The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 32: Moving Pictures Pt.1 (Waning Lyrical)

Episode Date: October 5, 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 1 of our recap of “Moving Pictures”. Despair! Serial Killers! Stars of Stage and Screen! BURSAARRR! A Small Village in Poland! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] us queries for the agony aunts! Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Hardline BBC critics reportedly offered top media roles [Note - any ‘offer’ has since been denied by govt, but it seems likely that serious talks/’wooing’ have happened]All Killa No FillaDiscworld Timeline (L-Space)What is the laziest thing you've ever done? - /r/askreddit Radagast | The One Wiki to Rule Them AllThe Magic of Terry Pratchett by Marc Burrows - GoodreadsSamuel GoldwynSilverfish (p34) - The Annotated Pratchett FilesRock Hudson (1990) - IMDbThe AMPire DiariesEnola Holmes (2020) - IMDbThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson - GoodreadsDebrett's: Etiquette Training from the 250-Year-Old AuthorityWatching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour - GoodreadsAlchemy - WikipediaList of cryptids - WikipediaPoster - Hearts and Planets - 1915Poster - Man Hunters of the Caribbean - 1936Poster - When the Earth Cracked Open (never made - NSFW)Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

next door had their baby. Oh, that's nice. Well, I mean, not for you living next door to them. Well, it's not so bad. It sounds like a lamb. I'm not sure if Jack and I are just like irredeemably rural, but it sounded just like a lamb in distress to both of us. I'm trying to work out at the moment whether it's cheaper to buy blackout curtains or make them considering how many windows I have. Buying them, sure. I mean, they're fucking cheap as me. Go to Wayfar. Yeah, but I'm thinking about the thermal ones. Yeah, they're still cheap. Yeah, the fabric might be cheap, but when are you actually going to make them? You've got to put your own labor into account here.

Oh, yeah, I suppose. Well, I'm not paying myself a living wage, Jesus, Francine. Well, no, but the idea would be that eventually you work yourself to death and then you won't be able to do your actual living wage job. Well, yes, there is that. Once you're dead, you understand. I don't have to pay you a living wage when you're dead right there in the title. I might be able to retire at some point. I've got a pension. We're never going to retire. I do have a pension. You can't retire from a burning wasteland. Yeah, we'll just be surviving in the wasteland, leaving scattered diary entries for someone to find out of order.

God, we're both feeling really positive then. Do you know I was in a good mood earlier? Just recording in the evening doesn't work for me mentally, I must say. I'm never in a good mood in the evening these days. I'm just never in a good mood these days. Yeah, I was going to say how are you, but like... I mean, I'm fine. I'm fine. Just as I said, like the other day when I sent you the link about the BBC and Ofcom appointments or probable appointments, which just nail in the coffin for me and kind of been on a plateau of calm despair since then. Yeah, my mental health has been great, really fucking rock and roll at the moment.

Yeah, how are you doing? I'm so fucking tired. Just like physically? Physically, mentally, emotionally, just everything, man. I mean, like, obviously work has been held because I'm covering for, like, my head, Jeffy, self-isolating. And then, like, all of my free time seems to end up getting taken up with things. How many of those are your fault directly? Not that that makes it any better or worse, just that you might be able to drop a couple. It's just, like, fucking housework and being a functioning human looking at yourself. Oh, right, yeah. Not stuff you can opt out of.

No, I can't opt out of fucking life. God, that sounded way more depressing than it needed to. But it's also just, like, the whole fucking constant pandemic. At least we were in lockdown. It's like, oh, fuck, we're in a lockdown, but it was like a tangible thing. And now it's like... Yeah, we were doing the thing about it. That was the thing we were doing. We were staying at home, and that was progress because, you know, that was an action. Everybody was doing the same thing, and it was structured. Whereas now it's like, don't go out, but also pubs and restaurants are open. You've always got the vague feeling that you're doing the wrong thing. Yeah. No matter what you do.

I was kind of venting about it on Twitter the other day, and it's just, like, a bit of me literally just wants to run away to the woods and never see another human being and just make stuff. And another bit of me really, really wants to have the part of the life where I'm like, in a pub, not even in a pub, I don't care about drinking. I just want to be in a room full of people I can hug. Yeah. And for it to not feel risky. And that's such a small thing. And there are some people who are like, oh, I just want it to be back to normal. So they just act like it is. And it's like, well, that's why it's taking longer to get back to normal. Whatever normal is going to be at the end of this. But just like, I would like to go and sort of process this

partially socially. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. It's, I know, like, even, even just with the drinking side of it, like, I remember that loss just when I gave up drinking just there. Oh, that part of my life, even though it was shit quite a lot of the time, actually had some really good bits to it. And like, I felt the loss very keenly. And I imagine it's that like, plus a lot for you right now, because that plus all the other sides of it. Yeah, yeah, it's all a bit ridiculous. So yeah, so I'm going to not be this depressing for the entire forecast. I'm going to try and get it all out of my system now. Yeah, I got it. Correctly leave us but in this time, I feel like sometimes our listeners should know that

other people feel like shit too. Yeah. And like, also reach out listeners if you do, we are here, we will, I don't know, we sound like we'll be shit, but like, we're good at being nice to other people. So yeah, we're terrible at being nice to ourselves, but we're good for people. Like, if you need recipes or I mean, don't ask us for advice, because Jesus, I thought we were going to start an agony on column. Oh, yeah, but I don't think anyone's seriously going to take our advice. They might I give excellent advice sometimes myself very good advice, I just very seldom follow it. Yes, very true. So yes, in all seriousness listeners reach out if you are also frustrated with the world that's on fire. But seriously, folks, mental health isn't just a chuckle some

start to a podcast. But in less seriousness, we'd like to start an agony on column, so please send us agony on letters that we don't have to take too seriously. Right, happy thoughts. This is a really good book. Is a really good book. I have had so much fun reading this, even though I've been exhausted doing note taking and stuff because I am permanently exhausted. I have still really enjoyed it. Shall we do make a podcast? Yeah, why not? Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make You Fract, 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. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part one of our discussion of moving

pictures. Yes. Discworld Book 10. We're on Book 10, Francine. Book 10, which seems like quite a long way and also not very far. Yes, we're nearly, I guess we're kind of a quarter of the way through almost. Yes. Actually, no, not quite. But we've still got all the extras. So many extras. And I feel like once we get to the end, we're going to want to redo the first couple. I feel like once we get to the end, we will come up with other stuff to talk about. Yeah. Joe makes Francine read Twilight. No. Okay. Note on spoilers for our listeners. This is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously heavy spoilers for the book we're on, moving pictures, but we will do our best to avoid talking about any major future events in the Discworld series. And we are saving any end 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. And horseback across the desert, falling off again. Possibly on 1000 elephants. Well, depends what the budget is. As this book has 1000 elephants in it, are you going to do 1000 irrelevant elephant factoids? Yeah, I thought I'd do that for next week. So following up on what became one of our main topics of discussion last week, or last month. Fixless words. You pointed out a really good one, plus and nonplussed. Yes, I am plus. I am permanently nonplussed. I have never been plus. I never will be plus. I'm gawmful, plus, and occasionally scathe. Yeah.

I never scathe. Okay, that one you need to see. Yes, I will. I will. That one does sound good. Dispatches from the round world. Charlie tweeted to say that she was listening to some old episodes of us and she got to the first time we mentioned the pandemic and we are sweet summer children. Yeah, cute. I meant to look back and listen to that myself and decided against it in the end. Did you? No, I didn't because I'm way behind on all the other podcasts and stuff I'm listening to. But I did realise you were talking about Morton. That was book four of the Disquad series and that is the last time we recorded in the same room. Jesus Christ. So we've done as many a part as we have together. Yeah, but it's possibly not episodes.

Even including doing the episodes on Good Omens, I think we've done more apart than we have together. Oh, no. Which, to be fair, not going to lie, it's easier to write it. Yeah. Also, like, now I live 40 minutes walk away from you. We'll probably keep remote recording quite a lot of the time because I don't want to walk that far. Yeah, eventually it'll be nice to do a couple like bonus ones together. They'd like watching shit. Oh, yeah, especially like Christmas. Yeah. But yeah, not this Christmas, no. Well, we can, we can see each other just as long as nobody else is around. That sounded a lot more sinister than I think you meant it to. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I was trying to think of something to save that sentence and I couldn't and so it trailed off and just got even worse with that. I like a hint of serial killer in a sentence. Then you'll love all killer, no filler. I'm so torn about listening to all killer, no filler because I love the hosts. They're both absolutely hilarious people, but I really don't enjoy like serial killer podcasts. Then I would say no, probably. Or listen to the intros to each one. True crime is my least favorite genre of podcast, but I really love Kiri Pitchard McLean. See, I love a bit of like historical true crime and a lot of them fit into that. So like noble blood has a lot of that stuff. Yeah, I've listened to the old episode of

noble blood and I quite like it. American hysteria is another one I've just started listening to because you're wrong about recommended it. I am just as always slightly overwhelmed with my podcast feed and subscribed to too many. Well, it's like with food. I kind of go through phases of what I want to listen to. So I'm quite into in-depth historical analysis at the moment. And so full of civilizations, you're wrong about American hysteria, noble blood. There's a new series of that. A nice tri-utopia series apparently coming soon. Oh, good. It's good news. Yeah, I really enjoyed that one. I'll listen to that. But yeah, back to Dispatchers from the

Roundwell. We also got a nice email from Steven titled Purple Post-It. And I like that Steven seemed to change his own mind during this email. So I'm going to read it out. Okay. Slowly catching up on the pod. Just finished part three of Guards, Guards. Sorry, Guards, Guards. And your discussion about the way Sybil is described has been really interesting for me. I didn't really thought about how negatively she's portrayed in some respects. So thanks for educating me. However, I think you were too negative about vimes during his deal with Sybil. I read that section as reflecting very much his own low self-esteem. When he says she couldn't do worse, he really means it. But when he says he couldn't do better, he means that

more broadly. Not that he's settling, but that she's far too good for me. And now that I've written this, I see perhaps you weren't negative enough about vimes. Steven also ended with, I've been recommending you to people, so hopefully you're up great to Canvas Swimming Pool to be seen. So thank you, Steven, for writing in. And unfortunately, we don't have the Canvas Swimming Pool yet. But as it's now also... That's like half of our conversations encapsulated in an email. Us talking ourselves out of our own opinions. You are clearly the kind of listener for us. Yes. Unfortunately, still no swimming pool. Well, it's a bit late in the year now, isn't it? Yeah, I think next year.

At this point, you can just put out a big bowl and it'll fill up by the end of the week. Yeah. Well, I'm now watering my plants with rainwater by just forgetting to ever bring my watering can in when it chucks it down. Excellent. Yes. Eco. Anyway, Francine, do you want to introduce us to the book Moving Pictures? Sure. It is the Tens of Discworld novel, as we have already said. It was published in 1990, along with half of the other books Pratchett ever wrote, apparently. I think we mentioned last month it was the most prolific year. You published five books in a year. So yeah, it was Moving Pictures, Eric, obviously. Two of the Bramillian Trilidium. What's the last one?

So he published Diggers, Good Omens, Eric. Good Omens. And Moving Pictures. How do we forget Good Omens? Oh, you know, inconsequential work, really, isn't it? Yes, it's very minor. One of the lesser known Terry Pratchett works, I think, with some obscure author that I don't think ever came to anything afterwards. No, no. I think he did some books with pictures in or something. Whenever I meet someone and they ask if I bring up my podcast, they ask what it's about, but they're not sure who Terry Pratchett or Discworld is. It's like, okay, I have to now do. Have you seen Good Omens? It's like, oh, it was the thing with David Tennant

and Michael Sheen. Oh, yeah, I liked that. It's like, right, that's Terry Pratchett. So yeah, I know. I've not done that. I think I just go read it. Well, I mean, then I sort of go, okay, you liked that. We should read the book it's based on. And then while you're there, there's this... While you're in the general shelf. There's this handy dandy 42 book series. I keep saying 42. I think it's not 42. I think it's 41. Well, we started out saying it was 55 or something. I feel like it's really nice to Discworld podcast. We should know definitively how many books there are. No, I quite like it being in flux. It gives it a lack of finality. Finality, finality.

Yes. Anyway, yes. Sorry, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. So it is a standalone book, Moving Pictures, not part of one of the major arcs, although it does start some characters arcs, kind of, without going into any spoilers. It's based on the early years of Hollywood. Pretty obviously does not take a literary analysis genius to work that out, luckily, because we don't have any of those, with aspects of various film history, like it's not just the early early years of Hollywood he's drawn from. Although it has quite a sparse subplot for the wizards is the first time that the cast of the university faculty, as we know them, appears. And that makes me very happy. Yeah, it has some really good wizard stuff. I really enjoyed

it. It's also, I mean, this in general is just one of my favorite Discworld books. So I was worried it was going to disappoint me rereading it and it absolutely hasn't. I hadn't remembered it as one of my favorites at all, but I am enjoying it quite a lot. I think it's a combination of I like the Golden Age of Hollywood stuff, because I have a soft spot for that and for certain old films. It's the first Discworld book where we get the X technology comes to the Discworld, which it's a thing that happens a couple of times across the Discworld books. And it is always a joy because it's just good fun. Well, hot take, not very hot take. Victor, I reckon, is kind of like a proto moist von Litwig, who is the protagonist of a lot of the X

technology books. So I will get into a little bit of Victor and his character when we get there. Yes, I can definitely kind of see that. But yeah, so it's a fun book. Should I tell us what happened? Yeah, go for it. So we this section is page one to 112, at least in the Korgia paperback edition. We open on Great Artuans swimming through space. As the nature of non binary reality is explained, we go to a hill where rain never falls and witnessed the death of Deccan ribbob. An alchemist has a eureka movement, thankfully, fully clothed. A boom disturbed rid cully, the new Arch Chancellor of the Unseen University. The alchemists have discovered octocellulose, nothing could go wrong here, and banged grains to

go along with it. They decide to work outside of Antmorpork away from the watchful eye of wizards. Luckily, Hollywood is empty and waiting. The bursar tells the Arch Chancellor they need to discuss a student, Victor Tugelbend, currently revising carefully with Ponder Stibbins. Hollywood crops up in the student's minds before they head to the pub. We learn that Victor's lazy life plan requires very carefully not becoming a full fledged wizard. The Arch Chancellor is slow on the uptake, but eventually gets its head around needing to provide Victor with a fiendishly unfailable exam. As Victor headhomes from the pub, he happens to rescue Silversmith the alchemist from the hands of a dastardly mugger and gets offered a job. As the disc's first moving picture

is projected in the town square, Victor gets ideas, Dibbler sells sausages, and a Wonder Dog woofs. Victor misses his exam, as Ponder answers one simple question. Victor, Dibbler, Detritus, the troll, and Gaspo the Wonder Dog all find themselves heading to Hollywood as the things outside reality watch and mandible. Vincent makes his way to Silversmith's office in Hollywood and gets himself a job after a bit of breaking and entering. Dibbler hires Detritus before walking into a job of his own. Victor learns he sees a natural moving picture star and learns just how it all works. Dibbler invents advertising and promises 1,000 elephants as Victor prepares to star as co-in the barbarian. He meets Ginger, his feisty co-star. Swept up in Hollywood magic

during filming, Victor and Ginger get a bit romantic before demanding a lunch break and finding themselves a bit underemployed. Mrs. Whitlow brings a disconcerting device before the arch chancellor and the bursar. It goes plib. Dwarves sing as Hollywood continues to grow and Dibbler takes a quick late-night trip to Ankh-Morpork. As Dibbler chats with the owner of Ankh-Morpork's best cinema, Victor goes for a swim and finds poor old Deccan and the book. Victor tries his and at Ossandling as the co-in click proves to be a huge success. Victor goes for a drink with the trolls as Dibbler hunts down his new star and as Victor ponders the nature of Hollywood, Detritus falls in love. Um, could it be Detritus? Yes. Uh, so helicopter loincloth watch. Uh, page 61.

Uh, Dibbler looked approvingly at the troll. Detritus was wearing nothing except a ragged loincloth which concealed whatever it was that trolls felt it necessary to conceal. I see. So what we have here is a loincloth. That is a bonafide loincloth. Bonafide loincloth. Also, uh, some questions about troll genitalia that I'm not going to ask. I don't think anyone's going to answer. This is a family-friendly tea time podcast. Other bits we're keeping an eye on as we go through. We once again open on the turtle, which I think has been true for almost all of the books. Uh, death's here. We haven't had a book without death yet. Uh, we haven't had a book where we haven't been to rank more pork yet. Have we not? Not one. That was one of the things I was

keeping an eye on. Uh, the librarian's origins get explained again, although this time it's a character explaining it to another character. Yeah. Uh, and we are still in the century of the fruit bat for those keeping track of the disc's vague and confusingly named timeline. Oh, I have a timeline. Don't tell. I have that bookmarked somewhere. I'll try and put that in the show notes. Yeah. Excellent. So, yeah, century of the fruit bat at the moment. So, onto quotes. I think mine's before yours. Mine's very short this week. Uh, a month went by quickly. It didn't want to hang around, which I read and felt was very relatable because that keeps happening. Yes. Where are we now? Oh, God.

Yeah. So, it's October for you, dear listeners and more or less. It's the day before October. Oh, no. Tomorrow's the last day of September. 30? Yeah, 30. Yeah, tomorrow's the 30th. So, it's going to be all right. Is it? Yeah. Okay, cool. I promise, Francine, everything is going to be fine. Okay. So, what's your favorite quote from this section? Oh, laziness. Page 37. This is describing Victor's character. Victor Tugelben was also the laziest person in the history of the world. Not simply, ordinarily lazy. Ordinary laziness was merely the absence of effort. Victor had passed through there a long time ago, had gone straight through commonplace idleness and out the

far side. He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labor. That's very relatable to me. I like that. One of my favorite Ask Reddit threads ever. One of the things that got me into Reddit, I think, was a question of what's the laziest thing you've ever seen someone do? And the answers in that made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Like, there was one where some guy in the Navy turned a whole boat around to get himself in the shade without having to get up like shit like that. Oh, I remember that one. That was great. Yeah, I'll find it, but in the show notes, because I want to read it best off. And I love stories like that. And I also love the fact that I will sometimes spend an entire

afternoon working out a way to automate a task that would have taken me probably less than that afternoon, just out of sheer, bloody minded laziness. Yeah, you have a particular magic at making your laziness somehow triple your workload. Yeah, yeah, it's it worked out in my favor career wise, not really life wise. I'm really not saying it's a bad thing. My version of laziness is thinking I can put things off till later because I can definitely squeeze a three hour task into an hour. Oh yeah, unfortunately, I also suffer from that. It is the worst thing about me, especially when it comes to working prep shifts in the kitchen. Yeah, we both have terrible time management skills, unfortunately, as our readers will be shocked to hear not readers,

the other ones listeners as my readers will be shocked to know if they ever see an article out on time one day. Oh, fuck, I won't never mind. Never mind, I'll do that later. Did you just watch a deadline fly past you? Oh, yes. I think I heard the echo of its footsteps in the distance rather than that. So characters, we, because this is the first section, this is where we meet most of the characters. Yes, we have a rather extensive cast list. We do. This won't fit on a poster, Joanna. Well, it will if we use very tiny writing on a very large poster. Spectacles. Deccan Reboob. I don't know if I'm saying his last name right and like he dies in the first 10 pages of the book, so I'm not really that fast about it.

All right, cool. Yeah, Paul Deccan, last keeper of the door has been doing nothing but sitting on a hill enchanting and now he's dead and he forgot to teach anyone else the chance. Oops. So more excitedly, more excitedly. Exciting me. Thank you. That was the word I wanted. CMOT Dibbler. Yay. So we haven't met him before and we were a little bit excited about it, but this is the first book where he really gets a big role. I think this is his biggest role possibly, right? Yeah, he's never, I don't think he's ever quite this big a character. So Dibbler is great. I love him. I mean, like he is the epitome of capitalism and I should say everything about him, but there's something so... Well, I think it's because he's so very obvious with it.

Yeah, there's no subtlety to him. There's no hiding it in some facade of caring about the world or other people or the product even. And I like the way like Hollywood is so perfect for him. Like his niche just absolutely comes into the world and he fits into it like a glove. This little quote, I like, cut me own throat, Dibbler was one of those rare people with the ability to think in straight lines. Most people think in curves and zig-zags. So they start with a thought like, I wonder how I can become very rich and then proceed along an uncertain course, which includes thoughts like, I wonder what's for supper and I wonder who I know who can lend me five dollars. They're very attacked. Well, it started as one of those people who could identify

the thoughts at the other end of the protest. In this case, I am now very rich, draw a line between the two and then think his way along it slowly and patiently until he got to the other end. Unfortunately. There is unfortunately usually the floor. No one wanting to buy what he's selling. He is a very good salesman. And I do also like that he sort of effectively invents advertising. I mean, he did very well. He managed to get that decent anti-dragon cream during guards' guards. He did. I mean, that was a legitimate product that was. It was all the way from some mountains. Exactly, some mountains. And the fact that he manages to take Pellius and Melisande, a romantic tragedy in two reels,

thank you, and turn it into gods and men said it was not to be, but they would not listen. A story of forbidden love, a searing saga of passion, the bridge space and time. This will shock you with a thousand elephants. He belongs in the 1950s. He absolutely does. I can see him with particularly like that, Mustache and that hat. So I'm going to fold two characters into one here with the fact that we meet for the first time. So hyped. Mustram Ridcully. Yay. Calling for the. Yes. Calling for the Berser. Oh, no. Oh, sorry. That one was a bit loud.

Yes. We meet Ridcully shouting for the Berser. This will become an ongoing thing. Poor Berser. Who's still so sane right now. He is. You can see it going like by the end of the book, I think. It's Ridcully that does it to him. Um, I noticed Ponderstibbons lucky dried frog. And the first appearance of a dried frog possibly. That may be how we get around. Maybe relevant later. Dried frogs may definitely be relevant.

Like I like, like I love Ridcully. He's a great character. He is exactly like the wizards have brought him in because they think they need a bit of a shake up to the people trying to kill the arse chancellor. But I think he does shake up like the wizards as a subgroup. Yeah. I mean, it would have been this of the early like Trimon wizards goes away. And instead the wizards become great fun. Yeah. They're a lot less playing on a trope and a lot more the kind of unique set of characters. And I think they've got a lot more longevity to them.

And I mean, as a character set, not just as a, they're not murdering each other. Yeah. There's only so, there's only so far you can take the scheming wizard trope. But I do also like that he's, he's Ridcully the brown. Yes. In a fairly obvious reference there. Yes. So they're expecting Radagast the brown who has a twinkly eyes and can tell, can tell one herb from another. Rome's the high forest with every beast is brother kind of thing. Sleeps under the stars and knows what the wind is saying.

You know, you know the sort. And yeah, no, turns out actual country wizards are basically male versions of Sibyl Rankin. And what I can tell, like shoot, I think it's quite a fun British thing where there are, there are very much two types of people that live in the countryside. And there are the sleeps under the stars and talks to bird types. And then there are very much there. Yeah. Well, no, they're all like, to be fair, they're mostly old women with cottages and like. Are you sure they're real, Joanna?

I'm saying a friend of mine met someone the other day who might be a witch. Okay. But there are a lot of the tweet transit bird shooting. Yeah. Types. We have more judgmental of at the moment because I'm listening to that. You're wrong about what I've said about Diana, where everyone goes to hunting parties for a social life. I mean, I'm usually fairly judgey. Speaking of somebody who roams the countryside a lot and does not like loud noises.

Yeah. Although I do look great in tweet. While we're around the wizards, we also meet Wendell poons. He is just a completely sort of 130 years old, quite deaf. While an expert on magical writings needed adequate notice and a good run up to deal with the present day. I want to be a doddery old man who can just sort of get away with whatever. All right. We can make that happen. Cool. And that's, that's on the to do list. That's aspiring to a future.

I wanted to hear more about Radagast the Brown in Lord of the Rings. I feel like there is probably more about him and about the colors of the wizards order in some of the supplementary. There's not that much about Radagast. There's like a bit more, but not that much. No, because I was really into the idea of it when I was a bit younger. So I did look into it. I have not really read much of the supplementary. In fact, I haven't read Lord of the Rings since I was a kid.

That I'm reading the supplementary materials. Well, there you go. There's a bonus we can do under Lord of the Rings. Yeah. I'm not letting you do a summary though. I'm doing the summary of that me with my bullet points. I can make summaries less detailed than I do. It's just, I don't think you can with Lord of the Rings, mate. No, I have two ways of summarizing things. The way I did for the podcast, which is overly detailed,

the way I do it when I'm slightly drunk and try and explain the plot of something that you haven't seen, which is really just focusing on the costumes, which I'm very into. Don't get me wrong. My recaps during the final series of Game of Thrones when you hadn't seen it, but vaguely wanted to know what happened. It was excellent. It was perfect. Exact right amount of detail telling me how terrible it was, but telling me exactly how good the score and the dress was, which...

There was some great... I sound like I'm being sarcastic with what I just do today. I can't help it, but I'm not. I had a fantastic time listening to you wax. Not very lyrical about Game of Thrones. Anyway. Is it waning lyrical if you become slowly less enthused? Yes, waning lyrical.

Also, my stripper name. No. I was about to say bad name, but fine. Where are we? Sorry. Waxing lyrical would be an excellent beauty salon name. That must exist. Yeah. Okay, we meet Ponder Stibbins, beauty salon slash karaoke bar. Sorry, what?

Yeah, Ponder Stibbins. Ponder Stibbins, who doesn't show his true potential yet, I feel. But he does become a fully fledged wizard. We've got his origin story. Which I forgot. Yeah, I forgot he showed up so early because I associate him with the wizards in future plots, but he is quite different by the time we get there. And then I'm seeing the big one, one of the main characters, Victor Tugelbend.

What a terrible name. Amazing last name. So yeah, Victor is pretty much our hero of the book. He's our leading man. He is the archetypal early Hollywood star. Yes, chiseled jawline and a very thin moustache. Makes him look a bit like he's been drinking a chocolate milkshake. I like him.

I love the description you read out of his laziness. Yeah. But there's quite a good in Mark Bowers' book about Terry Pratchett. There's quite a good quote I'm going to read out. When a fan wrote to Pratchett to ask if the book's hero Victor Tugelbend would return in another novel, Terry replied that he viewed such characters as movie stars, reappearing in several books, but playing different roles. To him, Victor pyramids tepid, the eponymous hero of mort,

and perhaps even initially keratin. Guards, guards. Were all roles played by the same actor. And he sort of says this is also true of the less than developed female co-stars. So Bethany, Koenina, Tracy, Ginger, Isabel. Yeah. I still feel like he has more in common with moist than carrot, certainly. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's sort of more based on what Guards, Guards was going to be originally, which was more focused on carrot than vimes, but kind of took over. Yeah, yes. Right of that. If you look at what Victor's character in life in this book, he has got quite a lot in common with tepid and with mort, and this is a sort of certain young hero that I'd say after this book sort of crops up less and less as you get these slightly older main characters, but be like slightly more focused and developed main characters.

Yeah, less action movie. This won't mean a lot to our first-time readers, but I think in future books, the character that has the most in common with someone like Victor or mort or tepid would be William DeWood, or they've got a lot more background and sort of character development, but I'd say. Yeah, he's a similarly slightly useless but competent in one area male protagonist. Yeah, but I can see a point in him sort of being the proto moist one lit big as well. Just in the way how he kind of gets into places and becomes at the centre of something.

Yeah, and ends up being really good at something through sheer not really wanting to do stuff. Yeah, which is a trope I really love. And like if that is a character in especially a TV series, I will probably end up fancying that character. Thomas Silverfish of interesting and instructive cinematography. Did he look up who he's based on? No, I didn't. I didn't get time.

He's based on a real early Hollywood mobile, Sam Goldwyn, who was known as Samuel Goldfish for a little while. I think his original name was like Geldfish or something. And then Goldfish and then I guess someone told him that was stupid. So he changed it to Goldwyn. But he was known for like a lot of slightly off sayings. And Silverfish has a few of those throughout. I think the annotated Pratchett highlights a couple of them.

Oh, cool. So I'll link that. But yeah, include me out. I think Silverfish said one of them. Yeah. I quite like that. Yeah, almost everything in this book is a reference. Like I had a real problem picking out an obscure one.

I noted a couple of my favourite movie references and I'll keep doing that as we go through. So who else? We've got Gaspard, The Wonder Dog, which again, have we met him in a previous book or is this the first time? See, I don't know. I've kind of lost track. I'm pretty sure this is the first time because he mentions at some point in this book that he's only just learned to speak.

Yeah. But I guess it's Hollywood magic that gets him speaking. Yeah. But I'm sure I remember a reference to him somewhere. But yeah, so I love Gaspard. Yeah, he's a little sweetie. He is the best. He is a tiny and scruffy and sort of a falling apart, muddy little dog,

which is adorable. And he's clever. He's very clever. And there's a, I like the way he reveals himself as a talking dog. He's sharing off playing the harmonica. Oh, yes. Victor's just, Victor is so, he's a very polite young boy as Victor. He is, I guess.

It like goes with the territory of making sure the wizards don't get too cross for you. Yeah. He's like sort of quite naturally charming. And so he sat there with this dog talking to him and it's just trying to work out how to sort of politely say, should you be able to talk? So another tiny side character that's referenced. And I, again, no spoilers, but remember this name, dear leader,

is Mrs. Marietta Cosmopolite of Three Querm Street, Ang Moorpul. Dear leader. Dear, dear listener. I tried to say listener. Are we going North Korea now? I tried to say dear listener, but you know, my brain does like dear reader. This is actually now a private podcast, but Kim Young-un. I'm so tired from saying, dear listener, please remember the name,

Mrs. Marietta Cosmopolite of Three Querm Street, Ang Moorpul. I enjoyed the brief description of her, which was like believing the world was round, and that three horrible little dwarves hid and watched her get undressed every night, which he was right about, but only by Quincet. But she also believes that it does you good to get out and have a laugh occasionally,

and that there's niceness in everyone if you know where to look. Mental. Let's get to Ginger. We meet her when Victor's walking down the street, and he's just got Hollywood, and she's described as having the weird silent movie makeup on. She was a foot shorter than him, and her shape was doubtful, since most of her was covered in a ridiculously frilly dress,

although the dress wasn't as ludicrous as the big blonde wig full of ringlets. And her face was white with makeup apart from her eyes, which were heavily ringed in black. The general effect was that of a lampshade that hadn't been getting much sleep lately. Which is fairly accurate when you look at the makeup from the time. Yeah.

And also, honestly, it's a good look. I do it quite a lot. Oh, yeah. I am a very attractive lampshade. To be fair, though, as Purple posted, as I can get about Pratchett, she's not a total sexy lamp of a character. Yeah, I mean, she's fine.

Yeah. Well, I mean, she's... She's not my favourite. She's just cos she's a bit... Yeah. Like, she seems to, certainly in the first section, exist only to be a techie foil. Yeah.

This is the thing I was kind of going to say is that Koenina Tracy Isabel. And I won't read out the quote again from the Tanzi Rainer-Roberts book, but it's the kind of hilariously bitchy to the lead instead of rewarding him with her sexy self. Yeah. I do like the line when they're telling Victor

what he's going to have to do for the Ko and the Barbarian film, and they say to her, you just lie there looking rescued. Yeah, yeah. And she sort of sighs and says, yeah, I'm quite good at that, because that's all she's been able to do in these films. Yeah, I did lie that line,

because Jack likes to watch a lot of old movies and a lot of B movies, and it is annoying to see that every time. It's like, oh, look, it's a woman who is just sexy lamp in distress. Excellent. Yeah. Sexy distress lamp.

There's also, they sort of, when you get them being introduced on set, and she's sort of saying, oh, I've got to do this ridiculous film and some kid with bad breath and a forehead you could lay a table on, and they have this like catty-ness with each other. And it really reminded me of Morton Isabel,

especially there's this... Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit better done than Morton Isabel, I think. It is. And it's a trope I really like where they argue with each other until they fancy each other.

And I hate that I like it, but I always really enjoy it. But yeah. So I like Ginger, but she is a bit like... We're still not quite at Pratshit writing like really good women. We had a hint of it with Sybil Ramkin,

and it feels like this thing goes back a bit like... I don't know. We've had a couple witches ones already. Oh, yeah. No, and we've had the witches one. Okay. So I mean specifically like a certain kind of young woman. He writes one young woman.

Yeah, I think he writes one young woman. Yeah, so far he's kind of writing one young woman, and it is Koenina Tracy Isabel Ginger. To a certain extent, Margaret as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think Margaret was already a bit better, but there was certainly some flavour of it when she interacts with What's His Stopped?

Yeah, I think he's very good at writing women talking to other women, but when you put young women with men, you kind of get a bit limited. And like this... Spoiler, but this book was not... Maybe he just got snapped out a lot by young women when he was young.

And the thing is I have always sort of wanted to be one of these women. I'm not very good at it, because I like cry if someone argues with me, but... Yeah, I didn't get the chance to be that kind of woman, because I just give off the vibes, I think. Yeah, I mean also people don't talk to me a lot, but also like spoiler alert,

that this book will not pass the Bechtel test. No. That's the no, that doesn't surprise me. But yeah, for all that, I like Ginger. I'm going to talk about her a lot more in the next section, because she gets a really great line in the next section. Well, yeah, as I remember, she actually becomes an active participant

in like the proper plot. Whereas now I think she is, you know, it is a useful role being the kind of expositional vicarer. Oh, no, it is. It's a good role, and I like it. It's just definitely something we've already seen in previous books. Yeah.

But then Ditto with Victor. Yeah, and I like how the kind of weird appearance of early movie stars is described. Yes, the tired lampshade look. Yeah. Timeless. Timeless. So we also meet Trolls, Rick and Rock and Mori.

Do you know the said Rick and Morty? Yep. That's how I read it, yep. So we've got Rock and Mori, who are starring in the Coen the Barbarian epic. Shout out to Coen, who's not here, but like very much is still in our hearts. Yeah, he's here in spirit.

So if he was in spirit, he'd probably still managed to kill someone for portraying him this way, but... Yeah, definitely. Rock manages, decides to rename himself. So he was Galena. He renames himself. Rock Hudson is a really interesting person.

There's a, I can't remember the name of it now, but I will find it and link to it in the show now. It's just a very good film about his life. He was like gay and obviously not out when he was making films, but eventually came out and he was HIV positive. Okay. Yeah, fascinating life.

More importantly, as far as trolls go, detritus. We love him. He's been mentioned as like a... A bouncer. A bouncer before, hasn't he? Yeah, this is the first time he gets some lines. He gets some lines. He gets to really be a person.

He's figuring out what he wants to be doing with his life. He's great. I love him. He is, and I like how effective he is, his dibbler's hired hand. Yeah. He's just being violent for the time being. He's another person who sort of finds his niche in Hollywood very quickly.

He is. And then like him... Is it right, the last line in this section, right? Where he flashes like a garden. Yeah, I was about to go onto that. So, as well as meeting detritus, we meet Ruby. I love Ruby. She's the woman that detritus falls in love with.

Part of it is I like someone being described... Again, we're not going full purple post at Highest Horse, but she is a large woman and she is described as large, and it's not described for laughs. And part of that is because she's a troll. I was about to say she was literally... I think she's described as a foothill. So...

It was a continental drift with curves. It's one of my favorite descriptions. But I don't think it's really... Because to trolls, this is very sexy. And I like that she gets this introduction of coming out from the smoke, wearing a feather boa and singing, because that's such an old Hollywood thing.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. That was being sent up with Jessica Rabbit in Heathrow and Roger Rabbit when she comes out and performs in the red dress. I like the archer take on that as well. Yes. When it's Lana doing it. I just love it.

It's always such a great moment in films. And yeah, but she's great. You know, she's a modern troll woman. She's come out here and she's found a way to very much be herself and not have to just be old troll. Yeah. She also gets the great line. I'm not going to try and say it in trollish,

but I'll say the translation. It's fine. Is that the legendary scepter of Magma who was king of the mountains, smiter of thousands, yay, even tens of thousands, ruler of the Golden River, master of the bridges,

delver in dark places, crusher of many enemies in your pocket? Or are you just pleased to see me? I'll see. I think it sounds better in trollish. Yeah, fine, but I don't speak. I very much. It's hard to get the gravel right.

I have known for not speaking trollish. Yeah, ruby blue humicus and detritus blush the colour of fresh cut garnet. Oh, that makes me very happy. It's very sweet. And then lastly on characters, we get a little cameo from Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobs.

Yeah. Of the night wash having a roll up in a doorway, keeping warm and dry and staying out of trouble. It is good work. Let's keep it up. It's nice to see them. We'll see you soon. Quite happy that they're there.

So locations, we're introduced to the guild of Elchemist. So far, we've met the wizards aren't a guild, but I sort of think of them as fitting into the same structure as the guilds almost. Yeah, like a little bit above it, maybe same as the priests. Yeah, but we've met the Assassin's Guild.

We've met at least one member of the beggars guild and we've met a few from the Thieves Guild. And yeah, now I briefly. We do. We do get a brief chat to the patrician. Having a little chat with a spy. Mention of the scorpion pit. Love a bit of scorpion pit.

So yeah, Elchemist and guilds. I like the difference in hierarchy between Elchemist and wizards. Yeah, it's almost like later on, it'll be the same with necromancers and wizards, won't it? Yeah. Just wizards and bullies.

Yeah, wizards need levels, so they've got someone to look down on, whereas the Elchemists all like to lurk alone with beards. They weren't really beards, but more like groups of individual hares clustering together for mutual protection. It wasn't that Elchemists hated other Elchemists. They often didn't notice them

or thought they were walruses. Yeah, this coming after a mention of Mercury. So yeah. So yes, Tiny Guild hasn't really achieved any kind of status because they all keep blowing themselves up. Obviously, one of the main locations is Hollywood, which is quite obviously a parody of a small town in Poland.

What? I'm just checking you're paying attention. Hollywood. What could that be referencing? It's helping me. I thought I completely missed something there. Yes, Hollywood. Yeah, that one.

That one? Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of described as a shitty desert-type place. Just a hill and some sand. Beautiful light. And it doesn't rain. No.

I think a large part of why Hollywood was chosen as a destination, apart from the weather always being awesome, was that they were escaping a lot of labor laws and stuff. And tax medicine. I should have looked into that more. I'll look into it for next week.

It's a similar reason why now Vancouver's a really popular filming location. There's loads of tax exemptions. And same why a lot of American films are in Spain and Italy, right? Yeah. If you see any American film or TV series with lots of lush greenery and hills

and mountains and shit, that's usually somewhere outside of Vancouver. Oh, interesting. So like Vampire Diaries. No, no, it's just these are genuinely lots of people. You've got to fangbanging right now, huh? No, it's just I'm listening

to a really good podcast about it. What's that? The Empire Diaries. Hosted by my other people, Latoya Ferguson, who is one of my favourite people to listen to about pop culture because she's hilarious. Sorry, say the name of it.

The Empire Diaries. Like A-M-P. Yeah, because they're amped to watch the Vampire Diaries. Oh, cute. Yeah. She's also, Latoya's also taking over Angel on Top, the Buffering Spinoff podcast. Sorry, getting the reference in

for the people playing Bingo. Yeah, no, absolutely. We're going to have to add Vampire Diaries to Bingo, I think. No, I'll get over it again in like a couple of weeks. Okay, sure, sure. Why was I... Look, I've written down Empire Diaries now and I was trying to write down some homework for myself.

Oh, looking into the origin of... Hollywood. Yeah, thanks. Hollywood. So yeah, I really like the talk about the buildings in Hollywood, which are all beautiful on the front and there's nothing on the inside. It warrants houses inside out.

There have been some cases of streets like that, like literally that were just facades, right? Yeah, I was reading... I mean, there's a whole thing, even in London, where there are some, like, what looks like a house, but it's actually just a facade. They were like train tunnels. Oh, is that what they were for?

Ah, that makes sense. That's what I vaguely remember from a plot point in an episode of Sherlock. Yes, that's it. That's probably where I know it from. But there's also... Oh, that thing's out now, that movie. Oh, and other homes.

Yes, I need to watch that. Yeah, me too. We should try and watch that at the same time. Yes, we should. As long as you don't watch it on your week off, which I won't hold against you if you do. Yeah, I mean, well, I'm not going to have TV for at least a few days.

Oh, my God, you really are going to the woods. Yeah, there's going to be, like, barely any Wi-Fi. Anyway. One of the other places they used to do that was in the old, like, Gold Rush towns, because quite a lot of people would go to these Gold Rush areas, not because they wanted gold,

but because they knew more, like, life would crop up around it. So, like, places where you could get gold, like, some kind of town would crop up. So restaurants and brothels and bars and things. So people would go so that they could perform as musicians, or they could open up restaurants or... Oh, I see.

So, yeah, once, like, the trend had been noted that this is what happened in Gold Rush towns, like, you'd know, aha, this place is going to need a bar. Yeah, exactly. So they'd find ways to get there, and they'd... Like, these were hardcore people traveling,

but then quite often a place would become... It would slowly build up, and facades would be built first. So you'd have, like, this amazing, beautiful wooden facade, and then behind it is, like, a tent. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And that was just so people...

That was to kind of fuel the bullishness of the market, then. Yeah. And then, like, eventually, it would become... As more people went, it would become easiest to travel to these places. So you would start getting tourists coming to these Gold Rush towns. Ah, okay. Making it look good would probably, like, encourage

trading companies and whatever. Yeah. And then eventually... Probably in the wrong century, but yeah. Yeah. More money would start coming through the town, which would mean real proper buildings and rows and things would start coming up.

Smart. Yeah. It's really interesting. I've got a friend who, like, lives in one of these towns that originally cropped up as, like, a Gold Rush thing. Oh, it's really cool. I thought that was, like,

just a straight joke about them being sex instead of actual buildings, but it's a... There's some back... Yeah. I mean, I think the joke here is more about them basically just being sex, but there is some background to it.

Cool. And then this is, like, a location we visit briefly, but I want to talk about it because I like this bit of description. The Odeon, which is the sort of premiere cinema that's propped up in Ankh-Morpork, because as soon as these things start existing, the cinema starts existing.

As reference to the Odeon listeners, who have not had an Odeon, because they've been closed for quite a long time now. Yes, Odeon has gone. I work for a little indie cinema, and at one point it was an Odeon. It was, yeah, when I was a kid. I used to go to the Odeon in that very location.

It was much cheaper than, Joanna. It was much cheaper. I know it's not your fault. Well, no, I mean, it's free for me. But when a massively successful film comes through and Bezham, who runs the Odeon, is wondering what to do with all this money, he starts thinking about a bigger location,

and he's thinking about fancy pillars and lots of gold stuff and curly bits. And this is kind of a thing in cinemas. Like, you do get... Oh, I'll tell you what. If you want some beautiful descriptions of 1950s cinemas, read Sander Volkhead, Bill Bryson's autobiography,

or like his description of his childhood in the 50s America. He really gets the kind of child-like wonder. Like, he's preserved it very well in his memory. That's his beautiful cinemas. It's well worth reading. I do. I quite like it, though. So the cinema I work in now is lovely,

quite modern-looking, although it does have a couple of pillars at the front. Yeah, it's got some nice old plush stuff though, isn't it? Well, all the seats are new, because I found... So before it was all properly done up, I went in and took a bunch of photos because I was going to film something in there for like a media studies project.

Okay. And do you remember how it used to look? They were like... How long ago? We're talking in our late childhood early teens. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was like that for quite a while. Crushed blue velvet seats.

Yes. And huge gold curtains over the screens. And it was amazing. We used to do... Back when you still had intervals. Oh, yeah. We still... So we show a lot of like live theater and opera stuff,

and we have intervals. And we have... Can you buy ice creams from somebody with it? You can. So our lovely... We have a lovely manager who's worked for this cinema for like 60 years. And he comes to all of these live things.

He's always in a suit and a bow tie in the suit. What, genuinely 60 years? Are you excited? Yeah, genuinely 60 years. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. He's even got a book out about it. It's called The Little Show on Earth or something.

Does he perform an arcane ritual twice a day? Because if so, you need to make sure he trains somebody else. I don't know. I mean, he's also still trained on the old projection equipment. And we've got a bunch of old projection equipment. So we can show like old real stuff

because we don't just show everything on digital. So we can sometimes get proper film prints in. Which a lot of cinemas don't know. But yeah, he's worked for there for like 60 years. What's now like one of our changing rooms upstairs used to be a flat. And the woman who's now is wife lived up there and that's how they met.

And so she also works for us. And she sells ice cream in these intervals when we do like theatre and opera and stuff. It's so sweet. Obviously it's all like less now because of COVID and stuff. But it's a really lovely part of working there. That's nice.

I like that. Sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, old cinemas. We stayed on topic. That wasn't a giant diversion. So that's all the locations we go to. Oh, cool. Yeah, we did have a lot of characters and locations in me.

We did. So little bits we liked. We're going to start with you. Although I've noticed this one as well. Page six, seven. I just, I love, always have loved the interactions between Bursa and Ridd Kelly. As I've said before, on too many occasions,

the wizards are weirdly enough possibly my favorite little team. And Ridd Kelly's special brand of thick-headedness is amazing. It's like a particular thick-headed intelligence that I really enjoy. It is, yeah. Refusing to get the point until someone explains it from 10 different directions

probably means you have a better understanding of everything than most people do. He's also just incredibly determinedly pragmatic. Yeah. But anyway, the art chancellor drummed his fingers on the desk. Can't have this. He says, can't have someone going around almost, but in a wizard laughing at us up is his,

what's it that people laugh up? My feelings exactly, heard the Bursa. We should send him up, said the art chancellor. Firmly, down, master, said the Bursa. Setting him up would mean making spiteful and satirical comments about him. Yes, good thinking. Let's do that, said the art chancellor.

No, master, said the Bursa. Bursa pinchedly. He's sending us up, so we send him down. Right, balance things up, said the art chancellor. There's also, there's a hint here and it, the dynamic does shift, especially in later books, of that thing we've talked about before, the sort of power behind the throne.

Yeah. So the art chancellor is the power, but the Bursa is purring, because at this point the Bursa still has some of the grip on his sanity and it's sort of a very calmly, I'm going to do this thing and I'm just letting you know as a courtesy almost.

Yeah, but yes, you get the feeling that that's what he's done for a long time and this is disrupting that massively. Yeah. So like he's just not going to get away with that with Rick Cully. No, and I think we'll get a fun twist on the dynamic in later books that we'll talk about.

Yeah. As someone else sort of becomes more of the foil to Rick Cully's belligerence. Yes, I do love Rick Cully, even though he's a terrible, terrible human. But he is very much a solid human, I think that's what's so enjoyable about his character. What's your next one, Sarah?

So when Victor gets himself into Silversmith's office, he does it by sneaking in and then striding very purposefully, holding a bit of paper, because he knows that's how you get into places. I know we had this conversation on a previous podcast, I'm not sure which one. I think you might have been good omens

about things you can be doing that just means you can walk into somewhere. So like having a clipboard, a hi-vis jacket, just striding very purposefully as if you belong. Yeah, absolutely. This seems like something Terry Pratchett has probably done on a number of occasions as a journalist. Now I know more about his career

and clearly he enjoys it when his characters get to do the same. Yes, it's good fun and it will definitely come up when we get to talk about journalism on the disc. One day. The next note you have is also one I had as well and it's one of my favourite moments in this book. Actually, I'm going to give that one to you, Joanna,

because it is Mrs. Whitlow putting H's horn everything. And I tried to read this aloud to myself earlier and I can't do it. I'm going to have to pass on to your superior H's skills. If you could please demonstrate your incredible ability to place yourself above your station. So just for context, hopefully our listeners

will remember Mrs. Whitlow from Equal Rights. Yeah. So Mrs. Whitlow, huge pink and becorseted in her ginger wig. This is she looking for husbands with the help of Granny Weatherwax's tea leaves in Equal Rights. She's great. But one of the things she's described as doing is inserting a lot of H's.

When Mrs. Whitlow was in the grip of acute class consciousness she could create H's when nature never intended them to be. She was dusting. Said Mrs. Whitlow, helpfully. And then it started making a noise. H'd made H'n noise. Said Mrs. Whitlow. So she come and told me your Lordship has heard my instructions.

The housemaid that's found this thing that keeps spitting pellets out tries to describe the noises. Whum, whum, whum, whum, whum, whum, whum, whum, whum, whum. Plib. Sir. Plib. Said the Berserse omely.

Yes, sir. Plib. Echoes Mrs. Whitlow. That's what maybe we just kind of split into nothing earlier. That was when it spat at me, sir. Said Cassandra. Hex specterated, corrected Mrs. Whitlow. And I think the determined hex specterated

and then her twitching when Arch Chancellor refers to it as pots going around gobbling all over people. Yeah, that's another very kind of class-conscious thing, isn't it? Refusing to say certain words. Yeah, it's a bit like the whole class thing we were talking about with Sybil Ramkin where like middle-class people make this effort to make themselves look a certain way and believe it. Whereas Sybil Ramkin was truly past an old money,

which meant she could stomp around in muddy jogpers that belonged to her grandfather. Exactly, yeah. And the same thing because Mrs. Whitlow is this sort of Whitlow, is this aspiring middle-class thing. So she speaks a certain way and looks a certain way. And so she's appalled when someone who is above her in the class stratum, in this case partly because of the professional nature.

So the Arch Chancellor says gobbling because she would never dream of saying such a word. You'd say that somebody was perspiring instead of sweating, you'd say, yeah. Yes. And you'd say go to the restroom instead of the loo. Yeah. Yeah, it's the weird class thing.

I nearly bought an old, I was in this antique shop the other day and I found an old copy of Debrets and I nearly bought it because it's full of stuff like this. I've got a massive copy of Debrets up here. I need to borrow that at some point. Taxi for into Old Etiquette stuff. Old Etiquette stuff. This is still the play that's lurking in my brain

and has been for about three years now, which is the comedy of Mannet's set in a post-apocalyptic bunker where a copy of Debrets is one of the only pieces of literature they've got. So I love Mrs. Whitlow and I love Mrs. Whitlow's H's. Yes, not very good. Oh, H's. H's, yes, that's another thing. You don't say H if you're properly posh.

It's H. Yes. And yes, you say Louie. But really, it's all bollocks, of course. Oh, yeah. So very, very ingrained in all of us here. It is, the British class system is all ridiculous. Once again, recommending watching the English.

Watching the English, yes. Very good, very good. It is hilarious listening to your wrong about again this week with the Diana thing because... They're so bemused by a lot of the nature of... Yeah, just hearing it from a fresh point of view. Yeah, because it's also, this is an American podcast where they talk about pop culture things and do much deeper dives into it. And they're talking about Princess Diana right now.

Yeah. And they're sort of all bemused by the boarding schools and the absent parents and the hunting parties and shoots and things. And so things I think we take for granted just exist in English life. Not for us, but we know there's a class of people that do this. Yeah. Like they were confused that there is a sport called netball. Well, I feel that they are very lucky for never having to have played it

because it is a terrible, terrible, terrible sport. And I went to a school where the netball lot were called the county upper netball team. So... Yep. So yeah. I went to the school next door and we greatly enjoyed calling each other county upper netball team. Yeah, I'm sure you did. Like I wasn't on the team, you'll be shocked to hear.

Shocked. I saw your tweet about it because when someone was tweeting about netball in relationship to that episode of the podcast, and I saw you respond something on Twitter, but there was someone talking about the fact that like in England, people who do sports aren't the popular people. And it's the people who went and smoked behind the tennis sheds with the popular people. Well, I don't know. I think our year group was a bit weird because we had more of a

classically American setup there. The popular kids were pretty good at sports. So we had a... Like I've always found it interesting how different it is because we went to schools next door to each other. Yeah. Then in my school, the popular kids were good at sports, but they were on an equal social strata to the kids that smoked behind the tennis courts.

Yeah, but there was like a certain amount of people that smoked behind the... And like the child's lot, the townies. Yeah. But then there were another group of people who went off to smoke weed somewhere else and they weren't the same social strata. No. So like I used to smoke behind the tennis courts, but I was not cool. I was...

Because I used to smoke behind the tennis courts in like a sad emo gateway. You were just unhappy. I was like a queer emo smoking behind the tennis courts. So I was much lower on the social strata. I would go and have sad lesbian thoughts. It was a Catholic school. Sad lesbian smoking. Oh my God, please, please make that one of your poems about being a sad lesbian

smoking behind the tennis court. Please. I might do it. I might. Oh God, I don't know why I'm finding this so pleasing. It's very, very uncool of me considering I'm not a sad Catholic lesbian and never have been. And so I probably shouldn't be punching down, but that's hilarious.

I don't know how many more poems about queerness and Catholicism I can do. I've already done like the perfect one. Yeah, but you haven't done this one exactly. No, no, I haven't. I feel like this is more lighthearted than your incredible angry one. That one isn't angry. It's filthy. Wait, what am I thinking of?

I don't know. I've got a lot of angry poems. I was talking about the really dirty one though. Oh, fuck. Yeah. No, yeah. No, no, the one I'm thinking is a little more whimsy. Yes.

Anyway, anyway, I will not be reading the dirty one out on the podcast. Maybe it will not. This is not my podcast. Sorry. So, yeah, monster name. Who's who? This is when they're revising and I just think some of the monster names are really funny. So, yeah, what's the name of the outer dimensional monster?

Who's distinctive cryers? You're what? You're what? You're what? You're what? Job soddeth. And a job is quite like an old fashioned now. I suppose it was probably quite an 80s, 90s term for a certain sort of boy.

Job swerve. Oooligan. Oooligan. Hoodie. What do we call them now darling? It was Hoodie when it was David Cameron. We don't say champs because that's demonization of the working class. Yes.

I think I mostly just call them children and snort in disgust. Yeah, anyway, you all know who we mean. We're trying not to be offensive, but honestly, our vague dismissal is probably just as offensive. But anyway, you're what is exactly the kind of thing. Yeah. It's and it's you're what? Not you what? Which is a very different thing.

Oh yes, absolutely. You what is popular and grime. Is it? God, I have never sounded whiter. Grime. Now what is grime darling? Grime is a genre of music. The terrible thing is I would know very little about grime if I hadn't been into very

white labour politics a few years ago. Yeah, like we all know who Stormzy is now. Oh, I hate me. To be fair, I got into Stormzy before I joined the Labour Party because I work with children. I've never liked you less. I'm not saying that's the worst sentence I've ever said, like really, really high up there. I've never liked you less.

And yes, I am still very fond of you so well done, but still gosh. One of the other monsters I like is to shup Aklothep, infernal statoid with a million young who talk to its victims by holding them down and showing them pictures of its children. And then I'm going to do this for each episode we do on this. I'm just picking out a couple of my favourite movie references. I'm a bunch of probably going over my head because I have not seen all movies ever. And this is so like.

The fact that I'm getting quite a lot of these means that basically the whole thing must be movie references because as we distinguished, I not watched movies. But I like the dreams people having in ginger dreams of red carpets and cheering crowds and a grating. She kept coming back to a grating in the dream where a rush of warm air blew up her skirts, which is lovely. I will always be happy about a Marilyn Monroe reference because I love Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Monroe films.

Another little reference I really liked because this is when dibblers come back to the city and it's raining. And there's a talk about rain dripping off the gutters, had a rhythm all of its own. I was trying to work out what this rhythm was meant to be as it was written. It's only the throwaway line of Nobby saying he must be off his nuts singing in the rain like that. But I realised the rhythm was meant to be. Yeah, I was trying to work out if it was like some sting from Paramount Pictures or something.

Yeah, that's what I thought as well until I realized it was that kind of thing. Yeah. But yeah, is it Fred Astaire who did sing in the rain? Yeah, it's Fred Astaire. Yeah. He got like pneumonia. Ginger like Ginger Rogers. Sorry.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't I didn't point that out. No, I should have got that one. So yeah, those were the little bits we liked. Onto the biggest stuff. Francine, do you want to talk to me about alchemy? No. Okay. Sorry, Eddie.

Yes, Eddie. You should stop framing things as a question for me. It's only a chance for me to be a dick. Francine, please tell me about alchemy. Okay. I've been ever such a good girl. Have you? Yeah, no, I'm barely a girl.

You've been ever such a good being. I'm not going to commit to mammal today. Yeah, no, that's fair. I just enjoy reading about alchemy and so it was a nice chance once that building kept blowing up in Angkor Pork to do so. Alchemy is a bit of a weird one because it's not really like one thing, is it? It's not.

And it's got its roots like way back in ancient Egypt and ancient Asia and all of this stuff. But now it's kind of seen very much as Philosopher's Stone turning lead into gold and that's pretty much it. But like until reasonably recently, like pre-1700s, it was chemistry. It was like synonymous with chemistry. It was the science of the time and it would kind of dip in and out of more occult things and like astrology and tie in with various religions, you know, whatever was in at the time. Well, that's where the whole like John Dee stuff.

He was an alchemist. Tell me about John Dee. John Dee was like an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. And he was very much a scientist and an alchemist, but he also was very on the occult stuff. And like there are some, like there's obviously evidence is very weird, but there are some historical theories about the fact he was effectively looking for the Philosopher's Stone to prolong Queen Elizabeth I's reign because she didn't have heirs. Oh, cool.

Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah, so. Sorry, no, sorry. No, no, no, no, that's cool. And yeah, actually like monarchs and alchemists have quite a history of like unsurprisingly, because monarchs want power and alchemists promise that tying in with these alchemists being like a guild as well.

I thought it was quite interesting in 1403 Henry IV banned the practice of multiplying metals, which basically banned a lot of alchemy. But you could buy a license to attempt to make gold alchemically. And so for a couple of monarchs like Henry V and VI and one of the Edwards, I think, you could buy like alchemist licenses. So it was basically like a almost like a guild kind of thing, which is pretty cool. But yeah. And then from from about 1720 though, chemists decided to distinguish themselves from alchemists.

And this was when chemistry became the kind of scientifically rigorous field and alchemy kind of stuck with being a little more arcane and or cult. Although, you know, there's some question about whether that was entirely fair and whether people called themselves chemists just kind of nicked a bunch of alchemist work, basically, you know, the whole fucky history and everybody gets a bum deal when you look into the history of science. And then obviously, obviously, the Victorians revived it for a little while because that's what Victorians did. We haven't bitched about Victorians for ages.

Anyway, so that more or less all I have to say that's even vaguely relevant on the topic, but alchemy and history of is so fucking extensive with so many fun rabbit holes to go down that I thoroughly recommend anyone take far too long on the Wikipedia and associated sources. Excellent. Anything any Wikipedia page starts into in ancient Egypt and doesn't end until after the Victorians is a good one. Yeah, that's that's that's a history. Yeah, we had a nice time going through a list of cryptids on Victor Wikipedia the other day.

That was a cryptids. Oh, cryptids. You so mysterious. All I want is to become a cryptid. Well, I'm not sure you exist. Like right now, you exist to me as a low res silhouette photo, much like Nessie. So yeah, have I ever really seen you? What is reality?

Memories like notoriously unreliable. Less than two weeks ago. Sorry. I exist. You exist. Movie posters exist. He she. They are hand glided.

Um, so yeah, I like old movie posters. I love old movie posters. I like them a lot. Um, you've got I looked. Yeah, we've got a bunch hanging up around the place. Tom Chantrell is the artist of our house, which sounds very grand, but it just means that Jack spent too much money on post as well. But movie posters, I decided to look right back because we are looking at

the dawn of Hollywood here. Yeah. Movie posters are boring as fuck to start with. So quite parallel to how Silverfish was doing it. Yeah, I'll send you a couple. I saved some, send you a signal. So if you want to turn your phone off, airplane for a minute. We, um, I was talking about the little cinema I work in.

One of the coolest things about it is a bit that customers don't get to see, which is the loft, which sort of has our changing room and stuff in, and which is all like, so the stairs going up to it and then the whole room itself and then the plywood walls put up that make our little changing section are all papered with movie posters, including the ceiling. Oh, cool. It's amazing. So it's like really weird as you go up the stairs.

There's a few really old movie posters, which I will take a couple of pictures of for our listeners and put them on twister or something. Yeah, I do. But then as you kind of get up the stairs, we've used more recent ones. So there's like this loads of 90s ones. There's a spice world one up there. Oh, wow. And they kind of get more modern as like more sort of walls have been put up.

Oh, see, these are cool. I like these. Okay. So the first one is like from the 1910s. So could you describe that for us? So this is keystone comedy, hearts and planets. And there is a woman holding a man's hand while another man opens a door, holding an umbrella with a fantastic beard and a top hat.

And it says at the bottom, interrupted. Yeah. Everybody is fully dressed. Yes. Very well dressed. Real attempt to make you want to see this film. Yes. There's not much in the way of colour.

And I've got no idea what the plot is. Yeah. I mean, we know it's a comedy just because that's in the name of the company. And the man holding an umbrella sure looks comically unhappy. Well, everyone knows an umbrella is a surefire reach of comedy. And then if you go across to the next one, I sent you, that was from the fifties. So 40 years later.

This is fantastic. Gloria's Technicolor all round. Yeah. This is man hunters of the Caribbean. Could you describe this poster? Avoiding if you like some of the more problematic parts. I was going to say, like, so we have the main picture is a white man in sort of safari type clothes and a scantily clad white woman.

No, it's mustache. Yes. Yes. The white man is very mustache. She owed the woman has very good hair, considering they're apparently in a Caribbean jungle. Short shorts, obviously. And she's cowering as he points a gun at a snake and also a jaguar.

And then in a little circle, there's a racist bit with a shark. Yes. I applaud you. Not the racism. The deep sea diver appearing to fight with some indigenous chap, I assume, who is wearing a crude deep sea diving outfit somehow. And there's a shark. That's just the inset there.

Yeah, that's just a little inset. Here we also have some explanatory text, which is death defying adventures in an unexplored jungle, which is a bit more Dibbler. That is very Dibbler. Well, this is, as you brought this up, I was going to point out Dibbler's amazing poster design. Yeah, hold on.

I'm still working on this, but so I'm sending you one more, because I feel like a lot of this bit and like Dibbler stuff and what Pratchett's alluding to is B-movie. And so mainstream movies are one thing, but B-movie is where the real genius in posters come out. So this is a movie that wasn't even made, but it's one of the best ones for having all the tropes. When the Earth cracked open, we have in the background

a sort of bit of a post-apocalyptic landscape. The Earth is clearly cracked open. And then in the foreground, we just have a woman wearing a bubbly space helmet. Her tits are out, but she has some kind of black latex bodysuit not covering her breast, but it is covering some other parts and apparently a thigh holster, and she's got gloves on.

So, you know, adequately prepared for whatever she needs to get up to. Also, I'm assuming she's meant to be standing in water and not just doesn't have legs. Yeah, I think so, yeah. But this is another Tom Shantrell one. And if I can ever find it to buy as a high-res poster, I will do. But I haven't been able to find it yet. It is just a fantastic piece of nonsense.

It is marvellous. Yeah, no, on the movie poster thing. I love what the description of the poster design did blur is done for the Kerr and the Barbarian movie. Oh, yeah, really? It showed a picture of what might just possibly be ginger pouting in a blouse too small for her, and Victor in the act of throwing her over one shoulder

while fighting an assortment of monsters with the other hand. In the background, volcanoes were erupting, dragons were zooming through the sky, and cities were burning down. The motion picture they could not ban, read fism, hesitantly. A scorching adventure in the white-hot dawn of a new continent. A man and a woman thrown together in a whirlpool of a world gone mad,

starring Dolores de Sine as the woman, and Victor Maraschino as co-in the Barbarian. Thrills, adventure, elephants, coming soon to a pit near you. Fucking elephants. I can't do the proper movie announcer voice. AJ, who by this point our listeners will be aware of as the accidental Satanist who performed the radio play for the podcast, does an amazing movie announcer voice.

He had to do some voice-over for a monologue I performed that opened with me acting in a trailer for a film, and it was fantastic. This ridiculous idea of Dibbler just managing to be such a good hype man. Yeah, he doesn't really care about what the reality is of the film. He just knows what people are going to come and see, and they'll like it when they get there.

Yeah, exactly. And he's sort of building up these quick backstories for Ginger and Victor as well. Ginger's now Dolores de Sine, and she's the daughter of a clatch-in pirate in his wild-held headstrong captive, and Victor's the son of a rogue wizard and a reckless flamenco dancer. I've missed a word out there because we're not using that word on the podcast.

I really like this whole concept of wild ideas and the way reality works on the disc, just because it's something that comes up as a theme that runs through a lot of the books. So at this point, we're still talking about things from the Dungeon Dimension who pushed through whenever reality gets a bit weaker. But this idea of Hollywood being as something as intangible

as an idea was exactly what it was. It was a wild idea, and it just sort of popped into the disc. And this is the thing that happens a couple of times, where a wild idea turns up and runs rampant and twists the nature of reality. And because reality is sort of weirdly stretched on a rubber sheet as we've tried to understand physics before, it's great fun.

And I really like how he does this as we go through the books. The idea of Hollywood leaked innocently and joyfully into the disc world, and reality leaked out. And it ties in with this idea of what Hollywood is. It's this thing where things become more real than real. And reality sort of goes away and creates this completely fictional world that is somehow more real to people than actual reality.

Yeah, because it's like a caricature, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And that replaces the memory of your mind, yeah. And this takes it to its logical conclusion, which is what if that actually ripped a hole in the fabric of this time continuum? That's its logical conclusion, is it?

Yes, definitely. Holes in the space type. Yes, it's a theme that runs through the books a lot, and we get to see it played within lots of different ways, and this just happens to be one of my favourites. And then the last thing I had was a nice little question. When Victor was asking how everything works with the Handlemen and the Imps and how they actually filmed things,

and the gaffer thinks for a second, and then just says, string, all works by string. He'd be amazed how things have fallen to bits around here if it wasn't for me and my ball of string. And that is a thing, like the world is still together with fucking duct tape and willpower. Oh yeah, absolutely. So what item for you is kind of loosely holding your life together?

Oh, that presumes a lot, but... He said loosely. Do you have an answer while I think of this? Oh, God, no, I didn't actually think about it from myself at all. Okay, cool. Well, actually, right now I'm in the blanket fort, so I'm going to say laundry errors. I like that.

What do I fix shit with? I'm always fixing shit. What do I use? I think it's held together loosely with packing tape. There's packing tape on a lot of things, wire spraying, anything I want to stick, something else, basically. I think pasta and cheese are also largely holding my life together right now. Yeah, in a more metaphorical way,

melted cheese is definitely a load-bearing part of life. Load-bearing cheese. I'm hungry now. Yeah, me too. Sorry, Lassie, have you got an obscure reference for me, a pineal for me? I have, I have. There's so many fucking obscure and non-obscure references through this,

it was really hard to pick one. So eventually I just picked one that wasn't in the annotated practice files, and I highly recommend listeners more than usual to go to the annotated practice files for this one just because it says loads of interesting stuff. But this one I caught when the alchemists are talking about making movies on page 25. Lully says, not just illusion, but real illusion, which I think is an etymology reference, because the word illusion comes from to play, to mock, jest, jeer, use irony, and then to play act, basically, in some cases.

And then, yeah, so illusion comes from that. I like it. And it's the same root word that makes up ludicrous, so that's nice. Ludicrous is a great word, I don't use the word ludicrous often enough. Ludicrous, yes. Ludicrous, yeah. Marvelous. I think that's a reference, or I may have just made a complete jump into nothing,

but either way it was an excuse to do a bit of etymology. Yeah, we learned a bit about etymology, and really that's what I look for from a Discworld podcast. Yes. Right, I think that's everything that could ever be said ever about part one of Moving Pictures. Yes. We will be back. Apart from all the things that we... Goodness sake, it's very important that you don't at me this week.

Well, look, I'm literally about to ask our listeners to at us. So, at me... Okay, we'll do actually at us, but... Yeah, do actually at us, we like it. I'm such a bad mood, I'm sorry. It's fine. So, next week, we are talking about part two, which goes from page 112. Gaspard led the way out of the alley and through the dark hinterland of scrubby brushes and sandgrass

beyond the town, and ends on page 219, when the fire had died down, they raked some of the ashes together for a barbecue at the end of shooting party under the stars. That's where we're going to be next week. In the meantime, dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram at the true shall make ye frat. You can follow us on Twitter at Make Ye Frat Pod, on Facebook at the true shall make ye frat. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks and albatrosses,

the true shall make ye frat pod at gmail.com. As always, do not try and explain the rules of cricket or time travel to us. Please don't forget to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast, because it helps other people find us. Like, there's a podcast, not physically in person, because there's one of those... I feel like more important than that is just tell people about us, if you think someone might enjoy the podcast, tell them. Well, yes, also...

Tell them like, threateningly. Yeah, please... Not just like a gentle recommendation. Say it with like menaces. If you can, hold a blunt object in one hand. Yes, please do. Not a sharp object, a blunt object. Yeah, I mean, we're not beastly.

Do spread the good word of the true shall make ye frat. You can also, if you want... Not a cult. Definitely not a cult. Anything that needs to specify that is definitely good. If you want to keep up with my Inktober poetry. Oh, yeah. Maybe explain what that is again, because...

Yeah. This is the thing I do every October. This is my fourth year doing it. I write and release a poem into the world every day this month. Mostly videos, hopefully, but with text and things as well. So you can follow my... You can go propoed, yeah. No, but I didn't use one much last year.

Okay. I'll figure it out. So, yeah, so follow me on Twitter at Joanna Hagen, or on Instagram at Joanna Macuccio, or follow my Facebook page, Joanna Hagen Spoken Word, and you can check out the poetry that I'm putting out. I'll link all of those in the show notes, by the way, listeners, because Joanna talks very quickly when she's trying to self-promote.

Yes, I do, because I'm very embarrassed by doing it. But I also want people to see it, because that makes it worth doing. And... Read us a poem, Joanna. We want to sample these words before we go to all of the effort of clicking on a hyperlink, so helpfully provided by your brilliant co-host. All right, I will do a quick one,

because we've been recording for quite a while. This is one from the very first year I did Inktober, because quite often I run out of ideas and end up having to write a couple of poems about writer's block. And it's called The Dog Ate My Homework. And it's called The Dog Ate My Homework. It's not there today, I'm sorry. Could I get back to you tomorrow?

There was this idea I thought I'd borrow, but I left it. Just forget it. And I know I promised inspiration and desire. I said I would write in lines of fire and on my funeral pyre, there would be words, words, nothing but words, but I'm afraid they've left the building. And I think I've got the feeling that your faith has been misplaced. The lily might need gilding.

There's no sparks left in this place. There is no magic left to give you. It's just me. So please forgive me, but they haven't been well lately. And the words that I promised, the dog ate them. Very good. That's also like the closest I've come to forming poetry in like a year.

That was great. I enjoyed that very much. The first time and this time. Awesome. So yes, check it out if you're into that sort of thing. Do it, do it. I might even try and do a couple. I certainly won't do it every day.

Let's stop pretending. I'm not going to do that, but I might not join in. I might try and join in once or twice if we do like a joint prompt or something. Yes, that'll be fun. And in the meantime, dear listener. Don't let us detain you. Hello, darling.

What are you wooing at? Oh, did you have a nightmare? Oh, did you wash yourself awake? Are you OK? Listeners, I would like to clarify that Francine is talking to the puppy and not me. Oh. I won't be that nice to you if you fall asleep

during the podcast. Next door had their baby. Oh, that's nice. Well, I mean, not for you living next door to them. Well, that's not so bad. It sounds like a lamb. I'm not sure if Jack and I are just like irredeemably rural, but it sounded just like a lamb in distress to both of us.