The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 36: Reaper Man Pt.2 (Semi-Detached Wolf)

Episode Date: November 9, 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 “Reaper Man”. Etymology! Wolves! Existential Dilemmas! 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:Spotify – Apocalypse Playlist (TTSMYF)Roadkill (TV Mini-Series 2020– ) - IMDbHugh Laurie to star as Maurice, Terry Pratchett's streetwise tomcat - GuardianThe Wurzels - Combine Harvester Song Video 2011What’s the origin of “yo”?r/etymology - YoWeather loreBehind the folklore: swallows flying high: Do high-flying swallows mean dry weather?Pressure cooking with liquorThe world’s 10 worst distillery disastersMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

do you ever have where you like have a set of thoughts that just happen in the wrong order and then things go slightly wrong for you? Probably yes, but you're going to need to elaborate. So I have a water filter jug that I drink water from and fill my kettle from because we live in a horrible area for water. We do. It is basically a solid. The tap water is chewy. Very, very crunchy. Crunchy, crunchy tap water. Anyway, so I filled the kettle from the filter jug to make my coffee. Good. Then I thought, oh, I'm going to want a glass of water. There's not enough water left in the filter jug. I'll fill the filter jug up. So I did that. Then I went into the living room to set up my blanket fort, spotted my neatly empty glass of water and thought, oh,

I'd better fill that up, walked back into the kitchen and pulled the still filtering jug to pour the still filtering jug into the glass, which meant that then I had to spend 10 minutes mopping up water in my kitchen. So you're having a good day, then? Yeah, yeah, it's going really well. I had a lovely breakfast. Locked down. Mark two. Yeah, locked down to Electric Boogaloo. That's where we are. The anticipated sequel. The not really, well, the anticipated sequel, but it was not joyful anticipation. Yeah. As it's recently been Halloween, I see you shiver with anticit. Patient. I don't think I've once managed to get the patient right when singing along with that,

and I've listened to it a lot of times. That's why you've got to do a wait for it between anticit and patient that times it perfectly. Wait for it. Patient. Very good. I was going to say between recording last week's episode and this one, but between recording last week's episode and last week's episode coming out, the lockdown was announced. Obviously, we're in the UK. So, yeah, it started yesterday, although it feels like it started for me today because I did one last shift yesterday. Oh, yeah, of course, yeah, because it makes very little difference to my life until I want to go to a shop. I was kind of counting today as the first day because of your shift. So, yeah, technically, it started yesterday. So I went

into work yesterday and closed down the kitchen for the foreseeable. How's that? Bit weird because I didn't have that. So last time, we as a business had decided to close before the lockdown was announced and the plan was to reopen as a takeaway. So I think we did our last day of business on the Thursday. I went in on the Friday to get rid of all the wastage and start some of the clean down process. I turned up to work on Monday to be candid to clipboard and told, do a stocktake and then leave and I'll see you in a few months. Yeah. So it kind of happened really unexpectedly. Whereas this time, I knew this was the last shift. I knew when I walked out of the kitchen, I wouldn't come back for

at least a month. Did it feel a bit end of a sitcom? Yeah. Turning the light off, closing the door. It was very weird. I did the lights in the lock up. The head chef came through, obviously, to check the state of the kitchen and take a few photos because he's a bit sentimental. Yeah. So in global, void scream? Yes. While we're screaming into the void, America. We're now on day three of the, oh my God, please no. Yeah. Let me just check. Refresh the beef.

Of you're doing the beef, I'm doing the guardian. Well, we've got the lead in Georgia, but we're still showing two, five, three for Biden. And it's still showing electoral college votes. It's still showing two, six, four on the Guardian. It's a very sorry America. This must be traumatic. Yeah. When the... England also, if this comes out and Trump's president again. When the last American election happened, I stayed up quite late watching the first results

come in because obviously with the time difference, it's a bit funny. Yeah. Went to bed and by the time I woke up, Trump had over 270, which is what's needed of electoral college votes to become president. Yeah. So it was sort of all over and done within 24 hours. Whereas this time, I stayed up a little bit late on the night, but nothing was really declared. Yeah. I ended up waking up at three and five in the morning to check it. I told you, didn't I? I was drifting in and out of sleep from four or five dreaming about

checking the results. And then at six, I went, for fuck's sake, just look at your phone. Well, I had Guardian had like a lock screen regular update thing. Oh, that sounds healthy. It doesn't buzz. It just comes up. Well, I have my phone on do not disturb most of the time anyway. Yeah. So it was literally, I could just look at my phone screen and see what the result was and go back to sleep. That's a smart little widget. And I'm sure it's caused people to have heart attacks. But yes, it is a clever anxiety inducing widget.

So yeah, cross fingers for America. We'll link to the Apocalypse playlist in the show notes again, just in case. Yeah, we've got a couple now, don't we? You made the good one that's on Spotify. Yeah, I've got the Spotify one. Have another look through, see if there's anything you want to add and we'll... Yeah. ...be listeners. If you think of any apocalyptic songs we've not added, which is very probable, because I think we got bored halfway through because something, something pandemic. It is so unlikely that we wouldn't finish a project for us soon.

Today in fairness, I'm late because I was busy researching something for the podcast and lost track of time, not like staring blankly into the middle distance. Oh, I mean, today I'm late because I was eating crepes with mushrooms and goat's cheese. So... Oh, it's such a fucking waste. You're living on your own and not for instance here. Yeah. So, relevant something, Amazing Morris, isn't it? Yeah. So, I don't actually know, if we've talked about this on the podcast before, the 28th Discworld, yeah, the 28th Discworld novel, The Amazing Morris, which is the, I think the first Discworld novel aimed at younger readers.

Yeah. It is also one of my all-time favourites. Obviously, no spoilers for it because it's quite far ahead of where we are, but it's a great book. And it is getting an animated adaptation that Narrativia greatly approves of and Rihanna Pratchett greatly approves of. And like some adaptations we won't mention. Anyway, there's been some casting news. It's been like filled us out, those deliberate casts were going to sound mental, but okay. There was a dramatic pause for us in, it's fine.

There's been some casting news. This won't mean anything to the listeners of ours that haven't read it yet, but Laurie has been cast as Morris, which I think is perfect. Yes. And Amelia Clark has been cast as Milisha, which if this wasn't animated, I wouldn't approve of, but as it's animated, her voice I think would be very good. I don't know who that is. She plays Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. Oh, I know her.

Yeah. Pretty lady. She is very pretty and tiny. Is she tiny? She is tiny. I love her. Um, yeah. My recommendation of the week actually is Hugh Laurie related. Is a show called Roadkill on iPlayer.

I don't know where you'd watch it if you aren't in the UK. We don't recommend VPNs, but usually it's fine. Hugh Laurie is such a likable person, actor, whatever. I like Hugh Laurie so much that it's very hard not to root for him, even though he's a corrupt Tory minister in the show. Excellent. So fully recommend. It gave me anxiety, but that's not very hard to do.

I like it. For the Entertainment Valley. I think it's a little mini series. It's four episodes, so it's not a big commitment. I do need to watch it. It's on my list. I will probably be watching quite a lot of telly in the next few weeks. Yeah.

You've got some time set aside for nonsense. I have set a small... I'm going to do some productive things in this lockdown. I know I said that last time and didn't. Yeah. Well, you had a life thing. I had a bit of life going on. I have a lot less life going on now.

I will be cooking delicious food. I will probably get some writing done because I'm more into the habit of writing now. I will attempt to learn web development and programming and shit. Yeah, pretty sparse schedule then. Yeah. And then I've set some time aside for nonsense, possibly in the form of PlayStation.

Noice. Might play Dragon Age again, just to enrage Francine. All right, before we get into that, then do you want to do a fucking podcast? Yeah. We're making a Dragon Age podcast. Have I not told you? You fucking call Callum off and do a podcast with him.

Sterling, darling. Sterling. Sorry. Yeah, we're doing really well with the secret identity shit, aren't we? Oh, yeah. We're great at it. Yeah. Okay.

Let's make a podcast. Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make Key Fract, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Branch's Discworld series, one at a time, in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll.

And this is part two of our discussion of Reaper Man, the 11th Discworld Novel. Quick note on spoilers. We are a Spoiler Light podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for the book we're on, Reaper Man. But we will avoid spoiling any major feature 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. Possibly push dinner. Strain organic looking trolley. Possibly on the back of a combination harvester. One of the two.

Well, you got a brand new combination harvester. And it will give you the key. Amazingly Joanna, considering I've been reading about combine harvester today, that wasn't in my head until right now. I'm so glad I could help. Oh, wow. The one of the good things about winter

is you can see the steam coming off your mug of coffee. Yes. Sorry, I just noticed that as you brought Buffy up to the stairs, soullessly at me. She's not soulless. That picture is. Her boyfriend sometimes is. That picture is, she's got dead eyes in that.

Well, yes, it's possibly because she's on a porcelain mug. Yeah, well. So, what are we doing? We don't have anything to really follow up on from last week. No, the only thing is, the librarian was explained after all during section two. Oh, yes, he was.

How did he? When we broke into the library. Yes, he got an explanation. So, we have not yet had a book featuring the librarian where the librarian is not explained. Would you like to tell us what happened last time on Reaper Man? Sure thing.

Previously on Reaper Man. Death gets life and with it, time to spend. Our favourite anthropomorphic personification leaves his grim domain to take up work as a reaper. Well, we all know he struggles with imagination. His absence is noted by conspicuously undead window poons who lurches around, politely causing trouble in between his colleague's well-meant murder attempts.

Meanwhile, Didler discovers an anti-crime in the form of charming city snow globes. An excess life force causes shenanigans to the chagrin. Chagrin? Is that how you pronounce that? Why would I write it without knowing that? Of our nearly benevolent tyrant and the brother's ridgully. That's that.

Excellent. I didn't really conclude, did it? That sounds like I wanted another sentence, but I don't have one, so. How dare you not bring an extra sentence to share with the class? Marvellous. What's going on in this?

Before that, I just want to point out, can you murder someone who's technically already dead? No, but that's why they're murder attempts, I think. What else would it... What crime do you think he would try and charge them with? Um... Remurder? There.

Consensual deadmint? Consensual deadmint. Bad name. We'll call it attempted murder for now. Okay. Listeners, please write in with your ideas of horrendous crime names. Answers on a bloodstained postcard. Or a slightly wonky albatross,

poor thing. Right, sorry, this section of Reaper Man. Bill Dore wakes from a confused six-hour sleep to find himself bothered by a forgetful cockerel. He considers enjoying porridge before taking to the fields to sight the hay one blade at a time. After feeding the pig, Nancy, Bill makes an effort to teach Cyril the cockerel how to crow

before heading into town. As good old Bill goes to the pub, Wendell Poonz heads to a new club. The wizards attempt a disappointing right of Ashkent, and Mrs. Cake arrives to prematurely premonit at the arch-chancellor. An auditor informs the wizards that normal service will be resumed shortly. Wendell has his gimlet eyes opened much further at the fresh dark club, and narrowly escapes a mugging thanks to the efforts of new pal Lupine.

The cobblestones rise to meet Wendell before he heads back to the university to ponder his financial situation. As the nights draw in, Miss Flitworth invites Bill Dore into her parlour, and we learn that the mountains can indeed be very treacherous. Death dreams for the first time and faces mortality. The pleasant monotony of chopping wood soothes him. The rats get poisoned, a chicken dies at death's hands, and Bill is comically bad at archery.

Unfortunately, his attempts at this new sleep thing are rudely interrupted by a fire in the village. Wendell fails to gain access to the university library, and decides to take Lupine and schlepple with him to pay a visit to Mrs. Cake. As the fire in the town rages, Bill Dore stages a daring rescue and lends a little of his life. In the night, he begins to sharpen a scythe and talks hope with Miss Flitworth before using the new day in the harvest to take his mind off things.

Modo the Gardener finds a handy use for the mysterious wheel-and-wire contraptions appearing about the place, and his compost gets a delicious meal. Mrs. Cake and Wendell discuss the build-up of life force and the current lack of death. Vicious trolleys and a vile bit of compost attack the senior faculty. They bravely fight them off with the aid of a little wow-wow source, and Ridcully's talent for creative swearing begins to manifest.

Bill brings in the harvest and has its first experience of scumble before meeting Ned Simnell and his combination harvester. He asks Ned to kill the now thoroughly sharpened scythe. Mrs. Cake holds a seance and chats to one man bucket with the ragtag aid of Wendell, Lupine and Ludmilla. They learn that snow globes hatch to trolleys, but not what the trolleys will become. As the wizards face the midden heaps,

Wendell, Lupine and Ludmilla head to the library for a bit of history. Lupine saves them from a particularly violent trolley and laps up Ludmilla's sympathy. Very good. This is the, what's it called, rising... Rising action. Rising fuckery. Yeah, I really enjoy this section.

I know that the all the big important philosophical bits are in the next section, but I do like the scene setting proper. Yes, it is very scene setting. I think this is where we get the best of the... I didn't realise how quickly it becomes kind of the action for death for Bildor. I thought we had a bit more of him living his life as Bildor before it gets into the...

Right, I'm going to have to go and do things. Do you spot anything in the sky or covering a crotch? Very little in the way of helicopter and loincloths, tragically. Implied though, always implied. There is always the implication of a loincloth. But on the other little bits we have been keeping track of, there's another million-to-one chance reference. Ah, where was that?

So it's page 151 in mine. It's just after death discusses the revenue with Miss Flitworth and he's talking about whether or not the scythe will work and he says, I don't know, it's a million-to-one chance. Aha, but it just might work. So I don't think either of us wrote this down, but it is a beautiful bit where he's sharpening the scythe. Yeah, the whole section.

As he's finding more and more things to sharpen it on, it also made me feel guilty about the fact I haven't given my knives a good going over yet this week. Oh yeah, he wouldn't like to know how long it's been since I own mine. Yes, if I ever, for some reason, have to come and cook in your kitchen, I'm bringing a steel and doing your knives before I start. I do have a steel. I do do them sometimes, it's not...

I remember, sharp knives are safer. It's, I'm very clumsy. So, quotes, yours first. Yes, this is a short one. Bildor was aware of undertones and overtones in the same way that an astronaut is aware of weather patterns below him. They're all visible, all there, all laid out for study, and totally divorced from actual experience.

I like that. And this is the moment where Miss Flitworth has brought Bildor a hot milk drink. We're both clearly very into the dynamics of Bildor and Miss Flitworth, my, my quotes with them as well. So, when Miss Flitworth is telling Bildor about Rufus. So, in the same scene, actually, I think it's just a little bit later. It's, no, it's a slightly later scene. It's when she invites him into the parlour.

Yes, quite right. But, yeah, anyway, and there's, there's a lovely bit where death finally does get a, get an undertone or overtone. And Miss Flitworth's Amountants can be very treacherous in the winter, which is like a nice sort of spark of friendship. I think, like, he's agreeing with her. Yeah. But I liked the quote.

And do you know what, Bildor? Do you know what I thought this being when her husband's gone in the mountains basically? It was the day before we were going to be wed, like I said. And then one of his Pat Ponies came back by itself and then the men went and found the avalanche. And you know what I thought? I thought, that's ridiculous. That's stupid.

Terrible, isn't it? Oh, I thought of the things afterwards naturally. But the first thing was that the world shouldn't act as if it was some kind of book. Isn't that a terrible thing to have thought? I really relate to that. I love it. I've noticed this to talk about later on, but we'll talk about it here. It's such a good moment.

Yeah, absolutely. I've noticed that myself. Like, I kind of pick up narrative symmetry in it when it happens in real life. And obviously, it's one of those things like the coincidences. Yeah, confirmation bias. Thank you, yeah. What did you think about it then? Sorry, I didn't notice that you've written it down.

Oh, no, it's fine. It's just that reaction of, God, this is silly. I've mentioned, obviously, on the podcast that my life's kind of caught fire a bit over the last year. You know the specific details of it. And it did definitely get to a certain point where I just looked at it and said, that's just silly. I have looked at texts from you and gone, you are fucking kidding me.

Yeah. Speak to Jack. Like, obviously, I don't want to go into the details of all the ways in which my life's gone wrong. But no, there's a few. It's been a quite frankly ridiculous year. And I was having this conversation with someone last night, actually, because someone got in touch who I haven't spoken to in seven years.

Ah, yes. For a completely ridiculous reason. But then did the polite, how are you? Yeah, oh, well, well. So I mentioned one of the ridiculous things that happened to me. And they were sort of a, oh, God, you poor thing. And I said, honestly, at this point, it's just, I'm just sort of saturated with it now to the point where I don't really need to

weep. And that sounds really quite depressing. Like when you get so wet, you can't get any wetter. So you don't mind walking out in the rain. Yeah. It's sort of, well, there's no point weeping and running my clothes because there's so many ridiculous things have happened. I don't really have.

Weep with good clothes. It's a waste of good clothes. I don't really have the energy. Yeah. I'll just get dehydrated. And then I'll have to fill my filter jug up to pour myself more water. And that always lends to me forgetting I've just filled it up and then pouring water all over my feet.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that resilience that especially comes from tough old ladies and tough old ladies who've lived on farms with smuggler farmers. Yeah. Although at the time, she was a tough young lady on a smuggler farmer. But it's just that, well, this is silly. This shouldn't happen.

And then what life expects me to do now is moon around the place in the wedding dress for years and go completely do lally. That's what it wants me to do. Oh, yes. So I put the dress in the rag bag and we still invited everyone to the wedding breakfast because it's a crime to let good food go to waste. But then Pratchett did that wonderful thing a little bit later with the... She just happens to still have the pure white silk.

Yeah, which was a gorgeous little throwback. I like how he builds these walls around his characters and then just kind of shows you the chink. It's fantastic. Armour has a chink in it. Wall has a loose brick. Show you some of the loose brick. Must make metaphors on a Friday, as they say.

Everything about the... I'll go into it more later, but everything about the interaction with Miss Flitworth and Reeferman, I think, showed Pratchett at some of his best writing. Yeah. I think I'm being reminded as to why it's one of my favorites. And last time I waxed lyrical about the octorine country. Octorine grass country.

Yeah, but then, yeah, rereading all of this bit. I'm like, now I know why I just have this warm feeling whenever I think back. And obviously in the next section, there's a lot more of that, but it's built up a lot more than I remember. And I know this book so well. I've read it so many times. And yeah, every time there's with any Pratchett, isn't it?

There are surprises, yeah. Right, should we go on to characters then? Yeah, we've got a few again. We do. Well, we're revisiting a few that we've met already, because I have things to say. Well, I look forward to hearing them. But we'll start with Cyril, the Dyslexic Cockerel.

Poor Cyril. Let's forget full Dyslexic Cockerel. I love him. He's very sweet. It's one of those things that... Oodle foodle pop. It could become a heavy-handed and not very funny joke. Yeah.

And there are things Pratchett has done in the past where he's put something funny in, and then it's become heavy-handed and not very funny, largely looking at the parrot from Eric. Yeah, I think he got it this time. It's, and it's always very well timed. It just tends to pop up as that little bit of humour to break a bit of tension.

Yeah, it's like a little palate cleanser again, isn't it? Yeah, it's a lovely little moment. So, yes, I think he's a good little comedy cockerel. And then, obviously, we have... He's a nice little tool to show Death caring about his job as well. Yeah. Because Death has Bill Dore, like Miss Flitwick kind of mentions off-hand

that she wishes the Cockerel get it right, and Bill Dore goes and threatens it. And teaches it. Yeah. And does his best. Fresh Start? Yes, the Fresh Start Club, which Wendell attends, which advertised,

come in, come in, the Fresh Start Club, being dead is only the beginning. Fucking red shoe. Spicks of the world arise, you have nothing to lose but your chains. The silent majority want dead rights, and end vitalism now. This is why Jack hates placards.

He always tells me he hates placards, and I do understand it. I hate twee puns on placards. Oh, I fucking love it. I love it. And I hate it. You can tell by the sound of my voice. I'm like, I enjoy writing these all day,

and then go and sit and sell Patriot. That's the same reason I hate all puns. I'm not good at them. I'm not quick enough. But I did do some googling, and the whole thing with the Fresh Start Club and Red Shoe, it's very bits of the civil rights movement, and it's written very well to not take the piss

out of a very important movement, but to take the piss out of that one guy. Yes, and he does it a couple times more seriously, I think, kind of civil rights things later on in the series. Oh, absolutely. But Reg is just that particular guy that we've all sort of had to get up with a bit. So yeah, Reg is probably the biggest part of this.

There's a really great line when Wendall's sort of meeting him and shaking hands and what have you. Talking to Mr. Shoe was very much like talking to the Archchancellor. It didn't actually matter what you said, because he wasn't listening. In Rick Kelly's case, it was because he just wasn't bothering. Well, Red Shoe was in fact supplying you a side of the conversation somewhere inside his own head,

and having attended the old local Labour Party meeting. Well, well. There is occasionally a little bit of. Having written up the minutes, yes, just a tad. Anyway. Anyway, we don't do that kind of thing anymore. We don't discuss the Labour Party. So who else is at the meeting that we like?

We've got the Winkings also known as the Count and Countess Not For R2. Oh, good. I'm glad that's how it's pronounced. I wanted you to say that. Well, I mean, not far out, though. Not far out. Well, it's based on not for R2, hence what I'm saying, not for R2.

I think it's not far out, too. Yeah, yeah. But not for R2 is a lot easier to say, she says, saying it wrong. That all got very sibilant there. I think this is the first time we really talked to vampires on the disc. Definitely, first time we talked to them. I couldn't tell you if they've been mentioned before, but I suspect if so only in passing.

Yes. There's a lot of, just as Moving Pictures planted a lot of seeds for this book, there are a couple of seeds being planted here that we'll be coming back to in the next book. While I love this book, I'm incredibly excited for the next book. What's next? Which is Abroad. Oh yeah, fuck yes.

We're going to see some witches. God, this is a good little run, isn't it? It's an excellent little run. So yes, they're not for R2s. I love all of the stuff about vampire standards. So this is Arthur has become a vampire, having sort of inherited a large mysterious castle. Yeah.

And then finding himself not dead, effectively. I'm dead, one might say. Yes, I'm waking up in the church, which is very upset that he now can't go to because he gets this pain all down his leg. And his wife has decided to embrace vampirism alongside him, but it's very much when we must do it the way it is done. Yes, and kind of embracing the aesthetic that really doesn't suit her.

Yes, figure hugging black dress, long, dark hair, cut into a widow's peak and very pallid makeup. Unfortunately, nature designed it to be small and plump and frizzy with a hearty complexion. It's, you can see it because we all knew that goth. I was that goth. No, you weren't. In the nicest possible way.

Okay, I'm quite pale, but I go very hearty and red cheeked. I have got a bit of a ruddy peasant complexion. I have very frizzy hair. You look very good in corset. Well, yes, all right, there is that. It's not quite as bad when you get a ginger goth. You never saw me in black lipstick. Now that was unsuitable.

There is a photograph somewhere that I think I've managed to remove from the internet, but still have a copy of me in black lipstick with my shaved head. All right, should we both try and like find our most embarrassing goth photos? Yes, and we'll tweet them. Yeah, okay. Like Halloween present feel. I love the middle class desperately trying to keep up with standards, vampires. I would be stunned if Terry Pratchett did not enjoy keeping up appearances,

which I know we've now mentioned several times. But it is very funny. And this is keeping up appearances based very heavily on somebody we all know in our own lives. So yes, there is something particular British middle class must keep up standards and appearances. Yeah. As we've said many times. So we also have Schlepple the bogeyman who is brilliant. Is he agoraphobic?

Yes, he is. Yeah, that's his problem. Yeah. He likes to. So he always has to be hiding beneath something or behind something. Poor little mite. We have Lupine. It was a sort of werewolf.

Yes. Where's the description? Yeah, he's technically a wolf and every full moon he turns into a wolf man. Yeah. So what's that then? A wereman, I guess? Yes. What does were mean?

Well, where is like, I think I need to look up the actual etymology, but I think that's to do with changing because as well as werewolves, there's where foxes and where chickens probably. Where foxes are actually part of some mythologies where chickens are just made up. But now I'm terrified of them. So let's have a look. Old English word is man. So it's wolf man.

So he can be a werewolf. Yeah. So he is a werewolf. He just does it differently from most other werewolves. Yeah, which explains why he's in the other ones as well, because man chicken, et cetera. Yes. And there's a few at the Fresh Start Club,

including Sister Droll, Brother Gawper and Brother Ixalite, the shy banshee who just quietly hands a little note over saying, ooh-ee, ooh-ee. Oh, such a sweet little banshee. Has he got a stutter or something, is he? Uh, I think so. It's changed, I think, yeah. One of those two.

And then Moving Up Country. Moving back to Octorine Grass Country around Buildor. We've got the town folk, and I want to start with the little girl because she's great. We do like the ridiculous little children in these books. Ridiculous little child who can completely see that death is a skeleton. Yes. And everyone else is just.

It's a Skellington. Look, he's got all bones. And then she finally approaches him. You are a Skellington, aren't you? I can tell because of the bones. You are mistaken, small child. You are. People turn into Skellingtons when they're dead.

They're not supposed to walk around afterwards. Ha, ha, ha, will you hark at the child? But then eventually he gives up on trying to pretend he's not a skeleton, and she just goes, why don't you fall to bits? I don't know, I never have. It's like, oh, so you're kind of like a living Skellington kind of. Can I just say right now, can we petition for Skellington to be the word because it's much better?

Skellington is a great word, but I also like that she realizes that someone in the village has a dead Skellington. What was inside someone? Yes, yuck. The child stared distantly at the landscape for a while and then said, I've got new socks. Oh. And I love kids because these are these sort of conversations that happen,

like this happens with my little five-year-old nephew. I've got new socks. Do you know? It's Friday. Yeah, I found a spoon. Except in my nephew's case, like each of these sentences is prefaced with Auntie Jo, Auntie Jo. He is an excellent small child.

So yeah, I love the little girl. And then we've got the rest of the town folk. All very old. All very old. Good old Bill goes to the pub with them. We get some names. Good old Bill Daw. Good old Bill.

We've got William Spigot, Gabby Wheels, Duke Bottomley. I particularly like Gabby Wheels for the sound of it. Yeah. Called Gabby because he's very quiet. Bill Daw doesn't quite get that, but whatever. There were young men in the, they were young men and women in the village, but at the certain age, they seemed to flip straight over to being old

without passing through any intermediate stage, and they stayed old for a long time. That's what working in the fields will do for you. Yes. You become an old man, but then you sort of stick. I do know some marvellous old people that seem to have been old all their life, but incredibly tough and will not stop. Yes.

I'm thinking largely of my Catholic grandmother, who I think is mostly alive out of spite and stubbornness. How's she doing? She's okay at the moment. She's good. I spoke to her the other day. I was asking her advice on planting daffodils, and she said,

just have them in the pot, put the earth on them, and forget about them. Stop fretting. Yeah, that's pretty much it with bulbs. That was a nice bit of reassurance. And then we get one of my favorite little character intro moments. The death of rats.

It was a little tiny six-inch skeletal rat with a little tiny scythe. I like how it kind of flickered through the possible death of rats before settling on that one. Like a little terrier or what was the other thing, a bit of cheese or? Or some sort of trap. Yeah. But then I don't know whether he's insinuating

that rats are very close to human, maybe. I mean, that's true. Rats are, well, we'll talk about Pratchett and rats and all sorts of things. But yeah, I mean, they're the resilient live-everywhere species like us, aren't they? Yes, very much. They live alongside us always.

And yeah. I just like the professional courtesy of death giving him a little piece of cheese. Yeah, here you are, sir. And yeah. We've also got Ned Simnell. Sorry. Fucking Simnell.

Isn't it? Ned Simnell. Right? Yeah. I genuinely didn't notice that until this read through. Yes. So Ned Simnell is working. Bollocks to first-time readers.

I'm sorry. Just it's quite cool to see this name here first-time readers. So he's working in the blacksmith, but he's building some kind of ridiculous machinery. Yeah. And he's talking about clockwork and things and wondering how to self-propell his machinery and then a kettle boils over and distracts him,

which is quite funny, because obviously it's hinting at the idea of steam power, which just never accursed him. Yes, which is marvelous. And again, might come back up. But yeah, he's the kind of vague mechanic that we all know and love again in our lives. It's amazing how he managed to pin down recurring characters

throughout real life. We all know that person is mechanic, but quite into making stuff and tends to always look slightly to the left of your ear when they're talking to you, because they're having an idea. Yeah. When I worked on the Land Rover magazine,

I knew several of those used to write for us. Fucking incredibly intelligent man. And some of them were very personable, but some of them just had no interest in talking to you about anything but Land Rover. I have a tendency to really, really think things through when I start working on them. Weirdly, less so with writing, but more with making things,

which means it was noticed by a friend I was spending some time with a few weeks ago that I suddenly went really quiet. For probably like two or three days, I kept lapsing off into really quiet things. And it was just because I was thinking about how to design a certain necklace. Yeah.

And I had to think it through, and then I had to get it out on paper before I could pick up the wires and stuff and start making this necklace. This is what I'm trying to learn to do with painting, because I'm the same. If I'm building something practical, I will try and think it through first.

And I can with writing, actually, because I have to write nonfiction articles, obviously. Yeah, you have to plan those. But with painting, I've been doing too much of the just like happy accident style of painting. I'm like, right, no, come on. You know, to build something good, you need to think it through, so yeah.

See, with writing, I find if I tend to, because I don't write a lot of nonfiction, what I tend to write is like prose and theatre. Creative writing. Theatre, sometimes I will do a bit of planning first because I am aiming to get from A to B. Yeah, yeah. But I find, especially with prose and with poetry,

I get too intimidated by thinking about it first. And because I can't figure it out where it ends, I don't start, so I have to just write and trust that I will find an ending. Trying to write a chapter in the style of theatre then and then adapting it back. I have. Well, I kind of end up doing that anyway. I forget to put any kind of tags in in dialogue

because I write a scene. Just a bit of a bill, yeah. Yeah. But especially with the novel I'm working on, I still have no idea how this novel is going to end. I'm still very much in the world building stage of writing it. I like imagining you writing it and then just one day writing the ending and you're going,

oh my God! That will be how it happens. Yeah, sorry, I've got a bit distracted there. So, Ned Simnell, he is that person we all know who is constantly thinking about how to do something and make something. And then one last, this isn't really a character. This is a throwaway line, but I want to point it out,

especially because of what we were talking about. Um, we had, this is the senior Wrangler talking. We don't need to, we can get over most things. Rats, remember the last, rats last year? Fesinari wouldn't listen to us, no. He played that glib bugger in the red and yellow tights, a thousand per cold pieces to get rid of them. It worked though, said the lecturer in recent rooms.

Of course it bloody worked, said the Dean. It worked in Querm and Stolat as well. It'd have got away with it in Pseudopolis if someone hadn't recognised him. Mr. So-called Amazing Roris and his educated rodents. Again, just like with Ned Simnell, I didn't realise it got referenced this early. So, we'll come back to that in 17 books time.

Plus all the other books we're going to do in the meantime. And then that. But pin there, I'm not going to remember that we had this conversation. So, you've got Rick Cully down. Have we seen some character development or? There's just a couple of little moments involving Rick Cully that I like, the first of which is when they're

right at the beginning of this section, or very near the beginning of this section, they're stomping back from having seen the patrician. And he says, who is he going to call? Oh. Which little ghostbusters. Oh, yeah, I didn't even notice that one. The like pop reference I saw was,

don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall on the fresh start club. Bob Dylan. Ah, that one went totally over my head and I missed it. So, between us, we've done quite well here. Yeah. Who's going to call?

I'd say that we probably missed like 90. Who are you going to call? No one. I have anxiety. There's another Rick Cully moment though that I really like, which is page 99 in my version. The arts chancellor was not the kind of man

who takes a special pleasure in being brusque and rude to women. Or, to put it another way, he was brusque and rude to everyone, regardless of sex, which was a quality of a sort. I'm not sure if I'm saying brusque right there. Brusque. Brusque.

Brusque. I think brusque. Okay, we're going with brusque, because I've already said it twice now. The thing is, I really love this, because it would be so easier to make Rick Cully sexist. Look at drum billet and cut angle and treatal from equal rights.

Yeah, almost every senior wizard we've come across so far. Has this sort of weird low level of sexism that mostly comes from the fact that they don't really speak to women, because apart from Mrs. Whitlow. Whitlow. Whitlow. Whitlow.

Whitlow. And I really like that it'd be so easy to make this character a sexist ticket. And in early books, that's what Pratchett did. Obviously, in equal rights, that's kind of the point, the characters are sexist tickets. But he doesn't.

He makes him a character who is a bit of a dick to everyone, but thinks of everyone as pretty much on the same scale. But he lived at home for a long time, didn't he? So that probably helped. He wasn't just in this environment. No. From within the fictional world,

there's lots of good reasons for him to not be a sexist ticket. But from a reader perspective, and from I think the whole Terry Pratchett writing perspective, I think it's really good that he has kind of expanded the realm of characters he writes. Definitely progress. Yeah, rather than just writing the same wizard again and again, basically.

Yes. So that was a happy purple post-it moment. Hey. Oh, yeah. We haven't made any purple post-its for a while, have we? No, I haven't made any purple post-its. Are we getting less woke, or is Pratchett getting more woke?

I was about to start seeing flying purple people later, so I feel like I'm not one to. God's sake, you were getting these fucking songs in my head today. I'm great at it. I'm going to make a remix of Combine Harvester and flying purple people later, just to fuck with you. I mean, that'll make me really happy.

Please do that. Yeah, I think I do. Mrs. Flitworth. So we already talked about her tragic backstory and why I absolutely love that, but I wanted to talk about her parlor. I do. Because this is such an odd room.

Almost a location. It is almost a location, but because I had a few things to say about Ms. Flitworth, I thought I'd put it all in one place. It is such an odd room, and again, I think this is a somewhat British thing. So she has this big, huge kitchen with this massive table, and that's where she lives.

That's where she cooks, and it's warm, and that's where they sit in the breakfast and the meals. That's the kitchen I want, aren't they? But she invites him to come and sit in the house of an evening and says she's got a fire, and he gets there slightly too soon and finds her lighting the fire in the parlor, and she's sort of embarrassingly explaining,

well, it's not worth lighting it just for me. And they sit in this room, and it is this dead room with things everywhere. It's this room that's only used for best. And it would be so much more comfortable in the kitchen, but that just doesn't seem right. No. There's...

Ornaments almost concealed the furniture, but this was no loss. Apart from two chairs groaning under the weight of accumulated anti-macassas, the rest of the furniture... Anti-macassas. Anti-macassas. They're like a weird chair covery thing. I really should have prepared myself for reading this

because I have no idea if I'm saying that right. The rest of the furniture seemed to have no use whatsoever apart from supporting ornaments. There were spindly tables everywhere. It smelled of long, dull afternoons. Those tables make me so anxious. Little tables covered in ornaments. I've been in places like that.

I have known people who were like that, who have a parlor that is for best and has ornaments everywhere, and it's horrible. It's a particular kind of cluster that makes me very claustrophobic. And I think because I was in there as like a child, it brings up that very intense feeling of boredom and... It's a combination of boredom and fear. Because we've been in them in childhood,

we've told you absolutely, you mustn't touch anything and you cannot accidentally destroy auntie or grandmother's favorite ornament. It's one of those strange things. Kitchens with big tables that you can lounge around at and a parlor for best that you are on your best behavior in. Yeah. And then this is Flitworth making a particular kind of foray into...

I don't think romance so much as friendship with Bill Dwarf. Yeah, that's it. She is inviting him into the... Yeah, she's trying to start a platonic relationship of some description. Yes. And then this great moment where she bustles in with a loaded tray, a blur of activity as she performed the alchemical ceremony

of making tea, buttering scones, arranging biscuits, hooking sugar tongs on the basin. At least I'm a demon. Yeah, always happens. She sat back then as if she had been in a state of repose for 20 minutes, she trilled slightly breathlessly. Well, isn't this nice? It's so realistic.

It's so good. Well, isn't this nice? And it is always said after the tea things have been performed. Jack's grandma had a saying and it wouldn't just be this. It would be like whatever they were. Just, uh, aren't we lucky today? And I love that. And I try and say that now.

That's really lovely. Yeah. Aren't we lucky today? Oh, I really like that. My grandma says that a lot just. Oh, aren't we lucky whenever we do anything nice? But I just like the random, aren't we lucky today? That's really quite sweet.

I love that. Yeah. I might try and adopt that into my lexicon. Oh, do you? We'll make it a thing. But she also says, oh, I don't have occasion to open up the parlour these days. And it's not just using a room.

It's opening up a room. Yeah. It's like if the vicar came around or you were meeting somebody for the first time, whoever it was, you'd probably bring them there. Yeah. No, it's, I do wonder what the equivalent is in different countries. I'm sure we'll have them.

But yes. And then I also, I like her when death slash build door is trying to explain who the auditors are. And she sort of picks up, you mean like the revenue? The revenue. The revenue. My father always made me promise never to help the revenue. Even just thinking about the revenue made him want to go and have a lie down.

The revenue for anybody unfamiliar is basically a tax inspector. Yes. Going to come around and make sure you've been paying your taxes. And when you haven't, because you're a random farm out in the middle of nowhere that doesn't benefit from any kind of civic pay-in system, you were throwing them in the pond apparently. Yes, which is only a few inches deep. It was fun watching them find out.

And it kind of strengthens the bond again, doesn't it? Yes, it gives them something else to... If I've got some kind of common enemy, even if it's really... Yes. She's also gone from slightly suspicious of him, understandably, to determined to help. Yes. And then we have Ludmilla.

Yeah. So there's a lovely little scene where we get, which is more of a description of Ludmilla and Mrs. Cake. So Wendell originally assumes Ludmilla is Mrs. Cake as she opens the door and then works it out. She was big, but not in the sense of being fat. She was just built to a scale slightly larger than normal, sort of person who goes through life crouching slightly

and looking apologetic in case they inadvertently loom. I know one person who is quite big, but quite short, but is so such a force of personality that it feels like I'm being towered over in a very friendly way. Inevitantly loom is a good one, isn't it? Inevitantly looming. So that's Ludmilla, Mrs. Cake's daughter, who has her own relationship to the full moon.

Wendell's little kind of background matchmaking is a lovely part of this, actually. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'm trying to work out what the word for Ludmilla would be. If we know that wear now means man, so it's not a semi-wear wolf, it's a wear semi-wolf. Yeah.

Let's go with that. Semi-detached wolf. Nice semi-detached wolf in the suburbs. As opposed to a terraced wolf. Far too noisy. Mrs. Cake appeared around the side of her daughter like a small moon emerging from a planetary shadow. It's a fantastic sentence.

I nearly put this as its own character, which is Mrs. Cake's hat. I, again, thought you might, but... She wore it at all times with the dedication of a wizard. It was huge and black and had things on it, like bird wings and wax cherries and hat pins. Carmen Miranda could have worn that hat to the funeral of a continent.

And Mrs. Cake travelled under it as the basket travels under a balloon. Carmen Miranda being a, oh, Brazilian actress. I would like to say Brazilian. South American, definitely. In the mid-last century who wore incredibly fancy fruit hats in her American films. And she would do the dance.

She would. It's probably very problematic looking back. Most things are really quite problematic looking back. Don't look back. Very rinsed. Don't look back. It's problematic and or deadly. It's problematic and deadly.

So, yeah, I just like the little descriptions of them there. Obviously, they are fun characters. And I still love Mrs. Cake. She goes into the category of nanny-og and civil and larger-than-life altar women who are very determined and get their own way. Yes. But in a very different way to granny weatherworks.

Yes. Yes. It's a lot more foreground granny weatherworks likes to have her way from the background. I now cannot remember if we ever get to see granny weatherworks meeting Mrs. Cake. I don't think we do. If we do.

I don't think we do. I wouldn't be shocked if they did, but I don't remember it. But we should watch for that. So, locations. Yes, we've got. Where are these people that we've just talked about? Well, obviously, Angkor Pork and the University and the Fresh Start Club and all that happen.

The town, which continues unnamed. This is the town closest to the farm where Bill goes for his pint and his archery and the field. And it's a village. It's not a town. But it's sort of a place where hub. Yeah. Yeah.

It's the sort of place where if you lived on the outskirts of it, you would call it going to town. And there are old members of the fireplace. Do you know the bloody modern age through and so many words? Hub is one of them. Hub always brings up something to do with software in my mind now. And earlier, I was trying to look up the life cycle of things.

And I kept getting fucking terms of the life cycle of an app or something. No, for God's sake, I want to look up fish. But I love. So the town goes unnamed. We know it's up to in grass country. We know it's probably one of those places that has sprung up because there's a few farms and then everyone needs somewhere to meet up in the middle.

Yeah. It's quite an interesting decision for him to leave it unnamed because he does take joy in naming all these. Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, and Catash and badass and. Yeah. Scrope.

But yeah, he doesn't want to kind of pin it down to a name because that would shape almost how it would be in someone's imagination. Am I making sense or am I right? You know, you absolutely do. But it does. It reminds me of those small. Yeah, I fairly recently drove through the village I grew up in. Oh, yeah.

Well, I wanted to go for a walk at this lovely nature reserve that I knew was only a couple miles out from the village. So that was a lovely little moment. It's a very, very sweet little village that doesn't have a lot, apart from a pub and a shop and a church. Yeah. Those are the three things that make a village. And then we have this is not a place we go to,

but it's a throwaway reference. Yeah. Talking about how daylight happened to slot across the world and on the fabled hidden continent of XXXXX somewhere near the rim, there is a lost colony of wizards who wear corks around their pointy hats and live on nothing but prawns. There, the light is still wild and fresh as it rolls in from space and they surf on the boiling interface between night and day.

See, again, I love that he clearly just gave himself a little brain tickle there, which came back later on. Will come back eventually. Yeah, just in a little, again, throwaway joke. And then. But also, it's fleshing out the world. Yeah. You know, it obviously carries to a mega.

So I have more pork and that's sort of an octarin grass country and that's all a bit English. And we have clatch and other areas we've been to and we've been around the rim. If we have all of that, there must be somewhere near the rim surrounded by ocean that probably is a bit Australian around the years. Yes, absolutely. And then the other place that gets mentioned,

I wanted to notice is the high energy magic building at the university. It's a little bit CERN, isn't it? And this is where the younger, skinnier, bespectacled wizards hang out, wanting tammic, particle accelerators and radiation shielding. They're searching for the elementary particles of magic itself. Oh, it's their Large Hadron Collider, isn't it? Yeah.

Kind of. So the senior wizards. I don't know if that had been started building in 1991, but that's. The young specky wizards looking at the very nature of magic while the senior wizards are sort of like, well, our main priority here is dinners. Yes, they've gone through magic. They've come out the other side and now they don't really care how it all works,

which again is a shift in the wizards from equal rights. But we might get to visit the high energy magic building again. We might. We might. There's so much set up in this book. There is. And again, unless I was looking for it all, I'd probably just skim over it because I know the disc world.

So. Yeah. The world is getting bigger and more detailed and it's exciting. Right. Right, actually. Quick break. Yeah. Orange slices or coffee, depending on preference.

Well, I used all the orange on pancakes, so it's going to have to be coffee. I want pancakes. Hi. Hi. Once again, I tried to make my coffee without adding coffee to it. Good. Good.

Yeah. Just as a, just as a where we're at. This week, I've done a lot of putting coffee in cup building, building. Putting kettle on boiling kettle and wandering off. And then coming back an hour later going, Oh, I want coffee. It's like, ah, I see I've been here before. Now Watson, tell me about the mind of this individual.

Well, I've just opened the microwave and there's a cold coffee in there from yesterday. So. God damn it. We're dealing with a very deranged person. Or a slightly tired and forgetful person who clearly needs more coffee. Yeah, exactly. Right. Where are we?

We're doing a podcast, aren't we? Yeah, hopefully. Well, that's what we've been doing so far. I'm not really sure why we've got all this nonsense printed out in front of us. Again, I'm still paperless apart from my post-it filled book. So the first few little bits we liked are yours. The first one was the Almanac. Ms. Flitwood's only reading matter was the Farmer's Almanac and Seed catalogue,

which could last a whole year in the privy if no one was ill. This is sort of a running joke in the Discworld books that lots of people have Almanacs as toilet paper. So they'll have an Almanac for a year and then it moves to the privy for a year. Yeah, I wonder how much basis there is in that. Because, again, Pratchett overlaps that generation that everyone had outdoor toilets in the UK. The privy generation.

I believe the US had them a little bit sooner than we did indoor toilets as standard. Yeah, so I did look up Almanacs a bit and they've existed. I'll go into the nature of Almanacs and the printing of Almanacs a bit more in a later book because we see a bit more behind the curtain with the printing of them. But they were these calendars that existed for farmers that would have things like went to plant set and things predicted weather patterns over a year. They've existed as far back as I think like the 12th century, possibly even earlier.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, because a lot of the observations were made by monks to start with, weren't they? So yeah, that would make sense for Anna. Yeah. Monks in rural communities. It was mostly the availability of paper that made them a general thing, which also, you know, adult illiteracy was not as common as I think people seem to believe in the sort of medieval times.

I think there was a lot of writing illiteracy but reading literacy. So a lot of people could read and not write. Yeah. Especially women. I don't know that. But it was quite often necessary for people to at least know some of their letters for the sake of things like Almanacs. But I mostly wanted to point this out because

so also, Almanacs do exist in modern day is the other thing. There are certain companies that produce Almanacs that have things about sort of things like sporting awards and general seasonal things. There's like a Canadian Almanac that covers lots of important events. Effectively very detailed calendars. I have to see if we can get our hands on some cool either vintage or modern ones for later on. Yeah, because they sort of fell out of popularity and then had a bit of a resurgence and I think like 18th or 19th century and then now there is like a modern version of them.

There's less, I mean there are farmers Almanacs as well still. More of that Victorian nostalgia basically. Yeah, but I mostly wanted to point this out for the, so in addition to sober information about phases of the moon and seed sowing, it took a certain gristly relish in recounting the various mass murders, vicious robberies and natural disasters that befell mankind. Along the lines of June 15th, year of the impromptu stote. On this day 150 years, it's a man killed by freak shower of goulash and querm

or 14 die at hands of chew the notorious herring thrower. But the important thing is that all of these things happened a very long way away and the only thing that happens locally really is the sort of occasional theft of a chicken. You can believe anything happened provided it happened a long way away or a very long time ago. Yeah, that's it and unusual things happening was part of the Discworld life. Yes, it was in some villages. It was quite odd when he didn't get your herring rain or something. But then, yeah, kind of underlines how normal this town is as well abnormally normal.

It's an extra normal town. And just another little thing I like that I'm throwing in now is that on the following page, at least in my edition is when Bill gets his overalls and his broad brim straw hat. Yay. That he is so lovingly depicted in on the front cover. Another thing I really like, and this is another sort of running Discworld joke, is the rite of Ashkent being simplified and red-colored sort of. Well, actually, you can do it with three bits of wood and four cc of mouse blood.

Yes, we know. And in fact, you don't even do that with one bit of wood and an egg. It just has to be a fresh egg. The more and more this ritual where they summon the grim reaper gets mentioned, the more and more simple it turns out to be. Because really, he'll just pop in if you ask. He's quite reasonable, really. Yeah.

I like the fact that the wizards are like, yes, it's not the point just because you can. Because you can doesn't mean you should. It should be candles and drama. Yeah. And I agree to a certain extent. Part of me, of course, is the vicious sub-editor does like to make things as simple and elegant as possible. But I do have a certain respect for the Baroque.

Baroque? Baroque? Baroque. I'm all over the place today, and I... I mean, yeah, I am a big fan of candles, drama, robes and muttering. I know. But I quite like the idea of wizards carrying a handy little few bits of wood and a few CC of mouse blood just in case they need to do the right of Ash Kent on the go. It's a, yeah, everyday carry for your magic community.

I like the idea of that. We could riff off that. And now for a note. No, I didn't actually write a note for my sponsors because the idea just occurred to me. And I'm not doing improv. No, that's the kind of comedy that you really need to be a certain type to be good at. Oh, yeah, improv. Not my thing.

And then one of the other things I really love is when the Archchancellor swearing starts to physically appear. And I love it. A, because again, I love Rid Curley's character and the idea that he is so vital. He is so full of life that it makes even his swear words manifest when there's this excess of life force flying around. He really fucking means them. Yes.

And the thing is, it's his swearing that does it, but it's very mild swearing. Yeah, it's like damn or something, wasn't it? Yeah, it's damn and bugger and midden. That's what you get in Discworld, isn't it? You get the very occasional shit, I think. Okay. Put that in English. I don't remember the word fuck ever being used in the Discworld.

No, I don't think it is. Certainly not the C word. Definitely not the C word. You don't even use that in this podcast. Yes, that was the, I think someone did ask. I don't think I've let one slip through. No, someone did ask in a review once, what had been bleeped out. And I think I don't remember if we addressed on the podcast that it was me using the C word.

I sounded so shocked like I'd never heard it, but I think it was just in context. I don't mind the word person, unless it's used in a very vitriolic way. Yeah, no, I do recognize that a lot of people see it as a quite violent misogynistic slur. And so I'm happy not to use it in public, in this counts as public. Yeah. I use it quite a lot, but in the very British way of you sort of use it the same way you use mate. Yeah, I'd just use the next word for hot cabinet usually.

I would also only use it around other people who I know are comfortable. Exactly, so yeah. But this is what I love about Ridcully swearing manifesting, is that he is someone who swears so artfully and passionately that it can. Yes. And there are some people who are like that who are swearing, it doesn't seem crash, it doesn't seem like it's for the attention. It is just, they swear like breathing.

It's like letting off pressure from a pot. Yes, just a little bit. I love that sort of swearing. Yeah, same. Especially as I, you know. We use it as punctuation, it's not as affected. It appalls me, so I work in a kitchen as well. A lot of swearing happens in kitchens.

I work with some lovely Polish people, so we all swear in multiple languages. I'm trying to cut back a bit, believe it or not, if you listen to this podcast, because I do listen back to us occasionally, and frankly appalled at our lack of decorum. But not that I think we should be ladylike or anything. I just think that as people who ostensibly have had at least two coffees, we should be able to think of synonyms. I know, but sometimes a well-placed fuck does the job.

But yes, but my head chef, and I think it's part of it, is the fact that he's Canadian, is very polite and doesn't like a lot of swearing. And I have to be, I have to restrain myself a bit around him. He'll pick up on it if I'm swearing too much. Can I say? Anyway, back from that tangent. Yo. Yo, this starts...

Come on, Bers, I'll try and keep up. This whole little scene is lovely. This is when the senior faculty decides they're going to have to take action and sort of try and kick butt a bit. And this is specifically why I love the Dean as a character, who as we remember was, he was rather poetic at the end of moving pictures, but he's also the one who gets caught up in ideas. So he sort of gets into the grip of a world unwisedly, machismo.

He does get very into things. He gets very, very into things. In this, they're sort of going into some American action movie stereotypes. He's like, yeah, we're mean. Yeah, are we mean? And then, of course, you have the wizards going, are we mean? I'm feeling reasonably mean. It's all right.

I'll be mean if everyone else is. The art chancellor turns back and says, yes, it appears we are all mean. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails a little bit. And the Dean says, yo. And when they're asking what the yo means, senior anger, it means, it's a general street greeting and affirmative with convivial military in-group and masculine bonding ritual overtones. What's like, jolly good?

Well, I suppose so. Senior wrangler. I think I'm laughing at senior wrangler because he's a bit like us. Oh, well, actually, do you know the etymology? I've got a PowerPoint presentation with me as it happens. Speaking of, I did look up the etymology of yo. I couldn't find a lot. I'll link to a couple of things in the show notes.

I'm guessing it's not installed from the Black American community, is it? No. Well, it's really hard to prove where it came from. It possibly existed much longer than really much in the way of recorded language because it's just an easy, it is a sound that a human would make. At least throwing around assumptions. There is evidence for it within, obviously, AAVE, African-American Vocal English, Verbal English.

I forget what the V's dance were. Venicular English. Yes, thank you. And there's a very good episode of your wrong about that goes into AAVE and it's the Bonnix Controversy, which is a subject that generally fascinates me. But yeah, as an expression of alarm or an expression of greeting, it has just a very long history. It's also the Yiddish word for yes.

I learned from Reddit. Is that so? Yes, from r slash etymology. You had a couple of little threads on it. There's an r slash etymology. How have I not found that? You linked me to it. Well, I then made a new account and completely forgot it was there.

Fantastic. Yeah, it's great. It happens all the time for me. Yeah, it's vernacular English, just double-checked. Oh, thank you. Yeah, African-American vernacular English. It has had use in the US military as recently as the 20th century as a response in roll calls, et cetera.

Like yo, yo. So it was sort of a name, yo, name, yo. Oh, I see. See, that just sounds so weird now, doesn't it? It does. It does. There's sort of some... I'm not subscribed to r etymology.

Excellent. Has it never hit my front page? This is bullshit. Sorry, Kariah. Yeah, in algorithms. So it's sort of... I know there's evidence of it being used in, say, the Vietnam War, like in roll calls and things, US military.

So there is some debate over whether it found its way into AAV from the military or whether it was AAV first and appropriated. And it looks like it sort of swung backwards and forwards but has existed in various versions to our history. As some kind of greeting or call. Interesting. And I think it's settled down now pretty casually, hasn't it, in a... It is now, yeah, a very casual term.

In an official capacity row. No. But it is a weird thing because it does kind of mean affirmative, but also hello, but also... Yeah. It's like a more forceful all right in Britain. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Yo. Hello, then affirmative and everything here in Britain, but it's a bit... Very... You're right. Anyway, next, city life cycles. I rather... I know I mentioned this last time in the form of what was it?

Brood parasites. Yes. But I like how that's developing. And the next stage here is the snow globe. And then it turns into the mobile stage, which is the trolley. The shopping trolley. Yeah. And this could refer to any number of life cycles.

This is what I was trying to Google earlier when the apps were in my way. But there are lots of species that have kind of a mobile stage before then settling somewhere in a plant town animal. But I was... Because snow gobs aren't really a thing anymore. Yeah. They're falling out of fashion. It's got...

So you're wondering sort of what the egg could be now and what the mobile stage could be now. For a mobile stage of a city, I quite like the idea... But it's got to be useful. So I quite like the idea of like a bag for life, like flying around in the wind or something. Oh, that's good. I like that. For the egg stage, I don't... It's sort of be something people would pick up and that they would want to keep.

Yeah. This is it. And bring home and put in the house. I quite like the idea of it being those teddy bears you win at fairground stalls. Oh, yeah. That's fun. Because you do keep them because it's not just a teddy bear. There's a memory attached to the teddy bear.

Yeah. And then you're selecting for people who are going to put it somewhere safe as well, aren't you? Yes. And a traveling fair is quite a good way to plant these eggs around various places. Oh, yes. I like that. Okay. Yes.

We'll go with that then. Fairground teddy bear. It goes into bags flying around in the wind. We're not going to talk about how many plastic bags I have in my cupboard. Thank you. Okay. And then on the major talking points, which the delineation between the two is getting blurry and blurry, but I quite like it that way.

Well, I've kept this for the more metaphysical, thoughtful stuff as opposed to things I had to Google. See, I've got the page of notes things here. But that makes quite a nice mix, I think, so. Yeah. I want to start with the two big moments for me in this book, which are both moments between Death and Ms. Flipworth. God, it's a good dynamic.

It's such a good dynamic. I mean, these two moments really cement to me why this is objectively one of the best Discworld books. Oh, fine. So it's not, yes, it's not necessarily one of my top ones, because my top is taken over by other things that aren't other people's favorites. But it is objectively one of the best books. And it is because of moments like this.

And the first one being page 137 in my edition, when the fire is happening and they realized that the girl is still in the pub and the brandy barrels are about to go. And Ms. Flipworth is insisting that we should try and save her. And I would say death rather than build or is saying we shouldn't to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. There is a time for everyone to die. And she slaps him and says, you will leave my phone tonight then. It's fantastic because it's death is being brought back to the forefront of this dual

personality by a question that's integral to his job. Yes, absolutely. So it makes sense that death would then come back out. And then Ms. Flipworth. That slap brings back the build or of him. Yeah. And it's the very core of Ms. Flipworth being offended by it. Mmm.

It is exactly who she is as a person that you do not just stand there and say shit like that when you could be helping. And then I feel like that's practice anger being channeled through Ms. Flipworth there as well as the incredibly hot sense of what is right and wrong. And don't try and logic your way around it. You know what is right. Yes. And it's also possibly quite the first time death is in our discord.

It's had to confront humanity and deal with humans in a way he hasn't really since mort and he's completely different here in more. Although he tries to experience more of humanity while mort does the job, he still holds himself very separate from it. He still thinks of himself as not very human to the point where when he starts losing the things that he sort of hands powers of as an anthropomorphic personification, he gets very upset and embarrassed by it when he suddenly can't walk through a wall. Yes, it's very touristy.

Yeah. And he's also when he is confronted with mort's humanity and has to deal with his mess, he's very vengeful and angry. You know, he fights him. Yeah. Yeah. It is definitely embarrassment turning to anger, isn't it? And that bit and then here it's genuinely a duel in his own head.

Yeah. He's fighting his human nature as opposed to someone else's human nature. And that slap brings the human nature to the forefront. Yeah. That's a fucking hell of a grand gesture then that puts him back in the good books. Well, exactly. It's not just that he then realizes he might be wrong and bring his humanity comes back to the forefront, but that he then does the thing.

He saves the girl and gives her some of his life so she can keep going until he can fix everything. And ironically, he ends to fix everything he has to put his humanity to one side again. And so what's the second of these? Moment. This is a smaller moment, but it's a really lovely one. And this is all going to get very depressing on my end now. Right.

I've got some frivolous things afterwards. Excellent. This is death receives the badly written note of the Banshee, which means he is about to die. And the new death is coming for him. He's going to be the first and everything's going to be terrible. And he's trying to sharpen this scythe so he can fight the new death. And keep saying I just realized that.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, it's fine. It's an easy thing to do, especially from the posse generation. Fuck terfs. Ms. Flitworth says, come on, there's no sense giving in when there's life. And he's obviously not heard the same. He says, when there's life, there's what?

And she says, there's hope. And he says, is there? She says, right enough. And that's enough to give him hope. It occurs to him. Yes, when there's life, there's hope. But it's such an old saying. Yeah.

It's one of those, again, things that you don't think to question until you look at it through the eyes of an anthropomorphic personification. Yeah. Which one so rarely has the course to do. The lovely blue eyes of the anthropomorphic personification. But it was a helpful thing to read right now. You know, I've said to you in private conversations, I have kept my optimism to an absolute limit. Minimum over the last year because look at the last fucking year. Yeah.

Yeah. It seems like the sensible thing to do after a while. Yeah. The US election, whatever is going to happen with the fucking pandemic and the probably constant state of lockdown in and out. The lockdown, hokey-cokey. And so I've decided to revert to it. And also, you know, the things happened in my personal life. So saying earlier with Mrs. Flitworth, you know, this tragic thing happened.

She loses her lover on the morning of their marriage. And she goes, well, isn't this silly? Yeah. Yeah. There's this thing now. But she doesn't lose hope with that. She has this awful thing happen to her. And she retains some sort of cautious optimism.

I like it. Because she is still alive. Yeah. I do like that. I don't like the whole keep calm and carry on stiff upper lip thing so much. I'd like, it's not quite stoicism either, but just the realization that this is how things are now. So we will go on from here. Yes.

And we will keep finding the good bits and the hope in all of the ridiculousness of what life is going on. And it's hard to save the stuff without coming across like one of those irritating, forced positivity people. But Pratchett manages it in the form of Flitworth. Yeah. He writes tough old ladies very well. And Mrs. Flitworth falls into that category of tough old lady who's very practical.

I love an intensely practical human. And this is something that comes in with the death stuff in this section. This is something I really love about Pratchett's writing is that death is a character is it's very flexible characterization where he goes through different ways of trying humanity. More where he did humanity as a tourist now where he's doing humanity is trying to cling on to a last bit of life before he's taken out by the new death. Yeah. And there's this moment where he sits down with people

and he realizes that they are all individuals the way he didn't so much when he was deaf. And it doesn't quite add up continuity wise because he's paid attention to individuals before he had Isabel, he had Mort. Yeah. But it almost seems like after every one of death's adventures he resets himself. Well, this is what I mean about flexible characterization. So in the hands of a different author this would be a criticism. This would be, oh, well, he can't even keep track of his own characters.

In the hands of Terry Pratchett who has this big, rich, well, nuanced world, you can make a character who has turned up before who you need him to be for that section. I mean, if you remember death in color of magic and now we had to keep reassuring the audience, eventually you'll see why we really like this guy. We're not just fucking psychos. Yeah. Yeah. But he's an antagonist in that book.

He's kind of an asshole and he sort of starts to calm down a bit by like fantastic and then you get to who he is now. And it's one of the best things about the disc world is that the characters are flexible. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it comes out as straight like character development, like I would say vimes develops rather than changes randomly. I know it's never random, but you know what I mean.

But yeah. And I think death, the fact that he is an anthropomorphic personification of a human fear means that, yeah, you can write him like this and it doesn't feel conflicted. No, it doesn't at all. It feels like he has partly become like this because he's been around Miss Flipworth, who was, whereas again, well, when he was around humans before, he wasn't around any one specific person for a long time. Yeah.

Apart from Isabelle, who we didn't really know what to do with other than Yeah. My back just started changing again. So we checked the election. Oh, God. I mean, we well, but I don't want to. Yeah. Francine's most like, much like some people have a false hip that tells them when it's

going to rain, Francine's back can predict political upheaval. Which is actually a perfect segue onto the next talking point, folk meteorology, which comes from a very short little joke when we're meeting the village people trying to say that without referencing the band saying things like, oh, I just saw some low flying swallows and some partridges going into the woods and snails by just spinning their web backwards, which I can't find any justification for. You'll be devastated to learn. But I always liked this kind of thing.

Were you taught any of the signs of storm was coming when you were a kid? I was never taught any of this as a kid, like how to look out for the signs of storms. Because we didn't, I didn't really have that sort of upbringing. Yeah, no, fair enough. I think the one I remember was being told this, I've forgotten the species of tree, but a certain tree's leaf would turn over and you could tell because they were silvery. And then there is one, I'm sure we both know, which is the red sky morning, shepherd's warning, which in America is sailors apparently, sailors warning.

So what some of the common rhymes and a lot of our rhymes have a little bit of grounding in reality. So I mean, they would, they come from people who watch the weather. They need to because they are farmers. It really matters as it becomes apparent later in this book. One of the ones was he said he saw some low flying swallows. The rhyme is when swallows fly high, the weather will be dry, which has some truth possibly because they have something about warm air convictions. So when it's nice, whether the swallows will be higher.

And some other examples I quite liked were seagull seagulls sit on the sand. It's never good weather when you're on land, which seems a bit like the one from Mean Girls, where she says, I can tell it's raining when my tits get wet. Seagulls don't really like flying in shit weather, unsurprisingly, but like you probably know it's windy already. And then the other one, if a circle forms around the moon, will rain or snow soon? I don't like the lack of meter in these, I have to say. Just because you're folk doesn't mean you're exempt from proper poetry. Oh, I agree. But anyway, the cloud layer at the top of a weatherfront

is kind of wispy and made of ice crystals, and that can cause a lunar corona around the moon. Yeah, a little circle around it. So that's quite cool. So folk meteorology, God, that's hard to say, is a thing. And it makes sense. I enjoyed it. Ancient combines Francine. Oh, yeah. The whole bit about Simnell's workshop and his combination harvester. It's quite fun. And it kind of, I think it harkens to practice mechanical upbringing. Was his dad a mechanic? Yes, I believe so. I'd have to grab Mark's book out to check.

Yeah, for once, I've left it in the other room. But he uses like random, I think, combinations like trunnion armature. Yes, three inch gripply. Yes, which trunnion and armature are definitely both mechanical words. I don't know if they go together, they might. Yeah, neither of us really know enough about mechanics to know just how accurate the Ned Simnell section is. It's interesting that practice seems to have kind of a love-hate relationship with machinery in the disc world, doesn't it? Because he obviously takes great joy in explaining a lot of it,

but at the same time, the progress often comes up as the antagonist. Yes. And this machine is going to revolutionise farming methods and drag them kicking and screaming into the century of the fruit bat. That's so many things to do. He really likes things being dragged, kicking and screaming into the century of the fruit bat. The poor century of the fruit bat, it's getting a bit full. But so I had to look at Combine Harvester's early versions of, because why the fuck not? Horses pulled combines were indeed the first type.

Yeah. There was a hand-pushed one in 1826, but the Scottish chap invented it, didn't patent it, so it doesn't really count, apparently. And I'll tell you what, they do look fucking mental. I sent you a picture the other day. Yeah, we'll tweet this picture. It's fantastic. Tragic got his description bang on. It's a random arms and what was the description exactly? Hang on, I'm on the right page.

Something about a windmill hitting a factory for nonsense. It looked at first sight like a portable windmill that had been attacked by an enormous insect and at second sight like a touring torture chamber for an inquisition that wanted to get out and about and enjoy the fresh air. Mysterious jointed arms stuck out at various angles. There were belts and long springs and the whole thing was mounted on spiked metal wheels. Yeah, so it was pretty much like that. I'm not sure about the internal workings and how accurate that was, but so it was 1835.

Here, Maul's machine was the first one and that could cut about 15 foot grain at a time. So these were fucking big things. And then by 1839, they had the ones that were pulled by 20 horses. Jesus. Yeah, they were huge and they were American largely. All this progress came through because as you can imagine, 20 horses in a field, that works well in a huge sweeping wheat field of America. Yeah, not so well in the strange little muddy fields of the UK.

They kind of caught on in the 30s when compact machines were a bit more practical, but you're just not going to be towing around a small building with 20 horses you don't have. Yeah, I mean, who's feeding the 20 horses? So I just had a nice time looking at pictures of vintage farm equipment really. I've always liked that kind of thing. If you ever have the chance to go around an agricultural museum, it's a lot less sold destroying than you might imagine. I really like the aesthetic.

It's oddly fascinating and yeah, that description is spot on. It does all look a bit eldritch. Absolutely. Or odd long as one might say. Yes, as one might. And there's also a good place to find character names. I've got one written down for late in the use that I saw at some museum or another, the Edlington Moa.

I think Edlington Moa is a fantastic character name. Ah, yes, Edlington Moa of the Somerset Moas. Exactly, sir. And that's all I have to say about windmills and torturments. Excellent. Well, I'm glad that I do not have to experience a brand new combine harvest at first hand. Oh, but I'll give you the key. Come on, let's get the right now.

We're all going to learn just how terrible my West Country accent is. So yeah, I wanted to round us out with something metaphysical. So I'm going back to... Something metaphysical. Oh, shit. My mind's got much worse since I stopped singing the words all the time. Something metaphysical. Let's get metaphysical.

Oh, Jesus. Look, you knew when you agreed to do a podcast with me that my sense of humor was the worst. I did, and that's because mine is as well. It's just that when it's like looking in a mirror sometimes, and it's not always flattering. Exactly. The power of belief, and this is... I will always point this up when it comes up in a branch of it,

because this is the theme he comes back to again and again, and I just love it. And there's the lovely description here. This is one of four in my copy. Belief sloshes around in the firmament, like lumps of clay spiralling into a potter's wheel. And that's how gods get created. They must be created by their own believers, because a brief resume of the lives of most gods

suggests that their origin certainly wouldn't be divine. They tend to do things people would do, if only they could, especially when it comes to nymphs, golden showers, and the smiting of your enemies. Fucking thieves. Ah, the original fuckboy. Yeah, and that's kind of bolstered by the look into the gods' lives through Ridcully, the priestly in part one. The priestly Ridcully.

And this is how death comes into existence as an anthropomorphic personification. He exists because the human need to believe something about death. Yeah. And apparently he's like, well, the species, because... Well, yes, it creates this void. And as this death goes, there is a little death of Mayflies, a very, very slow creature of sound only, the death of trees over the desert. A dark and empty shell moves purposefully, half an inch above the ground, the death of tortoises.

The creepiest fuck. And this is where the death of rats starts existing as well. Yeah, yeah. God, the death of tortoises is creepy, isn't it? I didn't really stop on that one, but... Yeah, it's a really good bit of almost horror writing that you could just skip over. But it's this wonderful thing that works on the belief, the discolored belief sloshes around and belief creates things, belief creates gods, belief creates death.

And then you come to not knowing what death believes in later on. And this is when he experiences dreaming for the first time. And the dream he has had is that he is back in his study. There's been some mistake, and then he's given a lifetime, or in its misflitwards. Yeah. And he sort of has this moment of, oh, shit, I've just realized we're going to die. Like, I'm going to die. You've write streams very well, doesn't he, as well?

That's hard to do. Yes, dreams are very hard. They're not quite linear logic of them. Yeah. And trying to logic his way through the lack of logic through, well, this is what this must be because Bill Dore is confused. And bits of Bill Dore lingering around my non-existent ears. And he realizes, you know, what happens to you when you die is what you believe will happen.

Yeah. And he doesn't know what he believes in because he's never had to believe in anything. He exists because of belief. He is believed in. He does not do any believing. And suddenly he finds himself really needing to start doing some believing. Yeah. And it's his belief that sees him through, you know, as we go through the falling action

to the end of the book. Yeah. And that's kind of the hope he's added in there from misflitwards, which... Yeah. He gets belief, and he gets hope, and he gets all the... And there's such human things. Yeah. And again, it could be so wanky if written by someone else.

Just saying that makes it sound lure, doesn't it? Like, I would really struggle to describe this book to somebody who didn't know practice and make it sound as good as it is. But it's such a... I don't know. It's such a serene moment for him to... It makes him relate to humanity in a way he couldn't when he was adopting someone or getting an apprentice or living with Albert.

Yeah, for sure. Because he has to face this aspect of humanity he's never had to deal with before, which is what's going to happen when it all ends. Yeah. I mean, speaking as an atheist, I can't wait to embrace the void, but... No, not me. I'm going to live forever. Yeah, that's it.

I think we both know that existential fear of death is what drives me onwards every day, so... Yay, existential crisis. Wipe the board back to zero. It's been at zero forever. I can't fucking get it up from the top shelf. I'll put it behind a bunch of... Look, look, we're recording this. I'll put it behind a bunch of...

Look, look, we're recording remotely forever now and it just feels too sad to get a prop out and sit here on my own with it. I miss recording in your house. I know, I'm thinking that. Never mind. Anyway. Never mind. One day for a special...

It's looking less likely that it's going to be Christmas now, is it? Yeah, I'm not going to count on Christmas. Anyway, reference something obscure with a finial for me, Francine. Yeah, all right. All right, get your finials out for the lads. Boiling brandy. Bit of a strange obscure reference, finial, because he kind of tells you exactly what happens, but I'd like the information behind it.

So when the fire is happening at the pub... Oh, I'm sorry, I think that was the door. I'm sure this would have gone through the less books. Boiling brandy. Yeah, I like the information behind it. So during the pub fire... It kind of comes to an apex when the barrels of brandy start to boil, and the thing about boiling brandy is that it doesn't boil for very long,

and then there is an explosion. And I was like, ooh, yeah, now why is that? And the answer is it's because ethanol boils at a lower temperature than water, which we know. So ethanol boils at 79 degrees Celsius. And that fact is obviously used in distillation. So the vapours from the boiling liquid are collected, and then immediately condensed and dripped down into the...

What's it? Technical term there. Well, I had limited time. But if these highly flammable vapours, let's underline those words, have nowhere to go, they build pressure, obviously. And eventually, in this case, explode the barrel that they're in. Yes. Now, if there's a fire outside the barrel,

which one would presume there is on account of the boiling, that highly flammable cloud of vapours is going to cause a fireball, and possibly even a fuel-air explosion, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. There's weaponised in many cases. But yeah, I was looking at times this had actually happened, and one that Pratchett might remember was from 1960. It was known as Britain's worst ever peacetime fire service disaster.

Oh. The cheapside street whiskey bonfire in Glasgow killed 19 servicemen in 1960. I'll link to the article I found about this. The warehouse, owned by Arbuckle Smith & Company, contained over a million gallons of whiskey and rum held in wooden casks. The liquid exceeded boiling point, causing a massive explosion in the building, killing firemen stood at street level.

Around 450 firefighters battled the blaze, which took an entire week to extinguish. Jesus. Yeah, a little end tip there. I learned quite a lot of this, the science-y bits, from a pressure-cooking site, by the way, which I quite often use, for instance, for recipes, and to distill, as it were, the information from that article.

Don't pressure cook liquor. Yeah. That's cool. Wine is about the highest alcohol you want to put in a pressure cooker. Yeah, I obviously flame brandy, often when cooking. Of course, yeah. Flambé and stuff is a perfect example of that, yeah. Yeah, so.

Tiny fuel-wire explosion. The problem with flaming brandy is that you've got to catch it and ignite it before the liquid bubbles away, and there is about a split second you can do it, so I have to have a lighter at the ready. It was much easier when I had a gas hob, it's fine, because you pour it in, then you tilt the pan, so it catches on the gas hob.

But now I have an electric hob, I have to hold the lighter above the pan, stick it in, light it. What does that do then? That burns the alcohol off faster, so you don't get any bitter aftertaste from the alcohol. Right, so if you just let it evaporate, it leaves an aftertaste kind of. Yeah, there's a bit of a funny...

It depends on the brandy, but as the brandy I buy for cooking is like tube shitty supermarket-cooking brandy. So I don't really drink brandy. I've never liked the taste, but I love the smells. It smells like Christmas. I love the smell of cooking with it. Now, there aren't many liquor smells I actually enjoy, but brandy is one of them just because

yeah, it smells very heavily of Christmas to me. Yes, the flaming Christmas pudding. I can't stand eating Christmas pudding, but I do like pouring flaming brandy on it. I fucking love Christmas pudding, and I like it with brandy on it, actually. So I do like the taste without the alcohol in it. When I drank alcohol, I didn't much care for the taste of it, but yeah.

Perhaps I'll make you a non-alcoholic Christmas cake. I've got my mother's old recipe. Sorry, I can eat alcohol and food like it's not. Then perhaps I'll make you a Christmas cake. I have my mother's old recipe. I won't make it for myself. Dried fruits, the devil. Oh, I'm going to have to eat the whole thing then.

I can't even share it with Jack. He hates dried fruit as well. I'll make you a small one. Otherwise, it'd be like that scene in the Matilda film. We have to eat that in time. I have never been more jealous of anyone than of that guy in Matilda. Yeah, it was such a weird conflict of emotions, wasn't it? It was like, that looks revolting and I'm so hungry.

Well, especially as I was quite young when I watched it and I couldn't eat chocolate when I was younger. It used to give me dreadful migraines. Oh, no! Yeah, so the intense jealousy I felt at someone eating that much chocolate. Oh, I didn't know that about you. This is some backstory trauma.

Oh, yeah. This is the main part of trauma from my childhood. Right. I think we've said everything we came here to say and then some. Yeah, and then some. I love our tangents. So, yeah, we will be back next week with the final part of our Reaper Man discussion, which begins on the Corgi Paperback Edition on page 187,

with the lion burdened by the screaming for of the batter. The other wirebasket couldn't get up to speed of its departed comrade. Tempting sentence. So we'll start there and we'll go to the end. We'll be quite sad to let this book go. Yes, well, I'd be a lot sadder if it wasn't for the next one. Yes, very true. Anyway, thank you very much for listening to The True Shall Make You Frat.

You can follow us on Instagram at The True Shall Make You Frat, Twitter at Make You Frat Pod, and Facebook at The True Shall Make You Frat. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and albatrosses, The True Shall Make You Frat Pod at gmail.com. You can follow our subreddit, r slash ttsmyf. I'll put that again. It's sometimes it gets updated. And remember, as we in England go into lockdown two,

and a lot of European countries do as well, and America does whatever the fuck it's doing. Okay, oh, hold on. Let's refresh the beep one more time, see if anything, see if we can end this on a note. Not sure what note, a note. What have we got? Okay, it's not finished yet,

but Biden builds momentum with leading Georgia. That's good. Excellent. Yeah, I think so. Full ahead in Pennsylvania. Yes, but please remember, you can get in touch with us with either silly things. If you've got any agony aren't questions,

you would like answered in a comedic form, then tell us that. If you want to reach out because you're lonely in a lockdown or a possible right-wing fascist dictator state, we are here for poetry, cooking videos, and... I'm not sure how much I can do about that second one. Well, I mean, eventually we'll have... You're the team sharpening chips. Yes.

Disclaimer, not actually inciting revolution. And in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Eventually I'll get to have you over for a proper dinner. Yeah. We'll have to move the plants out the way and... The plants have their own tables now. Okay, good. What, do we feed them at the same time?

Yes, and hopefully that'll keep the dormant. You know how at like big family Christmas, sometimes you'd have like a kid's table. Yeah. I'd like to have a dinner party at yours, like banish somebody to the plant table. So when I sit alone among the triphids. Yeah.

Like you've not been behaving, you have to go and sit with the alos. It'll be me after I ban myself.