The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 50: Men at Arms Pt. 2 (What Happens When Thing Happens?)

Episode Date: April 19, 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 2 of our recap of “Men at Arms”. Fools! Beggars! Alchemists!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:Tom Lehrer - New Math - YouTube Exploding Balls - The Smithsonian MagazineHark! Hark! The Dogs Do Bark! - WikiTime Team - Channel 4Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I'll just bleep out this entire section. The bit where I talk about Parks and Recreation. No, the bit where you call Lil Sebastian not a major character. So, episode 50. We're in so 50. Officially, I'm celebrating. Cheers. We're recording in the evening, not 11 in the morning,

if anybody is concerned by joining us. Glass of bubbly. There shouldn't be. Oh, no more than usual. The people on video who can see the glass of bubbly, the people just as long wouldn't have known. Yeah, but I'd like to tell on you, so. I mean, it's quarter to seven and I'm still drinking coffee,

having had many coffee this afternoon. Between us, we're almost going to make one functioning podcast host. And so, this is our second attempt at recording today. We had some IT problems this afternoon, when this morning, even when we were intending to try this. We did meet up for coffee on the balcony as planned. So, we have had a socialising day and it's not too.

We have. We've talked at each other a lot already today. Have. I can't believe we're at 50 episodes, though. Yeah, and it's more than that, isn't it? Because we've done a bunch of bonus episodes, so we're not counting them. If I open my podcast player, it'll tell me how many, actually.

But yeah, it's genuinely insane to me that we've recorded and released over 50 times now. That's over 100 hours. It's recorded, released. I know this is really good for my eventual plan, if I can't be uploaded to the cloud, at least become a possible AI. Yeah, I feel like enough of our personalities

could be reconstructed from this podcast. Yeah, unfortunately, that's true. 60 all together. We've done 10 bonus episodes. That's a nice round number as well. Ah, so happy 50th slash 60th episode. So, it's our golden slash. No, wait.

Golden or diamond. Golden's 50, right? Golden Jubilee, yeah. Yeah. Which means we get to land on St. James's Field in the helicopter, I believe. Excellent. Helicopter.

Helicopter? I'm so easily excited. I need to get out more. Yeah. How are you? How are you, Joanna? I'm OK. It's very weird talking to each other and doing this

when we have just spent four hours together. It is. It was very nice that we had an accidental bit of summer that we weren't expecting. Yes, unexpected summer. Somehow your balcony is such a sum trap that I can now see through the webcam that I have sunburnt my nose despite the sun cream you

kind of gave me. I did not get that quick enough. All right, so I didn't prepare a flag, but in the manner of a small child of a coronation. Hooray. My God, I look so tired today. You do not. I do a little bit.

I mean, I'm not insulting myself. I just say that my eyes look sleepy. It might just be the angle. I am quite tired only because it's later in the day than I normally do anything other than slumping around my kitchen cooking dinner, which I'm not going to do at all tonight. I'm going to drink a bottle of prosecco while we record this

and then eat my entire body weight in Chinese food. Cheers. Here's to our 50 episodes. God, I never stick with anything this long. This is ridiculous. I know. I think it's just because we don't want to disappoint each other. Yeah, it's kind of a loving obligation thing,

which seems to be pretty good for our motivation. I was the only reason I managed to stick with yoga as long as I did this year. Yeah, same. Sorry. It's not because of you. I gave up. It's the searing nerve cane I've had for like three weeks now.

In my defense, I stopped mainly because I moved a bunch of furniture around and now there's a desk. My old desk in the middle of where I used to do yoga and I don't know what to put in. My house is very small. Why don't you get rid of the desk? How? The tip's been you need to book an appointment at the tip still.

That's why I still have a deconstructed sofa in my sewing room. Yeah. That's just procrastination of all that for me. Yeah, I mean, I'm also just quite lazy. Shall we make a podcast? Yeah, make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the true show, make you fret podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book

from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. When I sit, I'm in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen and I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of men at arms. The men and the women. They are at arms as are the dwarves and trolls. The beings, the beings are at arms. The beings, the ones that have arms,

the dogs probably are because they've only got legs. Yes. Well, I'm glad we've dissected that to death. Let's say something useful. No, it's on spoilers before we get started. We are a spoiler light podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for men at arms, the book we're on, 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. In forgotten tunnels underneath the city. Do we have anything to follow up on? Yes.

Last week I said that I was going to look up the ridiculous aristocratic names. So there's a little list in Shot's Miss Allen name, which I've stolen from Jack. Some of the famous ones include like, what looks like Saint John is pronounced Sanjan, or Sanjan here. Sanjan?

Sanjan, yeah. I'm looking at it and I still can't do it. Probably the most impressively poshed is something that is spelled Featherstone Ho, so Feather, stone, H-A-U-G-H, or one word, and pronounced Fanshawe. Excellent. God, I love the English language.

I know, I know. Majority banks pronounced Marchbanks. Belvoir pronounced Beaver for some reason, like that's better. Ah, have you met the Beavers? Yes, they're good friends with the Featherstone halls. And finally, Wolf Hard is Worthy, which is Woolsey. I really feel like the English should have our language

confiscated. Yes, I'll try and find a similar list to link online. Probably can't take a picture of this and post it. That sounds illegal. Yeah, that's probably piracy. We should avoid that. You're arrested. You don't want to be arrested.

I'd download a pigeon. Thank you. I don't even remember the context from that. I think it was a Tumblr post. I'm just saying nonsense remembering that I found it funny and finding it funny again. Excellent. Quality content.

Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Men at Arms? Certainly, I've got that written down already. Excellent. The Night Watch is filling its ranks with a new body of beings. The fresh meat and silicon-based life form faces a fractious introduction to Angmar pork

dealing with interspecies turmoil and discovering two murder victims. Meanwhile, in the much higher echelons of Angmar porky and society, temporarily embarrassed aristocrat Edward Deith death. What did we... Diaz. Diaz, thank you.

Plot-stressed or the monarchy while his fellow blue-blooded bastards listen politely. Bridging the considerable gap between the two worlds is Sam Vimes, a common captain who's marrying rich, very rich. His soon-to-be-spouse lady Sybil Rampkin, dragon-dota and legend about town, chivies him into smart clothes in idiot conversation

while Tarant Vettanari tells him to cease investigations. We'd Eve our hero as he steadfastly ignores all instruction and follows his recruits to a crime scene. Dun-dun-duh. Dun-dun-duh. I've attempted to summarise this section, but... A lot happens. So much happens,

and I'm trying to at least keep these summaries to a single page. So, just after breakfast, as Cologne reads a thoroughly punctuated note from Carrot, a couple of members of the Fools Guild arrive to collect Paul Bino's corpse. He delegates sending Cuddy and Detritus to the Alchemist Guild to investigate some mysterious writing.

Cuddy and Detritus proceed to the Guild with its exploding balls and learn that they're in possession of Leonard de Querm's recipe for number one firework powder and that the mysteriously disappeared dabbler had a tendency to write backwards. Cologne and Knobbs head to the Fools Guild just in time for Bino's funeral.

They learn that Bino wasn't himself before he died and neither was his nose, and they speculate on the rate of decomposition. Carrot takes Angwer for breakfast at Gimlet's in a tour of the city. Vimes waits to projectile attack and makes his way to the Opera House roof to track his assailant.

A gargoyle witness informs him of a man with a firework stick. Carrot introduces Angwer to the finest sights of Antmoor pork if it's not its most colossal. They visit the beggars Guild just in time to investigate another murder, lettuce nibs the beggar Quinn's made appears to have been hit with a projectile from the Opera House roof.

Cuddy teaches detritus to count. As Carrot and Angwer head back to the watch house, Vimes hunts for some very black coffee and works out the shape of the gone. Detritus defends Cuddy as they track a running assailant to the pork futures warehouse. Vimes goes to veterinary

who tells them to seize investigations again and hand in his badge. Trapped in the pork futures warehouse, detritus throws Cuddy out of the window and the diminutive detective lands in Dibbler's new business venture. Detritus does some difficult maths before receiving rescue.

And as Vimes drowns his sorrows, our dynamic duo find themselves down a quarry lane. Dwarfs and trolls march, the captain quirk and the day watch have arrested Cole face the troll and Cuddy and detritus find themselves down a deep hole. Carrot and Angwer attempt to enforce some sobriety as they feed Vimes a clatchy and coffee.

Cuddy and detritus make an underground discovery and plans to dig their way back to the surface. Vimes breaks down as quirk stands down the night watch. Trouble brews in the streets, as Vimes says home for a bath. Cuddy and detritus dig their way out through the university library and take Carrot to claim the corpse they found,

another dead feno. The remaining watch speculate on Kings as an inept as an irreparable breakdown of law and order takes place and Carrot forms a militia to defend streets. That was a pretty concise summary considering what I was expecting. Yeah. I still managed to squeeze some illiteration

and terrible puns in there, but that was what we really wanted, wasn't it? Every time. So, helicopter and loincloth watch. Yes, go on, Joanna. Helicopter. Yes, loudly. Sorry, I should have probably tried helicopter

in the audio test before my usual bursar. There is a helicopter reference or a spinning up into the air machine, as Leonard calls it. On page 196 of the Corky Paperback Edition. If you want to go and see it yourself, listeners. I am finally vindicated. Finally, the payoff. 50 episodes.

And we finally got... Bloody episodes. And we finally got a helicopter, which I think one cropping up in any way even once is still alarming regularity for a fantasy series. So... Mm. Mm.

Alarming enough to perhaps make a bit... I'm keeping the bit. Okay. It's my bit and I'm keeping it. All right, fine, carry on. Obviously, loincloths is always heavily implied and for other bits, we're keeping track of the librarian as present, but not explained,

although we do get a bit of primer on his methods of communication. Anyway, onto quotes. Yes, I think yours is first. I believe it is. So page 142. The urn bearer stepped forward, waggled his wig, took the urn in one hand,

and the clown's belt in the other, and with great solemnity, poured the ashes of the late brother Bino into the other clown's trousers. A sigh went up from the audience. The band struck up the clown anthem in the march of the idiots, and the end of the trombone flew off

and hit a clown on the back of the head. He turned and swung a punch at the clown behind him, who ducked, causing a third clown to be knocked through the brass drum. Colin and Novy looked at one another and shook their heads. Boffo produced a large red and white handkerchief and blew his nose with humorous honking sound.

Classic, he said. It's what he would have wanted. Total nonsense, Joanna. Well done. It's not even my favourite quote from the bit. I just really wanted to see if I could read that whole bit out as deadpan as possible. You did. Well done. I was very, very impressed.

I think in my head, I didn't manage to do it that deadpan, so he made me laugh more than when I read it. That's what I'm here for. What was your favourite quote? My favourite quote was when Leonard Aquam is talking to Lord Vettanari about the possible mistake he's made in making this terrible, terrible weapon. And in fact, I think we're looking at the helicopter.

We are. We are. Lord Vettanari turned to the model flying machine over and over in his fingers. You dream of flying, he said. Oh, yes. Then men would be truly free. From the air, there are no boundaries. There could be no more war because the sky is endless. How happy we would be if we could but fly.

Well, it's nice and naive and sweet and bittersweet. And I think there might be some parallel to it in real life, but I wasn't really sure where to start searching. No, that's a difficult one. I mean, that brings us very nicely onto characters because Leonard Aquam is the first one I want to talk about. OK, well, this is the most dangerous man in the world was introduced last week.

Too smart by half. Too smart by half. But he doesn't know he's a prisoner. He's constantly hit with inspiration particles, which we've been introduced to in earlier books. I think sorcery was where the constant... Sorcery and another one, at least, yeah. Yeah, sorcery, I think, was the first time

the concept was introduced. Because inspiration regularly hit Creosote, but unfortunately, he had the poetic ability of a duck. What a shame. Tragic. Tragic. However, Leonard Aquam has the inventing ability of a very good duck. Yes. Or indeed, not a duck at all, I don't know.

His naming ability. A camel, the mathematical ability of a camel. He is. He is just as clever as you bastard. You bastard. Bastard. But yes, not so great on the naming. Not good. Everybody has their flaws. Yes, and his is mostly naming. I'm sure he's got a few other flaws as well.

He's not making murder weapons. Well, yeah, there is that. That's not really what I look for in a man. I'd forgive it, isn't this one? But yes, it's exciting to meet him. He's a really nice character. He's only got a little bit here, but it's nice to have a foil for veterinary.

It is, for anyone not aware. He's quite obviously modelled on Leonardo da Vinci. Yeah. It was the Renaissance. It's Renaissance. I'm using it right now. It's a great Renaissance. Yes. Artist, inventor, mirror writer.

Extraordinaire. Extraordinaire. To the point where there's also a reference to de Querm's portrait of the Mona Ogre. Yes. Apparently the teeth followed you around the room. It's nice that Nanny's family is spread so wide, really. Oh, absolutely.

I mean, they were, I suppose. I also quite liked the link in the introduction to Leonard. He's managed to invent post-its. Yes, quite gruesome sounding ones. Handy note scribbling piece of paper with glue that comes unstuck when you want to. Which is not how I'm going to refer to post-its from now on, because I talk about them quite a lot

with all of the ones I have. And... Yes, take too long. Don't keep not sticking with that bit. I just don't have time in my day, Francine. I'm a very busy woman. And then we meet Silverfish again. Yes, I just wanted to...

We met him before in the moving pictures. Yeah. Yes, he was the first one to sort of invent the film. And it was just, I just wanted to point out, he's here. He's gone back to the alchemist guild and he's having fun. So I'm quite pleased with him. Much fun, one might say. Possibly too much fun.

Well, of course it's not the alchemist's fault. No, it's not entirely the alchemist's fault. I will get on to the explaining points. Except they didn't train up Leonard by the terms of it. Well, he's sort of been absorbed knowledge from everywhere. Described as having absorbed a rag bag amount of knowledge from the schools his parents sent him to. Yes.

And we meet Dr. Whiteface as well, who is very creepy. From the Fools Guild, the head of all. Yes, head of Fools Guild. The one who never gets in the way of the custard. It's part of a longer description, but I very much just like that sentence. Because there's something... That was the hell of an epitaph.

There's something so ominous about his description, but then you stop and look at it objectively. And custard is never not a funny word. No. I do enjoy the word custard. But yes, I like meeting Dr. Whiteface. I like that all of the guilds are... Not all of them, but we're generally getting more flesh to them

and meeting... Meeting the leaders, meeting them. Yeah, because most of what we've learned of the Fools Guild so far is based on the full, or King Verence, as he's now known. Yeah. And hearing about his very depressing upbringing and how he'd hear the sounds of the assassins at play next door. Yeah, and he's kind of stuck with this theme of

the Fools, most of them don't seem to much like it. Bino was quite pleased to go into an afterlife without tomfoolery. Custod. Yes. I love the word tomfoolery. Yes. And then we meet Horne's Ogre Rooking Ordway. Yes. Horne is overlooking Broadway.

I'll be the translator. This is... I'd like this bit in general. So this is the gargoyle that Vime's chats to. Yeah. And they're explained as an urban troll species that had involved a symbiotic relationship with gutters. Gargoyles have some interesting folklore behind them, don't they? I haven't looked into it for this.

No, I haven't quite enough to talk about anyway. But that was one I put a pin in to maybe have a look at for next week. But I like the way they're depicted here is these sort of mini-trolls that have picked up this symbiotic relationship with buildings. Yeah. And I like trying to because their mouths are stuck open, trying to understand how they speak. He ute his ute on a head, Angad Ogre, Irak.

Firework. He and he let off a firework. But there's a footnote as well in the section of Ruins, juice to Corners overlooking Broadway about the other strange species on the disc. Mm, such as Lanka Suicide Thrush, the Shadowing Lemma, which exists only in two dimensions and its repetitions. Terrible. And the strangest and possibly the saddest speech from the disc world,

the Hermit Elephant. That's very sad. Which doesn't have a thick hide, so it lives in huts and builds extensions as it grows. It usually moves around an entire village. Have you got any? Yeah, I do. Excellent. A relevant fact from Shots of Miscellany as well.

I wouldn't have had one, except I just accidentally happened upon it. Excellent. There's a list in Shots of Miscellany of the curious deaths of some of the Burmese kings. And of the three, four, five, six, seven listed here. Three of them were killed by an elephant. Uzama was trampled to death by an elephant in 1254. I don't know why I started this.

I cannot pronounce this. Min Raki Auswa, Min Raki Auswa, crushed to death by his own elephant in 1417. So he's not around to correct me. And Razadaret died after becoming entangled in the rope with which he was lassoing elephants in 1423. Oh, another one, four.

Tavinswethi beheaded by his chamberlains while searching for a fictitious white elephant. So that was an elephant-adjacent death, but I think it still counts. I'm still saying four deaths by elephant in the Burmese royalty. I'm starting to think this might not be a coincidence. Me too. Yes, absolutely. That is my irrelevant, elephant fact, an interesting amount of Burmese kings died at the trunks of elephants.

All the ropes of fictional elephants. Yes. Who else do we meet? We've got Queen Molly of the beggars guild. Yeah. I like the way she has her little nod with anguish, the two working women to each other. The beggars guild being an equal opportunity, not employer.

We did meet Queen Molly earlier in Guards Guards. Yes. And here's we've got Sham Harga, who we've met before, employer of death in the past. Oh, I knew we'd seen him before. I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah, back in more. I like Sham.

Hmm. Good lad. He's out to make a terrible breakfast. What more can you want? That's why I look for lots of people were trying to work out if there were any references to the nature of Sam's cooking or the menu in the Dwarf restaurant. And it is that it seemed to be a lot of American listeners

asking on Pratchett forums and Terry Pratchett eventually responding with it's just what she cafe menus are like in England. Yeah, what were they trying to find references to? Sorry if there was like a specific reference in the dodgy food of Sham Harga's or the sauce rat and chips. And it's like now it's just that's just what breakfast menus look like in some cafes. Yeah. Yeah.

Without rat usually like it'll be. And you say without a rat. Yeah, egg and chips, egg sauce, egg and chips, double sauce, egg and chips. I really want chips now. Yeah, I mean, what the hell? I'm sorry. They did have a very nutritious snack of potato smiling faces

before we started recording because I am a grown adult. Oh, my God, they're doing corn turkey, corn, turkey, dinosaur sound. Oh, my God, I'm really happy for you. Yeah, thank you, you do. It's an exciting day. Well, we're so mature. Sorry, where are we at? Mane's quirk.

Yeah, was it thick, oily and slightly eggy? Yes, thick, oily smells. Everywhere. I want to say I've got probably about 60 notes in this section, but I'm going to say at least 15 percent of those are just me taking notes of times I wanted to punch Captain Quirk, which considering he's only really in one scene is. Yeah, so listen, it's just assumed that Joanna wants to punch Captain Quirk

at all times and proceed accordingly. Quite badly. Yeah. It's some of the ways he's described is excellent, such as glancing around that the scenery is if he was doing it a favor. And I have to wonder if practice basing it of one person in particular and whether that one person ever felt called out. I think you and I have both met multiple men like this. That's true. Yeah.

He wasn't actually a bad man. He didn't have the imagination. He dealt more in that sort of generalised low grade unpleasantness, which slightly tarnishes the soul of all who come into contact with it. Yeah. But this is a particular kind of. White, greasy pub boy. Yeah.

Who should not want to go as like drunk with power and middle management. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have worked for this dude. Yeah. Did you? Probably. No, I try not to punch people when I work. And that seems sensible. Was I really bad at punching?

I've never had to punch anybody. I know we've talked about this on a podcast before, bizarrely. I was all right today when I did kickboxing briefly. The important thing is to get your thumb on top of your fingers, not within your fist, because you'll break your, you'll break your thumb. Yes, I've rarely topped it from you. Topped it from your friendly neighborhood podcast. Just in case any of our.

When punching. When punching low grade racists, break your thumb. Punching racists, yes, breaking your thumb. No. Oh, massive shout out to Melissa, Melissa, who made us the great little yes, eugenics, no artwork. Yeah, I did notice someone said something about merch and I'm very sorry, but I refuse to have any merch with the word eugenics on it.

Even if it's eugenics, no, I'm just nixing that straight off. I'm very sorry. I very much love that picture, though. We probably shouldn't sell much with the word eugenics on it. Yeah, I just know. I've already said the word eugenics too many times as somebody wanted to take this out of context. Anyway, who else do we meet?

We meet Willikins. We've met what we met Willikins earlier, but I don't think we've actually mentioned him yet, which is his name. So what do people call you when they've got to know you better? Willikins at the moment. He's simply a very, very good butler to say of the jeeps variety. He's definitely got some jeeps vibes. Oh, I can't see what James and Jason was.

Oh, I don't mind you. That's what they eat here. Excellent. And then you want to talk about vines a little bit, didn't you? Yeah, just a very brief one. And it feels odd not to mention it. And I was feeling all ready for that earlier. I forgot about it.

Yeah, no, just a bit. It is an interesting thing to reread this now that I don't drink anymore. And reading the description of him falling off the wagon is a little bit of a gut punch these days. And I haven't read it since I stopped drinking. And so I just wanted to note that it's written very well, not in kind of mawkish graphic details,

but still with enough to kind of put the point across. Yeah, it's realistic without being... Oh, what's the word? Triggering, honestly. Well, yeah. But yeah, it's not like glorying in the grit of it. It's not exploitative. It's not quite the right word.

No, I know what word you're going for. And I can't think of it either. Anyway, so there's that. And yeah, I thought it'd break down in general. It was pretty good as well. No, fuck it. I'm paraphrasing obviously. Fuck it. There's all the nonsense.

Your words are nonsense. Nothing's going to change. It's rotten all the way down. And he's quite right, of course, but no. I found that bit really... The white and candle in the dark. There's what's going to second-ended. That's just words.

I found that bit really relatable with how I've ended up feeling about politics over the last few years. I've gone from incredibly enthused about politics to, oh, fucking God, what's the point? Nothing's going to change. Yeah. And I did enjoy carrot being pulled out a little bit on that, even though, like...

Obviously, I suppose the moral of the story isn't just to give up on everything. But the colon did it as well. Just like, just being a bit more realistic is helpful for him, I think. So later on, it's like carrot saying, we're armed with the truce. What can harm us if we're armed with the truce?

Sergeant Colon says, well, a crossbow bolt can, E.G., go right through your eye and out the back of your head. Just like the cliche stuff needs to be. Carrots' lovely optimism works because there are people contrasting it and bringing him back down to Earth. Yes. And who don't just dismiss him as an idiot because he's personable and intelligent and that,

but they do kind of go, well, we will need helmets. Crossbow bolts can still injure. Yes. Anyway, so... Crossbow bolts, yeah, I often offend. Yes, I've heard that. So locations. Location, location, location. The Optimus Guild is still currently in the right place,

which is nice. Yes, it has not been exploded. The Gambler's Guild is across the road. Despite the best efforts of its inhabitants, because I think, what did they say? They were using Sulf, something... Oh, yeah. ...Nitrograting camphor,

and I'm pretty sure both of those things are just explosives. Camphor to the nitrocellulose. So I looked this up. This is fun. Oh, cool. Well done, chemistry. Fun facts about... Chemistry with me. It's not really fun chemistry facts, but specifically the history of exploding balls. OK, is this like the Todger thing again?

No, this is nothing like the Todger thing. This is... So what is it? They're using nitrocellulose and camphor. Balls. So, billiard balls used to be made of ivory. Bad. Very bad, but obviously a billiard ball

or a pool ball or a slug ball. It needs to have very specific properties. It's got to be exactly dense enough, so it moves in the right way and they ricochet off each other. And ivory was considered the perfect material to the point where top grade ivory was actually called billiards ivory.

Oh, OK. Yeah. But there was a perceived shortage of ivory in the mid-19th century. And that is kind of how a lot of development into early plastics came about because they were looking for something to replace ivory in billiards balls.

Billiards was incredibly popular, especially in America in the mid-19th century. Science is driven by the oddest things. It really is. To the point where someone actually offered like a $10,000 reward, which in those days was a loss of money. Please, this is not good.

Yeah, so I don't know if that's $10,000 in today's money or if it was $10,000 back then. I will link to a couple of articles about this in the show notes there because it's really fun. So this is how early plastics development came about. And one of the first things that was used to make billiards balls instead of ivory

was celluloid, which is made from nitrocellulose. Which is explosive. So nitrocellulose is also known as flash paper or gun cotton. So you think they've realized, probably not a good idea, but it was developed as a faux ivory. But yeah, flammable, explosive,

when balls crashed into each other, they would quite often explode. Or at least let off very small. This is completely based in reality. Excellent. But yes, fun thing, celluloid would then go on to be used for really early film in the early 20th century.

So also not great, also very flammable, but to tie this all back to silverfish and moving pictures. Yes, yes. Someone, please take the nitrocellulose away from Mr. Silverfish. Yes, yes. Yes, so that's my fun exploding balls fact.

Oh, and billiards balls are now generally made of resin, which is less explodey and doesn't involve murdering elephants. Thumbs up for resin. I don't tell me it's problematic. I'm pretty sure resin isn't problematic. Listeners, don't let us know. I don't care.

We're going to like monsters if it turns out it was behind a genocide. Yes, genocidal resin. I mean, it's plastic. So like technically all plastic is bad because the oceans, but... I think that's a bullshit statement, actually. Well, gentle reminder that the weather

is quite problematic for us to see. I was, I talked about the full skills and the funeral and how much I enjoyed that. See how I'm just changing this object now. Good because... Oh, my God. OK, right. Yes, sorry. Fools Guild Funeral. Fools Guild Funeral.

Fools Guild Funeral. Yes, so we've heard of gimlet stalactesin, but we've heard of gimlet stalactesin. Have you heard? This isn't just stalactesin. Have you heard of rat with ketchup? Seven people. Cream cheese rat.

There's possibly my least favourite combination of words in the English language. Hmm, cream cheese rat. But yeah, so we've heard of gimlet who runs the stalactesin. It's in, he had eyes like that dwarf that runs the stalactesin, running the road. So it's quite nice to actually meet it for the first time,

including the menu of things like sauce, egg, beans and rat. Written in Ogham. Yes. Which we met in Lords and Ladies last week. Grope Alley. Yeah, just to mention, because that is was a thing in the UK and in London, and in fact, it's a ruder version of, was it?

Yes, it has since been renamed, but it was grope, seaward, lane. The one word we won't sit on the podcast. But yes, and it's now been renamed to spread needle lane, which apparently is just as a new ennui that's slightly more subtle. That's where the Bank of England is. I will. They are a bunch of fuckers.

They are a bunch of a bunch of grope seawards. Bunch of thread needles. There's another grope stress. Yeah, all ties back together. Excellent. That was the thing. Oh, my God, it never ends. You know what? I think you end all the way down.

I think the bloke who wrote these books might actually be a bit clever, Francie. It's a little coincidence, if you ask me. No such thing. Pork Futures. I really like the idea of the pork futures wear. And you end there, and this time I mean it. The pork futures warehouse.

Yes, you quite enjoy these ridiculous little forays into the temporal economy. The temporal economy, which is part of the product of the patrician's rules about baseless metaphors, the literal mindedness of citizens who assume everything must exist somewhere and the general thinness of the fabric of reality around Ankh. So the trading of future pork is in pork

that has not actually come into existence yet, means there now has to be a warehouse for it to wait until it comes into existence. Yeah. And I feel like there's probably some commentary on the stock market, which I don't understand, because I don't want to learn about stonks. Futures are ridiculous.

That's all you need to know about that. I tried to understand it during the GameStop thing. I did. I did briefly. I'm sure I did. Economies like the economy is a bit like physics in that I understand it fine as I'm reading about it. And then very quickly, the information drains away.

Anyway, three jolly luck takeaway fish bar. No, hang on. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, more sample features, do you? All right, carry on. Well, so Pratchett's kind of realized it's very cold. Pratchett's kind of realized that the trolls are smarter when it's colder because that makes sense

with how he set up trolls so far. And it makes sense with the Tolkien trolls where they turn to stone in daylight. He's obviously got to a point in the plot where he kind of needs to put to try to somewhere cold and he needs to trap them somewhere because he needs to give to try to a clever moment and which means he needs to create something

like a walk-in freezer for them to be stuck in and rather than going, I know this restaurant's got an ice house, he goes, let's invent the pork futures warehouse. And I think that there is some corkscrew logic there that leads to us having pork futures and I greatly enjoy it. Yes.

Yeah, I wonder if kind of in his head he already had like pork futures somewhere and there's just some kind of like mad cork board of string in there and he's like, wait a minute, I can link these two. Yes, these go together. Now I can finally put the pork futures in. My disc world was built on pork futures,

I've just been waiting. Well, no, it's built on four elephants on the back of the turtle. And then turtles all the way down, quite right. Three jolly luck takeaway fish bar. Speaking of aquatic life. This is just one of those things that becomes a running joke throughout the disc world.

Because when something new comes quite often, it leads to dungeon dimensions. Like, obviously, when a film came to Enkmaupok, one might experience a bit more of what happens when thing happens. Excellent description of the genre. What happens when thing happens? Otherwise known as speculative fiction, I believe.

Yeah, what happens when thing happens, that's what I said. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Disar accents are a bit different, I guess. Yeah, so we've got such different potato potato things. You say potato, I say three jolly luck takeaway fish bar on the side of the old temple in Dagun Street on the night of the winter solstice,

but it also happens to be a full moon. Let's call the whole thing off. Anyway. Anyway. Sorry, please do tell me about the three jolly luck takeaway fish bar built on the side of... On the side of the old temple in Dagun Street on the night of the winter solstice,

but it also happens to be a full moon for unseen. Yeah, sorry, tell me more about that. We've already seen this, haven't we? This joke may have come up before, but this is the first time I think I've remembered to point out that this joke has come up, I like it, and it will come up again.

Okay, cool. There's the only reason I put it in. Fun little moment. Dagun is some kind of fish god. Dagun is some kind of fish god, also referenced in H.P. Lovecraft. Oh, that's it, that's what I'm thinking of, yeah. Lovecraft in menace.

But it wasn't invented by Lovecraft, it is an older mythical creature. I'm sure we've talked about this, I'm sure we have. It's not necessarily in recording, but yeah. True. Apologies, listeners, if you've had this bit before. And tunnels. Yes, and tunnels, which we'll come to again later,

but I just, it's a fun enough location to mention in the list, I think. Yes, I do like this. That's an accidental tunnel exploration. Everyone loves the idea of underground tunnels under a city, don't they? In the town we live in, it's old enough that people speculate about old tunnels

between the monastery and the town centre and it's been proven or found, but it's just old enough with enough sellers that it's believable. There are some old little underground works and things, but it's more to do with the fact that it's very chalky around here. Yes, chalk and flint, that's what we are.

Yes, that's our trouble-finding accent. Yeah, I think that's all the locations. That is all the locations. So, on to the little bits that we liked. Starting with Zorgo, the retro-frenologist. Yeah, tell me about that, Joanna. Also, we sort of had a reference to phrenology in the last section when Vines was kind of taking the piss

out of the figures by saying, oh, notice how big or small their heads are. Yes. So, for those not in the know, phrenology is a bullshit pseudoscience from a few centuries ago. That sounds like something someone from the criminal skull would say.

It was based around defining personality from skull shape. And therefore, you could prove who was criminal or a serial killer by the lift or fall of their brow, but phrenology was very much used racistically, unsurprisingly. But I like the idea of Zorgo, the retro-frenologist, who has used the logical thinking

that you could mould someone's character by changing the shape of their skull. Sound logic. In his case, using a hammer. I like to just, we're really into Pratchett using footnotes to the best of their ability. We haven't talked about footnotes for a while, actually. No.

But I think as we're... We just enjoyed them. Yeah. As we're into mid-stage disc world, he's really coming into his own with just using them to cram in a lot more funny bits per page. Yeah, yeah.

And what he describes retro-frenology as what you actually get is hit on the head with a selection of different sized mallets, but it creates employment and keeps the money in circulation and that's the main thing. That's the main thing. And that is a little aside to the camera. Yes.

A little full-haul break there. So yes, I like the idea of retro-frenology. This won't hurt a bit, he said, quite honestly. And then, yeah, we have the beggars' charter. And this is to do with the reason Lettuce Nibs is shot at is because she was trying on Molly's velvet gown. Yeah. And it appears that someone is trying to take out

people in positions of power, potentially. Yes. With the gun. We'll get into the actual who-done-it-ness a bit more, obviously, when we get into the final section next to me. Yeah. But I can't remember where I knew some in rags, some in tags, some in the velvet gown form,

and it's from an old nursery rhyme. Hark, hark, the dogs do bark. Beggars are coming to town, some in rags, some in tags, and one in a velvet gown. And I haven't gone down, I could go down a massive rabbit hole about origins of nursery rhymes, and I probably will at some point.

Yeah, this doesn't seem like the one to go down a rabbit hole from. There is some debate about it, it's quite interesting. So tags are sometimes written as jags. Some versions of it have some in velvet gowns rather than one in a velvet gown. The actual possible origins are some theories that it's got shooter origins

with the dissolution of the monasteries. Okay. Because that created a lot more beggars and some of them would be very finely dressed beggars because until very recently, they were in positions of power, and my abbots tended to be very well dressed, like monastic things were basically huge businesses

until they were all ripped down. Yeah. Another theory is that it's got something to do with the glorious revolution of 1688 when William of Orange took the throne. Okay. There's a similar rhyme from a handwritten text found the text was written in 1672.

Hark, hark, the dogs do bark. My wife is coming in with rogues and jades and roaring blades, they make a devilish din. So there's some theories that maybe it is older than the glorious revolution of 1688 and that was a parody of hark, hark, the dogs do bark. Okay. One of the things that kind of fights against it being

the glorious resolution is that the opening line of the Tempest written by Mr. Shakespeare in around 1610 is hark, hark, the watchdogs bark. Mm-hmm. So that maybe either that inspired the nursery rhyme or that was the reference to an old rhyme. Yeah, I mean, it sounds likely that just bits and pieces got used and reused in various rhymes, right?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's quite satisfying to hark, hark, the dogs do bark, it works. Yeah. But I like the fact that so many old nursery rhymes and rhymes that we just sort of know will linger around in the back of our brains tend to have weirdly militaristic origins. Yeah, it was certainly CRI's to this.

Yes. Sometimes I wonder if nursery rhyme folklorists have just keep themselves in business and the words sounded fun and caught on. Quite possibly, but I still want to go into nursery rhyme. I'm a crazy runner, but yes. Simple things. Well, it's like everyone going on about the ring

or ring of rosies being the plague and it turned out not to be, didn't it? Yeah. Colin and Cuddy police reports are entertaining. Yes, they are. The Sergeant Colons, I like because he's clearly got the idea of what he should be doing here, but can't help put his own little sides in.

So it goes, whereupon we conversed with Clown Boffo, who said Clown Bino, with a corpus sterilecti, was definitely sin the day before, just after the explosion. Brackets, this is dead bent, in my opinion, the reason being the stiff was dead at least two days, nobs agree, so someone's telling meek pies, never trust anyone who falls on his arse for a living. Whereupon, Dr. Whiteface messes.

And then of course we have Sergeant, not Sergeant, I'm very sorry, I'm giving him a promotion. Private Cuddy's, Lance Comstible Cuddy, it's right here, writes in runic style and- Is very used to sagas. Yes, and the saga kind of owed style. I do like bright was the morning and high our hearts when we proceeded to the Alchemist Guild,

where events fated, as I shall now sing. Yes. I shall deliver this. Clearly just learn if I wrote the correct way to start a passage, and if it's stuck with it, no matter the accuracy or lack thereof. I shall deliver this report in the style of Beowulf. Yes.

Yeah, and then I thought, the other little bit I like, is just a couple of bits reminiscent of good crime novels, tiny bits of foreshadowing and tension building, so a nice example being page 178, where Vimes is basically just sitting there thinking, and if you can write that well, you're a good writer, but his thought process kind of goes, and once again, Vimes felt the edge of something,

some fundamental central thing, and it's A, a good bit of foreshadowing, B, a good way of describing your kind of mind being on the precipice of a realization, and I don't have C, but again, the rule of threes is irresistible. I feel like we need to just have, we really like the rule of three,

is our automatic C for everything. Yeah. On one hand, two, and C. On the one hand, on the other hand, on my left foot. Yes, those little bits, do we have big things? Do we have big things we liked? I think we've actually got a couple of... Could there be things we want to talk about,

for instance, in talking points? Oh yes, you've listed them here. I have, handily, and it's excellent. Here with him, I shall sing them. Hi, RR Hearts, and not so bright as the evening, as we proceed along the eventated events. Mildly gloomy as the evening, as we proceed it to the third page of the show,

notice the events of which herein I shall sing. So we start by singing about literary devices. Oh, that's me, sorry, yeah. People as things. Yeah, just another one of Pratchett's nice little threads through the book you can notice here. I think he's making a habit of making subtle parallels between people and objects he's describing.

So the two I thought particularly are of note was vibes being described indirectly as a spring when Leonard of Querm is talking about how you can wind up a spring and hope it doesn't break, and then Vettnari gets the kind of realization that, ah, may have broken that spring, what is vimes? Yes, he didn't punch the wall. Yes, and also to Querm related

because Leonard is frankly a well of interesting literary devices. Leonard to Querm is hidden away somewhere safe but not gotten rid of out of fascination in much the same way the gun was. Yeah, that's another subtleish, obviousish, parallel drawn. There's something of Leonard being the loaded gun as well. Everything he does has the potential to be very dangerous.

Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. My little headcanon, by the way, is that Leonard of Querm was briefly apprenticed to Bloody Stupid Johnson, and I don't care if the timelines don't match up. I like it. I like it, let's go with that. So yeah, that is not really a very long talking point, but it's a...

It's something clever that's in here, yeah. It's just another example of just why it feels so satisfying to read Pratchett books, is that when you start picking at it like this, you can kind of start finding the reasons as to why they just feel so good reading them. Just even if you're subconsciously making the connections, you are making these little connections

and human mind loves making connections and he's doing it for you and it's just very clever. I really enjoy it. Well done. Speaking of Pratchett and clever writing. Yes, Joanna, that is the podcast. Good segue. Sorry.

Going into his papples and dialogues, this is something I really wanted to talk about. There's lots of really good pairings in this section. Yeah. And it's something I really enjoy. It's as a writing design, it's something that particularly works in the middle section of the book.

Everyone pairs off and goes and does their own thing. So you have Carrot and Angua going off toward the city. You have Cuddy and Detritus going off to the Alchemist Guild and then patrolling together. You have Conan and Knobbs and their sort of constant pairing in banter and lots of other little moments as well, especially with Vettinari.

And it's something I love in general, but to go into the specifics of some of the couples and why I love them, especially Carrot and Angua, Pratchett doesn't do a lot of romance and that's fine. These books don't need a lot of romance, but I think the very slow burn C plot of Carrot and Angua is a lovely one because it's written as such a slow burn

and it's not, at no point gets in the way of the plot. Yeah. I quite like that it's a two-way street as well. It's not just Carrot being unrequited. It's not just Angua just falling head over heels for him. There's resistance from both sides at various points and there's resistance on both sides. It's a lot more realistic.

Yeah. They're also not unaware of each other's attraction, if that makes sense. Carrot is obviously trying to call Angua. In fact, there's a really lovely moment and it's one of, this was nearly my quote because of... Because you're a simp. Because I'm a simp.

This is one of my favorite... Me too, I fucking love it. I love it. She vaguely suspected that Carrot was trying to court her, but instead of the usual flowers or chocolate, he seemed to be trying to gift wrap a city. Oh, who eat? It's just such a Carrot thing.

He loves this city. He's made his home here. He walks through it like a tiger walking through a jungle, like she clocks in the earlier section. There's a little heart next to the note on it, on my thing. There's a little heart next to that and a little heart next to when Cuddy's teaching to try to set a count.

Yes, these are both heart-worthy moments. But yeah, they don't just gel together. They don't immediately fall in love, but they also don't have the irritating thing. Yeah. And it is a background to... To deliberate misunderstanding, like, ooh. The way it's a background to them as police people works,

because they both have to put their jobs over everything else they do so much, and not just in the section, but throughout the book, and like my old spoiler, they often have to put their jobs above everything else in the other books. It's what the watch do. And it's that whole theme of their watchmen first

and dwarfs or trolls or werewolves or women second. And this is Angkor's first go at this, I guess, as well, whereas Carrot already kind of knows it. Yeah. And you've gone fast, I guess. You also have the way they play off each other. They don't gel perfectly. Yeah.

But not in a life-ending way. Carrot has his prejudice against the undead, which includes Angkor as a werewolf, and she knows that, but he doesn't. You have the moment with the list of names in Fines' room, when Fines is unconscious. That's one of those moments that I could almost, quote, verbatim from the book,

despite not having read it for years. It's one of my favorite moments in this entire book, that moment where Angkor leaps to an assumption, which, to be fair, she has not got to know Vimes. She may, I'm not saying Vimes comes off like he is the sort of dude who would pay lots of women for whatever she thinks he's paying women for. But she is a woman who has only met him

as this very grumpy boss in the background. Yeah. Needlework. Exactly. That's the sort of assumption that she's making. And Carrot's coldness, where he really feels the need to defend exactly what Vimes is doing. And I don't think it's that he would be a pool

that the sort of person he would pay for, say, seamstress services, but that he obviously holds Vimes in such high regard that he really wants her to not jump to a conclusion of exactly what he's doing. And there's that Angkor's realization as Carrot sort of very politely organizing a militia. He could lead armies if he wanted to.

And obviously other people have seen this rebel-messing Carrot. That's the plot of the book is that Carrot should be king. But she's the first one who sees it and gets that that's not what he wants. And considers that as important that that's not what he wants. And then like the other big buddy,

obviously you've got Coleman and Nob, who have this ongoing banter from Guards, Guards. They're great. And you have Cuddy and Detritus and they're... Bromance. They're bromance, they're buddy cop thing. It's very... They went so quickly from hatred to...

Yeah, it's the opposites attract, buddy cop thing, the sort of the bonding over counting together. But I think the moment that really, really got me is when Detritus has been rescued from the Port Futures Warehouse and Cuddy is standing up for him. And he looks at Detritus and realizes all of the bullet holes on Detritus

were at Cuddy's head height. Yeah. And it's that fucking, it fucking saved my life there. And it's nice that that realization wasn't what changed his mind actually. He got to know Detritus and that changed his mind. Yeah. Like they were already friends, like, yeah.

Because the key shaving to do would for have been, would be for a goodness sake. Detritus would try and save... Would be for Cuddy to change his mind after Detritus had saved Cuddy's life, yeah. Yeah, but Cuddy was trying to save Detritus's life before he realized that Detritus had really, really saved his. So it cements it rather than being what starts it.

Yeah. And the other, before I go into my closing statement, you know, the other, the other sort of moments of couples or not couples, but dialogues that I really like, you've got Vimes and Sham Harder and their banter. And Vimes is trying to order a cup of coffee as black as a moonless night. Yeah.

And in doing some reading around this, apparently there were tons of Twin Peaks references that I missed, because I guess this is probably around the height of Twin Peaks, but I've never seen it. But it is also, it's very trad cop stuff, the coffee and donuts.

Okay. And I like the scene between Vimes and Sham, where Vimes really just wants something that will set him on the level, and Sham is insisting on... I think Vime was a little unfair. He was a little unfair. He was the one who went into the stupid metaphors,

but like insulting Sham's breakfast and going on about the moonlit coffee. And then it was like, and a donut! No, nonsense is like, it was your nonsense, Vimes. You started, I mean, if someone came to me and started this nonsense, I would have responded with Sham's nonsense. I have a lot of respect for Sham in that moment.

Yes, I agree. And then also, Vettanari in his scenes with Vimes and his scenes with Leonard, Vettanari plays off best when it's him and one other character, just like it was Dr. Crease's. Yeah, he does need a... It's not even a foil, is it?

Just somebody to bounce his ideas off. Yeah. He's a bit like... There's a term in tech stuff, a rubber duck. And it's just, if you were stuck on a problem, you sit and explain what you're trying to do to say a rubber duck on your desk and you'll generally solve the problem by doing it.

And then the querm is the hell of a rubber duck. If there was ever a rubber duck. Very clever rubber duck. And that's what Vettanari does when he's got Vimes in front of him. And, you know, he's trying to manipulate Vimes in to solve everything and he works out, he's pitched him too far.

But I just, I like these small scenes of two people in rooms. It was to go briefly a bit tangenty, but it was why the early seasons, I know it's so unlike me. The early seasons of Game of Thrones was... I really loved the early seasons of the TV show up through season four.

A, because it was sticking a bit more to what was going on in the book. So it was better writing. And B, because they had fuck all budget. So 90% of the scenes were two people being dramatic with each other in a room. Yes. And that was what the show always did best.

One of the best moments in it is a 10 minute monologue from Jamie Lannister when he's had his arm caught off and he's in a bath. Well, that's basically what was behind the success of Blackadder as well. The first season, that wasn't particularly successful. And it was high budget, two fancy nonsense. Season two budget was massively slashed

that brought Ben Elton on for some good dialogue. So what improved Blackadder was swapping the dynamic between Blackadder and Baldrick. In season one, Blackadder's the dumb one. Baldrick's quite clever. And when it was swapped, it was a lot better because Tony Robinson is brilliant. Yes.

I've also got a soft spot for him because I used to love Time Team. Anyway, sorry. Back to Game of Thrones. Oh, I want to watch the whole left side of Time Team. I think there's someone on YouTube. OK, sweet. So back to Game of Thrones to make my way

back around to pratch it. Sure. What I like about the situation is it is quite often just two people having a conversation. Sometimes while action is taking place, you know, Cuddy and Detritus are walking as they're counting together, and then they're on the run and they're going through the tunnels.

Carrot and Angra are walking around the city. Vines is being dragged from place to place in person to person. But it comes down to two people figuring things out together and bouncing off each other to get to a final point. And I wish I could adapt very specifically this book for TV, not talking about the watch TV adaptation that exists. But the point is, if I was going to adapt these books for TV,

I would have so much fun adapting this book and these scenes into a screen thing. Yeah, because all of the narrative is done via dialogue, yeah, rather than he realized, which is very hard to adapt. No, these are really, really solid two-handers. And if you can imagine a series of cussing between Vines and Bessonari to Carrot and Angra to Colin and Nob's Cuddy and Detritus

and just moving Vines from Vessonari to Carrot, to Cuddy and Detritus, to Colin and Nob's, as Vessonari goes through Leonard of Quirton. Can I just say that at the very moment, he said, a very solid two-handers, I looked down and saw my note about the knockers' knocker. Which I didn't include in the podcast until right now. I think on that, though, that's all I've got to say about dialogues

because I've got nowhere to go from the knockers' knocker. I'm sorry. Please don't explain that to me. I want to leave that as a mystery on the podcast. What? OK. Whatever the knockers' knocker is. OK, sure, sure, sure.

I'm enjoying the mystery now. OK. Anyway, yeah, so I put down, again, it's a pretty short talking point just because the actual talking points we have are quite serious ones. But the counting system I found pretty interesting. One, two, many lots.

One, two, many lots. So Cuddy is teaching detritus to count and then detritus is kind of running with it and finding his own methods. So trolls, I would say, in this are described with a lot of parallels to computers. So they need to be kept cold to work properly as a server does of any IT personals.

I think you need a very chilly room to keep one server, lest it overheat catastrophically. And detritus, when he does start counting, does so in multiples of two, which is a base two or a binary system, which is what we use on computers in one form or a complicated another. And he is silicon-based. Yeah, yeah, he is silicon-based, exactly.

And silicon chips, as we all know. What make computers go brrrrrrr? Our intense technology really coming to the fore here. Yeah, so base eight or base 16, are kind of what the commuters are run on now. And base eight, so just briefly, base means like what the number system goes from. So we use base 10, which is metric.

But base eight gives me a headache. And Tom Lehrer agrees and did a whole funny song about new maths, which I think I don't obviously still do. I think it must have been very brief. Apparently British school children were, no, American school children, Tom Lehrer's American's name, were encouraged to learn some mathematics via base eight, which sounds absolutely ridiculous.

So I'm going to link to that video, because it's funny. It is brilliant. Some ancient civilizations used base 60, which in theory, because it's a very good number, which is the technical term, that can be divided by one, two, three, four, five, six, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and of course 60, which is quite good.

Is that why we now use it for minutes and hours and things? I think so. I see, yeah. And then I thought one too many lots, that's interesting. I wonder if anyone actually counts like that or translated version of that, because trolls in this world go up to two, and then from there.

Many and lots. Many and lots. And I think, I'm not sure if it's in this book later, if it's in another book, you can see that sometimes they go many, many lots or something like that. Two lots or something. But it might refer to the idea of cultures

that had or have words only for one and two. And it's a bit of a controversial subject, so I've tried lightly, but well, walled Piri language, which is spoken by the Australian Aboriginal tribe, which is walled Piri, and has words for one, two, many and few, rather than many and lots.

But that's a very simplified way of putting it. And there are ways to convey different amounts, as I think Pratchett tries to put across that there are in Trollish. They just don't match up with ours as an easy translation. But then something happened after this book was published, but it's connected enough that I thought was worth mentioning.

It's Tokipuna, which is a philosophical, artistic, constructed language. And if you've heard anything wankier than that this week, I'd love to hear it. Which was made by a Sonya Lang, a Canadian artist and philosopher, I think. But it's like a deliberately simple language to encourage focused thinking without...

Right. Going around the point and tangenting, so it'd be like our worst enemy. But... Yeah, I've never wanted anything less. But numerically, it's very simple by design, and it only has words for one and two. You can thus express different numbers

by combining those two words, but it gets into difficulty quickly, and that's on purpose. So that you don't talk about maths, I guess. I thought that was quite interesting. Don't mention the maths. Exactly so. Yes.

I'm not sure if I'm going to link many sources to this, because it's either boring or controversial, but interested listeners can listen to Tom Leera and then do their own... ...fun research into Phase 16. All of our listeners should just go and listen to some Tom Leera, to be perfectly honest. I love him so much.

Palate cleanser between literally any activity. After every activity. I haven't listened to that since Spring-Sprung. Since Spring-Sprung. Since Spring-Sprung. Right, onto the less fun, which is a big final talking point. Oh, this is a terrible segue, I'm sorry. We can't really avoid discussing this

when we're talking about this book, but crime punishment and bad policing, which is a very low controversy topic in comparison. There are obviously... You don't need to be careful with this one. No, not at all. There are obviously lots of examples of really bad policing in this book.

You have Cuddy and Detritus giving chase, and their logic is this person must be guilty because he's running away from the cops, which in itself, not great, but it does make sense within the confines of this book and the way the watch is set up. Yes, but as a policing attitude, terrible and leads to innocent people being shot.

Yes, very much so. And within that, there's also that section. Cuddy had only been a guard for a few days, but he'd already absorbed one important and basic fact. It's almost impossible for anyone to be in a streak without breaking the law. There are crimes such as extraction to lingering while being the wrong colour, shape, slash, species, slash, sex.

Which is a little bit more direct. Bit close to home there. And how much of awareness do you think? I mean, it's the 90s. It's not exactly ancient history. I think there would have been awareness. I don't think the awareness that we have today is correct. Yeah, specifically how much awareness of the fact

that he was describing something gross. Do you think Pratchett had in this? I think it's really difficult because I think these things were enough in the public awareness that it was cliche that that's how police act. To the point where it could be used as a joke and readers would recognise it.

I don't think tackling how serious that was is completely at the forefront of his nine, but I don't think it completely isn't. The whole point of the day watch and Captain Quirk is that they are in effect kind of the bad guys of this section. And one of the ways in which they are is that they just assume a troll is guilty. And just arrest a random troll.

Yeah, he's a troll. He must be guilty of something. So he puts the unsympathetic characters into the position of being the bad cops. But he doesn't stop the sympathetic characters like Cuddy from also being that way. And I think it's kind of something you'll see develop in the writing as we go through more of the watch books

where he managed to put more of a firm line between good and bad policing. Yes, yeah. But I don't think he's quite there yet. And I think if the option was between making Cuddy a good cop and not having this joke in, he went with having a joke in. Whereas in a later Discworld book,

he might not do the joke because it would make the character a bad cop. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's an unfortunate tendency in the general cops and robbers genre to give your favorite character a comp launch to do whatever because, you know, ends means that old chestnut.

Yeah, it's something I've been in because of it. But using like another police comedy thing, I read what's called Brooklyn 99 recently. And I think in later seasons, it gets very good at dealing with what modern policing is. Yeah, for sure. But in the early seasons, there's lots of jokes about characters beating up people

to get confessions, especially Diaz, because she's the big scary one, which obviously means she's my type. She really looks like she could kill me with a sword and I'm into it. But I think the show got better at kind of not making jokes about police brutality because they were too real. Yeah.

And I think the books do in the same way. I think they start taking what is good versus bad policing more seriously. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on for sure during the four-track.

Yeah. There's another footnote moment. The axiom honest men have nothing to fear from the police is currently under review by the axiom's appeal board. So like he's acknowledging that it is bullshit. That policing is corrupt. But I think he wants his characters to not be corrupt but kind of forgets to make them uncorrupt every now and then.

And some of that is Cuddy is a newbie cop. And so he's mostly learned from Colin who is a bit old school. And Colin is one of them. Yeah. That's another one of those weasel words, isn't it? I'm sure that's exactly the right word to use it for the old school rather than shit. But Colin learns.

That's the point who does learn and grow. So say there's nobby. Not all the way, I'm going to say. But yeah. Not all the way. But he definitely gets points for a better. Those two are like deliberately flawed characters even as a yeah. Yeah.

I mean right now he's getting better. The fact that in the last like and it's acknowledged that he is that a few months ago he would have just gone. Oh well. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas now he does care. And I think all of the watch rally round Cuddy detritus

and what happens in the next section where we end up with a lot more dwarf and troll recruits recruits. They will very much rally round the watchman first species second. They know which is and they rally round Colface being arrested on Dossley. Yeah. Because what happens to Colface is basically racial profiling. Yeah. The thing I'm not.

What do you think of the watchman first species second thing though because that seems like a parallel to another problematic thing which is saying all the policemen are your family and you should protect. They are your brothers. You protect them above all other. I don't think it's used problematically in this book. The way it is used problematically in real life. Yeah.

And again I think if some if these books were being written for the first time now I think this would be a very different. I think it would be the same story but I think it would be told differently. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But I'm not going to sit and say oh it's the early 90s.

It was a different time partly because that makes me feel really old because god damn it the 90s for 10 years ago. But I think there was less of a cultural awareness than we have now just. Back of social media. Yeah I know for sure. I mean I can try and climb up top a high horse but frankly two years ago I wasn't a third as aware of various police brutality stuff as I am now. Yeah I've never really picked up on the bad policing aspects of these books in the past

apart from the very obviously telegraphed stuff with the day watch where it's pointing at them going look these are the bad guys these are the bad cops. The old lights. Being bad. Oh no eggy. Even though our night watch are doing a lot of the same thing. And that's even without going into knobby robbing corpses on a battlefield but. Well no do you know what I feel like that's nowhere near as bad as the other stuff.

Oh I've got nothing against knobby robbing corpses you can do what he likes. But yeah I don't really have anywhere further to go on that. No I think it was worth acknowledging and definitely an interesting starting point for something that's going to be a running thing through the rest of the watch books so. Yeah I'm really looking forward to seeing how Pratchett writing about police work develops as we keep going through the watch books. Yeah yes. Agreed.

Have you got an obscure reference video. Yeah so say drama the sewers as I said I'd get back to them and so I do. The Viacluica. Now this is a sewer under dankmoreporks. It's been built upon and forgotten and it's from grander days when architects did things like have proper sewers instead of throwing poo out the window. I forgot the word for that there. Waste.

Waste out the window. Which is a little bit of a parallel to old empires being built over during the dark ages and things I think. Now annotated Pratchett has this down as a reference to the cloaca maxima which is Rome's impressive sewer system but I reckon that's not right. I reckon it's more based on the Roman sewers under York. Reason being the cloaca maxima is actually still used isn't forgotten at all but as you probably know my darling York was first Iboracum founded by Romans in 7180.

And in the 70s these 70s not 7180 1970 some some 70s later sorry base 70s. In 1972 in fact a contractor building on York's church street found a network of tunnels below the ground and the tunnels formed part of an extensive Roman sewage network built thousands of years ago. And yeah and Achilles just discovered like game encounters, beads and coins all dating from that time. So I reckon that's what Pratchett's referencing rather than the big Roman one. Well Pratchett has mentioned referencing or being inspired by York before if anyone

listens are in York or have had a chance to go. There's a street called the shambles which is widely recognized for being one of the oldest streets in the country and I believe I remember reading an interview somewhere where he mentioned taking that as a bit of an inspiration Frank Morphe. Cool all right yeah all right extra confident in my correcting one of my favorite resources. I think at that point we should we probably have a million more things we could say but I really want to order pizza. Yeah I know I'm hungry you go pizza not Chinese now.

Uh yeah on the basis that I can get pizza delivered but the only good Chinese is that I can order online is literally below my flat so I'd have to go collect it because I feel bad getting them. Oh you have to call for golden eyes. Yeah I'm not talking about that. Are you feeling a little bit millennial about the whole? I'm feeling very millennial I want to do something on an app and then food is here. Yeah that seems fair.

Yeah anyway. Outro us. Outro us. Please administer. Thank you for listening to this episode of the true shambles. We'll be back next week on Monday the final part of the discussion. We will be back next Monday. Sorry it's very late for us to listen this is past my bedtime.

The part three of Men at Arms which begins on page 249 in the call you pay for back edition with the bulk of the armory loomed against the sunset. Oh what a nice nice little descriptive opening. Yes and we're going from there to the end obviously. Obviously obviously why did you even ask? What the hell guys? In the meantime dear listener you can follow us on Instagram at the true shambles keyfret on Twitter at makeyfretpod you can find us on Facebook at the true shambles keyfret.

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in the same way that we now go like social distanced of course. Yes long class implied of course.