The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 33: Moving Pictures Pt.2 (A Well Hatted Man)

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “Moving Pictures”. Recommendations Galore! Elephants! Plib! 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 Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - GoodreadsDisc-Tober 2020 Art ChallengeThe Watch - A First Look At BBC America’s Newest SeriesA Statement About Inktober — Mr Jake ParkerTerry Pratchett Facebook GroupMeet the Team at Discworld MonthlyDesert Island DiscworldPratchatRadio Morpork | A Podcast About Terry Pratchett's DiscworldThe Discworld Portal - PodbeanWho Watches the Watch: A Discworld PodcastThe Best of Hyacinth and Her Sisters | Keeping Up AppearancesThomas Edison Drove the Film Industry to California | Mental FlossGone with the Wind (1939) - IMDbThe Thief of Bagdad (1940) - IMDbThe Duchess (TV Series 2020– ) - IMDbLassie - WikipediaMARINA AND THE DIAMONDS - HollywoodThe Annotated Pratchett File - Moving PicturesThe Blues Brothers 106 miles to Chicago Lovecraft Country (TV Series 2020– ) - IMDbThe Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett - GoodreadsSpectacular Special Effects (Knowledge) by Diana KimptonMetropolis (1927) - IMDbBlazing Saddles (1974) - IMDbThe First Seismograph | The World of ChineseMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

focus. That's the thing. How are you feeling? I'm okay. Mental health still a bit shaky. Yeah. My ceiling is dripping, which is cool. That's not Yeah, that sounds like just a just an extra bit of fun for you this week. Yeah, no, it was exactly what I needed. But the poetry is going well.

Yes, it seems to be I've still got a couple I haven't listened to yet, I'm afraid, but I will get there. I'm quite one every day, Joanna, you kept it up every day. How am I meant to deal with that? I feel like the doing a video every day thing will drop by the end of the month. Is it quite a lot of effort like setting it up? It's not even setting it up. It's the fact that I have time to

write a poem, I have time to record a poem and release a poem, I don't have time to memorize the poem necessarily. So the videos feel like they're not great quality because I'm having to read something. Oh, that hasn't affected pine enjoyment of them, I must say. That's fair. I'm proud of I'm proud of yesterday's because I was in exactly the my right mood to write a ranty sarcastic poem about Tories and careers.

I read that one and enjoyed it very much. I haven't watched it yet. So I read it in bed. It was a fun out loud one. Because yeah, that careers advice questionnaire the Tories put out is fucking hilarious. Yeah, I think we got pretty much identical options, except yours already happens to be what you're doing. I just love a chef didn't come up anywhere. And yeah, yeah, be the idea of this thing is because they've

suggested that people in creative industries retrain. And the first thing it suggested was actor, literally the first thing. Yeah, I feel like they could have just had a quick look at their own quiz before sending the link out to every or not sending the link out but suggesting it wasn't it in the press conferences and stuff. Yeah, but you know, it did also suggest that I become a circus performer, which is definitely an option in our current times.

Oh, and I mean, with our current skill levels as well, let's let's not beat around the bush drawing and either of us are exactly proficient on the trophies. I can plate spin. Can you? A little bit. I can't juggle for shit. I can kind of do the Diablo thing from misspent youth in the Abbey Gardens. Oh yeah, Christ.

That's been a long time ago, Joanna. That was 15 years ago. Okay, yeah, so I haven't tried it for a while. I've done I did fire point and didn't burn myself. Yeah, that still surprises me to this day. I never tried them while I were on fire because that just seemed like a way to give myself permanent scarring, but I am better at it when they're on fire, it turns out. Oh, like tight roping without a safety net is apparently easier

and advertic comments. Yes, I will not be trying tight roping or trapezing any time soon. Very difficult to take trapeze classes. The the place that does pole dancing classes nearby, I feel like might do aerial stuff. They do like aerial ballet aerial hoop stuff like the hoops. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I kind of similar skill set.

Yeah, I kind of want to do that. Trying to talk you into becoming a circus performer now. I just reread the Night Circus by Aaron Morgenstern, which means I now really want to run run away and join the circus, but very specifically that circus, which unfortunately doesn't exist. Yes, fictional circuses did not come off on my results either. Have you read that one?

I have not. Worth reading? Oh, yes, it's beautiful. It's a very like the young adult one. No, it's aimed at adults. OK, I might be thinking of something else. I've got a cover in my head that I saw in Waterstones a couple of times, but it's like black, white and red.

Oh, yeah, no, that's the one I think I guess just the design made me think young adult. Yeah, no, the black, white and red thing is very young adult looking, but it doesn't put me off. I'm not going to lie. I like it's beautiful. A good way. It's beautiful magical realism.

It's like a very relaxing book to read, quite soothing. So I highly recommend that's my recommendation of the week. All right, excellent. I've got a recommendation of the week, which is written down somewhere in my notes. And when we hit it, we'll both be surprised. Sneaky recommendation. I like speaking of you have something on your

schedule for tomorrow night, right? Tomorrow night. Tonight. It's Friday. Oh, it's me. It's Friday. Yeah. Oh, my God. We know the days of the week. I don't know if I'm actually going to get to watch it tonight, but it is being like archived.

So I think you'll be able to watch our new YouTube afterwards. New York Comic Con has a panel on the new watch series with the showrunner, some of the actors, the woman playing civil is going to be on there and the panel itself is being hosted by a vet, Nicole Brown, who's very cool. We like her. Who's she? Shirley in community. Oh, cool. Yeah.

I am going to double check that I am thinking of the right actress now. Oh, yeah. Go for it. Well, you check that. My little schedule, Discworld thing is that Discworld Monthly, I didn't realize till yesterday, is doing something called Disctober, which is like its own spin on Inktober, obviously, but it's for visual artists who want to

do like Discworld fan arts. It's got a prompt for every day of October, like today. What's today? The elements? The elements. Gosh, it's organization. Yeah, that's apt for them. So like, I guess you could do. Oh, I don't know what's organized on the disc.

Ironically, wizards. Oh, yeah, veterinary. Yes, drum, not drum, not in his paper clips. Yeah, Stanley's pin collection. So the artwork challenge is like emphasis on visual art. So I think the hashtag is for that. Disctober, that there's nothing stopping like fucking fan sake or poetry people just doing their own thing and using

the prompts. Yeah, I thought about using the prompts for some poetry, but if I do, I won't tag it as Disctober because it's a visual art focus. I don't want to take, I've already kind of nicked Inktober, which isn't meant to be a poetry thing. What was Inktober then? Is it an artist?

Inktober is like a visual art thing. The other is you do a lot of ink drawings. There's some controversy about it now. Apparently the guy who invented the hashtag was kind of like, no, it's mine. Stop taking it away. Oh, no, no, no, I read that. I read the breakdown of that. Apparently he got kind of misinterpreted.

He was really cross because people were like making merch. Oh, right. And like selling like hashtag Inktober stuff. Yeah. And like, I think when he had an overzealous lawyer or something like that. Anyway, he might just have been backpedaling, but I read a very brief breakdown of that.

Not fair enough. But yeah, either way, I think you're onto a bit of a losing battle if you try and control any internet babies you put out Yeah. But yeah, the only reason I'd started doing it as October and tagging it was Inktober is because it just happened to be an October where I got into writing poetry again. And I thought, oh, fuck it.

I'll see if I can do it every day. Yeah, everything seems to be October, doesn't it? You got Stoptober for like sober for October. You got like every art community seems to have its own one as well. So Washtober seems to be the watercolor one. Oh, no. Yeah, which is cute. There's a lot of people doing like inks and watercolour drawings, which I'm enjoying.

I'm not very good at those. The ink and wash stuff I'd like to be. There's also obviously November is NaNoWriMo National Novel Writing Month, which I've never managed to like complete a draft during November. But as I'm getting back into the habit of writing every day, I might try and not finish my draft of my novel, but at least write to more of it.

You could use it as an opportunity to get into the Pratchett habit of writing 500 words a day. Yeah, 500 words a day, yeah. I would love to be that kind of writer. Me too. I feel like it's possible to like drill that discipline, and especially for you, because you have a good record of sticking to habits until you're like violently kicked out of them.

Yes, which speaking of, I've done yoga every day, so far this month. Well, then my night, that is good. Well done. Yes. And yeah, so did you find out the answer to what you were looking at? Oh, yeah. So it is Shirley from Community, Yvette Nicole Brown, she's the one hosting it. I will, well, I won't bother putting a link in the show notes, but I'll tweet something later. I heard about it from Discworld Monthly, who are very cool and everyone should follow.

Yeah, I feel like we haven't mentioned them enough. We've just mentioned them twice in the soft open, but like in general, we need to give them more shout outs. They are fantastic. They are such a big part of loving Discworld. Do you have any idea how big that team is? I have no idea. I have a feeling it's like not big. I think it's mostly just the two of them, Rachel and Jason,

who are a married couple who, among other things, it's a monthly newsletter about Discworld News from all around the world. Cons, like they mod the Facebook group, the official one, didn't they? Like, there's a lot of work. And they are great about modding the Facebook group. Yeah. Yeah, literally, the only thing that annoys me on Terry Pratchett, Facebook group is the fan casting. They're really good at stamping out everything else.

And they did manage to cut down some of the fan casting. Yeah, I think it goes through fits and bursts now. There's more of it with all the watch stuff coming up, which I've stopped reading any comments on the watch thing, because as much as I think it's potentially not going to be great in all that jazz, I am so sick of everyone saying, ah, this is terrible and I'm not going to watch it and it shits on the legacy and how dare it exists.

And it's like, dude, the books are still there. Exactly. Yeah. I can definitely understand why, like, we talked about the other week, why Rhianna Pratchett was annoyed. But, like, it's not our dad. I'm annoyed on her behalf. The rest of it, as far as I'm concerned, might be good, might not be good. I'm leaning towards not that great for massive disqual fans,

but at the end of the day, you know, I don't let it annoy me too much that the colour of magic sky thing exists. So I'll try not to let this one annoy me too much either. Yes, I've managed to not be massively bitter about casting David Jason as Rince Wind. Try as I might convert you. I'm a bit bitter. Oh, last bit of Desquelty. Tangential stuff.

I finally got around to listening to a bit of Dazzard Island Desquelty. Oh, yeah. Which, as Radio Four listeners will know, is a play on Dazzard Island discs in which you take a famous person and interview them on Radio Four about which pieces of music they would have on an island with them and also talk about their lives in between in a very clever interview way. And Al, I've got my surname who hosts Al Kennedy.

I think who hosts Dazzard Island Discworld is similarly a really smart interview. Which I was really pleased to find out. I don't listen to many Discworlds podcasts because I am wary of accidentally kind of stealing material or just being overly influenced. And so I only listen to episodes that cover books we've already done. But Dazzard Island Discworld, I noticed the latest episode was on Nation, which isn't Discworld and was interviewing a comedian

who hadn't read any Discworld. And so it was just so it was so different. I felt safe doing it. And then I realized like his format is so different from ours. There's no need to worry. So I'm going to go back and listen to that. I've listened to odd episodes of other Discworld podcasts in the past. I haven't had a chance to listen to any Dazzard Island Discworld yet.

But yeah, shout out to there's loads of great ones. You've got Dazzard Island Discworld. You've got Radio Moorpork who watches the watch is a new one who are calling themselves the bad. Yeah, apparently they're the bad boys of Discworld podcasting. Oh, they've got they're great with memes on the Twitter. I can say that. Oh, I like the Discworld portal.

That's just one chap, like, shortish episodes, which is like quite different from most of the formats. And possibly the longest running. I'd have to double check that, but he's really cool. He's an American chap. There's Pratchat podcast as well. Then I was doing a similar thing to us, I think. Yeah, so shout out to any of the other podcast hosts

who occasionally manage to listen to other podcasts when they have time between doing all of this crap that we know. We need to film that form the Guild of Discworld podcasters. Oh, God, that sounds violent just because it's a guild, not because we're inherently violent people, I assume. I mean, by a guild, I mean a group chat, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, that's the modern version of, isn't it? A modern pandemic version of.

Modern pandemic is definitely group chats. Modern pandemic is an excellent band name. Yeah, I'm pretty sure one have spawned during COVID. We nearly got through a whole soft open without mentioning the pandemic. All right, well, let's call this the end of the soft open before it goes into depressing territory. Shall we make a podcast?

Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Trishamikki Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every brick from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today is part two of our discussion of moving pictures.

Part two, the long-awaited sequel. Two moving two pictures. Yeah, fuck. Notice on spoilers before we go into it. This is a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book we're on moving pictures, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series.

And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there so you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Across the mountains, carried on the back of 326 elephants. It's only 326 so far. Yes, we'll get that. We'll pick them up along the way.

The real journey with the elephants we found along the way. So a quick bit of follow-up and dispatch from the round world. Stacey Ketchum pointed out on Instagram that she'd always imagined Mrs. Whitlow to be a bit higher-synth bucket from Keeping Up Appearances. It's pronounced bouquet. It is pronounced bouquet. And that hadn't occurred to me.

And now I'm going to go watch a bunch of clips of Keeping Up Appearances on YouTube and link to it in the show notes. God, I did that not very long ago and I can't remember why, but it is still droll. It's not something to binge watch, I don't think, but it is still droll. To be honest, it was probably last time we talked about Mrs. Whitlow.

Yeah, I think that may have occurred to us months and months and months ago. And possibly we didn't even leave it in the podcast, but... Entirely possible. One foot in the grave is the other one I was watching a few clips of. I like one foot in the grave. I've been re-watching Black Books recently,

which always brings me joy. Yes. Because one day we hope to be misanthropic bastards running book shops. Yep, that's all I want in life. Actual follow-up, we were wondering last week about why Hollywood was built where it was and if it had to do with labour laws.

I'm glad you looked into it. I did, I had a quick Google. So basically, Thomas Edison's moving picture patents technically had the patent on pretty much any moving pictures created. Thomas Edison again, bastard. That bastard. So filmmakers went out West because it was a lot easier

to dodge getting sued by the patent's office. Right, patents, not labour laws. Yep, I mean, also there's ideal weather there and there's scenery. You've kind of got desert and mountains and sun and beach and all in a very small space. But largely it was dodging patent laws. That's amazing.

So that made me quite happy. Just physically dodging as well, isn't it? It's not like, oh, the law was different in that state. It was just like still kind of wild Westy, wasn't it? Literally, what, you're going to come all the way out here to sue me? Are you a fuck? Yeah, Hollywood started being founded, as it were,

in the beginning of the 1900s. I think the first full film made was like 1908. That sounds plausible, certainly. Yeah, yeah. I went down a quick Wikipedia rabbit hole of the founding of towns in the US because it's very different to how towns are founded in the UK. More deliberate.

Yes, whereas the UK, they just sort of grew. Yeah, yeah. Like London is a massive city. Somebody got tired one day and stopped here and now. London is a massive city that's basically just a bunch of villages that crashed into each other and got stuck. It's very sticky, very sticky town. London is very sticky.

Oh, fuck me. That's going to be a great Wikipedia rabbit hole to go down when I've got the time. Yep, into that. There's been some really good wiki rabbit holes connected to this book, actually. Yes, I've had to try and be good. As well as some very long films we didn't watch.

Sorry, listeners in advance. I read some IMDb summaries, I'll have you know. Oh, yeah. Sometimes I went so long as to read the Wikipedia plots and opposite. Wow, I knew. I did not. Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously

on Moving Pictures? Sure thing. I wish I could do this in a movie and ounce of voice, but I just can't, so I'm not going to try. Excellent. Alchemists go boom, corn goes pop, audiences go ooh. Perpetual student Victor Tugelbend is called by forces unknown to holy wood,

the new home of Moving Pictures, aka the Flicks. So too is Gaspode, the real Wonder Dog, and Victor's new colleague, Ginger. The pair are briefly employed as actors, but find themselves out of work after lunch. Fortunately, their flick is such a success that movie mogul CMO T. Dibbler previously of, can you legally call this food, fame?

Frantically forgives and fucks off to find them. Also, something weird is happening on a hill. I like it. Trying to get them like as rapid fire as possible. Just because I find it quite amusing to read them out like terms and conditions. Yeah, that's fair. Cool, I haven't seen your book yet, that's bristly.

That's a veritable rainbow of observations. I seem to put more post-its in when I'm stressed. It's like I'm making sure we have enough content despite the fact we have literally never not had enough content. It's like dogs who shed hair when they're stressed. You just like shed post-it notes or maybe your books. Oh, I need to order more post-its.

Yeah, me too. Again. Right, so this week in Moving Pictures, as Dibbler continues to hunt down his stars, Victor and Gaspo had up the hill to meet some chatty quadrupeds in a particularly intelligent duck. A confused ginger finds Victor before Dibbler finds them both and Gaspo negotiates better rates

for our leading man and woman. The wizards contemplate the resagraph as Victor faces an early start and Silverfish gets a promotion. Holywood takes hold and camels are in single file as production begins on Shadow of the Desert. Victor and Ginger get carried away in front of the camera with stars in their eyes. A few enterprising clatchians plan the movements

of 1,000 elephants. As filming wraps for the day, Victor and Ginger discuss their past plans for the future, not once imagining that Holywood might be using them. The bursar discovers the purpose of the thing that goes plib. Victor Gaspo and a ragtag bunch of misfit mammals bang on about the book on the beach. Victor considers a visit to his hometown.

Detritus attempts trollish courtship rituals with Ruby, who wants none of this old fashioned nonsense. Victor almost asks for a day off as New Dog on the block Ladi arrives. Gaspo negotiates on the shiny coated star's behalf as the moving picture makers start playing with sound and Dibbler promises a trip to Ankhmore Park very soon. Back in Ankh, the librarian watches Shadow of the Desert

for the 40th time and takes a piece of film as a souvenir before going home to consult the necrotelacomnicon. Ginger sleepwalks to the sealed door on the hill. Detritus continues courtship. The librarian reads up on the mysterious door, the elephants move, the dungeon dimensions watch and Victor carries Ginger home. Gaspo and Ladi go for a drink.

The cat and mouse play cat and mouse. Holy wood blooms as Dibbler writes and Gaspo wakes a once again sleepwalking Ginger. Dibbler starts production on his latest click, Blown Away, searing passion in the Ankhmore pork civil war. Silverfish gets fired. Historical accuracy goes out of the window and Dibbler's nephew yells.

Victor and Ginger discuss sleepwalking and wild ideas and after an elephant interlude, filming wraps on Blown Away and the cast get together for a barbecue. Called them bloody flicks, didn't I? Clicks, sorry listeners, for that blatant inaccuracy. How dare you, Friarzy? How very dare I get reality and discworld mixed up again.

And you can tell you've been writing poetry this month. That was a beautiful summary. Yeah, the illiteration's taken hold. Like a terrible, beautiful disease. Oh, I must do a poem that's all just really bad similes. Yes. There are some beautiful ones in this book actually that I didn't even highlight.

I particularly liked Holywood, Sean, like a half-sucked champagne wine gum or something like that. Oh, yeah, that one may be happy. Oh, God, I haven't had wine gums in forever. I think they've got gelatin in, so I can't eat them now. Oh, so does. I get them for Jack occasionally.

I'm sure someone's done a decent vegan version. It's just they'll cost three times as much. Yeah, we sell some really nice vegan sweets at work and they're creasy. Do you? Yes. Which brand? Is it the kittens ones, though?

No. Oh, no. Oh, I like those. Do you not? What candy kittens? No, it's founded by that guy from Made in Chelsea. Oh, is it? Okay, I don't know. I don't know Made in Chelsea well enough

to join in your outrage. I'm sorry. It used to be my hangover TV. It's not anymore. I haven't watched it for a very long time. Well, they're delicious anyway. And they sell them in Sainsbury's. So well done, posh wanker, I assume.

Yes, posh wanker. Well, helicopter and loincloth watch. I'm going loincloth strongly implied, especially during Shadow of the Desert. Sure, sure. I had one eye open in case there was some kind of apocalypse now reference because I know there's helicopters in that

but I didn't spot any yet. I would not spot the apocalypse now reference if it was literally a helicopter crashing into my flat. Yeah, I mean, the music's right at the Valkyries. There are helicopters. It's Vietnam. Yep. We know this much.

And I feel like practice being generous enough with the heavy handedness of his references, we might even spot it. Like even I managed to spot a couple of the really old movie references of movies I've never seen even bits of. So yeah, I definitely did not Google the plot of Gone with the Wind.

I've never seen Gone with the Wind. It's so long. Everything's so fucking long. Well, it's because they used to have intervals in cinemas and you wouldn't be able to take a film home afterwards. Like it wouldn't come out on DVD a year later. So when it was in the cinema, that was it. So going to the cinema was a big event.

You'd go and you'd watch. Oh, the evening entertainment. Yeah, you know, the well-hatted man popping into a Tuesday matinee on a rainy afternoon. Yeah, well-hatted. So these in Jack recently is looking overly well-hatted. Yeah, I did the same thing with the thief of Baghdad. I watched snippets of it and read a summary.

It's a lad in basically because Pratchit referenced it an awful lot, but it's two and a half hours long. And generally, who's got the time? I thought about watching a film last night and then decided no, because I didn't want to commit to two and a half hours of something and then watched all six episodes of The Duchess. Which is, yeah.

Which is like two and a half hours of the film. Which is like two hours. Yeah, good though, right? Loved it. Catherine Ryan is amazing. Oh, I watched it with Becky and we giggled and giggled. Yep, that's another recommendation of the week. Very generous with our recommendations today.

We've enjoyed things. So favorite quotes, I think yours is first. Oh, it is. Yeah, I just put it after yours for testing you. I passed. I'm so proud. I'm so proud. So yeah, it's on page 121 over to 122

on our, before we pay for back additions. Oh, actually, yeah, before we go properly into the section, what are the page number to page numbers? I did say at the end of last week's episode, but we're going from page 112 to the end of page 220. Cool, cool. So over Holywood, the stars were out. They were huge balls of hydrogen heated

to millions of degrees, so hot they could not even burn. Many of them would swell enormously before they died and then shrink to tiny resentful dwarfs remembered only by sentimental astronomers. In the meantime, they glowed because of metamorphosis beyond the reach of alchemists and turned mere boring elements into pure light. I've ranked more pork.

It just rained. Love it. Just reminds me of every time there's a celestial event and you live in England. Yeah. Yeah. It was quite nice and clear last night. I saw the moon.

Oh, that's nice. It's nice to see the moon sometimes. Still less. Look at the Eukid. There we go. Hey, you did a movie reference. Yeah, I have no idea which movie. Here's looking at Eukid.

We learned this at the end of God's Guards. Here's looking at Eukid was a dirty Harry. Ah, that's it, well done. Yeah, definitely Clint Eastwood. All right, what's your quote? I'm going to kind of edit bits of this speech she does as she goes along, but this is ginger. You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?

It's all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they're really good at. It's all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It's all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument.

So they become bad plowmen instead. It's all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they're never even born in a time when it's possible to find out. It's a chance for all of us. The people who aren't wizards and kings and heroes. Holywood's like a big bubbling stew but this time different ingredients float to the top.

There's new things for people to do. Do you know the theaters don't allow women to act but Holywood does. And in Holywood, there's jobs for trolls that don't just involve hitting people. Very good. I love that little ramp from ginger. It's a beautiful concept.

I think it's something we might have talked about before. Yeah, just this idea that there is just often a lack of opportunities for people to meet their potential because... Yeah, it's really sad when you think about it for more than a second as well because you're like... How many wonderful bits of human progress we missed out on just because we failed

to give people equal opportunities for education or gender equality or racial equality and things like that. And like, yeah, even like when you start thinking of like timeline, how many beautiful computer engineers were born in the 1500s, like it's mental. I suppose you could flip it and try and think of it as like a beautiful thing that so many people do find their chances considering the odds, but...

Yes, million to one chances happen nine times out of 10. Well-known statistical fact. Yes, actual fact, definitely a fact. In no way made up. They're characters. Characters. So we've got the duck, the rabbit, the cat and the mouse. Mm-hmm. And that's already very important.

It was just nice to say it like that. Who don't really have names but could possibly go by names such as Mighty Paws, Speedy Hunter, Squeak or Mr. Thumpy. I find it very unfair that after this first conversation they were referred to as victors and salting names rather than... Yes, whatever they wanted to be. I like... A, I really like talking animals that are sarcastic arseholes.

Mm-hmm. I think there's a couple of seeds sort of planted with these talking animals as well, especially around the naming stuff that all come to fruition in a later book that I'm really hyped for. Oh, the one I've only read the ones, yes. Yeah. Yes. So I enjoyed that there.

And yeah, no, I just like the idea of a really angry rabbit. Called Mr. Thumpy. Called Mr. Thumpy. You are, mate. You what? Mr. Thumpy. Also, well, let's say Mr. Thumpy is... Don't call me Mr. Thumpy, is he?

Oh, yes, I'm sorry, yes. And I just noticed that while looking for my favourite thing, he says, and if I raise I'm sorry for how much I'm going to use. Go so, thank you, Do. Do explain. Well, there's a play on Wham-Bam. Thank you, man. Are you saying this is an innuendo or a filthy play on words?

It is a pune. Oh, dear. I don't think it is a pune. It's a dirty joke and it makes me laugh. Yeah. Because I am a child. Go so, thank you, Do. Mr. Thumpy. Mr. Thumpy.

Definitely not Mr. Thumpy. Definitely not Mr. Thumpy. Sol Dibbler. Sol Dibbler. Nephew of the famous Dibbler of... I can't believe this is sausage fame. I can't believe it's not sausage. I can.

Who's kind of been enlisted as Jack of all trades, isn't he? Yes, he's voice president in charge of making pictures. Yeah, what I said. Yes, I just think he's great. He's sort of quite clever. He put something to, he throws ideas together very quickly, but he actually cares about what he's making as a little bit of art as well as just a way to sell things.

He keeps interrupting Dibbler's attempts at marketing. Yeah. And he's very exasperated. Yeah, definitely. I feel like he must be based off some people practically have known in the creative world. Yeah, there is always that person who sort of has to go... No.

The one competent in the room full of eccentric. Yeah, that never happens in theatre. No, no, I'm sure, that's it. No, eccentric's in theatre at all. No, not whatsoever. No charismatic but unbearable people there. God, no, definitely not. So yeah, so I like Sol.

I think he's quite sweet. Also, you know, the slight pistake of Hollywood nepotism in that everyone is now hiring their nephews. Yeah, you can't fire a nephew, you can disown them. Ah, disown, that's the word, handy. Oh, we meet evil-minded son of a bitch. Ah, a camel. Possible distant cousin of you, bastard.

Yes, depends where he was brought in from. Well, he did come from Clatch, so not quite jelly baby. No, however, I like to think that somehow all of the camels of the disc are communicating. I feel like there's some kind of camel Twitter that we don't know about. Yeah, like whispering in the ear of one of those birds that picks bugs off your back

and sending us to tell somebody else the answer to the incredibly difficult mathematical equation of the month, something like that. Yeah, I like that. Camels are far too intelligent to admit to being intelligent. Yeah, you don't want to do a lassie. Oh, God, no.

Laddie, sorry. Laddie. Before we meet Laddie, we meet Mbu and Chote and Azuril, who are our vice presidents in charge of elephants. Our Clatchian elephant farmers, herders. Yeah, whatever it is, they start out with three, they're quite sure of that.

It's easy to be sure with elephants. One, two, three, yep. Yeah, you can't really discount the elephants. But they attempt to get... They've decided they're going to get 1,000 together, get them over the mountains and get them to Inkmoorpork for CMOT-Dibbler cash on delivery. Absolutely.

Which this page where they're introduced also has one of my favourite lines. Bullfrogs croaked in the rushes and the footnote just says, but we're edited out of the finished production. That made me laugh out loud. I like that. But there's a really nice moment

when they're moving the elephants and Azuril realises that Mbu was... This is the whole thing we were talking about with Ginger's Quote, where some people don't get the opportunity to find out what they're really good at. Sure. And it turns out under his Mbu's Easy Grin

is a skilled kilo-paki dermatologist. All right, that is a thousand elephant... ...almost. Yep. I keep wanting to say kilo-paki dermatologist without someone who's going to be doing skincare for a thousand elephants. Well, that is a talent in itself.

It's a very niche field, but once you've found your job, you're pretty much indispensable. Yeah. So I like that he just has had the opportunity to find out that what he's really good at is moving a thousand elephants 1,500 miles. Yeah, that is nice.

Speaking of working with animals, we're now on to Lassie Laddie, the fake-wonder dog. Laddie. Good boy, Laddie. Yeah. Good boy, Laddie. Bless Laddie.

Laddie is not very bright. I'm sure he's a lovely dog. But with his looks and Gaspard's brains... Yes, the pair could be incredible, because Lassie always had a little dog that was her friend and she in the movies. Yeah, so I got this from Annotated Pratchett. I decided to check that rather than looking it up

because otherwise I knew I was going to go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole of how dogs are trained to be on screen. Oh, that's really fun, yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's very sweet. The girl who plays Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones adopted the dog that played her pet direwolf, which is adorable.

Because the dog gets killed off in episode two. Oh, yeah. Did you know that sometimes they have to CGI edit dog tales wagging out of things? Because when dogs are doing stuff on screen, they like doing what they're doing and they wag and they're happy. And sometimes not what you want

when they're meant to be tearing your throat out. Yeah, because quite often there is a handler just off screen holding a treat and the dog is having a lovely time. Oh, yeah, so from Annotated Pratchett, Lassie is obviously the disco counterpart to Lassie. Yes. In the movie Son of Lassie,

the protagonist was in fact called Lassie, but was played by Pal, the dog who had previously played Lassie in the original movie Lassie Come Home. I see. And Pal did actually have a real-life son who was called Lassie, but Lassie was only used for stunt and distance shots

because he wasn't pretty enough. Oh. But yes, the Lassie dogs did have small dogs like Gasperd as companions. And also Lassie's trainer was a man by the name of Rudd Witherwax. But in real life? Yeah.

Fuck off. No. That's amazing. Yeah. That made me really happy. Oh my gosh. So yeah, that's the last of the new characters we meet. And again, shout out to Annotated Pratchett

for doing some of my research on this. So are we revisiting them? I'm only revisiting a couple, but Detritus and Ruby, because their little courtship moments are adorable. It makes me so happy. I feel so bad for detritus, though. Yeah, so part of troll courtship

is that you throw a rock at your intended. That is what you do. They're good, yes. It's very beautiful. Beautiful rock. Yes, he founds a very, very pretty smooth rock with pink and white quartz in it, and he throws it up at her and she loses it,

because that's not what modern troll women do. No, she's not really sure what modern troll women do, but it's not this. Yes. Which also leads to one of my favourite movie references in the whole book, which is a rock on the head, maybe quite sentimental,

but diamonds are a girl's best friend. Followed by, you want me to knock my teeth out? Is this the first time it's established that troll teeth are diamonds? No, didn't Conan make some of these diamonds in one of the first ones? Yes, he did. Which I think is why we only get a small footnote on it,

because it's quite a fun fact. It is. So, yeah, one of my favourite movie references is a Dora Boat, but she's told him they want pretty Ugra, which is a troll world that could mean any kind of plant life, basically. And there's this just very sweet moment. She's, you know, nicely dressed up.

She's realised she does fancy him, but she still wants him to get his act together. She comes out of the club and he's standing there with a massive tree. Vegetation. Yeah. I found the best vegetation. And he's so proud of himself.

And she just sort of sighs, because it's like, well, he's trying. Yeah. And it's adorable. I love the two of them. Especially as like, she only has this vague concept of what it is she actually wants, and like, it's easy to... Yeah, she sort of got this Hollywood concept

of what romance is meant to be. Yeah. But like, she's sort of fighting between that and her troll nature, which is like, hmm, big man with knuckles dragging dynamically on the ground. Yes. Small recommendation.

Marina's song of Marina and the Diamonds fame. Hollywood, I love. Oh, that's a near word. That's going to be in my head all day. Yeah, sorry. But it is a very good song. Yes. Also, she is so fucking beautiful in that video.

I can't, like, to perfection. That is actually, that's one of my favorite music videos. That's beautiful. Yeah. And then Ginger obviously probably deserves a revisit, considering a whole creepy part of her personality is revealed. Two creepy parts. This kind of shrine she's got to herself.

I briefly looked into this. Is there any kind of obvious mirror he's doing with any famously narcissistic starlets or? No, I don't, I don't think so. Well, there's nothing that springs to mind. I think it's more to do with this idea of Hollywood and worship and that's why she's dragged to the door. There's a large mirror at the end of the pokey room,

a couple of her burned candles, but she had, she has every poster from everything she's been in. And Victor is kind of freaked out because it's like this temple to herself. Yeah. And she said, you know, she wants to be the famous person in the whole world. It's this Hollywood magic working through them.

It's, yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Like, honestly, I would keep every fucking poster that I had been. I just wouldn't have them staring at me. Yeah. I don't have them all up on the wall, but like I have a program or a poster from every, almost every show I've been involved with. I've got rid of a few.

Yeah. I guess the shows weren't a particularly good memory or because I forgot to keep them. Even when I was clearing out some old stuff at my parents place, found like a program from the first school play I did when I was like 14. That's cute. Yeah.

Yeah. It's creepy and ties in with the creepiness of her like waking up, having clawed at a stone door and like, it's a good building of suspense, I think. Yeah. I think the whole build of suspense with Ginger and her sleep walking and how it's sort of, she's finding herself in places. She shouldn't be combined with this sort of creepy,

almost accidental worshiping of herself. Yeah. Also can confirm being woken up by a dog's cold nose is alarming. Yeah. I've never really had to suffer that, but I can imagine is one of the most horrible ways to wake up. It's sweet because they're trying to do it nicely. They're just like gently nudging you.

I don't know. They're no feels like frozen raw liver, but it's either that or I get licked on the face, which is honestly more alarming. Yeah. Waking up by getting licked in the face is never pleasant, whether it's dog or anything else. Even a previously discussed and fully consensual.

It's a bit weird. Other horrible ways to wake up include cats sitting on your head. I've had that before. Fuck me. Yes. Or on your chest, if you remember him in the cat, if you remember him.

Yeah. Giant cats on your chest and not pleasant to wake up because you think you might have died or have sleep paralysis. Yeah. Also, I can speak from a very personal experience right now that water dripping from your ceiling, not a great way to wake up. No.

No, I can't imagine it is. Speaking of sleep. Yes. Gaspode's dream is particularly interesting part of his character. Yeah. Gaspode is such a, he's sort of torn between these two wells because he is, you know, he is dog, but he is clever dog.

Yeah. And likes to think of himself as wolf. Yes. And there's these two fighting dreams in him. There's this Hollywood sort of dream start appearing in everyone's brain as they're going up to the hill. One is he's the most famous dog in the world and he's suddenly very handsome and with nice curly hair and he's been given

steak and beer. And there was a collar, but then, and that's what kind of pulls him out of it. The collar is too much. He still wants his freedom. But then he imagines himself as a wolf chasing people. And then he sort of hits this, well, hang on, that's not right.

Because you don't actually eat humans. You sort of got to have them in whatever this codependent relationship with. And then one of his fleas dreams of being the biggest flea in the world. Yeah. And it's kind of the fact he's so torn within his own mind is making him almost immune to the Hollywood glamour.

You'd call it a glamour, wouldn't you? It's like practically it does with elves and things. Yes, sir. The glamour means some kind of enchantment, doesn't it say? Yeah. But it doesn't know what to do with Gaspo because Gaspo doesn't really have one specific, Gaspo basically wants to keep being Gaspo.

He's very good at swaggering around on the streets and wants to be Gaspo. But like maybe with someone being nice to him. Yeah. And something you pointed out in the notes is there's sort of an interesting parallel between him and Dibbler, who was the other person I was going to talk about. Yeah.

They both seem to be the kind of cutthroat businessman grown up on the streets of Angkor Fork and just was at the disadvantage because he has no idea he's being negotiated with by proxy by a dog brains behind the operation. Yeah. It's like making Victor get better contract and then Ladi getting a better contract and negotiate himself a percentage of Ladi steak.

Like he can clearly see what Dibbler is willing to give up and like can exploit that. Whereas Victor and Ginger are scared of losing their job and Ladi is not thinking. So good boy, Ladi. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy.

Good boy. Yeah. Victor and Ginger are clever but not necessarily quite bright in the way Dibbler and Gaspo are. Yeah. Yeah. Not as quick to read people. Yeah.

Or sort of as street smart. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Ginger's from a rural family and Victor's from academia. So yeah. Yeah. Not quite the streets.

And no, milking those goats can really get you. One of the things I wanted to point out with Dibbler is it's appalling the way he puts this horrible amounts of commerce into the art that Sol is trying to make. It is. Where with the single file clatchings and app repair of nothing Francine. I think it might be time for a word from our sponsors.

Have you been wondering if the gourmet treats from Harga's house of ribs are still wonderful in the century of the fruit bat? Are you stuck at home and desperate for some ribs in special peanut sauce as the world bones around us in the style of the Antmoor pork civil war? We've got a treat for you. Sham Harga will deliver his Epicurean extravaganza direct to

your door and with the code that truth shall meet you fret, you can get 10% off your first order. Harga's house of ribs. Play it again, Sham. Amazing. Yes, I completely agree. That kind of thing would be disgusting in the middle of a moving picture.

Serious piece of art. Yes. Luckily the podcast isn't a serious piece of art. Yeah, just as well. I don't think we'll actually manage to get a sponsor from a meat seller, considering one of us is vegetarian. Yeah, that's although I must say I miss ribs. God damn.

Oh, God, I haven't had ribs in forever. Jack occasionally gets them from the chippy and I'm like, ooh. Salt and pepper ribs. Anyway. Yes. We are in Clatch again. So there's sort of, I double check the Discord Atlas because

obviously Clatch serves as an amalgamation of a bunch of different places that happen to be right of the UK on a UK centric map. Yes. And there's quite a difference between those places. But there is kind of a difference between the continent of Clatch and the country of Clatch. Yeah.

So the continent of Clatch seems to be Asia, I guess. I guess. Although like South Asia and South East Asia. Yeah, because East Asia is more getting into the counterweight continent. We haven't been there yet. But yeah, Clatch is sort of Indian subcontinent. And I was sort of, but also somehow some of South America

with the jungle we visited in Eric. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't need to make it a parallel. It's his world. Yes. It's a big continent. But this bit of Clatch apparently seems a little bit like

certain parts of Africa. Yes. Yeah. So I was trying to sort of be generous and think, no, well, it could be, you know, Indian subcontinent. They could be Indian elephants, but there's literally like zebra pens. Yeah.

I think the very first mention of Clatch seemed to make it a kind of Africa. Yeah. Parallel, didn't it? I can't remember the exact wording, but I think we went, oh, this is quite African and later it'll be Middle Eastern. Yeah. Well, it was first mentioned near the end of the colour of

magic when there was like a blue-skinned woman from the deserts of Clatch. Yeah. Yeah. And I was imagining it like an African desert. Yeah. Yeah. But then also you have like jelly baby is a bit Africa, but

then sort and a fee of their own ancient Greece and yeah. Anyway, Clatch is whatever he wants it to be for this particular purpose. Clatch is a handy catch all continent and this bit of Clatch is a little bit African. Yes. I would love to.

A little bit Indian. And then the other little thing was a bunch of the different studios in Holywood get mentioned. So I pointed out some of the... Did you spot the parallels? Yes. So Furwood is Pinewood Studios, which where among other things the James Bond films are made.

Oh. I've been there. I went there for a recording of the Mash report, which was quite cool. Cool. What else? Microlythic paramount. Yeah.

Century of the fruit bat. Fruit bat, 20th century fox. That's the one I got. I did also, I double checked annotated Pratchett and they had a great quote from Terry Pratchett on floating bladder productions. I've already gone electronically horse explaining that floating bladder productions was just picked out of the air.

Oh, no. So that one's not a reference. So yeah. So those are the movies to use, not really a location, but close enough that I could shove it in that bit. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Do you mind if we have a quick break?

Diddler's one is the fruit bat one. Yeah. Yeah. Dibbler's is 20th century fox. Yeah. The century of the fruit bat. Yeah. Which started as silver fishes, but Dibbler sort of adopted

it. Yeah. Cool. I don't know why I like Dibbler so much. He really is an arse. Because he's extremely well-written arse. And very, in the same way that Rincewind is an incredibly flawed character, but is so simple in his motivations and so

well-written, he's still likable. Like Dibbler's the same. He's profit-motivated instead of cowardice-motivated. But he's... Yeah. No, I can see that, actually. Yeah. You don't need to try and second-guess yourself with Dibbler.

It's always profit. Yes. So one's a little bit sweet-like. Yeah. So favourite movie references. I'm going to let you do these because, yeah. I noted... I said I'd note a few of my favourites from each section.

We've already had A Rock and the Hedge, maybe quite sentimental, but Diamond Zurich Girl's Best Friend. Beautiful. Gentleman Prefer Blondes is my favourite Marilyn Monroe film, not just for Diamond Zurich Girl's Best Friend, but also for Lauren Bacall, who is just... Yeah. Lauren Bacall.

Well, quite. Proving that Joanna does not prefer Blondes. No. Well, I'm no gentleman. Like how multi-meaning that is. I... Oh, I noted down the wrong page. So there is the line where a thousand elephants want to go, boss.

They don't need no roads, which is one of the best lines from Back to the Future. Roads, where we're going, we don't need roads. I haven't seen Back to the Future. To be honest, I know it's one of those iconic ones, but again, I'm not going to say you're missing a shitload. Okay, cool. My...

Obviously, the whole blown away Google, blown away, Gone with the Wind parody thing, which again, I had to Google the plot of Gone with the Wind because I've never seen it. And I know it's one of those like big classic films, but just honestly, I never got around to it and it's too late now. It comes with a preloaded response

when someone says you have to see it though, doesn't it? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. Yes. Like everyone knows that one line at least. Yes, which does get referenced. Sol says that later on. Let me laugh. Frankly, my dear, I want some beautiful ribs from Hargis, whatever.

Frankly, my dear, I want to go to the All You Can Eat Special at Hargis House of Ribs. Well, frankly, my dear, so do I, but it doesn't exist and I'm a vegetarian. Not as catchy. Not quite as catchy. My favorite, favorite, is again, Elephant Moving. Sol says, it's 1,500 miles to Ang Moorpork.

We've got 363 elephants, 50 carts of forage. The one soon is about to break and we're wearing sort of things like glass and he gets a bit confused. Please, brothers, right? Well done. Yeah. I will do the quote. I'm not going to try Dan Aykroyd's Canadian accent

because it's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it. Yeah. All right. I will try and catch your contagious enthusiasm for when we get to that.

Excellent. I'm very glad. Long reference. That line precedes one of the greatest movie car chases of all time because weirdly, although my preferred movie genre is generally comedies and rom-coms, I really fucking love a good car chase. That makes sense to me.

That's a decent amount of movement and noise on screen for you. I know you are almost like a toddler in some ways when it comes to as much stimulation as possible. Yep. I like bright colors, shiny things, and preferably people singing and dancing. Basically, you try and surround yourself

with this sophisticated equivalent of those play mats you give to babies. Yeah. The crinkly bits and the noisy bits and the colors. 100%. I am such a functioning human. But yeah, the Blues Brothers reference is my favorite, especially because, like I said, iconic movie car chase

followed up by them making a sequel just to see if they could destroy more cars in a single film. Was that genuinely one of their motivations? That was one of the main motivations behind Blues Brothers 2000. Is the sequel good? It's all right, but it's not the original. Okay.

Cool. So yeah, where are we? Dwarven courtship gets a little footnote. Yeah. Not quite as extensive as the trollish courtship, but... But while Ruby is frustrated because Dwarves have much more of a courtship ritual than trolls do, and the footnote says all dwarves have beards

and wear many layers of clothing, their courtships are largely concerned with finding out in delicate and circumspect ways what sex the other dwarf is, which I just find hilarious, sort of combined with the weird, especially if you're a little bit queer, trying to hang out with someone and possibly date them, but neither of you quite know how queer the other one is, so you're not sure if you're really good friends or dating.

I really like the memes that surround kind of... Yeah, bisexual and lesbian, so everyone just like... I'm hanging out with my friend again and I'm having a dinner at her house and she said something like this. And I was like, you're on a date? Yeah. And then like an update later on saying,

oh, yes, this was our third date as it turns out, so this went well. Tiffany, you useless lesbian. Like, I guess it, yeah, like as time progresses and we are accepting people of what they are and wish to be, it is becoming like slightly more reality. Like, I am learning to politely inquire as to what someone's preferred pronouns might be or...

Yes. And things like that, which is... Just not making assumptions quite so quickly. Yeah, I think that basically, which is probably easier to remember to do if everybody's got beards and chain mail. Yes. And leads, I mean, we'll get more onto dwarves and gender

in the later book, but it does lead me to my favourite thing I've ever put in any of my notes, which is just be bisexual, it's easier. Yeah, now I understand the context. Yeah, I got a screenshot of that one line sent to me, I was like, I'm genuinely not sure what you're going to try and attach that to, but yeah. Could be anything.

Could be the Necrotelicon, could be fucking product placement, I don't know. That's your response to everything. Life is just easier if you're bisexual, and especially as someone with only a vague bearing on gender, I quite recommend it. Also, it means that everyone who fancies me is a little bit gay.

Whether they like it or not. How do you not, if you fancy me, you cannot be heterosexual. I've got no good segue between that and the Necrotelicon, but go for it. The Necrotelicon is definitely bisexual, it has big bisexual energy. Cool, cool. I'm just glad that I managed to say it. All in one mouthful.

I practised. Alone in front of a mirror. But then I said it three times and it turned up, which was so awkward. Because I didn't realise, but that was actually our fifth date. Oh, I like it, that was like a retrospective segue. So the Necrotelicon has been discussed before. It even gets a shout out in the,

I want to say the intro to Good Omens. Yeah, it's like one of their shared references, isn't it? It is the phone book of the dead. But it actually gets a footnote that describes its writing here. It was written by a Clatchy and Necromancer known to the world as Ahmed the Mad, although he preferred to be called Ahmed the I Just Get These Headaches. And it was written after Ahmed drank too much of Clatchy and Coffee,

which doesn't just sober you up, but takes you through sobriety into the other side. Nerd. Yes, nerd. Nerd. Yes, that's a reference to an HP Lovecraft character who is a mad Arab who writes some, maybe the the book of the dead that's Lovecraftian.

The Necronomical. Yeah, thank you. Showing my massive lack of Lovecraft knowledge here. Well, he was a bit racist. He was, yeah. Which is why I'm trying to delicately say mad Arab, but that's kind of what he called him.

Yeah, he wasn't exactly delicate with the nasty racial stereotypes, but like he was inspired some good work. He inspired some other writing that was very good. Apparently the new show Lovecraft Country, which is based on a book, which has obviously taken inspiration from Lovecraft's world, is very good. Where's that?

I don't know if it's on any of the streaming in the UK yet, so I need to look for it. I'm assuming, I think it's an HBO series, so I'm assuming it's probably going to come up on now TV at some point. Okay. The sky tends to get most of the HBO stuff. Yeah. Yeah, Sky Atlantic, isn't it?

Yeah. So that's not my recommendation of the week yet, but it might be in the future. So yeah, Necrotelacomicon, it's just nice to have it finally explained. Yeah. The only other book by Ahmed is, Ahmed, the I just get these headaches,

book of humorous cat stories. Which later on Pratchett would write his own. An adulterated cat, considering he seems to be fairly damning of the concept in this one. I don't think he's damning of the concept. I think he's just pointing out the authors can write a variety of things. They can write the phone book of the dead and some humorous cat stories. We get a callback to one of your obscure references from the previous book.

When Gaspode and Laddie are drunk and trying to wander home, Gaspode is singing, we are poor little lambs, what have lost our way? Yeah, that's going to be in my head now. But yeah, I like that that little song has cropped up again. It's cute when dogs do it, not toffs. Yes. My fond memories of that song now are the imagining Gaspode howling it

with Naddie doing the woof woof woof in place of ba ba ba. And Edward Herman singing it in Gilmore Girls. Yes. Well, he's always a welcome addition to any memory. Yes. God love Edward Herman. Oh, we're showing lost boys at work. I'm really Halloween.

I'm very hyped for that. Battles. Battles, battles. Yeah, just the little dig from, little pacifist dig from Pratchett, which I think he gets in when he can, when he gets in when he can. According to history books, the decisive battle ended the Ancmole walks of a war was bought between two handles, handfuls of bone weary men in a swamp early one misty morning.

And although one side claimed victory ended with a practical score of human zero Ravens 1000, which is the case with most battles. It's just kind of a every victory is a Pyrrhic victory really, isn't it? Yeah, there's an excellent bit. I unfortunately don't think I've got. Oh, no, I do have it noted, which explains how the important at the origins of the Ancmole pork civil war.

Oh, yeah. Because there are two theories, one, which is the common people having been heavily taxed by particularly shoe for numb pleasant King decided enough was enough. It's time to do away with the outmoded concept of monarchy and replace it with a series of despotic overlords who still taxed heavily, but at least at the decency not pretend the gods are given the right to do it.

Or one of the players in a game of cripple Mr. Onion in a tavern accused another of calming more than the usual number of aces. Knives were drawn. Someone hit someone with a bench. Someone else stabbed someone. Someone swung a chandelier. An axe hit someone on the street. The watch called in someone set fire to the place.

And then everyone lost their tempers and started fighting. That sounds like a more likely explanation and more pork, but. I would like to bear in mind the description of the option one for how it started because I think that might come up in a later book. Oh, yes. Yeah, quite right. Cool. And as we all know, and more pork now has a rather wonderful despotic

overlord who we're big fans of. Yeah. Benevolent tyrant. Yes. We like a benevolent tyrant. I can't say it, but I do like him. Oh, yes. So if we go on to slightly longer talking points.

Yes. 1000 elephants, Joanna. 1000. I did promise you some elephant facts. Have we got some irrelevant elephants? Well, they're very relevant, actually. We've got relevant elephants. I suppose they're a relevant elephants because they never appear

in the films they're promised in. The sea plot. Inplied elephants. Elephants heavily implied. Yeah, apart from that whole bit just being really pleasing, like he was saying with like finding his calling of moving 1000 elephants and building bridges over mountains, which I'm sure has some historical anchor.

Well, obviously the elephants over the mountains, I assume was a reference to Hannibal. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say Hannibal. But I don't know about the bridge building in that. I'm assuming that was part of it. I don't know how one would move several hundred elephants

over a mountain. Well, clearly you're not a kilo pachydermatologist. Not naturally, no. But yeah, apart from that, obviously I'm just well up for hundreds of elephants paring in a book. Because it gives me a chance to do some rapid fire elephant facts. But I feel like I'm going to regret in the future because these are like some of my favourite off the top of my head ones.

And then I've even had to supplement it with further reading. So what am I going to do in the future? Read more about elephants? Well, yeah, obviously that seems fun actually. All right, hit me up with some elephants. Okay. Both male and female African elephants have tusks. Female elephants have no tusks in Asia.

Asian elephant trunks have two fingers at the tips. Malleable things they pick stuff up with. African elephants only have one. But both can pick up very cool, like small things, very delicate workers. Elephants can recognise themselves in a mirror, which is very rare. Only a few species can do that.

African elephants just eat for 22 months, which is too fucking long if you ask me. But they do have like very developed babies when they come out. They can stand up within 20 minutes and everything. So pretty cool. Elephant herd the matriarchal, which obviously I approve of. Males go off to do their own thing once they're mature. Elephants can spend up to three quarters of their day eating

because they can need up to 150 kilograms of food every day. Elephants can communicate in lots of ways. We can't even properly interpret like trumpets that are too low for us to hear. And by making vibrations through the ground, which some scientists think they may pick up with their bones. Baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort, and babies suck their thumbs.

Aww. Yeah, I know. Just going to give that a second to put that sink in. And finally, elephants are the only mammals who can't jump. They always have one foot on the ground, even when running. Oh. So, if you want to beat an elephant to some kind of sport, a high jump would be the one.

Excellent. I'll bear that in mind for the year. You never know. I think they could beat me at almost anything else. You did miss out my favourite elephant fact, which is that elephants have a noise that means cucumber sorbet is disgusting. Leave immediately.

Well, I think we covered that in a previous episode. You know, I don't like to repeat myself about cucumber sorbet. No, no, that is one of the many things. Francine never repeats herself about cucumber sorbet. That's what they call you. I'm very arbitrary, but strongly held boundaries. I respect those. I'm sorry for bringing up cucumber sorbet.

So next chronologically, although not in the actual bullet point order, sorry, I ruined the plan this year. This year. This fine week is paid 180. Is it? Oh, yes. Yeah. Is, sorry.

I forgot what my name was for a second now. Okay. This is on magic and wizardry, et cetera. Et cetera. And this is just after Victor has got the willies from discovering Ginger has something of a shrine to herself. And magic wasn't difficult. That was the big secret that the whole baroque edifice of wizardry

had been set up to conceal anyone with a bit of intelligence and enough perseverance could do magic, which is why the wizards cloaked it with rituals and the whole pointy business. The trick was to do magic and get away with it. And obviously this is like a whole thing in the books. You know, too much magic attracts the things from the dungeon dimensions. And I will be glad when the things from the dungeon dimensions

become kind of less of a plot point. Yeah. They're a bit of a catch all nasty at the moment, aren't they? Yeah. We had them in sorcery. We had them in equal rights. We've got them now. I think we've had them in a couple of other things as well.

Tell me if I'm wrong. I think this might be the last one in a while we get them. I think this is kind of the last one where they're the big villains of the piece. Yeah. I think they mentioned them gently. Yeah. But they're less of the threat.

Yeah. They're not the major antagonist stuff to this. I don't think. Like this idea of magic is something actually quite easy to do. So the wizards have to sort of cloak it in ritual and secrecy because they don't want the lay people to find out that actually it's not that difficult. Do you think Pratchett's drawing a kind of parallel to academia here?

Absolutely. And I'm saying that someone with very little experience of academia because I didn't go to school. Well, Pratchett too. But it is a weird thing. Within academia, there's so much sort of surrounding how study happens. And then when you get into it, it's like, OK, but you could learn

this in a totally different way, much more efficiently. Yeah. And then I wonder if there's any like specific subjects as well. He was going to like, I don't know, fucking some kind of science or I don't know anything. I would assume the way the wizards are written in general, that there's some parallels to the sciences. But then a lot of people do this in professions.

Like once you get past the not knowing anything about a profession and know a few things, it's like, oh, actually, that's really not that complicated. Yeah. And you can understand the instinct because you don't want the field being flooded. But at the same time, it seems sad to block people from even trying. Yeah.

Like it's very different from me because my main profession is cooking and lots of people look at restaurant food and go, oh, I could do that. And it's like, there's the opposite to the magic and secrecy. It's like, yes, you could make this dish. What you could not do is make this dish in five minutes while making 20 other dishes, having already prepped all of the components for all 20 dishes, which is about 80 components.

Yeah. Yeah. You could not make this dish in this time frame for the amount of money you're paying for it. Hush. Which is why one of my biggest bug bears of things that exists are restaurant chefs putting out cookbooks because... Really?

Yeah. Like, don't get me wrong. I read a lot of cookbooks and I love them. But I much prefer food writers putting out cookbooks to people who run restaurants putting out cookbooks because there is a big difference in the styles of cooking. Yeah, that makes sense, actually. Yeah.

I never thought about that. But yeah, it's two completely different disciplines almost. Yeah. Yes. I'm sure the recipes you write for me are not the same as you would give your sous chef. Like... I am the sous chef.

Oh, you're a Tommy chef, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. No, because I give you a recipe to make one thing once at home, not to make 20 of one thing that can then be heated up to water. Yes. Also, you don't yell at me, which is nice. I don't yell at you.

I know. Especially in these uncertain times. But yes, I like the idea of cloaking something in secrecy to keep it away from lay people in that I like wondering how I could cloak, say, what I do in secrecy to keep it away from lay people. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Which in my case just involves having really sharp knives and always

looking very busy and important. Yeah. Honestly, replace sharp knife with red biro and you've got my job. The mystical ways of the red biro. What did you have to do to earn your biro, Francine? Don't tell anybody, but you can get 10 for like a couple of minutes. You mean I didn't have to do that whole thing with standing on one leg

in the circle and balancing a chicken on my head? No, that was just for my entertainment. I really regret it. But didn't we have a lovely morning? We did, but I really regret joining this cult you started. Yes, I thought that was interesting. Very complicated and comes with no benefit. Practical effects, Francine.

Practical effects, practical visual effects, special effects. I'm not really sure what the exact term for it is. I think visual effects include CGI, which is not what I'm on about. Yeah. Considering I'm not really into film or like really not in film at all. I love the subject of practical effects. I do. I do.

It's so much I have done forever. Like when I was a kid, I had this book called spectacular special effects by Diana Kimpton. It was in the kind of same style as horrible history kind of thing. Yeah. Although I think it was under the umbrella of something called the knowledge. So it was like a parallel series. Oh, yeah.

I remember the knowledge books had murderous maths. Yeah. Exactly. They're really cool. So you can still get secondhand editions of this. This is my recommendation of the week. There it is. I need to get on.

Yay. If you can pick up a copy of spectacular special effects by Diana Kimpton. It's fantastic. I've ordered myself a new copy because I can't find my old copy. I see my gave it to a child. Like an idiot. Don't give your books to children. You'll want them later.

Yeah. Because I really like finding weird mechanical solutions to things like you've seen stuff like MacGyver together. Yeah. It's part of the kind of puzzle solving part of my brain. And you get to do fun things. And CGI just like even visually just doesn't have the same appeal to me. Yeah.

I mean, I don't want to downplay some of the incredible work that goes into CGI. There are some. I do. Sorry. No, that's fine. I'm sure it's great. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do well. Yeah.

And it does sometimes happen amazingly, especially in film though. The problem with CGI is it does age. It will always age. And that's because it keeps getting better. Because people are like, as you say, putting all this work into it. But yeah. That means, yeah. That also means the uncanny valley is a very real thing of like it looks real,

but not quite real enough. And it makes you or it looks a bit too real. And it makes you very uncomfortable. Yeah. I'm not sure if this is a truism, but I heard way back in the day that Shrek, they basically toned down the realism because they were getting close to uncanny valley. Yeah. I don't know how true that is, but I can easily see that being a thing.

Yeah. But what I love about practical effects is they look slightly unreal from the start, like especially puppets. I fucking love puppets. All the Henson stuff, the labyrinths, Dark Crystal and the New Democracy series. It's just really fucking, of course, it doesn't look real. Of course, it's puppets, but it's so absorbing because that is the entire world. Yes.

That it makes it really satisfying to watch. Yeah. That for sure is awesome. And then I also really like when they managed to make it part of the real world. So like Jurassic Park, the models that they used in the original Jurassic Park, I think just make it a timeless movie pretty much. Yeah. And that wouldn't be the case if they use whatever computer.

Because now it would just look really about to watch. Yeah. So specifically towards this book and blown away slash gone with the wind, the burning down of the city. Yeah. Yeah. I just kind of had a look to see if they did that. And they did.

Yeah. Apparently it's the very famous fast opening scene of gone with the wind is the burning of Atlanta. So what did you know that the city inverted commas they burn for that shop comprised about 20 years worth of old movie sets. Oh, really? With like a flat scene of Atlanta in the foreground. Yeah.

But it included the 1933 King Kong set. Oh, really? Yeah. You see like really famous sets burned in that. Yeah. So, but then one of my favorites isn't. Yeah. It's more like an entire world's worth, I think, except it's done with cool perspective

that's like 1927 metropolis. Did you ever see that? No, I didn't. It's very cool. You'd like it. It is a sci-fi about bridging a huge class divide. Nice. Pretty much.

Yeah. But Fritz Lang made the city metropolis using incredibly detailed like miniatures and perspective techniques and everything. Oh, wow. So that's really cool. So that's not even the stuff like I used to love reading about, but it's stuff that learning about later. Like I didn't even think about that being a fucking model like it was that good.

Yeah. I love the way perspective gets used a lot. It's something I noticed when I did the whole big Lord of the Rings rewatch during that they used a lot of practical effects for the Lord of the Rings films. They obviously use some CGI and the CGI doesn't really hold up like one of the ends moving with the Hobbits in its arms is really, really obviously green screen and it's really jarring. But like there was some CGI, but they also use lots of practical effects to make like the orcs and those big battles.

A lot of that was practical. There were, you know, thousands and thousands of people there all spending hours in makeup. And it means that the films do really hold up over time. Whereas if you look at the Hobbit film, they use so much CGI. Yeah. Yeah. Like the Lord of the Rings is kind of like the equivalent of these old films where they had to make the whole thing as I think Patrick said like a visual feast because like there's

no sound going on like you need to be. Yeah. Because so much is happening isn't dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. And then yeah, the Hobbit obviously we don't talk about the Hobbit. No, those don't exist. One of the other things I love that's for early visual effects is mixing animation with live

action. Yeah. Yeah. Like Space Jam kind of thing. Space Jam. But one of the earliest occurrences of that was God, I want to, I'm going to just make sure it was Fred Astaire. I'm 90% sure it was.

And it was Fred Astaire doing this amazing tap dancing routine with Jerry from Tom and Jerry. What? Oh, I've never seen that. That's incredible. I mean, it got parodied in Family Guy. Like they use the original footage. There's loads of cool practical and effects and stuff that Fred Astaire did. Like the one where he ends up tap dancing on a ceiling.

Yeah. Was pretty cool. Like that was some kind of rotating set, obviously. I did read about that ages ago, but I forgot. It's not Fred Astaire, it's Jean Kelly. Jean Kelly, ah, yes. Yeah. I will link to this in the show notes, but I love it.

It's just a very sweet little video of Jean Kelly tap dancing with Tom from Tom and Jerry. Anchors Away, it's called. That sounds fun. It's from the film Anchors Away, which is Jean Kelly and Frank Sinatra. And Tom. And Jerry. But that was like 1940s, I want to say. So that was like that whole combining animation and live action started really, really early.

Yeah. That's really cool. I like that. Obviously the best example of it is who frame Roger Rabbit, where they wrote this script, had this concept of this mix of animated characters and live action. And then took it to the people. He'd actually be making it. And they sort of said, oh, well, you won't be able to do this and you won't be able to show characters doing this.

And you won't be able to shoot anything from this kind of angle. And so they went in and put all the stuff they were told they weren't able to do into the script. And we were like, right, we're going to make new ways of doing this then. And they did. Cool. I like that. Yeah. This is it.

This is it. I like being told like, right, this is what needs to be achieved. And everyone goes, okay, how do we achieve that? And like finding cool puzzle solving ways. Like I like that. Yeah, I really love that. Unpaid overtime way, but in the innovative way. I love an idea of pushing innovation.

Yeah. So to finish on a more serious note. Yes. You've noticed some, some social issues in the disc. Yeah. We had to get my social justice for a moment in. Yeah, absolutely. Speciesism and elementalism.

Speciesism is very hard to say. That is where I'm going to start with. This is, they're trying. They're trying to decide who to cast as the other man in blown away and rock is up for the part. And Ginger's not very happy about playing romantic stuff with the cliff face. And rock points out, you know, why, why is it okay for trolls to be shown bashing people with clubs, but not okay to show trolls having finer feelings, like squashy humans.

This has come up a lot, like throughout the book and in the next section as well, the Silicon Anti-Defamation League and these trolls trying to be seen as more human and fit into the world in a way other than just hitting each other with clubs. Which is something Terry Pratchett does a lot. He sort of brings these species in and sees and shows them becoming part of the world. Yeah. It's like the social parallel of the technologies he keeps bringing in. Yeah.

This is you get new technology. You get these new people. And the dwarves point out as well, you know, it's really stereotypical to keep casting us as minors. I like how like the dwarves just get really pedantic about it instead of emotional. I was like, it's really stupid to keep casting us as minors. And like, you don't sing it in a mine and no, you don't keep a mine. The mine keeps you.

And yeah. And if the mines worked out, you abandon it, properly ensuring where necessary and sink another shaft on a line with the major scene. Yeah. And engineers to the bone these lot. I also like the little Shakespeare reference. If you cut me, do I not bleed? Said rock and soul points.

That won't know you don't. You're a troll. Oh, yeah. I do like how they keep getting completely inappropriate lines shoved at them by the Holy Wood Dreams. Yes. It doesn't matter that trolls don't bleed. We're going to get the Shakespeare reference in.

And I'm like, did the bringing up and a giant shark. Everyone's like, no. No, no. I'm not sure why I said that. No. Obviously not a shark. No. Yes.

I don't know what he Jaws reference. The film I will never watch again. No. Actually, Jaws is a really interesting one on the practical effect one. Way back when I was doing GCSE English, one of the essays we had to write was on the how tension was built in the first half of Jaws. But the reason tension is built so well and you don't really see the shark in the first half of Jaws is the shark wasn't built yet.

So there's like the opening scene where you just see a woman getting shaken about underwater and a couple of other scenes where you just see like a fin. And it's just because they hadn't finished making the shark in time. That is fucking amazing. I didn't know that. That's brilliant. Maybe trivia. Yeah.

Yeah. But you'll never watch it again because you spent too much time analysing it. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing kills something like analysing it for me. Although I'm still enjoying Discworld. Yeah. Just as well.

Yeah. So it hasn't had the same effect on books for me as it has things like other media. Even at school, like I didn't get put off to kill a mockingbird or whatever. It has with some books, but like by some books, I mean Dracula and I had problems with Dracula anyway. Yeah. Let's be honest. That was never going to stick with you.

Yeah. So stereotyping in Hollywood is obviously a long running problem that is slowly getting better. Typecasting and pigeonholing is very much a thing. I mean, Gone with the Wind was a good example of that with black people because it was kind of two things at once. A, it kind of glorified slavery or put a bit more roast into glasses on it and portrayed a lot of black people in a stereotypical fashion.

But B, it did allow them for the first time to have certain depths to the characters. Yeah. And I mean, it's nothing like that. As bad as the... Oh, fuck me. What's it called? The one that was responsible for the resurgence of the KKK, basically. Hold on.

I'm going to put that in follow up for next week because that's a very interesting one. Yeah. Although for a film that really, really enjoys ripping apart those stereotypes, God love Blazing Saddles, it is definitely a bit dated and of its time. But it is also hilarious and a great piss take of, again, Golden Age of Hollywood and the treatment of black people in early years of Hollywood, especially in World War West type theme films. Blazing Saddles.

Yeah. Gene Wilder, it's Mel Brooks. So the same guy who did the producers. Like his whole thing was kind of these parody films. Yeah. Okay, cool. I might actually try and watch them. Yeah.

It's definitely dated. One of the opening jokes involves three black men working on some kind of like picking rocks out of the ground thing and they're in some kind of prison and this horrible person guarding them, shouting, oh, give us a song using the n-word. And so they very, very beautifully sing, I get a kick out of you. He's like, no, that's not what I mean. And starts doing this really awful camp town, maybe sing this song women. Yeah.

That sounds awkward as fuck. And I think Jack will probably like watching that with me. So I'll try and watch it. Cool. So can I move on to my obscure reference? You may. What is your obscure reference this week, Francine? By all rights, I probably should have done it last week, but I chose something else.

And then I wanted to mention it and it came up again. So the non obscure reference is Richter, like the Richter wizard that invented the plib machine that they're talking about quite a lot. The plib machine is very obviously referencing Richter as in the Richter scale. Slightly more obscurely though, the reality meter resembles a very early seismograph. There are things that detect earthquakes from second century China. So again, a couple of tangential references where he's saying stuff like the Ming vase because it goes Ming. But it was the Han dynasty, not the Ming dynasty.

But anyway, pendulum mechanism. I'm very good at this would cause a little ball to go plib out of one of eight dragons in the direction of where the vibration was coming from. Oh, cool. Which is fucking amazing. I love reading about all of these incredibly complex mechanics from centuries and centuries ago. That's really cool. Yeah, I thought that was nice.

Yeah, again, should have done it last week probably, but I liked the illusion and I like this one. And I got them both in. I'm not arguing with you. I know, I'm arguing with myself. It's fine. Well, while you're being conflicted, shall I tell us where we're going next week? Oh, yes, do. So that section actually ended page 219 when the fire died down.

They raked some of the ashes together for a barbecue at the end of shooting party under the stars. So section three starts at the top of page 220. The velvet sheet of the night drapes itself over the parrot cage that is holy wood. And on warm nights like this, there are many people with private business to pursue. Very nice. And that takes us through to the end of the book. Yes, stop when you run out of words. Yes, stop when you've run out of pages.

Don't try and read the table next to it or something, it won't end well. Yeah, although this is an old enough addition that it's got an advert for the Discworld characters. Crawl out of the page in a new range of modelled by Clairecraft Designs. Woolpit, Barry St. Evans Suffolk. Just down the road from us. Which is where Clairecraft started, although obviously now they're not based here. There's also an advert for the Discworld fanzine, The Wizard's Knob. Yeah.

And an advert for the Discworld series now available on tape. So it's an old addition. But yeah, I think that's everything for this week. Okay, cool. Well, where could our dear listeners find us, Joanna? Where could they find us for goodness sake? Well, in the meantime. Sleeping on my sofa, basically.

No, you can follow us on Instagram at the trueshermakeyfret on Twitter at makeyfretpod. Find us on Facebook, the trueshermakeyfret. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and albatrossypods at the trueshermakeyfretpod at gmail.com. Eventually this outro is going to take up half the episode. I have more suffixes to albatross. You can follow our subreddit, r slash t t s y m f. Why does that always take me so long?

I don't know. The initials too often. Yeah, so join the subreddit. Yeah, we have like 14 subscribers. Come on, guys. Come on. I like Reddit. You can find me on Reddit.

I'll reply on Reddit. Get in touch and you might hear some dispatches from the round world on the podcast. Yeah. And in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Fucking Bram Stoker.