The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 35: Reaper Man Pt.1 (Come Into a Bit of Snowglobe)

Episode Date: November 2, 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 “Reaper Man”. Watercolours! Strange British Customs! Mustards!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:Joanna Hagan Spoken Word FB page (for all of our dear little co-host’s Inktober poems)Discworld Halloween 2015 – Bad Pictures of a Good NightDavid Tennant Does A Podcast With... Neil GaimanDavid Tennant Does A Podcast With... Everyone From Season 2Azrael | Religion-wikiColin Smythe on Reaper ManThe History of Zombies Wow-wow sauce threadNanny Ogg's Cookbook | Sir Terry PratchettGimlet (tool)Bored of the Rings - WikipediaMorris Dance - EvolutionBrood parasite - WikipediaRepo Man (1984) - IMDbThe Possessive Apostrophe His OriginHis genitiveMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I did a watercolour of the cover of the book when I was meant to be reading it. That's quite impressive. My brain is full out rebelling on anything productive right now. I mean, I know the fucking book back front. So it's I did read the whole book. But like I planned on doing that on our off week. And instead I didn't finish it until Monday night. And I had to like sit and force myself to finish reading it like I enjoyed it.

I love the book. I tried to do the full read through without the notes as well. And I that I think because I'm so scared of forgetting something that I notice. I always making notes. And then it like what would take me it takes me as much time as it would to read the whole book to read the first section. Because yeah, well, this is why I read the whole book first. Because I like having like just then I get to enjoy reading the book as well

without note taking, which is kind of the point of doing this. But also I found them when I went through and put the notes in, I didn't put quite as many notes because I'd already thought so. That was your point, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, I've not quite as intensely posted it this time. Yeah, I ended up with. Because my notes are pretty sparse. You write down full things, don't you?

Whereas minor sentences to remind me of what the thing was. I know, minor only like little sentences to remind me what the thing is. Oh, I like that you just got much more. OK, because I'm noting like every new character and all of the things that happen in the book. Yeah, I'm just noting interesting bits. I like, yeah. Yeah, so for eighty nine pages, I've got thirty six notes, which is I have been averaging more than a note every two pages.

So I have cut down a bit. Well, I hope you enjoy that meta look into our. Processes, processes, process. Yeah, someone from because I put a video of me swapping the fully posted moving pictures for the unposterized reaper man. That was a beautiful, beautiful bit of footage. I'm glad you took that. Yeah, very shakily filmed with one hand while trying to reshell books

with the other hand. I wasn't being sarcastic. I really enjoyed it. It was very satisfying to watch. Someone from the Pratchett podcast asked on Twitter about what my note taking process was. And I didn't I forgot to reply to them and write it out in the end, because that was a reply to that later, because it's intense. But it is the I've posted a number coded post it in the book

for every note I plan on making. And those posts are color coded by plot point, talking point, character or location introduction. And then the orangey ones are like quotes I like, but also callbacks to previous books and the little bits I'm keeping track of. Yeah, crikey. The the Pratchett podcast toast. I did see that tweet, actually.

I was thinking at some point you should do like a little 10 minute bonus content with him for both of the podcasts of just nerding out about your filing systems. Yeah, I am absolutely not interesting enough. I've just got a notebook, but I just have a notebook. I tried to make it all nerdy and that didn't I? I had a brief fling with the Kindle and the notes and the color coding and the literally I've even gotten rid of the post it's this time. Well, I know which pages I'm going to.

It's it didn't really speed me up. Trying to reference the number to the number than it did to just find a page number, especially with this, because it's really like I'm sad I don't have the matching edition. But I quite like it, because it's you there's nice, big pages, big texts. Like I'm sounding like a child, but it's and it opens really easily to different pages. You've got one of the newer ones and it's a trade paperback size, isn't it? Yeah, it's still got the Josh Kirby illustration, which is important because this is my favorite.

This is great. Well, this you did this for Halloween, didn't you? I did. Yeah, I've got to dig out that photo and I'll put it in show notes. Me is Bill Dore. Do you have one where you still had the creepy blue contacts in before you? They made you in lots of pain. I do. Yeah. It's a shame as next I do have blue eyes, but they aren't quite creepy enough,

which is what I've always said about my eyes, of course. We're recording this on the 29th, but it's not going out to the second. This was for a Discworld Halloween we did. So by the time this has gone out, hopefully I will have tweeted lots of pictures already of the time we did a Discworld themed Halloween. Do you have pictures of the pumpkin in that? I'm pretty sure I've still got some pictures of the Discworld pumpkin we made. I've still got the baby elephant models.

That we picked up from the toy shop to put on the. Yes, we did a tersal shaped pumpkin, grabbed some baby elephants from the toy shop and then tried to draw a map of the disc on a paper plate and drawing, pinned it on. But I think we just did a better job on our logo, at least. Yes. Well, in fairness, I wasn't tipsy in a pub. And you weren't using a dodgy mark. Yeah. And then we used fabric glue to try and make a wizard hat for another one of our friends, Wizard with Jesus. It didn't really work.

It didn't really work. I got fabric glue all over my dungarees. And yeah, but that kind of fit with the general Winx Windy theme. I brought along a larger rangatang puppet. Oh, yeah. I was moist fun lip vig. Yes. Femme version. So I had a sparkly gold dress and a moist lip wig in the form of a false moustache. It was very good. I enjoyed it. And then one of our friends turned up dressed as Terry Bratchett and had done it so well.

We both did a full on double take and nearly cried because I think this is after he'd passed away. Yeah, it was and not long after he passed away in the March. And this was that October. Yeah. Oh, in which case, maybe I wasn't tipsy. It was 2015. Oh, 15 was it? Yeah, no, I would have been then. It was a year later I gave up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for some reason, I fast forwarded myself to 2021.

I knew it was five years since Pratchett died. But yeah, I've just decided to forget about the rest of the season. Look, I I decided I am going to look forward to Christmas, regardless of what actually happens at Christmas on the basis that I will have a pretty tree, pretty lights. Someone will have bought me a fucking present. Yes. What do you want from us? Oh, fuck knows. Good. Yeah.

Everyone I know is getting handmade gifts if I have time to make them. OK, yeah, that's probably what you'll get to. Yeah. Like just not stuff that takes up lots of space. No, I know. I know this. You know this about me. We both know this about Callum and Becky. We all like things that can be consumed or put neatly on a small portion of a shelf.

Yes, absolutely. But yeah, so even if like I'm not even allowed to see anyone on Christmas, I will still cook delicious food for myself and I will still get to do my favorite Christmas tradition of when I put my Christmas tree up, drinking two bottles of mulled wine while watching all of the really bad Netflix original Christmas movies that have come out this year. Fantastic, which this year includes one that stars Dolly Parton and has an entire soundtrack of brand new Dolly Parton songs.

Can we watch that together? Absolutely. Yes. Provided you don't try and help me decorate my tree in any way. You can absolutely come around and watch that. You know, I would not dare. No, yeah. I appreciate it. Cool. So we have something vaguely relevant to talk about, don't we?

This is like just a small rant, to be honest. I've noticed this on Twitter. A baby rant or rant it. Yeah, I don't think this is a new thing. I think this goes on a lot and has been going on a lot. I think I noticed it because Neil Gaiman was actually responding to the tweets for the change, which when it came up in my timeline and also it was fired by the news that staged is getting a series two, which is the like zoom lockdown comedy

that David Tennant and Michael Sheen made. Oh, is that what kicked off the drama around that? Yeah, because he got wandering into the drama room for two seconds and walking out again. Yeah, he got referred to as Martin Sheen in something and then someone said it, you know, staged was terrible, lefty nonsense, and they didn't want to pay their license fee for it. So my so Michael Sheen started a petition to get it banned.

Yes, that was it. Yeah. But loads of people are bugging Neil Gaiman for a Good Omen series two. Hmm. And it's just like, I mean, there's no need. Like it is a perfect self-contained book. And then it was adapted very well. If they had then written the sequel that they talked about, then I could understand.

Do you recall? I know we've talked about this before, but you recall what the sequel is going to? Is something like six, six, eight, the number of the beast? I don't remember what more of the prophecies was in it. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember exactly, but it was never written. It never happened. And it's just a weird, like fan entitlement thing. Yeah.

Like demanding something from a creator. And it's just like, the dude, I was you, you've got a really good show. And then I don't need more of a good thing all of the time. Absolutely. I expect to throw a bit of a fit if it turned out as it almost certainly would. Not to be the same kind of thing, because one of the co-creators is dead now. Yeah. So it would be a game and can write very well

and can probably emulate emulate the style of practice. To some extent, the fact is that he is not replaceable because his ideas came from him. It's just it's a weird, it's entitlement, it's rude. It's like just stuff you've got a really nice thing. Enjoy the nice thing you have. Stop demanding more of it. It's like a toddler throwing a tantrum because you won't let them have a second piece of cake. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I've got except in this very out in the moment. So Terry Pratchett is like staring at me as I'm like talking about you, not teammate. Weird having a big face on something. I always keep the book face down when I have it next to me. Because otherwise I'd like worry what would Terry be thinking of this? Sorry, I love your book. Like an adulteress spinning the photo down on the dress. Yes, except I'm cheating on Terry Pratchett with more Terry Pratchett.

Yeah, I was going to say with you. Oh, dear. So yeah, that's just my little run. It's one thing to just tweet a lot about the fact that you would love Roman series two, but stop tagging the guy who made it in it. Yeah, yeah, this is especially did we record our mutual run on people bugging Patrick Ross versus that was on the podcast, wasn't it? Not just over a coffee.

I think that one ended up on the podcast because we were talking about fan entitlement when we were talking about moving pictures. That's right. Yes. Yes, of course. That makes sense. But yeah, so yes, that was follow up. Yeah, that is a bit of a follow up. It does bug me. Remember, you are tweeting an actual human being also selfishly.

I don't want him to make a good omen series two because he's still working on that never was equal and I really want to read it. Is he now? Yes, called Seven Sisters. There's so he was on David Tennant's podcast. David Tennant does a podcast with. You keep telling me to listen to that. And I really must.

There's several episodes now that have people. The Judy Dench one is fantastic. Ian McKellen one is gorgeous. I'll bet there's two good voices, I say. The Brian Cox one is this is Brian Cox, the older Scottish actor, not Brian Cox, the physicist. That one's great because it's just too lovely. Scottish accents bouncing off each other. But the Neil Gaiman one was a great episode.

I really enjoyed it because I'm listening to Neil Gaiman talk is lovely. He's got a great speaking voice. He's got amazing cadence, isn't he? He does. But the bit where he talks about the sequel to Neverwhere was actually in there was like a bonus episode with extra clips from all the different people who've been interviewed. OK. And it's in that episode.

OK. But I also really hope if he does a sequel to Neverwhere, they don't try and do like a sequel TV series because the original Neverwhere TV series is golden. Yes, I enjoyed that. We should rewatch that at some point. We should. Oh, baby, Peter Capaldi. Maybe we should just do a Neverwhere bonus month at some point. I feel like if we start straying into game and territory, we might not find a way out.

Oh, God, wait till when we finish this world. OK, fine. Well, I will end up stuck on that carousel in the house of the rock. Exactly. That's the last thing you want. All right. And then. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, you get you. Should we make a podcast? Let's make a podcast. I'm going to get a coffee. Hello and welcome to The Two Shall Make He Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll.

And this is part one of our discussion of Reaper Man. Yes. The eleventh Discworld novel. So part one is covering page one to eighty nine in the Corgi paperback edition. Yeah. If you've got there slightly later, Corgi paperback edition. It's page one up to one hundred and ten. Yeah. That's in the trade paperback size one. Notes on spoilers before we crack on. This is a spoiler light podcast.

Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book we're on, Reaper Man. But we will try to avoid spoiling any major feature events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any in 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. The journey on a not spectral white horse on account of the spectral ones kept setting fire to that bedding. Which is just rude.

Oh, at least I had the good grace to look embarrassed about it. Well, yes, that's good. Yeah, I don't think we've got anything to follow up on from last week, do we? No, nothing we didn't already rant about. No, I think I've ranted about all the things that I have not ranted about all the things I have to rant about. I have many more rants in me. No major dispatches from the round world. But remember, you can get in contact with us.

Do send us a postcard via Albatross. Do and tell your friends about us, too. We need more people listening to us. We would like how else will the world know exactly what we think about everything? It's very important. I'd also about the adorable little puppy bum. Oh, yes. Oh, she's very sweet. She's curled up next to me like it. Excellent.

Also, Francine, tell us about Reaper Man. So yeah, as you quite rightly say, Joanna, it is the eleventh discworld novel and we're now into 1991. So the year after the insane prolific year. Mm hmm. And it is May 1991, which means there's a couple of months before I was born. And we nearly share a birthday before I was born. Yes, well, shut up, darling.

Yeah, it's it's notable for a few reasons. I've got quite an interesting use of typefaces was one. Um, yeah, it's two different typefaces for the two different story arcs. Yeah, in early books, it was Colin Smythe's website said, yeah, to make clear the two strands of the book to readers since there were no chapters, different typefaces were initially used for each plot line. It was later felt to be unnecessary and my edition doesn't have that. So yours must be a pretty early Corgi Paperbook.

Corgi Paperbook is you can tell some countries still have it. Yeah, it's an early edition because it's priced at three ninety nine. Oh, yeah, a little bit. I got seven ninety nine. This must be pretty new. And yeah, yeah, this is the 1992 paperback. I don't have a first edition of this one. When we're nearly into the section of this world where I've got first edition

copies, good, because I think my earliest one is small gods. Yeah, it's, um, it's one of my favorite books, Full Stop, actually, and in my list of top three Discworld books, pretty solidly, which is kind of odd, because I don't think any of the other death arc books make it into the top 10. Yeah, I know I know that perhaps it said he'd wished he'd used different the two plot lines in different books, wasn't it? Yeah, but I do kind of love that they're together because it takes two of my

favorite sub flavors of his writing, like the arguing wizards and the beautiful descriptive poignant prose and like it kind of alternates them really. In a really balanced way, I think. So sometimes when you get books that go between plot lines, it's quite annoying. Like you don't feel ready to switch or one of them's boring. But this one always feels like this is the correct time to go and revisit and you're always pleased to flip them on to the other. I will say I remember this as being very much like a death book.

And because you've only read the first third so far, I've read the whole thing in preparation. But I have read this very many times in the past year. Very well. There's less of the death than I remember because I actually haven't read this one that many times. I think I've only read it two or three times before. I know it's one of your favorites and I do love it. It's just because it was one of the very last ones I ever read when I first read

the Discworld because I didn't read them in order. Yeah, it was never one I had this huge nostalgia to go back to. Yeah, that makes sense. And I honestly can tell you when I read this one, it's I'm not sure if it's nostalgia. There's so much is just just the imagery and it catches me very much. It's beautiful. But there's less of the death and misflip with stuff than I remember.

Yeah, but I think because those are the most memorable bits, they're probably loom larger in your head. I also forgot this follows on directly from Moving Pictures. So we've gone from a wizard subplot with Wendell Punes in Moving Pictures and with Dibbler being a main character to a wizard subplot, which is arguably the main plot with Wendell Punes and Dibbler's around again. And I think this is sort of one of the first times you get that like really direct carry on in a way that's not a straight sequel like

Color of Magic Life Fantastic. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think the. He really enjoyed building on Red Cully, for instance, in this one. Yeah, I think it's almost like, oh, I've got these new toys. I don't want to stop playing with them. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And Dibbler had like more of a role than

just a side character, but still a. He's still a very minor role. Yeah, yeah, he's not anywhere near. Not quite a cameo, but yeah. It's nice for him to show that he's still around. Yeah, it's nice that he's working happy for him, working in a bun. Yeah, you found a little bit about it in Mark Burry's book, didn't you? Yeah, I've now taken just consulting Mark's book when we start every new one,

because he's always got something nice to say. He refers to this as one of Pratchett's most poignant pieces of writing in the book. Death discovers he's now due to die and resolves to spend the rest of his life working among humans and a secondary plot involving a zombie wizard has a lot of fun with horror cliches and makes an especially savage point about consumerism and Pratchett would later admit he wishes he'd used the two plots for separate novels. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it is quite an interesting. But he also refers to it as mid period disc world. Yes, and I think that's accurate. Yes, the first ten books are very this is early disc world and it's set up and the Dungeon Dimensions are the villain more often than not. Yeah, whereas we're now into OK, the ball is rolling and we're into because almost peak disc world. I'm not like the later books are still really good.

But they're not what you think of straight away when you think disc world. Yeah, when you think disc world. And we're getting into also enough character arcs to set up that he will start going back to character arcs more than more. So like we're going to follow this with another witch's book. And then yeah. And I'd say Ankh Mawpork is now established and like he'll still tweak it. And obviously it evolves as the books go on.

But I think Ankh Mawpork as the city is now. Yeah, as it is. Yeah. With the patrician especially. Yeah, like a predatory flamingo. Oh, that was such a good learn. I enjoyed it. Also, I'm like slightly scared of flamingos. Are you?

I mean, they're like if they look really cute from a distance and then you get really close and they've got like evil faces. I think they just look like a stern school master. But pink. Yeah. I don't know. I get it. You're right. Birds are a bit freaky in general.

But all birds are slightly like they've not forgotten that they were dinosaurs. No, they have not. We won't start on my general fear of chickens. Oh, dear. So do you want to summarise? Are we there? Yes, I shall tell you what happened in this section. We begin with a brief discussion of Morris

Dancing, danced accurately only on the disc on rolling planes of a sort. Mysterious gray robed figures discuss the regularities in the multiverse with Azrael and a decision is made. Death in his study finds his own timer. We see short-lived mayflies and long-lived counting pines before discovering Wendell Punes is about to die, but he's in for one last surprise. Death informs Albert that his end is nigh and buggers off to get a bit of a living done first. Punes enjoys an old fashioned goodbye party as the bursar gets a bit

nervous about the grim reaper's imminent arrival. Unfortunately, said Reaper has other plans and Wendell finds himself not entirely dead, returns back to his body and to the dining room. Punes is not much to the consternation of the rest of the faculty. Shells start mysteriously filling as Punes goes for a walk and red shoe does a bit of anti-vice or graffiti. The wizards discuss what to do with Wendell as Punes goes for a dip in the riverank under a bridge thoroughly protected by Sergeant Colon.

Punes continues his suicidal exploration of Ang Moor Park until our rag tank bunch of senior wizards force a confrontation. The wizards attempt to give Wendell a proper burial and his coffin informs him of the Fresh Start Club. Punes considers hunting death down properly. Death now operating under the alias of Bill Dall gets himself a job at the Flitwick Farm. Dibbler starts selling snow globes, not in a bun.

As excess life force starts sloshing around and playing silly buggers, a candelabra unscrews itself and nearly destroys the senior wizarding faculty. The wizards and the priests and a few other guilds are invited to the palace to discuss the latest in paranormal phenomena. And Mrs. Cake chats to her spirit guide before having a funny turn and sets off to find a few wizards and get the world set to rights. So quite a lot does happen. Yeah, it's very, very set this up, we'll set this up, we'll set this up.

Yeah, establishing shots. Is that what they're called? I'm trying to do media references now to impress you, but I have no idea. OK, I'm going to say you're right because no one's on here to argue with me. And I can just ignore tweets that argue with me. I very rarely do ignore tweets, but, you know, yeah, if you want to, I could. So on helicopter and long cloth watch, none of either.

As far as I can see, sadly. On the other implied. No, not not yet. Give me time. You got random stuff hovering. Yeah, there you go. Oh, candelabra unscrewing itself. That's basically a helicopter, more or less.

I think the concept itself. At some point, I'm going to listen back through all of our old episodes and make a list of things I have decided are basically helicopters. That sounds stressful, but enjoy that. Yeah. On the other little bits that we've been keeping track of, we don't open on the turtle, we do not, which is a rarity. We open on Morris dancing or the concept of

we do go to rank more pork, so we still haven't had a book that hasn't at least partially taken place in more pork. Yes. Death is here, so we still haven't had a book without death. Obviously, he's here. The book is called Reaper Man and he's on the front cover. That would have been a terrible disappointment. We also, the librarian.

Sorry, that was that was a bit too enthusiastic. I must remember to lean away from the mic when I get excited. In on page 19 in my copy, the librarian looked up the details for us, said the Bersa, indicating a large orangutan who was trying to blow into a party speaker. He is not explained. Oh, our diligence has paid off. Yes, I need something to fill the hours.

Absolutely, and no origami. I like how that's the next thing you jump to, not like laundry. God, no, that's basically origami. Yeah, folding. Because I definitely fold my clothes and don't just shove them in drawers. So what was your your favourite quote? This was just really relatable. Everything was wrong these days, more thin, more fuzzy, no real life in anything.

And the days were shorter. Something had gone wrong with the days. They were shorter days. Every day took an age to go by, which was odd because days plural went past like a stampede. And just mood, big pandemic mood there. Absolutely. It's.

It's what they always tell you about getting old, isn't it? I think everyone's had a bit of a taste this year. I don't like it. I don't care for it. I shan't be I shan't be getting old. That sounds a little defeatist, but what I mean is I will be enhanced by cybernetics and live forever. Yeah. Yes, that is definitely happening in our luxury dystopia that we're designing.

Yes, silk bandit is darling. Yes. Why is my laptop not overheating? I wanted to warm my legs up. First world problems. Absolutely. Mind a little later. Mine's on my page 77. I don't know where it's on yours, but it's the introduction of the.

Village where Miss. Is she called Flitwick? I've got no name. Not Flitwick. Help me out. It is Flitwick. Oh, it is Flitwick. OK, good. Oh, Flitworth. Flitworth. Sorry.

I've written Flitwick by mistaken. We're going to end up making that mistake a lot, aren't we? Hopefully not now. Anyway, it's a. Picture a landscape, a plane with rolling curves. It's late summer in the octurine grass country below the towering peaks of the high ramp tops and the predominant colors are umber and gold. Heat sears the landscape.

Grasshoppers sizzle as in a frying pan. Even the air is too hot to move. It's the hottest summer in living memory. And in these parts, that's a long, long time. I love that bit. Just as a really, really good job of cundering up a landscape that in one paragraph and it really always catches me. And I'm not sure where it is exactly.

One would assume he's thinking of England. Yeah, a long time ago. But it reminds me of like Cider with Rosie. I don't know if you've read that. That kind of yes. Yeah, that kind of very, very rural England that doesn't exist anymore because transport is so easy. Yeah, that's and that sort of feeling of when you're in summer in that place,

it isn't endless summer. Yeah, yeah. Kind of visited in Good Omens. Yes, in a slightly different way because it's more. There's a difference between that sort of golden amber, endless summer feeling to that. Everything is very green, endless summer feeling. I think Good Omens is a very green summer.

That's true. Yeah. I think like the summer summer 2018 here in England was everything was scorched, wasn't it? Yes, it was dry and yeah. That's cool. Yeah, so I just I picked a bit of pretty prose to do rather than a funny bit today. It made me want to go and be outside somewhere in fields in the summer. Yes, unfortunately, then we looked out the window

and it is still drizzling. So we have a lot of characters, so we're probably going to start. Yeah, this is a well, because it's the first part of the book. This is where we meet most of the new people. So we start off with the auditors who I love because they are the best, most sinister villain. They are the nothings. Yeah, because they are what they want is nothing.

Call back a very long way. I think we hinted at them when we were talking about I believe they very briefly cropped up. Oh, God. Oh, we've only done 10 books. We have, but it's been a year. It has. Yeah. So this is our birthday episode.

Oh, happy birthday, Joanna. It's not quite exactly, but we started in November last year and it's going out. This is the first episode in November this year. So it's not going out on the actual birthday, but it closes down there. Nice. Well, yes. How have we done? Well, it's kept up something for an entire year. I ought to have made a cake.

Well, I couldn't have any, so it would have been kind of sad for me. Quite sad for me sitting here with a tiny cake in a little candle. Oh, well, happy birthday podcast. Yes, the auditors have briefly cropped up before. I think this is the first time we get them speaking, though. And I think that's one of the cleverest little things is the speaking without quotation marks. Yeah. Do you think the the thing where they disappear, if they refer to themselves,

do you see that as like a natural thing that happens because personality means chaos or the rest of the auditors murdering them for that reason? I think the former, I think it's an automatic thing. Yeah. Yeah. Once once it starts developing a personality, it stops being what they are supposed to be and therefore stops existing. Yeah. OK. I'll take that.

Yes. Mild spoiler, but these creatures will pop up again in future books. And they are always just a marvellously chilling villain. And the villains of one of my sort of favorite least red ones, if that makes sense. Obviously, when we meet the auditors, we've also got Azrael. Yes, I thought the name sounded familiar and you bolded looking it up. Yeah, he's the angel of death in Islam and Judaism, potentially an archangel, depending on like which translations of which texts you read.

One of the bits of mythology about him is that he is covered in billions of eyes for every human life that will ever existed. And the idea is when all human lives stop. Yes. And I close is every time someone dies. So the idea is when every human is gone, he's blind. Gosh, there's lots of interesting mythology about him, but I like the way he's he's not. There's no explanation of him here.

He's just this clearly huge deity, not even a deity, because deities are petty and small on the discworld force. Yeah, he's this huge force. He's not. Well, he's not even just a discworld thing. They're sort of outside of all the universes because he's almost time. Is he I can't because what he's he's next to the opposite of a clock, which is a countdown timer, obviously, I guess.

Yeah, he's sort of almost he's outside of time. Yeah, it's like with the whole thing. He'll be blind when the last life is gone in the mythology. He is there outside of time waiting for it to click down. It's described as he's in his prison of a billion prison of a billion years, which I thought was a lovely line. And then on to our little we have the mayfly interlude and the counting pines in for interlude.

I thought that was lovely. I love the mayfly interlude. I remember when all this was fields, it's still fields. I remember when it was better fields and there was a cow. It's it's clever because although it's just a fun couple of pretty almost throwaway comedy scenes, it does make you think makes you think of the human life in comparison to longer things and how silly all our little concerns

are and all that kind of. Yes, it was a lovely bit of perspective. Back in my day, there was more cow here. What's a cow? Well. Also, I quite like with the counting pines of the sort of wow, that was a sharp one. What was that winter just then? Yeah, call that a winter.

Was it they trembled on easily in a week, week long gale? But we think it involves sawdust. It's a lovely thought, especially the thought of winter passing by that quickly because that. Yeah, feels like being stung by bee. Absolutely. So window poons. Good old Wendell.

We we enjoyed Wendell last book. He's a lovely chap. He was just being wheeled about in his steampunk wheelchair. Yeah, his wheelchair doesn't really feature much in this section. It would kind of get in the way. It would. I feel for him. No, I wonder if the wheelchair does it have a soul? Is it now haunting the corridors of the university?

We did put it in characters, didn't we? Exactly. Yeah, Wendell is. Suddenly, incredibly knowledgeable and strong and yes, still 130. And. Is it is an interesting take on zombies, isn't it, really? Because he's becomes more functional as soon as you can function. Every as soon as you can access every function of your body.

You can kind of force it to do things against the longer term benefit. Yeah, I had a note of this later, but yeah, the whole idea of self control. Yeah. And having to literally look at this and work out like, hang on, what does that? What's the spleen do? Yeah. And I just I really enjoy that section because he sort of has to teach himself how to have a body again.

The first thing he says when he makes it into the dining hall is, I think I may be able to metabolise alcohol. Yes. Which is very wizardly. He's just kind of vaguely irritated by the whole thing and would quite like to die and get on with getting to the next life. And I like that he's so sort of non plus by at all. He's sort of a, well, it appears to not be going anywhere.

So I might as well get back in the body. Yes. Well, once you've lived for 130 years, nothing surprises you, I suppose. I'm terribly sorry that these holy symbols aren't doing anything to me. Yes, no, I'm happy for you to bury me. Sorry, it's nice of you to go to all this trouble. I like the exchange with the celery as like, no, no, I'm I'm sure it's, you know, it's the feel of the thing.

If you if you think bashing a stake into me and I'll I'll hold the celery. And Ridgley's like, oh, yes, that's the spirit. I'll check I'll say. They're all very good to each other. Well, before we get on to the rest of the wizards, we only see Albert once really in the book. Yes, just a little reminder that he's there, really, isn't it?

One of the things at stake if death does die. Yeah, I wish we got a bit more, Albert, because he's obviously having to face his own mortality alongside death since. I can imagine there was more that got cut for brevity's sake, because it does almost feel like the start of an arc that didn't finish. Hmm. But yeah, there's a lot that happens in a shortish book anyway, so. Yes, this is one of the shorter ones as well.

This one's less than like 300 pages in my edition. Yeah. But I do, you know, I feel for Albert. He's having a horrible time and he still thinks, oh, well, I better get the play set up for the next next chapter just to, you know. Well, I think he's hoping he'll be rehired. Well, yes. But yeah, for all Albert,

while death is obviously thinking of more important things, it's like I finally got time to spend Albert's almost an afterthought, then. Yeah, I do feel for Albert. I don't think death really gives him enough time to process everything. And I get it, you know. Yeah, never mind. Anyway, so on wizards, on wizards,

the rest of the senior faculty, we meet a few of them, obviously. We've got the Berser, Berser. Bob Berser slowly losing his sanity already by the end of section one. Yes, there's a lovely little explanation of Berser as a kindly if nervous soul who quite enjoyed his job because no other wizard wanted it. All the paperwork of the university tended to accumulate into his in his office, which meant he went to bed tired at night but slept soundly and didn't have to check very hard for

unexpected scorpions in his night shirt. And yeah, I like that he's having quite a nice time. It does, but he seems like he's quite a naturally neurotic person. And his balance has been massively thrown off by the arrival of Ridgley. The arrival of Ridgley, the events of moving pictures immediately followed by Wendell Poon's coming back to life. Yes, and then stuff unscrewing itself. I like the Berser didn't eat much but lived on his nerves.

And it was his unfortunate fate to be sitting opposite the doors when Wendell Poon smashed them in. He bit through his wooden spoon. Just we are keeping an eye on Berser's mental state and it's looking a bit shaky. And when they're running to very Wendell Poon's, he goes, oh, we'll soon have you back to normal. And the senior wrangler or something's like, no, we won't. That's the whole point.

Berser's like, we won't soon have you back to normal. That's the whole point. Keep running. He means well. He's very sweet. I love the Berser. And then Mustram Ridkully. Yes, now he's a properly fleshed out,

terrifying, lovable character and is not getting the point which turns out to be the useful part of being a leader. If somebody explains it to you for longer than five minutes, it was probably important. Yeah, if they give up after two minutes, it's fine. There's more Mustram Ridkully than one body could reasonably contain. I don't know if our listeners got this impression from moving pictures, but this is absolutely one of our very favourite characters.

He is just a perfect anti-wizard, which is the the key to the. Well, not not to all of it, but to a lot of the dialogue between wizards, the fact that the rest of them are fairly similar in their set ways, bickering, each eating unhealthily, living unhealthily ways. And then you've got the foil in there. I like also that he's the sort of he is the thing that shifts the wizards as like a character art B-plot thing that

keep coming back from what they were in the early books, which is lots of scheming and villainy and yeah, no one's going to take out Ridkully. Yeah, he's sort of got rid of all that fighting for who's going to be the Arch Chancellor, Bollocks. Yeah, actually in a new age of. Dinners, dinners and bickering rather than straight up murdering. He's also ditched the sinister haunted Arch Chancellor's hat that was the cause of so much commotion and sorcery. Oh, yeah. In favour of an adapted one for that going lifestyle, it had fishing flies,

small pistol crossbow and the pointy bit holds a small bottle of brandy. It did not like it when it floated away. No, excellent design. I want a hat that can contain lots of extra little things just in case. I expect we could fashion you one. Quite saying it'll be stylish. I can make it stylish. Tactical beret with lots of pockets.

Tactical beret, I'll add that to my to soulless. I also enjoy that Ridkully has made someone make him a sort of jogging suit. Yeah, he's walking around in a wizardly track suit. That's very sweet. And also, I want to highlight that this book states he wanted the university to form its own football team for the big city game on Hogswatch Day. Yes, which we will see a long time from now. That might eventually come to fruition.

So we've also got the senior Wrangler. We were I forgot that his title was kind of explained. Yeah, we were talking about some of the fun titles. When we were talking about moving pictures, we've got like things like the lecture in recent rooms, yeah, in some sense of learning, the senior Wrangler is a leading philosopher in others. He's merely someone who looks after horses. The senior Wrangler at the Unseen University was a philosopher who looked like a horse.

But a senior Wrangler is actually a thing. Oh, yeah. So a Wrangler is a name to people who get firsts in maths at Cambridge. And the senior Wrangler is the person who I think has come top or something at Cambridge University, which shows once again that old British institutions have stupid names for everything. Oh, they do. They're very, very, very silly.

But they have lovely libraries. We'll forgive them. And also at the Wizard, also at the University, not a wizard, we have Modo, who's one of my small favourites in this book, just because he's so fucking zen about everything. Yeah. So I've heard you was dead, Mr. Pines. I was. Well, I see you got over it then. Yeah.

Relights his pipe as he sees someone smash through the walls. Like, you see some interesting things in this job. Yeah. He is that fun, grizzled old gardener who's just accepted lots of things are going to happen. Yeah. Doesn't freak out when his 500 year old lawn is ripped off. Is that right? Replant it 500 years or fly by.

It'll be good as new. The only thing he really cares about is his compost piles. Yeah. I almost did a deep dive on composting and then decided not to because it will take up far too much time, because I actually want to be interested in that for gardening reasons. Yes, I'm thinking about doing some composting. I think on the whole, I do not want mine to be quite as interesting as Modo's.

No, I don't think we should have that. I'm sure it probably breaks some kind of weird EU law about what people are allowed to have in their gardens. We'll come back to the compost heaps later, I think. I think we might. We also very briefly see Red Shoe, who was dead, graffitiing. Yes.

What was the graffiti, his first graffiti? Dead, yes, gone, no. Ever the slogan writer of Ankh-Maw Pork is our Red Shoe. Is this our first? I think this is our first Red Shoe. Oh, well. We've got Sergeant Colon's specific brand of policing. Yeah, he's guarding the massive bridge from theft.

The Brass Bridge, I was trying to remember the name for yesterday when I was talking about Detroiters retraining as a support. Oh, yes. But yeah, the Brass Bridge has not yet been stolen, and I think we can only conclude that's because Fred Colon has stood on it so diligently. Yeah, he's made sure it's not being stolen. They're good on Fred, working hard. That's what we like to see.

Cut me in through eight, Dibbler is running around. Come into a bit of like snow globe. Yeah, come into a bit of snow globe. I like how he went and checked that it was probably legal first. I don't want to get into real trouble. I think that's what I like about Dibbler is the fact that he's a raging capitalist, but he's not evil. Now, he's got a line.

He's amoral, not immoral, I think. Yes, he sticks to the law and he's quite nice and respectful. Yeah. Ish. Yeah. Yes, Miss Flitworth. Miss Flitworth is the old lady who takes in our lovely death as a farmhand. Yeah, so I haven't mentioned death yet.

I've put him in here as Bill Dore, the alias he takes on. Yeah, we only see him briefly as death to start. Yes. He has his realisation, goes off to live his life. And then, yes, he finds Miss Flitworth and her lovely farmhouse. And she's very interesting from the start. And I think he does a good job with the suspense building there because he's talking about the building.

Yeah, it's a beautiful one. It's a room for harnesses and dogs, a room where oil skins are hung up to dry. There's a beer barrel by the door, flagstones on the floor and along the seeming beams, hooks for bacon. There's a scrub table that 30 hungry men could sit down at. There are no men, there are no dogs, there is no beer, there is no bacon. Why is she living alone up here and why has she got this house made for many men and lots of activity and and Bill Dore is welcomed so quickly,

even though it doesn't seem like she needs him quite yet. Yeah, and she's sort of quite patient with him and his lack of a name. Like she's just guy. Nobody's called Mr. Sky. Sure. And it's like she knows he's making his name up and she can tell he's never helping him for Bill Dore is a great name, though.

It is. The word door is quite good. I mean, it makes up the ostensible, lovely sentence of sell a door, isn't it? But yes, a lovely phrase, but Bill Dore is nearly as good, I'd say. I enjoy Bill Dore. And yeah, she's just quite happy to have him come and work. She's not going to ask a lot of questions. She'll keep him fed of an evening.

Yeah, we'll find out more about her in the next section, but it's a good introduction. It is a very good introduction. Vettanari is here. Love a bit of Vettanari. Yeah, he's a little alarmed to start with. He's slightly alarmed, but I'd like that this is the first explanation, I think, of the relationship between the university and Vettanari. Absolute ruler and nearly benevolent dictator of Angkor-Morpog.

His kind of battle of wills. Yes, so sort of. You need to pay taxes. No, we don't. Well, if you want to. But no, we're not we're not going to do that. And it's agreed that while the wizards pay no taxes, they'll make an entirely voluntary donation of taxes. The patrician said they wouldn't want to know about hard terms.

The wizards said that there's a ruler back in the century of the dragonfly who tried to tell the university what to do. The patrician could come and have a look at him if he liked. The patrician said that he would. He truly would. And that's it. I also quite like that this is another completely different style to the auditor's conversation without quotation marks.

And it's yeah, yeah, because it's a summary of a conversation. It's sort of it's a summary of a conversation, but it's also because they're saying all these things on the surface and so much is going on underneath. Yeah, it's sort of like this is so not what they actually meant to say that it's not even worth saying that they said it. Yeah, absolutely. And it makes the whole conversation very deadpound and very funny.

And then hanging around while we're seeing that Nari is the chief priest. Yes, Ridcully's brother. Yes. What is it? Art priest, high priest? High priest, I think. Yeah, I think he's the high priest. Sorry. Power of looking inward and summarizing the soap opera that is the God's lives.

Yes, I greatly enjoyed that little moment. And sort of what have they been up to? Who put the goats in the bed of offload? The crocodile dog is offload forging an alliance with seven handed sec. Meanwhile, Hokie the jokester is up to his old tricks. Yes, yes, I've been able to get interested in that kind of thing. I'm afraid anyway. But I also I do like that the two warring factions whose leaders are sort of

formed an alliance on the basis that they're the only ones in their positions. Yeah, absolutely. And they've got this very dull, not dull, but every day matter to attend to as well. Just like, remember, you must write to mother. We've got to see her for Hogswhatch evening. Yes, I know. Once we've done with all this existential woe, we've got to Bob in on mother.

He's not actually named in this. He is just the chief priest and we learn that he's Red Cully's brother. And they have a little drink. And then, obviously, one of the heroes of the book and just of my life, Mrs. Cake, good old Mrs. Cake, and she's got a first name. Don't ask about Mrs. Cake, Evadni, Evadni.

I don't know if that's a real name or not. I didn't look it up. I also didn't. So Mrs. Cake is a medium, Virgin on Large. Virgin on Tall. Oh, no, I thought Virgin on Large was funnier, clearly. Or I just renamed her and renamed the quote in my head. I like Mrs. Cake.

She is very entertaining and I like the fact that all of the priests are terrified of her. Yeah, just because she goes in a kind of bargue theology. While also taking over things like the cleaning rotor. Yeah. Sacrificial stones, grubbing, honorary vestigial verging. It's clear that Terry Pratchett has had a vague idea of Mrs. Cake in his head sometime. I mean, she she's.

She the psychic who ran away in the first book or certainly it was a proto her, if not her. Yes. And her name has cropped up a couple of times. Usually, you know, don't ask about Mrs. Cake. Yeah. I think even the chief priest has a throwaway line about how you have horrible things from the dungeon dimensions. We have Mrs. Cake. Yeah.

So I like the fact that she's just this grumpy old psychic woman that has somehow just struck fear into the hearts of the entire religious sector of a city. Mm hmm. Yeah, no, come on. And then had also a Ludmilla as well. Yes, the kind of werewolf not really love Miller. A little bit of werewolf around the years. But still very sweet variety of werewolf, I think.

She is lovely. And I hope she has a lovely time in the future. And so I think she's lovely, but very practical. Oh, you could say helicopter here because I feel like Mrs. Cake helicopter parents are somewhat. OK, I mean, that's a stretch, but I'll take it. Is it is it more of a stretch than your shit, Joanna? Point taken.

Don't throw tenuous stones in tenuous glass houses. Tenuous glass houses would make a great bad name. One man bucket is Mrs. Cake's spirit guide. Yes, who doesn't appear to be a racist trope just has the name and tries to live up to it. The name will get explained eventually. Oh, yes. Good.

Yeah, I started looking about. Could it be a racist trope? And I think there's hints of it the same way there was with Madame Tracy's made up spirit guys. Yeah, good omens. But I don't it's kind of making fun of the thing rather than doing the thing, I think. Yeah, I think this is not the you're not parodying the thing if you're just doing the thing kind of thing. Yeah, I just know that thing too.

It's not that thing. Look, here's the thing. The book explains that like he has put this name on and he's he's putting on an act. Yeah, he talks like a normal city dude, doesn't he? Like, yeah. And then hit someone over the head with a ghostly vase like a normal city dude. Yes, I like that. Love Miller sort of he's going to start fighting again, mum.

He always calls people friends just before he hits them. And then lastly, this isn't really a character, but I wanted to point this out because it's I like the concept and I think it'll come up again if I can find the page number. Trolls believe that all living things go through time backwards. If the past is visible and the future is hidden, then it means you must be facing the wrong way. So everything alive is going through life back to front. And it's a very interesting idea considering it was invented by a race who spent most of their time hitting one another on the head with rocks.

I also like the way the place in society is kind of built upon, especially as it will keep changing. Yeah, when pooms goes into the shades and sees trolls kind of walking tall, not hiding themselves as they do in the richer parts of Antmoor Cork, where they move with exaggerated caution in case they accidentally club someone to definitely eat them. Yes, they've sort of moved on from where we were moving pictures, where they're trying to integrate into society and they're doing it more and more. Yeah, and it's nice to see the kind of continued evolution of that. It's not something he just changed suddenly to make them monsters and then integrated.

No, he integrates them slowly and it works. There's also a throwaway line about Rid Cully getting into a wrestling match with Detritus, yeah, who is currently working as an odd job man at the Mended Drum from Sounds of It. Good old Detritus. He was so sweet in the last book. He is. I love him. I hope we see him again.

So, yeah, as far as locations go, we've already talked about Octoring Grass Country and Miss Flitworth's farm. Obviously, we also in Antmoor Cork. And so the Guild, remember the Guild of Merchants basically formed the Guild of Tourism in the colour of magic. Yeah, some time ago. Yes, they have a famous publication, Welcome to Antmoor Cork, City of One Thousand Surprises that claims that you,

the visitor, will be assured of a warm welcome in the countless inns and hostilities of this ancient city, where many specialise in catering for the taste of guests from distant part. So if you are a man, troll, dwarf, goblin or nom, Antmoor Cork will raise your glass convivial and say, cheer here, looking at you, kid, up to you bottom. It's like a badly translated instruction fan. It's like, who wrote that? It's going to be a mix of medieval and bad Google Translate, and I love it.

But also, look at how far rank Moorpork has come from Two Flower and his little guidebook, his little phrasebook thing at the beginning of Colour of Magic. Yeah, absolutely. We've we've moved up in the world. We have. It's a rich, bustling, cosmopolitan city now. Yes, definitely won't get murdered with possibly a little bit of murder around the ears. It's just a tiny, tiny bit.

All right, I think it's a good time to take a little break, because the dog has found something and is trying to eat it. So yeah, a little bit to be light. I already talked about Poon's and his efforts at self control, but zombies. Zombies. I could have easily delivered like a whole PowerPoint presentation on this, but I've restrained myself. Thank you very much.

So the lecture of recent runes points out that people can be turned into zombies. You don't need magic. Just the liver of a certain rare fish and the extract of a particular kind of root. Yeah. And the Arts Chancellor makes a comment about not trusting religions with someone that smiles all the time. So this is a reference to Haitian, but to Voodoo.

Yeah. It's a religion based in West Africa, practiced throughout Haiti and the Caribbean and other places with African heritage. The whole idea of the zombie legend is very much based in Haitian culture. And it's some anthropologists theorize that some of that comes from slavery and the idea that when you die, you're reborn into a real life because slavery is not a real life, which is the more depressing end of it.

But I was looking at the actual making of zombie powder. So there are most people who follow the video religion believe zombies are myths, but some believe zombies are people revised, revived by someone called a Bocor, which is a particular type of video practitioner. And they use herbs and shells and fish and animal parts to create concoctions, including zombie powders, which do contain a deadly neurotoxin found in puffer fish. Fun. And apparently used carefully at sublethal doses.

It might actually cause zombie like symptoms such as difficulty walking, mental confusion and respiratory problems. Right. But it can also lead to paralysis and coma, so it could cause someone to appear dead and then be buried alive and later revived. Oh, I see. So there is actually quite a lot of accuracy in that little bit. Yes.

Although I think everyone dismisses it out of hand. Yes, they do. It's the senior wrangler. Yes. No, it's the lecturer in recent rooms. Oh, I'm sorry. Right. Yes. Yes. The senior wrangler who has the ability to put trickle in the conversation. Absolutely. The God that smiles all the time is a reference to Baron Samadhi.

Yes. Which I just want to point out here because it might come up again soon. Never trust a God who smiles all the time and wears a top hat. That's my motto. That's a strange motto. But I don't believe specific motto. See, I don't mind the gods that smile all the time and wear top hats. It's the ones that live on mountains, throw lightning bolts and dress up as swans to shag women that I have issues with. But this is not a podcast about why Zeus is a dickhead.

But he is a dickhead. You're quite right. Fuck Zeus, the original fuckboy. Auto condimenting. This is mustram ridcully is an auto condimenter. And what is an auto condimenter, Joanna? Someone who will certainly put salt and probably pepper on whatever meal you put in front of them, regardless of how much it's got on it and how it tastes. Behavioral psychologists working for fast

feed outlets around the universe of say billions, whatever the local currency is by noting the auto condimenting phenomenon and advising their employees to leave seasoning out in the first place. This is really true. I didn't actually research that further from that footnote. I'm fully willing to take it as fact because. Yeah, for sure. Depending on the outlet, I can I can definitely imagine that happening.

It's. You look at places like McDonald's, like the tiny little changes that save the millions. Yeah, the main reason things like french fries are salted as soon as they come out of a deep fryer is less to do with seasoning and more to do with it. Continue to drive moisture away. So they stay crispy for longer and don't get soggy. Oh, OK.

Was that a good idea with oven fries as well? Then should I sort them after they come out not before? Yeah, not before they go in, rather. Yeah, yeah. OK, OK, cool. Because with most things, you salt stuff before you cook it, don't you? OK, fries after fries after. I mean, that's why, like, you salt,

get like good crackling on rice, pork or like good crispy roast potatoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yes, I obviously, as a chef, dislike people who season their food without trying it first, because I season my food very well when I cook it. See, I sometimes season my food before I try it, but that's because I know I've cooked it and I've cooked it for other people's tastes, and then I'll sit down and add a buttload of pepper. Yeah, on my bowl.

Yeah. Well, yeah, also, if I'm cooking for other people, like, I will quite often do things like adding hot sauce and chili afterwards, because the season, which I am willing to consume hot sauce, are not the same as other people's. And again, I appreciate that about you. But so but also I am very much a rid Kelly in that he's got all the salt, three different kinds of pepper, four different kinds of mustard, four different kinds of vinegar,

15 different kinds of chutney and the wild world sauce. We should get you a little carrying thing. I really I will add like sauces and dips to almost every meal. And I have cupboards full of different kinds of salts and peppers and spices and mustards and chutneys of condiments and acceptable present for you. Oh, yes, I love condiments. OK, good. I'm always excited by condiments. Are any particular ones you don't like?

Not that I can think of. Like, you don't do you like mustard? I love mustard. I always have like five different kinds of mustard. Cool. I always buy mustard. But I never get through it in time. I know it lasts forever, but I feel like it shouldn't. Well, I cook with mustard quite a lot.

I think it goes in sauces and things. And then also I've discovered the polar shop that I live near does this amazing, like sweet grainy mustard that makes me very happy. I say I get very excited by things like being given chutneys as well. Oh, yeah, fucking chutney is amazing. On the subject of condiments, I found. Something in the old alt dot found up Pratchett groups posted by Terry Pratchett in 1993.

And saying saying I've tried posting this before, but it ended up in limbo. The while, while sauce mentioned in Reaper Man and in here we get a kind of recipe, don't we, is very loosely based on the sauce invented by William Kitchener, 18th century British eccentric in Gourmet. Diane Dwan swears she's seen the complete recipe in modern brackets, possibly American cookbook, but can't trace it. Given the general interest in things edible, can anyone out there track it down? And there weren't any helpful replies on that.

And I'm wondering when I've got time, I might look and see if anyone did find it in the end, but if not, it might be worth like reposting his post a long time afterwards in like Reddit and Facebook, because now people, it'll reach a lot more people who have access to random American cookbooks. Yeah, the old recipe separate, it might be a good place to look for that. Yeah, the recipe has given in the book. Like, is that something you could follow or is it? Well, OK, so the recipe has given in Reaper Man.

No, because some of the things don't exist. I would like that. Well, Wahoony. Oh, all right. Although I imagine I'd use Grated Horse Horse Relish in place of it. But I handily have Nanny Ogg's cookbook. Oh, I say. And I believe.

Where is I should have probably marked the page, but I literally remembered as we sat down to record this. Fairly, fairly, fairly. Fairly, fairly, fairly. Where is the contents? The dogs come back to sleep. Yay. Praise to you, Biss.

Is this an index? This is a useless book. I say it's strong. No, it's not. I'm just trying to find it. This has a recipe for well, well, sourcing it. Oh, OK, cool. Yeah, it'll be fun to maybe make it.

And I want to see if I can track down that original one. Partly because Patrick asked for it and didn't get it. And partly because I love random old shit like that. So I there's loads of recipes in this that I want to try. There's a librarian's recipe for bananas, which consists of take one banana. Good, good, or as the librarian would say. Oh, there's also a banana dip mentioned

that I'm not even going to consider trying to make on the basis that I am offended by the concept. OK, well, I might try making it. OK, by that, I mean, I might make some banana flavored angel delight. So the well, well, sauce recipe in this. It does explain it's not quite a genuine recipe, but it's slightly more stable. It involves butter, an egg, flour, beef stock, mustard, vinegar, port, mushroom, concentrate,

salt and pepper, parsley and pickled walnuts. Yeah, right. Well, if you can substitute the beef stock, I'll partake of that. Yeah, I can make a vegetarian version of that. Noice. That sounds interesting, pickled walnuts, eh? I love pickled walnuts. I don't think I've tried them.

I will eat almost anything if it's pickled. The one exemption from that is pickled eggs, which are an abomination. I have eaten one pickled egg. I was forced to try one not too long ago, and it was an unpleasant experience for me. I did not enjoy it. It just tastes like horribly textured vinegar. Well, this is the thing, I really like pickled things.

I love the taste of vinegar, but I don't really like the texture of how boiled eggs. Is pickled egg something that exists out of this country, do you think? It must do. Yeah, international listeners, tell us about your pickled eggs or lack thereof. Yes, there are good, sturdy traditions of pickling around the world. Yeah, the eggs. Yeah, I'm sure there's some kind of fermented, pickled egg type situation in a couple of East Asian cultures.

Well, yeah, no, I'm talking about pickled eggs specifically, though, not the century eggs or whatever. Oh, yeah, no, let's not talk about the century eggs. So, yeah, so I'm going to try and make Wowel sauce. Cool. Warn the Alchemist Guild. They might be able to help without salt, Peter. And the other ingredients for gunpowder.

So salt, Peter, you can get for cooking, salt, Peter, you put on cow's tongue and things. Yes, in Irish recipes. Yeah, so you make red beef. Yeah, my boss's Irish friend brought me some over at some point when I was cooking ox tongue jack. Yes, but I'm still not going to add it to my sauce. Yeah, OK, fair enough.

Just in case you do make a small explosion. There it is. I've heard that referred to by some Irish people as gunpowder beef. Oh, cute. Because that's the joke about Ridcully's uncle eating it and he's fine. And then he adds some charcoal and. Yeah. Oh, that's all the charcoal. I see.

Yes, I thought that was just one of those little details that made it funny because I just had a little biscuit. No, it was it. Yeah, sulfur and salt, Peter. Yes, yeah, maybe and charcoal. I don't need because I've got gunpowder on the brain because we're coming up to the 5th of November. Oh, God.

Oh, yeah, sorry, you've got a dog fireworks are awful. Yeah, it's it's just it's going to be worse this year because we're not I assume they're not having the big display up at the amy gardens. So everyone's going to have them in the gardens. And no one does it on like the same night. If it was just one night of horrendousness, I could probably lock this in a quiet room and it will be over an entire weekend. Yeah, exactly.

And then throw in that a presidential election is happening a couple of days before. Yeah, that's soon. For food, I guess. Yeah, I think we should know by the fourth. Yeah, anyway, reading the future. Yeah, staying on the topic of food, kind of Mrs. cake reads the future in a bowl of porridge or whatever comes up. So it's one of these head all of these things.

Again, you know, you pretend to read it in something cool for the customers. But you can really read it in a bowl of porridge. Just wondering what you'd read your futures in. I think probably coffee for me. Yeah, I was about to say coffee, actually. Just black coffee. Just like, yeah, your future is there. It says just black. Sorry.

Well, that's depressing. I'm going to go with using my house plants for divination. So like your aloe has a particularly perky leaf today or something you can tell. Yeah. Which at the moment itself on fire, then something's going to go wrong. Probably at the moment, I think the future is mainly predicting that trees die in autumn and that mint might need a trim. Yeah, what's dying?

Oh, the staghorn trees. Oh, sure, sure. Someone gave them to me and then was worried when they saw them that they were dying, maybe they couldn't cope with being repotted. And I was like, no, dude, it's fine. I looked it up. They die in winter and then come back in the spring. The leaves blow off their trees. This is all this could get very metaphorical if we let it considering the book wrong.

Yes, especially what with the Morris dancing and all. But before we get to Morris dancing, let's talk about gimlets. All right. This is a cocktail, I see me mean. Yes. Well, so this is an ongoing joke in the Discworld books that I think this is the first time we get this joke. I think so, yeah. But I never quite got it.

I knew a gimlet was a cocktail and that's it. Oh, I knew the. Yeah, I didn't know it was a cocktail until I tried googling it this time. The joke is his eyes are like gimlets. You mean the Dwarf he runs the Delictesan on Cable Street. Yeah. And so this is the word gimlet for a piercing stare is a thing. And it comes from the fact that a gimlet is a type of tool.

Yes, bores, three things. I didn't know I didn't realise that. It's a little handheld penetrating sharp tool thingy. Yes. There is the reason that the funny thing about the Dwarf being called gimlet is in the Harvard Lampoon's board of the Rings parody. There is a character, Gimlet, son of groin. Is when was board of the Rings

before this? I think board of the Rings was like in the late 80s. Oh, OK. Possibly earlier. Hmm. So I'm assuming it is a reference to that. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Obviously, we think of it as more recent because it had a resurgence in popularity when the films came out. Yeah, that must be. Yeah. Yeah.

Also, so obviously that's playing on Gimlet, son of groin. Yeah. But in reference, it's all the way down. In googling gimlets and because I wanted to see what's actually in the cocktail and also why it's also used to be a penetrating stare. The theory is the using it as a term for a penetrating stare came before the cocktail. It may have been named for its penetrating effect on the drinker.

I see. And I saw someone else had googled, is the gimlet a girl's drink? Is that one of your suggested searches? That was one of my suggested searches. And is it? Well, I've got this amazing quote from popular food blog, Food52. If drinks were college co-eds from cardigan wearing scotch and sodas to sorority row cognacs, then the gimlet would be everyone's girl.

It's classic, straightforward and always agreeable. They're using gin as the way to go for purists. The gimlet girl that's totally fine with you using vodka. I'll go fuck yourself. I hate everything about that paragraph, especially the suggestion that it was going to be taking the piss out of the question. But no, no, no, that was just just bad. I wanted your reaction to that live on air.

Agreeable and sort of fuck off. On that note, I think it's time. It's agreeably. I think it might be time for the gimlet. Oh, I didn't get that far. I was distracted by that horrific paragraph on the edge. Gin or vodka. Apparently, yeah.

I think it's like gin and lemon. Like, I think there's a lot of citrus going on there. But I think it might be time for us to in for a quick note from our sponsors. All right. Now, if restaurants in Ang Moorpork for some kind of strangely gendered metaphor, then I'm sure you know that gimlet's delicatessen is the woman that walks into a room in slow motion while wind blows from nowhere and generic rock music plays of food purveyors.

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cheeses the disc has to offer. Warning, accident or injury may occur. That code again is eyes like gimlet's for 25% off. Gimlet's delicatessen cable street for food that won't bore into you. Nice. Sorry. Nice. We don't actually have like a lot of particularly good one.

We don't actually have like a lot of really big stuff to talk about this. We're going to think it all gets a bit is going to get very heavy. So I want to enjoy the lighter parts of this book while we're here. Yeah, this is all, as we said, very establishing stuff. I had like a million little bits I liked written down and just there's there's a lot of tiny concepts that don't really have much discussion in them that I loved. But but yeah, as you say, there's no huge amount here, but that's

all right. So where are we starting with our talking points? I thought we'd start with some Morris dancing. Jesus, fuck, all right. I'll get the bells. I did not learn to Morris dance for the podcast mostly because it's very difficult to do it in a blanket fort. Yes. I love there's probably a specific kink

of like confined space for us dancing. Listeners, if that is your kink, please don't tell us. Not to yuck your yum. Don't kiss and tell. Don't stick in bucket dancing. You anyway. Sorry. Tell me about something that isn't what I'm talking about for God's sake. I love Morris dancing as a concept just for trying to explain it to people who have

not grown up in a country where it's popular. Not was it last year, a year before last, I think I had some Canadian friends staying with me and there was some kind of town fair thing on that meant that Morris dancing was happening in the town. Yeah, that happens occasionally where we live. That does happen occasionally where we live. We live in a horrible mix of stars while I'm embraced and phasey. But we walked through the town and happened upon a troop of Morris dancers.

And then I had to try and explain the forest. I had to try and explain it to my Canadian friends. Yeah, I guess I was I was going to say like probably a lot of countries have stupid ancient folk dancers. I guess I'm not allowed to call it stupid if it's not my country. But I wonder how, yeah, in Canada and Australia and America, the New World. Well, in the New World, there is some popular Morris dancing often from expats because it completely fell out of favor and then

kind of had a weird resurgence. So I did a bit of research. The possible origin of the name comes from Morris, which is similar word because it was exotic and different. It was originally a courtly dance. And it sort of made its way out into sorry, you're imagining very straight face, beautifully dressed Morris dancers. A clink, clink.

The first spelling of spelling of it as Morris was recorded in the late 17th century, which is also where it sort of found itself not being a courtly dance, but going out into rural settings. There's lots of different types of Morris dancing. So you've got a Cotswold Morris, which is normally danced with handkerchiefs or sticks. The Northwest Morris, which apparently is more military in style. The Border Morris from the English-Welsh border.

And that's the one that's occasionally danced with blackened faces, which apparently is more to do with mining traditions and covering of identity than blackface. I think a lot of the troops now have moved to like dark green and stuff, though. Yeah, they do paint their faces not black, because even if it's not intended as blackface, it's like why would you do it? The Longsword Dance, which is dance with rigid swords.

That sounds fun. Yeah, that can find space. Longsword Morris dancing, that's my thing. That's the Yorkshire and South Durham one. The Northumberland and County Dermot. Violent, I've noticed, isn't it? The militaristic Longsword. Northumberland and County Durham have

a rapper sword, which is danced with shorter, flexible swords. And then Cambridge here, so our neck of the woods ish or close to, has Mollie Dancing and these were feast dances to collect money during harsh winters. And it's called Mollie Dancing because one of the dancers would be being dragged, basically. But the reason I wanted to look it up, so I wanted to look at the seasonal origins. Sure. And so whether it was traditionally dancing, the changing of the seasons.

And the answer is yes, but not to herald the changing of the seasons. It just it would quite often be part of village events and those would be celebrations of seasonal shifting. But this is one of those things where I feel like Terry Pratchett's added to the folklore and it's better now. Oh, this is so this is actually a line from Wikipedia Askler Morris dancing. The success of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels has seen the entirely invented dark Morris tradition being brought to life in some form by genuine

Morris sides, such as the Witchman Morris and Jack Frost Morris. Fantastic. So while it is related to traditional seasonal festivals, the completely made up dark Morris is now traditionally danced. And see, that's something from it gets sort of referenced here that they dance darker Morris as the seasons go to winter. It will get eventually a bit more background. Yeah, we'll go a bit meta when we get to that.

Yes. We'll have a look at the real life troops that have come from the Discworld. For our listeners who have read all of the books, I highly recommend the Steel Eye Span album, Winter Smith, which has an amazing dark Morris song on it. I don't think you could. That they are so good. I love that album. Anyway, it's a great album.

Yeah, I should say that I do realise that the new world will have its own ancient folk dancers from native populations. OK, from the fall, I just mean the Canadians that you know, specifically in the Americans, we know specifically. Yes, but it is still fun to happen upon a Morris troop and then have to explain to your tourist friends what the fuck is happening. Well, it's kind of, hmm.

Well, what did you tell them? I just sort of said, oh, it's just this weird English thing, and we don't really like to talk about it. Oh, yeah, I like that. Don't look them in the eyes and keep walking. Oh, this town, our town, anti crimes, anti crimes, anti crimes. Let me this is again, this is just a little footnote,

but I like the idea when Dibbler finds a cupboard full of snow globes that didn't originally belong to him. He's wondering if someone broke in and put them there. In accordance with the fundamental law, that everything in the multiverse has its opposite, anti crimes do exist. Giving someone something isn't the opposite of a robbery. To be an anti crime has to be done in such a way as to cause outrage and or humiliation to the victim.

So breaking and decorating, proffering with embarrassment, whitemailing, such as threatening to reveal to his enemies of mobster's secret donations to charity. So it'd be like me sending a picture of Jack Cuddling the Little Puffy to his night's farm. Yeah, yeah. I was about to say his night's at the farm, it's bullshit that everyone now loves dogs too, but you know, I mean.

Yeah, yeah. So, yes, what what would be a good anti crime to perform on you? On me. Oh, OK. So if you really need to know embarrassment, it would be to come in and visibly correct some of my writing. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. I like that. How about you? I've tried to think of something.

Like. Maybe like clean your, deep clean your kitchen or something. Yeah, deep cleaning my kitchen or like organizing my books in a way that makes it all a lot more functional, because they are organized in a way that is very specific to me. Yeah. But I'm sure there would be better ways to.

So yeah, breaking into my house and just reorganizing all of my books. So it all works really well and flows smoothly. Yeah. And then that's like an ongoing humiliation to like, well, this works, so I'm going to keep it. But I think that would be my ultimate anti crime. I like it. Good stuff. So cookie.

Cuckoo. Yeah, so the little snow goby fellas are little cuckoo parasites, obviously. Yeah. And I thought I'd have a look at that. They're called brood parasites, which is quite a creepy name. Yeah. But yeah, so cuckoo is the best known and they've got like 100 host species that they put their eggs in.

But more relevant to this, most brood parasites are very breed specific in who they target. Right. So they will evolve to have identical eggs to a specific bird. So like these snow goives are very specific to humans and humans who live in more pork, even more. So they've got models of things like the university in the palace and. But yeah, so they can end up in kind of like like an arms race with the host species. So the host species starts getting more and more paranoid.

And the parasite species starts getting better and better at mimicry. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. So most brood parasites are birds. But as we like bees, I thought I'd give a little shout out to cuckoo bees. They're a group of species known as klepto parasites. Klepto, of course, meaning steel, because the larvae left in host nests aren't directly fed by the hosts.

They just steal the food. Nice. Fish have something called mouth brooding parasites, but I didn't want to look into that. So I didn't. Yeah, that's fair. I don't want to know about my parents. You're welcome, everybody. Thank you. And on that, Francine,

do you have an obscure reference for me? I do. And it's less disgusting. It's nice. So when Wendell Poon's is looking at his diary or someone's. No, they're looking at Wendell Poon's diary at the other wizards. It's labeled as Wendell Poon's his diary. And obviously, that's there to show that it's a very old thing. And it made me look twice.

I wondered if it was the very old origin of the possessive apostrophe so that it was eventually truncated because I know we used to have a possessive. Yes, suffix. Yeah. So it would be like Wendell Poon's as diary. Yeah. So I found a blog post, which I'll link that led me to a wiki article, which I'll link on his genitive. It's called a his genitive.

So it turns out it's not a linear evolution from like Jack his hat to Jack his hat to Jack's hat. Right. It just had a couple of heydays as like an alternative. So in old English, you'd get the possessive yes, for instance. But the his genitive pops up in the 1200s for a bit. It's all a bit up in the air exactly when it came and went, obviously,

because we're talking so long ago, there's only so many documents we've still got. But I have bookmarks and further reading on it. And then came up again in the 1400s and 1500s and then has kind of pretty much fucked off since I quite like it as a. And it was spring back. Yeah. In the in the first iteration, it was always the his used or spelt without an H sometimes. It is occasionally so it would be Joanna, his mug.

Right. So it's nothing to do with gender? No, or it was just the male, the seam just, you know, like it often is. But considering it was spelt without an H so often, possibly not. It can't it's so hard to tell because we don't know how it was said exactly. Yes, it could have been Joanna E's mug. That sounds too difficult. But yeah, yeah, it was quite cool.

Anyway, you know, I like a bit of skeer etymology. We do like a bit of linguistics, right? Well, I think we've said everything anyone could ever possibly say about the first eight or nine pages of Reaper Man. Fight me. Oh, actually, there was one thing I missed, which is the title itself is a play on Repo Man. Is it?

Yeah, which is 1980s classic cult movie. I've not seen it. Have you not? It's pretty good. Yeah, let's have out. Yeah, I don't remember. It's been so long. I mean, I buy is pretty good. I mean, I remember enjoying it, but I also watched it exactly once three years ago.

All right, fair enough. Also, in my head, I always mix it up with Repo, the genetic opera, which is one of my favorite films of all time. The fucking what? Have you never had a repo the genetic opera? You're just putting words together. It is an industrial musical. It stands and is set in a dystopian future

where people have to borrow horrendous amounts of money for things like organ transplants, and if they can't pay the money back, a repo man comes and takes the organs they've had transplanted away. Christ, I don't know if industrial musical is a thing, but I'm kind of into that already as in the music is like industrial style. Oh, OK, people have like back alley surgeries and get addicted to this stuff called side rate, which is like an aesthetic for these back alley surgeries. It starts Anthony Stewart head is the titular repo man.

It has Paris Hilton in it. Who is weirdly good? The the Monty Python song, the universe, the galaxy song is about the sketch surrounding it as somebody coming to donate organs, take forcibly. Take organs. Yeah. But yeah, so Reaper Man is a play on repo man, which in itself was originally a play on the term Reaper Man.

But Terry Pratchett did say in an interview that he got the title from repo man. Ah, cool. Yeah, I never even I never even considered it would be a play on anything else. I thought it was just. So yes, Colt 80s classic. I vaguely remember watching quite good repo. The genetic opera. Great. It's got Anthony Stewart head in it.

Well, fair enough. Now we've said now we've definitely said everything, certainly on our little bits of paper. I've gone paperless. Sure. Thank you for listening to the true show. Thank you for it. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcast because it helps other people find us and do tell other people about the podcast.

Yeah, I feel like that's possibly more important. Yes, people. If you know someone who likes Terry Pratchett, oh, hey, if you listen to this really cool podcast where people sometimes talk about practicing, talk about food a lot. Yeah. I mean, you don't have to say it like that. If you would like to send us a dispatch from the round world, you can follow us

on Instagram at the true show. Makey Frett on Twitter at Makey Frett pod on Facebook at the true show. Makey Frett, you can join our subreddit r slash T T S M Y F. Which I can't remember to put stuff on. Yeah, you can also email us your thoughts, queries, castles, albatrosses and snacks. The truth shall makey Frett pod at gmail.com. We will be back next week to talk about part two of Reaper Man.

I don't know where part two is going to end yet. I will tweet it. And in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Well, I'm glad you're not going mad with power. Thank you for not going mad.