The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 49: Men at Arms Pt.1 (Hyperbolic Until Proven Otherwise)

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 1  of our recap of “Men At Arms”. Whodunnit! Wheredunnit! Whydunnit!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Sir Terry Pratchett in conversation with Dr Jacqueline Simpson in 2010 - The Folklore SocietySpiders Georg - Know Your MemePostal Service Mission and “Motto” - USPSUnited States Postal Service Creed - WikiElephant seismics - Wiki  Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Am I a bit loud? A little bit loud, aren't I? Tiny bit, not problematically. Right, I don't need Zencaster. So problematic, actually. Look, gentle reminder that podcasting is inherently problematic. We're back. We've returned.

We had an extra week off. We haven't recorded, I think, for possibly a month or nearly a month. So, hi, listeners. Sorry it took so long. Thank you for bearing with us. Yes. So, you have been busy doing dressmaking, you were telling me? I have.

I have been, well, part of the reason we didn't record... Are you telling me you were showing me? Sure, don't tell. Part of the reason we didn't record is that I was a bit poorly, so I have not made 18 ball gowns. Oh, disappointing. But you have made two very pretty dresses, I like that. I have made two very pretty dresses.

I am channeling Alexis from Schitt's Creek for spring. Very good. Are you going to get some, like, beady necklaces and... I'm thinking, like, some floppy hats and some sandals and handbags so I can do this. Love that view. Love that journey for me. My spring aesthetic, while it is grey and miserable outside and we can't go anywhere or do anything.

I know, it sucks. We've decided on, like, a joint summer aesthetic listeners of... Cardigans. French perfume advert on a bridge. Yeah, French perfume advert, women walking across a bridge is going to be the summer aesthetic. You're going more, like, vintage French movie, I think I'm going, like, YSL. Yeah, if I can find a T-dress that suits me properly. Maybe I'll make you one.

That sounds like a lot of effort for you, Joe. Not really. A T-dress is not hard, I don't know. I don't know, I've not tried to make one. We'll find out. Okay. Yeah, we'll have to, one day, when we're allowed to see each other in person. We could do measurements.

I'll probably change size again by the summer, so... Yeah. Well, we've seen each other in person once. We're allowed to meet up on balconies and things for coffee now. We have. I don't think we're meant to touch each other. Oh yeah, true. Yeah, we had a nice outdoor coffee, which was...

And we went for a walk. And we did go for a walk with my forage some wild garlic. Foraging. Did you enjoy the things you made with your wild garlic? It was very good. I made nudie with wild garlic, peas and pancetta. Nudie. They're ricotta dumplings.

It's spelt with a G, it's not pervy. All right. Okay, is that the rule? It's like if there's an urn in a painting, it's not pornography. Exactly. If it's got a G in it, it's not pervy. No, they're like little ricotta dumplings, things kind of like gnocchi, but with ricotta instead of potato.

Oh, that sounds nice. That sounds less sticky to make. It's still quite sticky. Okay. One day I'll be over the trauma of making gnocchi the first time and I'll make it again. A trick for making gnocchi I learned during the first lockdown is rather than boiling the potatoes and mashing them, bake them, scoop out the insides. Okay.

Because then more of the moisture's been driven out, so it won't be as sticky. Ah, okay. Okay, I'll try that then. And then slice up the leftover potato skins, toss them in oil and loads of salt and shove them back in the oven. And then you've got crispy potato skin, crisp things. Yum. Did I tell you my bathroom light's now strobing?

No, you didn't say, that's getting refit properly on Thursday and at the moment I'm showering in the dark. Love it. I am hopefully getting some bits of wonky floor and stuff fixed at some point, which I'm very excited about. That's nice. But the maintenance guy said, as it's not essential, if I'm going away at any point, he can wait and do it while I'm away, so he's not intruding.

So I might have a little trip in August, I don't know yet. Any preferred destinations for your festival summer dorm? There's a nice, very, very chilled out festival some friends are going to. So provided, like, vaccines have all happened and things, they're glamping, so I can go along with them. I don't need to bring my tent and stuff. I remember you saying that, yeah, cool. Yeah.

That would be nice. It won't be the raucous download festivals of old, because I genuinely don't think my body could do that anymore. Exactly. When I think for a second, oh, I'd love to go back to download again. I realize what I'm thinking is, oh, God, I wish I was 17 again. Yeah. Me now, sober and perpetually tired probably would not enjoy the, like, I reached the end

of my tether once or twice back then, like you and me spent an afternoon in the tent fed up. Reading. Yeah. Yeah. I think when I think about missing download, I miss like a bunch of people set outside warm on camping chairs. Yeah.

Yeah. I miss like 2009 download for us. Yeah. Maybe I'll just organize some kind of summer thing when we're all allowed to be around each other and hug. Oh, God. It's been so long since they hugged you, Joanna. That's weird.

It's been like a year since we've hugged. Oh. Neither of us are particularly huggy people, but. No, but we knew we could. We had the option. Should the need arise? Should the need arise. No, I always hug Becky and I occasionally hug you and Helen.

I'm generally not very huggy. I'm more of a sort of awkward shoulder pat. I don't like shoulder pads. I prefer a hug than a shoulder pat. It depends on the giver and receiver of the shoulder pad. Yeah. Yeah. I think our best way of dealing with each other physically is when one of us is going

through an emotional, the other will awkward head pat with don't be cry. Don't be cry. Good old Liz Lemon. Yes. Terrible source of our emotional processes. Processes. Processes. Processes.

Processopus. Anyway. Shall we get on? Shall we? Do you want to make a podcast? Yes, I think I do. I think. Let's make a podcast.

Hello and welcome to the true shall make key frat, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part one of our discussion of men at arms. Yeah. The 15th Discworld mobile.

It's exciting. It's past haste. It's a crime novel. It's a who done it. Yeah. Why done it? What's done it? When done it?

Except we know who done it. But the hero doesn't. Actually, that's not very common, is it, I suppose, in who done it? No, not really. Interesting. Before we crack on though. Yes, sorry. Exciting news.

Exciting news. Before we do the book analysis. Exciting news. Exciting news, Joanna. If you would like to support the true shall make key frat, a podcast in which we are reading every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. Exciting news, Joanna.

If you would like to support the true shall make you fret financially and give us your hard-earned pennies, we are, hopefully it's live as of today, on Patreon, fingers crossed. Kind of talking about it for some time. Like a year. Like a year. I'm so organised. So, we will have the link in the show notes. You can go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make you fret to support us.

There will be all kinds of silly nonsense, fun bonus content and as an extra special offer, everybody who signs up to our Patreon in the first week will get a special hand written thank you letter from one or both of us and the first five people to sign up to the Patreon will receive a physical copy of Quirkhouse 5, 5 of the best, a book featuring some shiny monologues including the Chrome last week, last month's bonus radio play and signed by contributing writer yours truly. Joanna Hagan. Yeah.

Sorry. Just for a second, try to work it out. I would probably say like the actual Patreon stuff like is we're going to do a Buntzli bonus episode. We're going to have a monthly bonus episode called Down the Rabbit Hole where one of us or both of us will go fully into a tangent. We couldn't fit into an episode of some weird obscure research we decided to do patrons will get the true shall make you fret uncut hopefully a bonus video uncut ish a bonus

video version of the episode with all the little bits that we Francine very carefully clips out of the audio and you will also get some other random downloadable bonus nonsense me doing Shakespeare monologues some of it will be video some of it will be audio me singing folk songs whatever else we think off to put out. Yeah. That's the second tier. And that's the castles and snacks to the Albatross tier with this is really organized description of it.

This is great. Look, we didn't plan this. I mean, I kind of thought you had I did I did very much I only made it yesterday. It's good. We're good. Yeah, you kind of get the idea anyway. So go check it out if you feel like it do not worry if not we're not going to go on about it.

You will still get the same attention again now episodes or something but yeah, we're never going to put what you've already been having under some kind of paywall. And please we please do not feel in any way put upon because we very well understand the financial situation that a lot of people are in right now, especially in these unprecedented times. These extremely precedented. Yes, yes. It's all very precedented now.

Yeah, we're officially at the anniversary marks. We hit the anniversary of our first one of the Discworld characters doing in lockdown thread the other day. Did we? Good grief. That's upsetting, isn't it? Yeah. I meant to tweet about it and then I fell asleep.

These things happen. That sums up most of my life. Right. Shall we talk about my arms? Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Yes. Let's talk about the book that we're here to talk about.

Actually, before we do that. It's what happens if I don't have the episode planned directly in front of my face. Note on spoilers. We are a spoiler like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book we're on, Men at Arms, but we will save spoiling any major... We are going to tell you who done it. I mean, the book tells us who done it.

But we'll 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. In an ill-fitting suit of armour. At least until we've gone to the armour and had him hammer it out here and here. Francine, have you got anything to follow up on from last month? No. Possibly because it was a very long time ago.

But if I did, it's now gone from my mind entirely. How about you? I do. I've got a fun listener email. So a few episodes back. I don't remember how many. We were speculating about whether Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett ever met and Claudia emailed us to let us know that she used to be a member of the sadly now defunct Douglas

Adams Continuum, which once invited Pratchett on for an online chat. And thanks to the Way Back Machine, we've got his response. Oh, cool. So according to Terry Pratchett, I met Douglas Adams only once at a crowded party where it was almost impossible to be heard. I think we were almost immediately dragged in opposite directions by people who wanted us to meet interesting people. I have no idea if we would have got on.

I was in a hotel in Chicago when I read that he had passed away and I sang the Beatles Juicy and Death Anthem all by myself. It was a shame. Oh. So. That's nice. That does remind me that there's some follow up I have. Excellent.

Hold on. An interview, an interview, a conversation, a transcript of conversation between Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson, who wrote the folklore of the disc world with mentions things like the Faith Oak and Owls, which is a bit of a follow up from our last book that we looked at. So that's quite interesting. And I will link it in the show next. Excellent.

Cool. So now we can actually talk about Menace Arms. Can we? We can. After our absolute chaos of an intro. Francine introduced this book to me. Okay. As if we were gentile young ladies at a party.

Oh, God. Okay. I'm in that. As you might know, Joanna, Menace Arms is the 15th. In fact, I do know you know that because you said it already, the 15th in the Discworld series. It was published in November 1993. The title refers to a man at arms, which is a well-trained soldier, kind of analogous

to, but at the same as a knight. As in some nights, no, some men at arms were knights, not all knights were men at arms, but we're talking like medieval Renaissance periods. It is the second book in the watch arc. Am I right? I think. Yes. Yeah, but all we've had so far is guards, guards.

Yeah. And from that book, if you're not reading and chronological of some reason, the only thing you really need to be aware of is that he was on the brink of courting properly Lady Sybil Rampkin, one of the high-born... Society ladies. Society ladies, yes, and dragon fancier. And yeah, he was just about to have a proper date, which it seems was productive because they're now engaged in this book.

And about to get married. Bless him. It's a fast-paced book, this one. And I would say a fair bit darker than Guards, Guards, a little bit more grip. Not that Guards, Guards was jovial all the way through, but I think definitely there's a bit more realism in the horror of some of the situations. We're definitely, as we've mentioned in the last few books, we're into the sort of mid-stage disc world, revisiting characters, doing the thing...

What? I don't know, I've run out of things to say, but I felt like I needed the third one. Cool, cool. It rules three, isn't it? Yeah, it's difficult. A good part of my nonsense comes from the fact I really enjoy the rule of three and can't often think of three bullet points. I can't think of three things, I can barely think of one.

All right, so the first part we did went up to page 130 in the corgi, didn't it? Yep, corgi paperback edition. So do you want to summarise part one of three for us? I will do. In a sweltering Ankh-Morpork summer, we open on carrot writing a letter home to his parents with the exciting news that he's to become a corporal and Captain Vimes is off to get married and embrace the civilian way of life. We meet Edward Diaz as he attends, sorry, his father's funeral, before going home to

research King's. He presents his obsession with the past and a certain regal watchman to his fellow aristocrats who unfortunately laugh him off, and in a million universes that's where the story ends. In this universe, however, the story continues as Vimes visits Fettinari's office and discusses his potential replacement, and Colin and Carrot meet the new watch recruits. Vimes visits Lady Sybil, his intended, who informs him of Chubby, a missing and potentially explosive dragon. Colin holds a meeting, and the new recruits take the oath.

The Troll and Dwarf communities have opposing marches planned for the evening, and Carrot steps in to prevent more violent conflict, before being rudely interrupted by an explosion at the Assassin's Guild. Vimes, currently in shock after learning his due to take ownership of all of the Rankin holdings, arrives at the Assassin's Guild with the rest of the crew and begins an investigation on what's now technically his turf. Angua does her own investigation with the help of Gaspoed, the Wonder Dog. There's a strong smell of fireworks and something is missing from the Assassin's Guild Museum,

as Dr. Cruces, head of the guild, sulks in his office. Edward Diaz speculates as the artifact he's stolen starts to take over. Vimes and Carrot find a scrap of Chubby's collar and the world's most dangerous man is introduced. Veterinary works in his gardens. Dr. Cruces informs him that it has been stolen. Bjorn Hammerhawk inspects it in his workshop before meeting and untimely end. Colin attempts a training session with the new recruits as Vimes and Carrot inform Sybil of Chubby's demise and learn about the magic of mirrors.

Our ragtag recruits head for a drink, but unfortunately discover Bjorn's body en route. Veterinary tells Vimes to cease investigations. The watch stare at the drinks and drink the drinks before Colin discovers the gone's calling card in his shoe. Carrot walks Angua home to Mrs. Cates and meanwhile Vimes gets a little worse for wear after his visit to the Hammerhawk family. Angua transforms and Vimes bathes, changes and vaguely sobers up. As a Lupine Angua continues investigations with Gaspoed, Vimes injures a better class of society before gratefully receiving an interruption from Carrot. Vimes and Carrot head to Hammerhawk's workshop to investigate the gone, finding a pellet in the wall, hair in the overhead beans, a scrap of alchemist writing and on their way back to the watch house, another body in the river.

Vimes swears to ignore veterinary's orders and get to the bottom of this. Cool. Yes, mild apologies for my lack of being able to speak in complete sentences today. That sounded reasonably complete to me. Well, complete issues all we're really aiming for, isn't it? Absolutely. So yeah, as I said, pretty fast-paced start to a book. Lots happens.

Lots does happen. None of the slow setups that we've had in a few of the books. Which, actually, I'm not sure, Guard's Guards was one of them, so that kind of makes sense. The watch ones do tend to be a bit more... Leap into the action. ...start with the thing. Yeah. You've probably read a few more detective-y police procedural type books than me. Is this fairly fitting the pattern?

Hmm, good question. I would say... Not really. Yeah. Usually... Usually the prologue thing is quite familiar to me with the kind of... This is the origin story of someone, although you wouldn't make it obvious who it was. Right.

Usually it's the man, the sort of it, or whatever. Yeah. And obviously, the whole Vime's being told to stop the case, whatever, is perfect. Yeah, that's... Detective Hull Trope. Vime's does the little moment where he's in the Assassin's Guild, and as he's leaving, he sort of stops and... Oh!

I almost forgot what was stolen, which is very Columbo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I would say it's a little bit more chaotic than the start of the average detective book. However, it's possible that it's just very much like a very good one. Yeah. Most of my detective book reading, with the notable exception of Ian Rankin, who is a goddamn genius. That's my recommendation of the week, Ian Rankin's Rebus series.

Most of them were just like reading a book a day, holiday pulp stuff, but... Yeah. Which my holiday pulp stuff tends to involve women opening cupcake shops. Oh, yeah. And he either lovely Maeve Binchie or terrifying crime, I would say. Ah, the two genders. Good to oscillate, yeah. A helicopter and loincloth watch.

I feel like with the presence of detritus, there's some loincloth implied. He's in an armor now, darling. Yeah, but he's probably wearing a loincloth underneath. All right. Well, there's a lot of trolls running up the short street, so... Yes, there's definite loincloth presence there. For the other bits we're keeping track of, we don't open on the turtle. We open on carrot writing his letter home.

Wait, wait, wait. No, we can fit a helicopter in here, Joanna. Can we? Because the point that the gun was scribbled in the margins of some other treatise entirely kind of mirrors Da Vinci scribbling his cool inventions, including helicopters as... In the margins. ...random other things, yeah. I might go more into that later in the book.

Oh, I see. Okay, cool. That will shut the hell up. Why am I trying not to swear suddenly? I don't know. I've got the word fuck on my mug. I guess most of my things recently have been at work meetings, so... Oh, yeah.

You have the sort of job where you can't swear in work meetings. It's not... The boss does. I just, yeah. I tend to try and avoid it, but, yeah. So... Oh, yeah. And death is here for things we're keeping track of.

Oh, yes. He pops in on the chap who dies, of course. The little chap who dies. Yes. Nice of him, really. So, yeah. We still haven't had a book without death. 15 books in.

I feel like this is probably going to be a thing. Yeah, yeah. Certainly. Did I see someone asking on Twitter or Reddit or something, whether we kept track in some kind of graph format? Not graph. It wouldn't be a graph. It's a yes or no.

Yeah. For a helicopter annoying class, I think someone had asked, and we haven't, but... In fact, they asked you to explain the whole thing, didn't they? Yeah. Which I tried, but I can't remember how the bit started. Nope. And somebody who sounds quite reliable said they'd listened to it recently and can't find the origin of it, which means I quite possibly edited out how it started.

And you're not thinking you'd stick with it. All our listeners need to know is that Francine thought it was ridiculous, so I doubled down and insisted on it becoming a bit, much like me at this point refusing to read Gorman Gast because it's a bit. I love you. Right. Quotes. Your favourite quote is before mine, Francine.

It is. It is. And it is a silly little one. It is when a carrot is interviewing the chappy... What was he, a butcher? Who got his stuff, who got some money stolen by the... Oh, yeah. I think more pork's worst, as in most incompetent thief.

Here and now. Here and now. What are you going to do about it? I'd pay my taxes. We shall be hotly in pursuit any moment, Sir Carrot, can't we? I love Carrot. Just like the old... It's not very...

Him, is it? He's not quite fully formed in this one, I'd say. There's still some... He's definitely taking... There's a bit more snark in him than... I think Carrot, in general, has quite a bit of snark. He's just so sweet and polite that the snark isn't really present. He gets a great moment later in this book that is probably one of my favourite things he ever does.

Which I will talk about when we get there. I was going to do the Watchman's Oath, as my quote, just because... I was as well. I just really wanted to read out all of the Square Bracket Insert Recruit name. Oh, mate. I'm so addicted to this. But I didn't. I went with something a bit later on.

Yeah, that one. Noon began. Noon in Anchmore Pork took some time since 12 o'clock was established by Consensus. Generally, the first bell to start was the one in the Teacher's Guild, in response to the universal prayers of its members. Then the Water Clock on the Temple of Small Gods would trigger the big bronze gong. The black bell in the Temple of Fate struck once, unexpectedly, but by then the silver, pedal-driven carolin in the Fool's Guild would be tinkling.

The gongs, bells and chimes of all the guilds and temples would be in full swing, and it was impossible to tell them apart, except for the tongue-less and magical octine bell of old Tom in the unseen University Clock Tower, whose twelve measured silences temporarily overall did. And finally, several strokes behind all the others was the bell of the Assassin's Guild, which was always last. Beside the patrician, the ornamental sundial chimed twice and fell over. The bell in the Assassin's Guild is called the Intumation Bell, isn't it? We found out elsewhere in the book.

Yes. Which is nice. I love the word intumation. I do. Why do you think it tells last? Because they're fashionably late, because assassins are very fashionable. Yes, and a deal in lateness, so to speak. But that's another one of those fun, look at all these wonderful, marvellous things that happen,

and then just, I like the mental image of little sundial falling over at the end. Bing, bing, bing. Why does a sundial chime, yes. Hey, good. Want to buy a sundial? Okay, cool. So, shall we go into characters? Let's talk about characters. There's a lot, because this is the first third of the book.

So, we'll start with Edward. Bless him. So, we're calling him D, aren't we? D. D. D. D. So, the D.

D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.

D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.

D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.

D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.

D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.

D. D. D. D. don't you like Edward? Oh, poor little Edward. Well, he's a bit murdery. Well, yes. He does shoot a person. He only shoots one person. And even

that, it's sort of implied rather, because he doesn't shoot Hammerhawk. The gun goes off at Hammerhawk. Yes. Yeah. And, yeah, I don't know. Obviously, he's not like the most likable character, but he's interestingly. He is. And I do feel he's he's not sorry for him. He's not just a straight up villain. It's it's a you get enough backstory to see how he ended up that kind of mad. Although he is kind of eugenics y, which does put a pull on these things.

Yeah, I don't find a preference for eugenics to be a particularly sympathetic characteristic. It's not hot, not hot, not hot. But I feel sorry for him. I'm down and the tree shall make you for Hamburg. No eugenics. No eugenics. Yes, cake. No eugenics. We got that settled. But I feel for him a bit when he's being laughed off, and he's

done this big PowerPoint presentation, and he's pretending to send someone off to see the duty torturer. And I don't know, he's he can't afford a duty torturer anymore. Yeah, the kind of description of his room as well was very good. I nearly picked that for quite as well with all the furniture crowded into the tiny room and the Yeah, the sort of desparate curtains trying to cling to his aristocracy, despite not being able to.

Yeah. Could you believe it's birthright then? Yeah. So I shouldn't believe in birthrights and should everyone should have less furniture. Speaking of people with birthrights and too much furniture. Yes, we meet some members of the Inkmore pork aristocracy throughout the book. And I thought I'd make a note of some here because like, I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say we'll meet some of these characters again.

Yeah. I didn't go into lots of researching where every name came from. And we've got Lord Rust, who managed to really epitomize that particular sort of dude. Yeah. Do I feel like we've seen Lord Rust already? I really struggle with a lot of these have we met characters before. I feel like I should try and be more knowledgeable about

this as we go through. But because I've read all of these books so many times, there are names that feel familiar. And I think that might be why. And I think that's it for Lord Rust and Lady Celakai is another one. Yeah. But they also go into Selatchi. Selatchi.

Selatchi? I have no idea. Sorry, I don't know. Yeah. Could be. And we also get some of the history of previous patricians, such as Mad Lord, Snapcase, White Homicidal Lord Winder, Deranged Lord Harmony, Laughing Lord Scapular. Laughing Lord Scapular is just really fun to say. That's the only reason I put this in the episode plan at all.

Yeah, somehow more concerning than the rest of them. Yep. And yes, possibly in the future, we'll get to learn a bit more about the history of people like Scapular and Winder and Snapcase. Snapcase is such a great name. Excellent, isn't it? Yeah. I hope he's pleased with that one. Anyway, onto bigger characters and we've got our new recruits. Yay.

But Angua. Yay. Which will spark one of the big fandom debates about how you pronounce that name. We're going with Angua, are we? I'm going with Angua, you can do what you like. I'll try and match you at least. I don't even know how I read it in my head. I think it changes every time I read one of these books. I think Angua probably.

But yeah, I like how Angua sounds better, so we'll go with that. Yeah, so Angua, who is the woman in the watch, hiring women woman. Oh, gosh, I say what she's also considered to be really rather pretty. And once again, a little bit hot. Massive ash blonde hair we very much know what Pratchett is into. They shouldn't go on and on about the contrast between the hair

and skin and everything. Oh yeah, he's, he's toned it down. He's had a cold shower since the first couple of months. He's had a cold shower since Ko Nina. Oh, man. Also, I'd like to point out that Angua in, in the book is quite well dressed, although admittedly they're going to have to adjust a breastplate for her. However, the central figure, by the way,

sounds wrong. Oh, yeah, no, he would hammer bits out in a, I think that would like compromise the structural integrity. I think you just were binding or something if that was a problem. Breastplates do not need to be tipped shaped. Breast, no, this is a big rant of mine. Breastplates do not need to be tipped shaped. I hate it. I hate tipped shaped armor in video games.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for confirming that suspicion of mine. I take it you looked up some actual stuff because that sounds like something you would do. I read about this back when I was ranting about tipped shaped armor in video games, especially the armor for female elves. The armor for female elves in Dragon Age Origins, even the warrior ones is literally like a bra and a miniskirt.

Like just, just let my character have their torso covered. There's a lot of weapons happening near them. Exactly. I understand the skirts because frankly, I think more men should wear skirts in battle because ease of movement. But yeah, but where's some leggings or something underneath it? Yeah, like leather will turn away a knife and stop you from like getting your skin scraped up if you fall down and start.

Yeah, you don't have antibiotics then. No, they didn't. We're just concerned. That's all. I'm very worried. Anyway, tipped shaped armor is pointless. Ha ha ha. Sorry. We've also got a revisit from detritus. Yay.

Detritus who we last saw in, was it moving pictures? It was moving pictures. He was working in the cliques. Yeah. No, no. Guard guards was before moving pictures. We met him in moving pictures as he began courting Ruby. And look at him now trying to make an honest man of himself so

he can marry Ruby. Very nice. I'm glad everyone, I hope everyone understands a bit more now if they're reading for the first time where we were so excited to see detritus in moving pictures. It comes back. Not just a sweet one off. Yes.

And we've also got Lance Constable Cuddy, the new dwarf recruiter of the watch. Yeah. Who is not friends with detritus to start with. Yes, we've got the dwarf trial rivalry. Cuddy also has his helpful, intelligent expression and one glass eye. Which I was slightly curious about, I'd never noticed the

glass eye description before and there doesn't seem to be much relevance for it. But I think it's a reference to someone who originally played Colombo who had a glass eye. Okay, cool. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you, annotated Pratchett. Oh, I didn't even look at that for this.

Yeah. I tend to always skim through it now just in case there's something I've missed that would actually be fun to talk about. Yeah. So yes, we've got Cuddy and then moving on, we've got Beano, who meets an untimely end pretty early on in the book. Beano is a kid's comic here in the UK, by the way, for our foreign listeners.

So that kind of makes sense. If we've got any international listeners who watched RuPaul's Drag Race UK when that one queen was wearing the red and black stripy latex dress, it was a reference to the Beano comics and Dennis the menace. Okay, America has their own Dennis the menace with similar retirement. Yes, but not as good.

I'm going to say no, because I've been reading Beano's. I think I literally learned to read from Beano books. I grew up getting the game when almost every week. I did eventually get rid of my whole back huge box of Beano magazines when we moved house when I was younger. My grandma once threw away my massive back cut log when I was not ready to go to them. And I was so upset.

She went out and found like a bulk load that someone else was getting rid of to give to me. And I was very pleased with that. So that worked out well. But who was bad about what a fuss I must have made. Who was your favorite Beano character? Oh, probably Roger the Dodger. I really liked Roger the Dodger.

Oh, he was quite cool. I was maybe many the minx, but I can remember more Roger the Dodger storylines. I think mine was definitely many the minx. I've got some very, I've got the ones my dad gave me, which are like 70s, 80s ones as well, which have some of the more problematic characters. I was just quickly flicking through my head, making sure I

didn't say anything too bad there. Sorry, that was a bit of a downed. Anyway, he's dead now. Yeah, Beano's dead. Yorne Hammerhawk is also dead, but he was a lovely dwarf who liked looking at mechanisms and clockworky things. Yeah, I liked that little hint that clockwork was the up and coming thing.

We've already seen a little bit of that with the reaper man. Clicking on the clockwork. No, are you thinking of the Combination Harvest? I am. He was steam powered, wasn't he? Yeah. But new technologies in general coming to the disk? Yes.

Yeah. Advanced science. This is not a stagnant fantasy society, which is one of my major bug bears in fantasy books. It is quite cool they're finding like more reliable alternatives for their magic powered things. Yes. I just hate inner fantasy book.

It's like, this is a 2,000 year old book. It's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's like, this is a 2,000 year old society. Why don't you have steam power yet? Someone must have worked it out in 2,000 years.

One of my favorite things that I know I've banged on about it but Avatar the Last Airbender, when it goes into its sequel series, Legend of Korra, the whole society has had an industrial revolution. Yeah, I noticed. Yeah, steam power was just happening in the first one, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you see that in the future and come to it. Not a conclusion. But you see it move forward logically. That's cool. And then we've got Dr. Cruces, head of the Assassin's Guild and his assistant, Mr. Downey. Briefly meet him. Very briefly meet them.

We meet Mr. Dr. Cruces a couple of times. Don't make me go see that now. Yeah, I literally never noticed the line until this reading of the book. And I've read this one a lot. This is, you know, the watch books are some of my favorites and this is one I've read a million times. Not a million, but, you know.

Yeah, I thought you were being literal. Yeah, literally. Sorry, you don't need to tell me when you're being hyperbolic. Assume I am always hyperbolic until proved otherwise. I never noticed the line before about vines going, actually, I technically own your guild building now. Oh, I think I did. That's one of my favorite kind of...

It's like the pretty woman troopers or something, just like, actually, I'm much more important than you thought I was. Yeah, but I enjoyed it. I enjoy a bit of vines. Yeah, so onto characters that we sort of know already. Carrot, bless him. Oh, darling, now corporal carrot.

Now corporal carrot. Well done, carrot. Well done. He deserved that promotion. He did help fight that big dragon. We did, we did. But I like the description of him as just so supremely likeable. Yeah.

Now he's just got a bit more authority. Yep, charisma. Got lots of charisma. Bags of it. The way he manages to stand in the middle of these two opposing protests and very nice to say, Morning. Hello, Mr. Cumball thigh.

Morning, Mr. Strong in the arm. Morning, Mr. Borgsite. Absolutely. And not notice detritus and Cuddy having a proper argument behind. There's a lot of very good rapid fire funny dialogue in this book, I must say. Yeah.

Which I haven't made serious notes of because it's just too hard to read out as a... Yeah. I could quite have something that happened a few times that I just really enjoyed little bits of dialogue like that. Yeah. The carrot bit where he's addressing the crowds and then in the background, you've got,

Oh, it was to him ambush and your mother was at now. Then gentlemen. And there's a great description right near the end of the section when Angwer sees carrot while she's in wool form. And she notices that he walks through the city like, say a tiger in the jungle. It is a landscape he is just incredibly suited and adapted to.

Yeah. And it demonstrates that very well with things like when he's catching that thief and he already knows all the shortcuts that no one else knows. Yes. He's got like a fine like knowledge of the city and it can't be that long like a year or so here. Yeah.

He's just sort of taking the city onto himself. Yeah. And everyone knows him and listens to him and does not make him into a smear of grease on the pavement despite all logic. Yes. He just manages to be very nice to everyone. It works.

And then obviously vimes. Vimes is our big one. Our darling vimes. Our darling vimes here of the beast. Engaged to be married. Not too excited about civilian life. I thought the, sorry. Talking himself into wanting it.

Yes. As in the civilian life. Not the marriage obviously like civil. Yes. He seems to be quite happy with civil. Yes. We like vimes and civil. I thought that one of the best vimes scenes in this bit

though is vimes and carrot walking and they're talking about the whole lack of kings. Yes. Yeah. And this is the first time I think we've obviously we learned that the monarchy at some point existed and then came to an end back in guards, guards, but he goes into a bit more detail here about the sort of revolution that

happened and people standing up and. Yes. And the king having to be executed by the. By old stone face. Yes. Who was commander of the city guard back in those times. Yes. Who I assume has some kind of.

Parallel to Cromwell or not very. Yeah. Not very direct one. But someone who is very severe, dour and willing to decapitate a king is definitely a bit Cromwell. Yeah. Of course Cromwell and turn himself into a dictator. Well, yeah.

And was terrible. Anyway. But yes, we're probably. The idea of turning Republic is the point. Yes. I think we will in future books learn a bit more about old stone face. We will, won't we?

Yes. So I won't go too far into my little small round about that one. And then we've course got vimes intended. Oh, yes. Lady, Lady Sybil. Or as I've written in the show plan, Lady Sybil, Deidre, all govana mother fucking Ramkin.

Yes. Her full title. Yes. As with guards, guards, we're still very much in the Lady Sybil fan club, even though she doesn't really get much to do. Comparatively. Yes.

I absolutely loved one of the lines describing her, which was that a woman out for all she can give. Yes. Woman out for all she could give. Yeah. She is brilliant and lovely. And there's another great line, the dinner party scene. Later in this section and right at the end,

she's sort of telling Sam off for being rude to these people. And she's like, he happens to be a dear old friend. And Sam just sort of looks at her and she goes, well, no, I can't stand him. He's a dreadful bore. But I must say how she reacted during that dinner party, I think Vines has good influence on her during the

course of their relationship. And later on, I think she would have yelled at the dinner table for them to shut up. Yes. She is still a bit too polite to the other rich decade. Yes. Possibly. I'll forgive her that because that's how she's been brought up.

Yes. But I thought the giving over of all of the estates to Vines because she's very traditional is interesting. Yeah. I'd never really thought about that before when I was reading it. I don't know if it's more of a plot device than anything else, just as a.

I think it's partly plot device, but I think it's also on the one hand. It's obviously not a very feminist thing to do. No. You know, she's not very girl boss of her. Oh, shut up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

That was awful. But something I like about Sybil's character is that she is only doing this because she completely trusts Sam to never abuse that in any way, shape or form. Yes. I don't think she would choose to marry a man who would want those estates, if that makes sense. Yes.

The fact he's dragging his feet every step of the way towards being a gentleman. Yeah. Probably a bit reassuring. Is probably one of the things she loves about him. So. Can't believe they made him wear a pearl hat though. That's a bit much.

I enjoyed the mental image. Very much enjoyed the mental image. And the veterinary who doesn't have a lot to do here, but I just like the fact that Sybil refers to him by his first name of Havlock. Have a look. Have a look? Havlock?

Havlock? I don't know. I've always pronounced it Havlock in my head. Let's go with Havlock. I like that more. Yeah. He's not got a lot to do here, but he's still got some interesting little bits, isn't he?

He's like a little bit more character development, even here, the fact he's in the center of his web of like info. Clarks bringing him things. And I like that little guy at the moment. A little tip bit about him not changing anything, unless it was completely necessary, if I'm quite interesting. Because he's like a small sea conservative.

Yeah. A little bit of, a little bit of extra info on him there. Yeah. I also quite like this thing of him keeping track of Vime's punching the wall outside the office. Yes. That's a fun little device. You just know if that, if computers existed, who would

be very into Excel? He would definitely. No, I think. Oh, no, maybe drum not would be. And he would be, he would keep it all in his head, I suppose, wouldn't he? Yeah. I'm not sure if we've met drum not yet, but he's definitely

an Excel guy. Yeah. Gaspode. Gaspode is back. Yay. Gaspode one dog. Two, two alums from moving pictures. Yes.

So anyone, so if anyone was wondering why we weren't sadder at the end of moving pictures, this is why. Yeah. He is a magical dog. He's a magical talking dog. He keeps getting in the way of magic and can talk again now. Yeah.

Well, he sort of explains it as I've got chronic intelligence. Is that any use to a dog? Did I ask for it? No. I find a cushy spot to spend my nights along at the high energy building at the university. No one told me about all this bloody magic leaking

out the whole time. Here we go again. Hello abstract conceptualizing intellectual development. Last time it happened, I ended up saving the world from horrible was names from the dungeon dimensions. Yes.

It's like the fantasy world version of the leaking radiation giving people superpowers or whatever isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Leaking magic gives dogs abstract conceptualization. Poor mind. Poor little gas boat.

And I very much, there's a line that made me giggle for a very stupid reason. And sorry, I'm trying to find the page, which is as they're sort of who's noticing that gas boat can talk because he's very good at saying bark and give the dog a biscuit. Yes. And people's minds skip over it.

Almost all dogs don't talk. Ones that do a million statistical error and can therefore be ignored. Yep. And it reminded me of one of my favorite memes, which is actually the average human doesn't swallow three spiders at night. You're forgetting about spiders, George, who eats

10,000 spiders. It's a statistical outlier and should be ignored. George without any. So yes, I will now associate gas boat with spiders, George. Excellent. Yeah, I almost picked that as something to highlight just because I like the idea of if

people paid attention to everything, you wouldn't get anything done. Yeah. I don't pay attention to anything and I still can't get anything done. I know. Just imagine if we tried. God, let's not do that.

We get a mention of Big Fido, Chief Barker of the Dog Guild and the fact that there is a Dog Guild. Yeah, we'll talk about that next week. Yes. Acknowledge the intro here. And then some more returning characters. Mrs.

Cake running her lodging house, which is occupied by as well as Angwer, Red Shoe, the Zombie, and Mr. Ixalite, the Banshee. Yep. Nice to know they're still getting along somewhere. Yep.

The Undead Club is still not dead. Well, actually, do you know, interesting note that Carrot's a bit bigoted about the... Yeah, I was... Go back to where you came from. I'll get onto that a bit more later. Yes, even Carrot's got his blind spots. Cool.

Locations. Oh, I'm sorry. One last character whose name... Oh, yes, I'm sorry. We don't learn his name, but we are briefly introduced to the most dangerous man in the world. Who's also bad at naming his inventions.

He is bad at naming his inventions. He calls it the turning the wheel with pedals and another wheel machine. And hopefully we'll get a bit more from him later in the book. Yeah. He's being kept in a nice spacious room and doesn't much care about that because

he lives in his head. Yep. It's very, very, very clever. He is. Okay, so yeah, locations. We are in Ancmole Park. Unsurprisingly. Yep.

For the entirety of the book. So we still haven't had a book where we haven't gone to or mentioned Ancmole Park. Nope. There is a line... I nearly had this as my quote and I've snuck it in here because I just really

want to say it out loud. Go on. The river slunks sullenly in the bottom bed like a student around 11 a.m. Oh, very nice. Slunks sullenly. Slunks sullenly. Very nice indeed.

We're not just in Ancmole Park. We're not just in Ancmole Park. That in the general Ancmole Park sludge of the river, isn't it? Yeah. Because it's high summer in Ancmole Park so it's very hot and the river's just sort of sludging about.

You've also mentioned the post office as a sub location. Yeah. So as Kara and Vymes are walking around the city, they go past the post office and the corroded motto over the portico says, neither rain nor snow nor glom of

knit can stay these messengers but their duty. I use the phrase glom of knit far more often than I should. I often use the phrase glom of knit it's excellent and it does say underneath that, don't ask us about rocks, trolls with sticks, all sorts

of dragons, Mrs. Cake, huge green things with teeth, any kind of black dog with orange eyebrows, reins of spaniels, fog, Mrs. Cake. Do you think my dog's all right? She's just got a little black mask. Yeah, no, she's okay.

A little black mask and orange eyebrows, yeah. She's all right. I trust her. I've had a word. Yeah. So anyway, the post office motto, fun fact.

This is based on what is thought to be the official motto of the US Postal Service. The quote itself is, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor glom of night stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

This is not the official motto of the US Postal Service, but it is thought to be because it is inscribed on the building, the New York Post Office. Okay. But the quote itself comes from Herodotus in his history of the

Persian Wars. Herodotus, that renowned, very accurate historian. Herodotus. Herodotus. Thank you. Oh, Herodotus. Oh, my God.

We're just pronouncing everything randomly today, are we? Yeah. I can't remember now. All right. Herodotus, I'm sorry, Joe. That wasn't necessary for me to

correct. That's fine. Herodotus and the very accurate historian, his history of the Persian Wars. The actual quote. Very accurate historian. Very accurate historian.

Famously accurate. Dickhead. Him. No, him. Not you. No, I know. That's it even so. He provides us with lots of

entertainment. So this quote is from the George Herbert Palmer translation of his Persian War histories. It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many of the men and horses

that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day's journey. And these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

No glom of knit at all. No glom of knit. And that is on the courier service of the ancient Persian Empire. But yes, so rain nor snow nor glom of knit is not actually the official postal service

motto. It is. What should it be? What is the official motto? They don't have an official motto. I'll link to... They've got a little thing on

their website that says we don't have a motto, but this is the motto we don't have. All right, yeah. Fair enough. I'll link to that in the show notes.

I like that. Well done. And then we also have the palace gardens. Yes. Which is where we are first introduced to the famous discworld architect,

Bloody Stupid, Landscape Gardener, Bloody Stupid, Johnston. Yes. One of my favourite mini characters in... Yes.

Bloody Stupid, Johnston. Bloody Stupid. It might look a bit messy now, but just come back in 500 years. Look at the plans with the right way around

when I drew them, which means the palace grounds have things like the ornamental trout lake, which is 150 yards long and one inch wide. Yeah. And just the fact that he can

build really quite improbable things, just through sheer incompetence, I think, is something very pratched in. Yeah. And we might go into a bit

more detail about things like capability brown and landscape architecture in a little bonus content. Oh, exciting. That's something being plotted. Yeah, that's all I have

for locations. Plotted, so to speak. Ha-ha. Ha-ha. I pund without meaning to. Well done, me. So, little bits we liked.

Yes. Which little bits did you like, John? So, something I said I keep track of as we go sort of work through the mid-stage of Discworld is the way

a lot of these books parallel their predecessors. He's quite often taking a story and doing a, okay, well, how can I do this better this time? So, I already talked about it quite a lot with the

witch's books. So, certainly set with Reaper Man. You had small gods and how it kind of had a lot of parallels to pyramids and here, obviously, we're looking at taking

what he did in guards, guards and sort of doing it better. Okay. I think better might be a strong term, but we've got more characters and more diverse characters now.

It's not just four dudes. Yep. We've got our dwarf and our troll and our woman. Yes. Our were-woman. You've got the, but some of the stuff

that is paralleling, we've got the obsession with royalty and kings. The motivation of the villain in Guards, Guards and Melotons is to bring royalty and kings

to the world. I mean, Guards, Guards and Melotons is to bring royalty back to Ankh-Morpork. Oh, yes, of course it is. Yeah. So, I think that's the same.

Obviously, the execution is a bit different. Yeah. We have a gun as opposed to a dragon, but then you also have the, the motivation is royalty. The execution involves

bringing in something external and obviously, we're going into the implication of carrot's heritage being the long lost king of Ankh-Morpork.

Yeah, I am. What with his- What a noble chappy he is. What's a noble chappy he is? His crown-shaped birthmark. Yeah. Speaking of carrot, he has trouble with metaphors.

Yes. Yeah. I like that a lot. So, when, is it Angua? Angua? Angua? Asking her,

asking him about the man with the granite face. Mm. Meaning stone face times, granite face, to mean no expression showing. It's like,

oh, detritus. The man literally made out of- Granite. Granite, yes. Then Angua very quickly catching on, and no, not the man with face like thunder.

Yeah, I think that's been mentioned before, isn't it? The, the poor, troubled metaphor. Yes. And carrot is particularly visible.

I think it's, it's always fun watching new characters learn to speak to carrot. Mm. Yeah. And learn very quickly that he's,

he's very intelligent and easy to communicate with, you learn to speak his language, which is very literal. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

He's very sweet. And I think later on, sometimes you get the kind of questioners, whether he actually misunderstands or whether he's doing the old ridgely bit of making you

explain it again. Yes. Yeah. I think right now, it's definitely just, isn't it? Yeah. His character development

is, is particularly fun. We get, what I think is one of our first mention of seamstresses. Yeah. We've,

obviously, we, I think we said somewhere in Lords and Ladies, we've come a long way from the hall pits. Yes. And we now have the,

the street of negotiable affection. That's right. Yeah. But Angua said something about, you know, she joined the watch because her other option was being a seamstress

with the little footnote survey by the Ant Moorport Guild of Merchants of Trained People in the Dock areas. Moorport found 987 women who gave their profession as seamstress and two needles. Yes.

So, I think this is a, one of the first iterations of referring to the ladies of negotiable affection as seamstresses. Yes. A,

a thing that has been pointed out to me quite a lot on Twitter since I started posting all my dressmaking efforts. Yes, and that's unfortunate, yeah.

It's alright, yeah, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright,

it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, so that's right near the end of the section actually, isn't it? Yes,

they find the other body in the river. Sorry, I'm having trouble multitasking keeping the dog quiet and doing this. Yes, a doctrine of signatures

sought by, I'm just what the herbists call it, it's like the gods put a use me label on plants. So, if a plant looks like a part of the body,

it's good for ailments specific to that part. So, there's a teeth wash, teeth spleen wash for spleens, I brought for, I brought for eyes.

And, yeah, there was some very similar theories in round world medicine back in the day. And there are some interesting coincidences, but I think ancient doctors took it a little too far. Yes, it's generally more a coincidence than actual science. Yes. I can see a little tail wagging in the background. Yes, little bastard. She was trying to chew up my hat.

She's a good dog. Oh, she's not. Okay. Okay, so on to the bigger stuff. Talking points. Ethnicity in minority groups. Yes. Big thing throughout this book.

Major theme, I'd say. Possibly the major theme. I'm obviously using the word minority with the air quotes there because... Women are included. Yeah, women are included and they are theoretically... Probably half the population. Probably half. They're on the round world.

Maybe there's... I mean, you'd think from the books there's less women on the disc world. I don't think we've passed the backdale test for a while. Yeah, well, I think Angwa's reaction to the idea of being called minority. Yeah, that was one of the first things I was going to mention. Carrots sort of explaining about the vimes who's never been gruntled. He's not very happy about advertising for a troll or a dwarf. And when Angwa says, I'm not a troll or a dwarf, Carrot starts to say, well, yes, but

you're a woman. Yes. He's a bit congealed in his ways. I think she puts it. Yes. And yes, she's really not happy about being referred to as a minority group. But yeah, what this... What perhaps it gets better at in later books, especially with the War Shark.

But I don't think he's great here is the way we're sort of asked to sympathise with some forms of prejudice because they're not as bad as others. Are we? Well, if you look at, say, vimes who's very much the hero of the book who's meant to be a sympathetic character, he's quite prejudiced against trolls and dwarfs. But now they're in his watch, he's going to stand up for them. Yes. Yeah.

Although... I agree that the kind of... Oh, because I can say it because I hate everyone saying it's a bit of a shit. But I don't feel like he's standing up for them because he's in the watch. He's standing up for them because he's talking to people who've never known anything to do with them. He spends... He hasn't spent any time with the new recruits, he doesn't care.

But he spends a lot of time on the street dealing with trolls and dwarfs. Yeah. But I think there's still some prejudice there. And I don't think we're asked to be prejudiced, but I think we're asked to sympathise with prejudiced characters. Yeah, possibly. Because they're OK. I wouldn't say Kolan comes across very sympathetic.

Kolan doesn't come across very sympathetic at all. And neither does Nobby. It's worth saying that there are levels of prejudice and the way we kind of black and white everything at the moment isn't very helpful with anyone who's a bit problematic, is exactly as bad as everyone else. The fact that we're supposed to see vimes as not as bad as the aristocrats, I would say, is accurate. Yeah.

I'm not necessarily saying it's a bad thing. I just think Pratchett improves on how he handles it in these books. Oh, he does, absolutely. Yeah. This is probably the first book I think where he's majorly trying to tackle the way that different ethnicities are treated, especially within the city. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I know there's a throwaway line.

I think we've already talked about it in one of the earlier books where people on the... I think it's with Nani Og and it's sort of the people on the disc aren't racist because they'll gang up on other species instead. Yes, yeah. And it's like, well, that's a fine way to write yourself out of having to portray racism, but you're using speciesism as a analogy for racism. Yes. Not an allegory.

Yes. And you've got lines that are sort of knobby saying, well, you can put a foot wrong. Very thin skinned, your basic ethnic, which is obviously not a sympathetic thing, but that is such a knobby thing to say. Oh, it is, yeah. Yeah. Nobby throughout is just a 12-year-old boy representative of the news. He is a certain...

He's on Reddit. Giggling at every possible innuendo. Yeah. Oh, the bits when knobby is sort of giggling in the background as Angora is politely asking, how do we sleep with our truncheon? Yes. I really enjoy that scene. But yeah, actually speaking of the training scenes, especially how colon handles things,

boobs don't really get away of archery that much. I just feel like I need to clarify. Having shot a long bow. Yes. My elbow got in the way and I ended up with my entire arm purple, but that's just because I'm very bad at archery. But this weird speciesism here and the way colon dismisses them, there's the line of, it would have been better if he'd made it seem that Cuddy was worth an insult.

Yeah, he just kind of went, as expected. Yeah. He didn't think... You know, if they were human recruits, he'd be yelling at them and insulting them. Yeah. Yeah, it's like if a kid messed something up, you wouldn't be having a go. Do you be like, yeah, I know that scans. Yeah.

It's patronizing. Yeah. Yeah. Also, the whole test thing is just kind of a good example of, was it Albert Einstein's possibly misattributed quote of if you tested fish on climbing a tree. Goldfish on climbing a tree. Obviously, he's not going to do very well. Yeah.

It's equity versus equality. Equality is everyone has the same things, but this equity is the idea of it's not everyone starts from the same point. Is everyone starts from the point they need to to get to the same point? Yes. Like, of course, a troll can't really handle a tiny crossbow without shattering it. Yeah. Of course, Cuddy can't reach the dummy properly, but you give Cuddy his ceremonial accent,

a bit of a runner. Yeah. Yeah. Fast-tracked police brutality. Yeah. Yeah. It is so hard to talk about it. I've not even touched upon this week because I've not got the energy, but I feel like next

week we'll try. I think we will. We're not ignoring the fact that we are trying to read books about cops and we like the cop characters and sympathize with them, but it's very difficult to conflate with what's actually happening in the real world right now. Yeah. I think it's handy in this case that it's split into the Night Watch and the Day Watch, where the Day Watch seemed to be very much an example of the kind of oppressing people on the richest

behalf. Yeah. Whereas Night Watch at the moment is kind of more of an independent and currently useless body. Yeah. The scrappy underdog out for what's right and just a carrot goes into the whole thing of policeman meaning man of the city. Yeah.

The word police meaning city. Yes. But then carrot is problematic in his own way, as we mentioned earlier. He's okay with dorsals. It's problematic actually. Yeah. Sorry. Gentle reminder that Corporal Carrot is actually.

Gentle reminder. Sorry, we've spent too much time on the bad parts of Twitter and not the really nice. We've recently just been messaging each other with pretend hot takes, so apologies listeners. This is why past nine o'clock at night, if I do want to go on Twitter, I look at our podcast feed because it's full of nice. Yeah. But yeah, carrot is obviously fine with dwarfs because he is one and fine with trolls despite being a dwarf because he sort of sees the best in people.

Doesn't like the undead though. Yeah. So they should go back to where they came from, which is like hot. Yeah. Especially when he's talking about the undead. Which I like that obviously Angwa and her whole werewolf thing, it's kind of she's folded into the undead. Although werewolf, I would argue isn't really undead in the same way a zombie is.

No. Even Banshee they're picking as well. I think it's any of the otherworldly are being lumped into, aren't they? Yeah. I think it's it. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Werewolf does seem to stand apart from vampire and zombie, doesn't it? But then they also. No, because vampire, it depends on the vampire, doesn't it? The vampire legend. Vampire tends to be sort of undead-ish. I think they're often referred to as undead. Yeah. Just like zombies.

Whereas werewolf. In the book a category like things that show up in Cheesy horror films. Yes. Yeah, let's call them the Hammer Horror Brigade for now. Yes. I think that's what Carrot's referring to. Yeah. And the moment Angwa sort of hits quite cold when she realises he's got that prejudice.

Yeah, for sure. But he will, you know, find a way to unlearn it. I think one of the, when I talk about sympathising with characters who still have a bit of prejudice, I think the summary of why we should sympathise like with someone like Vimes in this situation. And I don't like the thing of I'm not racist, I hate everyone. Yeah. But the line here, the point was he didn't like dwarfs and trolls, but he didn't like anyone very much.

The point was that he moved in their company every day and he had a right to dislike them. Whereas no fat idiot had a right to say things like that. It goes in with, there are people who'd steal from people, steal money from people, fair enough. But then there are people, and he's really referring to the aristocrats he's had to deal with at the dinner party here, people who would steal the humanity from people. And that's what he's appalled by. And I think that's why he's still sympathetic. He's willing to hate dwarfs and trolls because he sees them as people, just like humans.

And he knows that people are bastards having met them. A-Pab. A little bit of a callback, way callback to... Oh, fuck me, the sci-fi book we did. Strata. Dark Side of the Sun. Dark Side of the Sun, where the kind of different things that are considered human. Yes.

Considered... It's what it is. Yeah, they're considered human now. Yeah, and there's like... Practising human as the term for sentience rather than for... Species. Yeah. And we've sort of got human slash people.

But yeah, this is the sort of point I was wondering vaguely towards in this section is that Vine still very much does see everyone as people. Yes. And what he dislikes is the attitude, the more extreme version of the attitude that Colin slightly had, you know, Colin isn't bothering to see them as people and therefore he doesn't treat them as even worth insulting. Yeah. The version is this idea of people who would steal humanity, people who would not even

give them that basic respect of seeing them as people. Yeah, yeah. And that's what he's really furious at. Yeah. They are a bunch of bastards. They are a bunch of bastards. And yeah, the dinner party scene where Vine suddenly sort of chimes in in a really sarcastic way. You can see his face and he's kind of bright, crisp.

Oh, yes. Absolutely. Totally agree with you, Mr. fucking prick. Yeah. Sorry. One of my favorite bits is he's chiming in with that as he's sort of on the dwarfs and he's like, oh, have you noticed how small their heads are? And then onto the tolls.

Have you noticed how massive their heads are? Yeah. Yeah. Pointing out the contradictions as well with the lazy immigrants who never do a day's work in their life and come in and take our jobs by working 24 hours. Trading is immigrants. Yes. Yeah.

But yeah, the whole dinner party scene is kind of a big class consciousness moment, isn't it? I mean, it's been hinted at throughout that Vimes obviously has a giant chip on his shoulder about the aristocracy. Yeah. Yeah. There are a few good points picked up on Dustin, the dinner party scene, like the fact that rich people don't really do crying because they get away with it.

They can pay to get away with it. Yeah. Which is, you know, when you're in trouble with the police. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. And then, yeah, the contradictory bigotry bits I found very funny as well. And the kind of one little sarcastic laugh with the ha, at the very end there, which was

very good. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, this book is kind of jumping off point for a lot of pratchins by class consciousness stuff, isn't it? Yeah, this sort of takes us into our next thing. And the big, big part of this, and this is probably one of the most quoted passages of any Discworld book. For sure.

The Vimes Boots Theory of Economics. Absolutely. It's taken, it's very firmly rooted now in the not just popular cultural academic culture. I think it's cited in a few studies and things. Do you want to read the passage? Yes, I will. Take Boots, for example. He earned $38 a month plus allowances.

A really good pair of leather boots cost $50. But an affordable pair of boots, which was sort of okay for a season or two, and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about $10. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought and wore until the souls were so thin that he could tell where he was like more pork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford $50 had a pair of boots that would still be keeping his feet dry in 10 years time.

Well, a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent $100 on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. That was the Captain Samuel Vimes Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness. Yes, which is so well and concisely put that it is quoted absolutely fucking everywhere. Talking about the basic concept that it is expensive to be poor. It is very expensive to be poor. It makes a further mockery of the idea of pulling oneself up out of poverty by one's bootstraps. When we've touched on this in previous books before, especially with Lady Sybil,

where the very rich can afford to be scruffy and stomp around in wellies, whereas it's the sort of middle classes, upper middle classes, who do the etiquette and the dressing a certain way. But this is where he dives into it and really, really lays out why that is. It's not just the privilege of you're so rich you can be seen to be eccentric, but it's the fact that you can afford to buy one thing that will last generations. Yeah, exactly. And if you're your current old pair of wellies, wears out, you've probably got 10 more of your grandparents in the cupboard somewhere.

10 more of your grandparents' wellies, not just 10 grandparents in the cupboard. Maybe that too, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, it is rooted so well in our culture because it is true. It's true. It is expensive to be poor. Obviously, please don't ask me whether it's an oversimplification or whatever. We know it's an oversimplification. It's a fucking paragraph and a comedy book. We are aware that social economics is more complicated. I don't know why. Having a go at our listeners like they're random redditors.

I spent a long time on Reddit this morning. It was a bad idea. I know. I know you're fine. Anyway, putting into round wild terms, buying in bulk is often much cheaper. You can't afford to do that if you're living by payment. Yeah, if you're paid, if you'll say on Universal Credit and you're getting, I don't know what the amount is now, but it's not a lot once every two weeks. You can't afford to buy 10 kilos of pasta.

Yeah, yeah. Which is often what people go on about when they're saying, oh, you can, oh, fuck me. Dia, it's okay. Come here, baby. You're okay. Well done. Thank you. Thank you for telling me about it, whatever it was. Come here. Come here and have a nap. Dia, come.

Good girl. Sit down. Okay. We're okay. I've got you. Thank you. Okay. Sorry, what was I saying? Yeah.

In fact, the food is a big one. I've obviously had quite a lot of Tweety Rants, especially in the last year or so about things like food poverty, because it is so inescapable and then you quite often get politicians saying, well, I managed to cook this and it was 10 p.m. abortion. It's like right fine. But A, imagine eating that breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week.

Mm-hmm. And B, you had to take the time to cook it. And C, you could afford to bulk buy it. Yes. Yeah. It will work out five p.m. portion if you're buying 10 kilos of pasta at a time. But if you only have five pounds to spend in the shop,

you're not buying 10 kilos of pasta. No, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a good thing. If you're buying 10 kilos of pasta, you're not buying 10 kilos of pasta. No, exactly. Yeah. And yeah, there's a million examples of it.

They're basically being poor, just being expensive. And it's, you know, energy efficient appliances cost more. Yeah. Cheap cars need more repairs. Loans cost more because of higher interest, like banks charge you for using the overdraft. Rent to own costs a lot more over the long run. Mm-hmm.

And then cheap insurance, obviously, can cost you via large excesses. I mean, in the UK, thankfully, we don't need to worry too much about things like health care costs. But in the US, that's a massive one, isn't it? Like, poor people for all they're worth. And then the other massive thing, obviously, being that one cost kind of can snowball massively

when you're living paycheck to paycheck. And you have to live perfectly every month with nothing going wrong. Or, all right, say your car breaks down and you work a wage job, not a salary job, which means that now you have to pay to repair your car and you're out of a day's wages. Mm-hmm.

And because of that, you miss a bill payment and you get an overdraft fee because something banks like to do is to charge you money for not having money. And then, so next month, because you're now in the red, because of that, it takes an even smaller setback for you in to die straight. So it's the spiral, isn't it? Yeah.

I think Pratchett's very aware of all of this and kind of... And there's also this weird public response of the perfect poor person who doesn't have too much and doesn't ever spend their windfalls on big things. And they're, oh, they've got smartphones and big shiny TVs. And Katla Moran has a really good essay on this, growing up with not a lot of money. And yes, we had a big shiny TV because that was all we had.

Yeah. There was nothing else for us to do. There was nowhere for us to go. There was nothing. So we had that one payment of big shiny TV, secondhand, probably bought off the back of a lorry or something. But that's not based on what poor people do. That's based on what Katla Moran writes about.

Yeah. And that's what we had. That was our whole, any leisure we had. Yeah. You can't say, oh, you know, if you're on benefits, why do you have a smartphone? When it's impossible not to have a smartphone in this day and age, and you probably have that instead of a computer

and you need internet access for things like applying for jobs. Yeah. It's, you can tell the way a lot of people who've never been in poverty talk about it as well in that they would do things differently. And therefore, you know, they wouldn't be prey to basic, very heavily studied human psychology and do these spending things. They would do these other things that they can think of themselves doing because they live comfortably and they're not in desperate situation.

Yeah. And it goes back to the other main theme of the book, which is people thinking they are just inherently better. Anyway, as I said, I could go on for a long time about this, but I won't because the point was that it is a, another bit of disc world that is leaked very effectively into the real world. Very much so. Yeah.

Speaking of worlds. Speaking of worlds. Segway. Let's go into some world building. Oh, yes. Let's build me a world or tell me about world building either way. Can I do the last one? Yeah.

You were quiet. You were quiet. Sounds like the last ever. Obviously, I have talked in many books about how good Pratchett's world building is, but some of the world building bits I enjoyed here. Obviously, we've spent time with Dwarfs and Trolls before, but I think this is the first time we really look at the animosity between Dwarfs and Trolls. Yes.

Yeah. I think we had like the brief, like funny bit about the, at Coombe Valley, didn't we? I don't even think, I think this is the first book Coombe Valley has been mentioned. No, I don't think so. I think Coombe Valley was meant to be like the equivalent of the Tupperware, remember, was.

Oh, yeah. Those are brief. I'm sure Coombe Valley was made. But yes, anyway, this is the first time it's explained. Yeah. Dwarfs and Trolls not really getting along. Was mentioned in Dwarfs and Ladies, but here there's a longer explanation about it that mostly comes down to

Dwarfs accidentally mining Trolls. Not Trolls, tearing the arms off said Dwarfs. Yes. Like all good Vendettas, it didn't really need a reason anymore. It was enough that it had always existed. And the footnote is that the battle of Coombe Valley is the only one known to history where both sides ambushed each other.

So I like that it's developed more into, here are these two species that are now really taking up space, especially in the big city. Yeah. And here is how they relate to each other. And here is how that relates to the rest of the city. Yeah. He's building more into it there.

They get more details of Dwarfs and their sort of religion or lack thereof and what they think of as sacred as well. Yeah. I like the quote about the really special kind of atheist. Yes. That was one of the ones I mentioned. It takes a special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their armpit, shouting,

I'll rack to random fluctuations in the space time continuum. I did myself. As a professional atheist, me too. A very nice eyebrow raise to go along with that well done. I like the idea of sort of Dwarfs don't have religion, but they don't know if the gods know that. So they do sort of hedge their bets and take their burial weapons to the afterlife. Yeah.

That's the Discworld thing, isn't it? Even if you don't believe in gods, you kind of know they're there. Yes. The witch is saying, we don't have to believe in gods. That'll only encourage them. The bastards. And this idea of the tools being sacred. And, you know, carrot is less and less Dwarfish as the book goes on,

but then he suddenly has his very, very Dwarfish moments. And one of them is explaining here, sort of as the handy Mr. Exposition, that a dwarf will not use another dwarf's tools. I think that's passed down from like smiths or something as well, isn't it? Yeah, there is some actually human history, although I haven't got into detail about it. But I like that it's... He doesn't even really try and explain it to vimes beyond...

It's just icky, of course you wouldn't. Yeah. Like, of course you wouldn't. And it sort of has a nice parallel later on when we learn more about the Fool's Guild and using another Fool's face. Yes, yeah. And there's the same responses. You just would not do that.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not a hygiene thing. It's not a... However, it's like... It's just not done. Walk around with a mask of someone else's face on your face. It's weird. Yeah.

Although you can get masks that do that. And it's quite groovy. Yeah, no, I don't like that. Yeah. It's horrible. Thumbs down in the handbook. Other people's faces on your face. No eugenics.

No wearing other people's faces on your own face. Yes, cake. Yes, cake. Sorry, I'm quite peckish. Yes, Mrs. Cake. Yes, actual cake. Don't ask us about Mrs. Cake, but yes, cake. The cake is a lie.

No. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Francine. I think my favourite moment of sort of really good worldbuilding, though, is the scene in the bar. And this is after they found Hammerhawk's body. And they've all gone for a drink. In the bucket, yes.

The bucket in Glean Street. Possibly our second ever disc world pub. Yes. At least our second in Ang Moorpork. We don't know the current status of the drum. Mended, fixed or whatever. Exploded. Sorry.

Worldbuilding with it. Pub. They're all in the pub and they're discussing this. And Carrot is sitting there and he eventually sort of goes, but it all works. And I didn't know that. You know, when he first got to Ang Moorpork, I arrested the head of the Thieves Guild for thieving. Yes.

And I think what I like about the scene and some other stuff later on with Bessinari and the idea of worldbuilding is it's Pratchett actually looking at what he's built so far. Yeah. Because he's been slowly developing the whole disc world, but especially Ang Moorpork and especially the guild system. And in this scene with the coppers and they stare at the drinks and they drink the drinks and they're bitter about Hammerhawk, Pratchett is going, okay, I've made this. This is why it works.

Yeah. And now that I have this and know why it works, I need to know how to or what I need to be able to do. And what he does with this book is put in something that doesn't work so that the watch have something to do. Spanner in the works. Yeah. Literally.

Or in this case, a gun. Yes. Because as the book mentions, like murder is not very common. You have assassination or you have someone saying something stupid. Yeah. Random murder. Yeah. This kind of cold premeditated murder, this is the spanner in the works of now I have

set up a city that runs like this. Deer doesn't agree with me, unfortunately. But it's now I've set up something that runs like this and does this. Here is how I put some grit into the clockwork so that the watch can go in and clean it out. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I like the extra details as well that he's added on the guilds on this one, like guild and lore applies behind the doors and like the assassin's guild being like this posh

airy school kind of thing instead of the dank, scary horrible place that you'd imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I feel like that's a little bit of a dig at kind of big evil corporations being in these nice airy open spaces, quietly planning evil. I got more of the sort of boarding school vibe, but I think that's because I was saying of pyramids and what we see of the assassin's guild there. Yeah.

I think there were definite references to that, like with the pictures of like the kids lined up and the kind of posh boarding school thing as well, but the bit about planning evils in these like airy rooms, just that one line, I think was a little bit of a dig. But yeah, no, I think you're right. The rest of it seems to be very much based on posh boarding school. Not that I've ever been to a posh boarding school. All of my knowledge of them comes from the Mallory Towers books. Yeah, I was going to say, we've read enough English literature to...

I think it's a stretch to call it enid blightened literature. Oh, unfair, unfair. All right. Sorry, that was... Not that unfair, no. Mum went to boarding school. Oh, did she? Yeah.

She's a military brow, isn't she? So... Oh, of course. Something I completely forgot to mention earlier, but as we're now rounding the bend towards the end of the episode, before we get to the obscure reference finial, when the armour for the various recruits is discussed, it's mentioned that Detritus's armour came from an old war elephant. Oh, it is, isn't it?

Yes. And as an elephant was mentioned, Francine, do you have an irrelevant elephant? I do, in fact. Yay! I do. I have a pre-prepared one and everything. Yeah, so elephants known to communicate with seismics. Yeah.

In fact, like whales do. So when they make that rumbling noise, like I think I've already mentioned, because I talk about elephants a lot, that they communicate kind of below the frequency that we can hear. Yes, they do the rumbling. Yeah. So it sounds like those vibrations, though, travel to and are detected by other elephants through the ground rather than through the air, which is what seismic communication is. And so elephants appear to rely on like their leg and shoulder bones to transmit the signals

up to their ear. And they kind of, when they're detecting seismic signals, they lean forward and put more weight on their front feet, which is known as freezing behavior. And it means they're listening to this all. Nice. Yeah, cool. Right. And now we've irrelevant elephanted.

Do you have an obscure reference for me, Francine? I do. I'm just full of trivia. Excellent. I love that trivia. It's a really silly one. So when Kara is showing off his kind of knowledge of the streets, it's like, if we go through this alleyway and that alleyway, we can catch the terrible criminal.

Many mentions. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Borbarygmic? Borbarygmic Lane. I'm going to go with borbarygmic. Yeah. Which I was like, that sounds like it might be an actual word. So I looked it up and it is, borbarygmic or borbarygmus are rumbling or gurgling noises

produced by movement of gas fluid or both in your eating tubes. Yeah. Paraphrasing. Elementary canal is what it says, but the general bits where digestion happens. Eating tubes. Eating tubes. And audible at a distance. We're just stomach rumbles, basically.

We're just stomach rumble lane. Yeah. So our irrelevant elephant and our obscure reference finial are both rumbling related. Oh, rumbling. Yes. Yes. Rumble related. Rumble related trivia.

Yes. I think that's literally everything we could say about those 130 pages of minute arms. We'll be back next week with part two, which goes from page 130 in the Corgi paperback. The river rank is probably the only river in the universe on which the investigators can chalk the outline of the courts and ends page 249 in the Corgi paperback with a line from Carrot. All right, Sergeant. So where do we get some more weapons?

In the meantime, thank you for listening to the Treeshow Mickey Fract. You can follow us on Instagram at the Treeshow Mickey Fract on Twitter at Mickey Fract pod. You can find our Facebook page at the Treeshow Mickey Fract. You can join our subreddit community, r slash t t s m y f. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castle snacks and albatrossy pods, the Treeshow Mickey Fract pod at gmail.com. And don't forget, if you want to support us with some of your hard-earned pennies, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the Treeshow Mickey Fract.

Cool. We have a URL doing that's exciting. We do. Hopefully, this will be live by the time this episode comes out. It might be dicey. My fingers. My fingers crossed. In the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you.

Wait, no, one last thing, because he says, when Dr Cruces goes, don't let me keep you. We've got a proto. Don't let me detain you going on here. Okay, should I do the outro of the episode again then? No, no. Just say. No. This has gone so well.

In the meantime, dear listener, don't let us keep you. Yay. Hello, hello. Come on. Do you want to say hi to Jo? Hello. Look at her being a puppy. Oh, look at you having a little face.

Oh, you've got such a little face.