of randomness for no fucking reason when I was a teenager. Let's not talk about what I fell in love with at 16. You get the kind of tall, suddenly world postured in a dark robe, powerful chaffee who's whatever living with you and you're the first guy you've seen in forever. Of course, she fell in love with him. And luckily, he was nice enough to I imagine make an alright husband. I do like that he sort of replies with you never said what they didn't seem to be time. Even in this, she's very practical about having fallen in love with him. Exactly. Yeah, it's just very matter of fact, because I've fallen in love

with him. Yeah. I'm sorry, it just happened. Yeah. This is one of those things where if this relationship happened on screen, I would really, really hate this happening. I would be annoyed at someone mashing the Barbie dolls together to make them kiss at the end. Because I hate the idea of forcing a woman into a romantic, into a romantic narrative at the end of a story where she doesn't need it. I still maintain that Sex and the City should have ended with Carrie single. Oh, and I've watched Sex and the City very much, but I believe she ended up with a chap called Mr Big. Yes. And then there were two films. Was there an airport? No, friends. Friends had the yeah, but yeah, Ross and Rachel should not have ended up together.

Such a dick. Rachel is now my favorite character. I love how it changes every time I watch the show, by the way. I haven't rewatched it in so long. I rewatched it when it first came on to Netflix, and then I realized... It was only like a year ago. It was over a year ago, like two years ago. Well, it's not that long ago to have rewatched the entirety of Friends still. Yeah, right, fine. Which by the way, I'm still like binging New Girl at the moment, and I found myself weirdly attracted to Schmidt, which says everything you need to know about my taste in men. I know. Schmidt though. I know. Not Nick? I mean, yeah, obviously Nick, but like, no, weirdly into Schmidt. But I mean, he's standing next to Sisi. I mean, I'm also really into her. These things aren't

mutually exclusive. Oh, is he like, oh, it's not like a contrast. He's basking in Hackloh, is what it is. Even when he's like not with... No, I don't need to judge you like... Stop yucking my yum, Francine. Never. Obscure reference, Phineal. So Boniface or Boniface, or I don't know how to pronounce this and didn't care to look it up. Boniface. Boniface. Yes, it's just a silly little bit. Albert strutted along the road, poking the occasional paunt for the stuff. His mind danced and sang, go back, never. This was power. This was living. He'd challenge Boniface and spit in his MTI. So here, obviously, Boniface or Boniface or whatever it is,

is A, a pun or a play on words, because it sounds a bit like Boniface. It's also Boniface is a saint, a patron saint of Devon, actually, but probably more relevant than here, it's also a slang term for landlord or inkeeper. So he's like master or whatever, and also Boniface because the skull, you understand? Yes, yes, Francine, I understand. I can't believe you put a fucking pun in the Obscure Reference, Phineal. We've talked about this, Francine. He would approve. Yes, no, okay, he's fine, he would. He put it in the fucking book. Of course he would approve. He can't tell me off of putting something in here that Patrick put in his book. This wasn't my pun. Darling, so don't be punitive.

Oh, that was my fault, and I'm very sorry, please. No, please see us out. Thank you for listening to The Truth Shall Make You Threat. You can get in touch with us, you can follow us on Instagram at The Truth Shall Make You Threat on Twitter at Make You Threat Pod. Find us on Facebook, The Truth Shall Make You Threat is our page. You can email us still a listener, The Truth Shall Make You Threat Pod at gmail.com. Also, as I may have mentioned, during the various rants about the pandemic on the podcast, I have currently got no theatre work coming up now for the next few months, and my restaurant I work in just closed. So please, if you are so inclined, check out Quirkhouse Theatre Company on Facebook and Twitter and

Instagram. We're going to do a bunch of live streams of poetry and theatre at some point, and if you need anything during the pandemic, if you want a poem written for you, or a play, or if you've stockpiled a bunch of weird ingredients and don't know what to do with them and want some recipes and cooking demos. Snacks and albatrosses. Snacks and albatrosses. But you can keep them. But you can keep them. Please don't send us contaminated albatrosses. Please, I don't want a contaminated albatrosses. Castle in the middle of nowhere will be great right now, though. That really would be. So, you know. Anyway, so if you need anything, dear listener, get in touch on the podcast, follow me on Twitter at joannahagan, and I'll see what I can do. I might

do some square, swery cooking demos or something. But yes, it's a pandemic. We're all trying to socially isolate, so get in touch and let's all be in contact with each other. With clean hands. With clean hands or distant internet. And with that, dear listener, should we say goodbye? I'd prefer a revoir. Okay, throw that out by wine up.