The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 60: Maskerade Pt. 1 (Chekhov's Chandelier)

Episode Date: September 6, 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 “Maskerade”. Interrobang! Ampersand! Exclamation Points!!!!!Episode transcript 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:Maskerade - Colin Smythe Maskerade - The Annotated Pratchett File@divamarisa on TikTok (Wagner content)For the Time Being by Annie Dillard - GoodreadsBreakfast Island - The British LibraryThe Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps, by Edward Brooke-Hitching - GoodreadsDoes the Dog Die? (“Crowdsourced emotional spoilers for movies, tv, books and more.”)The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (2011) - IMDbWhat's Opera, Doc? (1957) - IMDbWho is Frank Spencer? - Radio TimesNanny Ogg's Cookbook | Sir Terry PratchettAn Investigation Of Professional Ballet Dancers’ Pre-performance Routines and Superstitious Behaviours (PDF link)Last plays of Molière - BritannicaCatastrophe theory - BritannicaMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

And I'm wearing pajama bottoms, one of the few perks of living in the end times. So your eyes are working as God did not intend now. Exactly. I can see it's amazing. You've got lasers in them, is that how? Yes, that's how it works. Laser eye surgery is weird, very surreal. This is also I'm only just allowed to wear makeup again, so I've gone overkill today. No, it's good. Your wings look, whatever, the correct compliment is. Sharp is sharp, correct? Yes, yes.

They look good. On fleek, no. Yeah, no, I can't say that. There are very few complementary things I can say without sounding sarcastic. Anyway, yes, you can see properly now and light sensitivities gone and all that. Mostly, it's still a bit raw and too many hours staring at a screen is not great for me. Have you got some orange lenses? No, I haven't, but I've got the blue light filter on on the laptop, which helps.

That's the same thing, pretty much, yeah. Yeah, and I've got my TV, I've just set the brightness way down for now. A, it's at a distance, and B, it's so rare I'm actually fully paying attention to anything I'm watching ever. Speaking of TV, fuck Downton, Jesus. Sorry. Oh, God. If this goes in the show, listeners, a decade after it finished, I think, was persuaded to

watch Downton, and I just got to a bit with a scene that I hate, and now I don't feel like watching the rest of it. I meant to warn you when you were talking about content warnings and things, and then I thought, I can't remember why I didn't now. Well, probably because it would have needed spoilers at that point. To give you a background on our conversation, listeners, we both kind of disliked that the Netflix and, I'm guessing, other stream services defaults of putting all the trigger warnings to the entire, not even just season, the entire program at the start of each episode,

which means that if I, for instance, really don't like watching sexual assault or rape scenes. You don't know which episode that scene because it says it for every single episode, and obviously not every episode of Downton Abbey contains a rape scene. The trigger warning for it is sexual violence. Because we got to season four with nothing, pretty much nothing, I was like, oh, was that kind of coerced consent thing right near the beginning? Is that what they meant? I think we're probably fine now.

And then, no, no. Yeah, no. I re-binged True Blood recently because my taste in TV are ridiculously trashy, and that has a content warning, a vocal one, admittedly, which isn't always helpful, at the beginning of every episode. And it's a specific for the episode content warning. Yeah, I feel like there are definitely websites that do this, where you can look it up without too many spoilers.

Yeah, there are websites that will give you heads up of triggers for specific episodes. I know there are websites. There's like one called DoesTheDogDie.com or something, which I've got to start checking because I can't cope with that. That's, oh my god, that's like instant in tears. My old head chef had kids, and there are a couple that are really good for heads up of things you're thinking about watching with kids that might be borderline. That's cool, yeah.

Yeah, especially as kids all have different thresholds. Exactly. And every parent has a different threshold of what they're comfortable with their kids seeing. Like some really don't mind if there's some swearing. And yes, other things we've watched recently. Last night, I went to see Brooklyn Heights and Nicky Dole of Drag Race, Season 11 and 12 respectively, perform songs from the musical Chicago. Goodness.

And how was that? Amazing. I mean, that's what I like Chicago. Well, it used to be one of my favorite musicals. And then obviously some events kind of put me off it. So this was a very nice way to get over that issue. Nothing will make me love Velma Kelly again, like seeing her portrayed by a six foot four Canadian drag queen.

The whole show was great because it was billed as that, but they obviously had other stuff going on as well, including Harvey Rose, who I'd never heard of before, an incredible drag performer. So full goatee, full, beautifully applied phase of makeup, skin type jumpsuit with a cinched waist and the ass cut out. I say. Six inch stilettos, dancing and lip syncing

to an electro swing remix of The Real Slim Shady. It was amazing. That does sound pretty good. I had a really great time, but it was also really nice. I went with my sister and we got to the theater and obviously there's all these people waiting to go into the show. Just looking around and realized like, I'm in a room full of almost entirely queer people

and it's been so long since I've done that because I've barely been to anything since the pandemic's ended and specifically being in a room full of queer people is its own very calming thing. That's nice. Also, I've got to make fun of my sister for being the token hetero all night. That'll be me if we go, won't it?

Although I don't think I'm quite as straight as your sister. No one's quite as straight as my sister. I'm sure she won't mind me saying. I'm a few notches along. Whereas I have wandered completely off the spectrum because I got bored, saw something shiny and ran off chasing it. What's your gender and sexuality? Kidnapped by the Fae?

Yeah, no, that scans for you, I'm going to say. God, sorry. I do want to hear about that more when I see you. But thanks for the opera. Yes, I quite enjoyed it. I can't believe I'd not seen it to this point and I'm glad you made me watch it because there are definitely references I wouldn't have gotten.

Charlie. Hi, Charlie. One of our regular listeners pointed out, she'd not really seen Phantom of the Opera before in the book either. And it's when you don't really need to, because Phantom of the Opera is one of those things that just vaguely lives in the back of your brain via cultural osmosis. Yes, cultural osmosis.

Yeah, everyone's aware that it's a musical about a haunted opera house and the Phantom's got a mask and there's a big dramatic song. Yeah, what I didn't realise is all of the songs I knew were in the first hour. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I love Masquerade, the big number that opens the second act because costumes, that's always like such a big ridiculous spectacle of costumes and who doesn't love that?

Yeah. I can see why it's not well known outside of the performance though, like you wouldn't bring that up on a sing-along musicals playlist. Whereas Phantom of the Opera is epic. Yes. And Think of Me is really fun even though I can't do that because I'm not a soprano anymore. I've been trying to explore my alto range more,

kind of learning how to sing in the lower registers, which I always struggled with when I was younger. Yeah. And honestly, I'm happy with switching. Swapping my extremely high soprano capabilities that I had when I was younger for some lower register because it does give you a lot more choice. Yeah.

I struggle to belt as well in the lower register. My belting is somewhere like either sort of top of alto, bottom of mezzo-soprano. Yeah, I've always been shit at belting. I think it's largely psychological for me, I must say, because I can do it okay in the car on my own, but even in the house, I can't buy Elephant Terraced Housing and I know somebody who might hit.

I can do it. I struggle to do it when I'm doing it in front of people and I can't sing with a microphone very well. I think because I learned to sing, you and I both grew up doing sort of choir and things, so we never learned to sing with amplification. So I never got the hang of singing into a microphone and how loud that needed to be.

Yeah, well, you remember the open mic days that we briefly partook and my stage fright really was quite horrendous. We also really both struggled with nerves. I got better at speaking into a microphone when I was performing poetry regularly, like I got the hang of it and of projecting into a room with a microphone because nerves used to really get the better of me with that as well.

Yeah, no, you come across very confident now anyway. Yeah, I managed to get over like theater stage fright because I think I was doing it often enough. I think we've talked about it before. It is different as well because in theater, you are being somebody else. Yeah, so it doesn't matter how much stage fright and how nervous you are.

If your character is not nervous, you're not going to appear nervous. So poetry kind of worked around by the character of poet is not nervous. Now or in September, I am going through the sort of dilemma of do I do Inktober and do my 32 poems and 31 days again this year. I always love it when you do.

I will understand if you don't. I'm kind of leaning towards no right now because I feel like I've got other work I should really be focusing on, but at the same time, I've done it for about five years in a row now and I'll miss it if I don't do it. It'll be the first time you'll be able to do it without having the chef job.

But true. Because even last year we were off lockdown for October, weren't we? Yeah, no, I was working full-time and what have you. It's not even the writing the poems that's the sort of tiring bit. It's the writing the poem and then recording it and then uploading it to everywhere I upload it to.

I suppose you could just let yourself off the hook there, maybe just record and upload one a week, write them and post them, the rest of them. Yeah, quite possibly. I'll figure something out. I'll decide what I'm in the mood for when I get to October. Yes, as always, I'm going to assume we will magically be energetic and productive by next month.

Obviously, by next month we'll be fine. France in. It's fine. Future me can deal with everything. As the days get shorter and I start just mainlining Vitamin D in the hope that I don't fall into a deep seasonal depression and do nothing for six months. The walking helps a lot.

Now I have a dog, I must say. Yeah, I should probably, if you don't mind, make an effort to tag along with you for a few walks. I'll start inviting you again. I stopped once we went back to work. Yes, because now we're allowed to socialize by doing things like sitting down and drinking coffee, which is very civilized.

It is. It is. Our usual coffee date has been postponed because the third member of our crew. Buggered off to a different part of the country. How dare he? I know, it's disgusting. Speaking of disgusting.

Should we make a podcast? Yeah, I was going to try and segue from Panama, the opera, but we got distracted. Yes, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The True Shall Make You Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order.

I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today is part one of our discussion of masquerade. Masquerade. This is the 18th Discworld novel. Note on spoilers. Before we crack on, we are a spoiler-like podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for the book, Masquerade.

But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series, and we are 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. Swinging on a chandelier. Marvelous.

Marvelous. We've got some missives from the round world, don't we? Several. First of all, relevant to this episode was an email from Leanne Crooks, who recommended a short TikTok series on why people should hate Wagner. I do remember he's a Nazi and we hate him,

but now we have more reason. Basically, Leanne says, it talks about how opera was fun and not at all elitist, and that Wagner changed the whole layout of the theatre to force people to sit still and appreciate his music for seven hours rather than talk and eat while the music was happening. And that's how it started to become thought of as elitist.

And that's such a narcissist thing to do. Yep. Which I guess you would assume Nazis generally have personality issues, so that makes sense. You know what the worst thing is about Nazis? Just so up themselves. Yeah, so that's very cool. And I will put the links to that in the show notes.

So thank you, Leanne. We also have a book recommendation. I'm getting so many recommendations from people at the moment. I love it. From a Geordie Hyman, who recommended a book about the excavation of the terracotta army. Oh, cool. The book was, for the time being, by Annie Dillard.

Geordie said that Dillard's one of the most awe-inspiring writers they found. And this book is kind of an experimental non-fiction split into 10 different themes. Birth, sand, encounters, clouds, China, etc. In the first China section, he also describes visiting the dig while on some kind of writer's tourist country

and her profound shock and almost existential horror on what she saw there. Oh, interesting. So I will be tracking down that book now. We also have an email from... I love our listeners. By the way, I'm getting so many good recommendations at the moment.

Yeah, thank you, guys. You are awesome. From a Helen Kautzkuts, sorry, on Cool Maps and a breakfast one in particular. Oh, I remember this email. And yes, this excites me. So when we were talking about maps in Moving Pictures, part three, the subject of the wonderful quirks

of cartography has come up, says Helen, who saw an exhibition on maps a few years ago and had a favorite by far called Breakfast Island, which she's linked to. And it's basically an insight into the work, sleep and leisure activities of early 1950s, 1950s Britain. And you can see this kind of oddly shaped land mass

in the middle and then has place names referencing traditional foods such as cereal county and then surrounding it as lands from the land of sleep. And it's all very silly and fun and I like it. And I will also link to that because the British Library very kindly has it available on the website. Yes.

And Helen says, I spent a long time giggling over the minute of Breakfast Island. And I hope you enjoyed too. And we did. We very much did. And I will be looking into even more funny maps actually because I have a book. No, wait.

No, I don't have that book. I have the one, The Madman's Library, which I think I also got you. You got me The Madman's Library for Christmas. That also has one about maps, which I'm going to... Excellent. I do love obscure cartography. Yes, absolutely.

I'd love to be able to draw maps and things. I've had a little go every now and then, but obviously my complete inability to read maps kind of hurt me a little bit there. And I find it incredibly difficult to visualize points, even if I've got a map in front of me. When I'm navigating a new walk, for instance, with the dog, which I started doing more of lately,

I will have a map like written instructions, if possible, and like my app open showing me where I am on a point. I'm using that. And you can usually only go about a mile out of my way. I'm not amazing at following maps. I think I'm better than you. Yes, you are. Jack, luckily, my husband has a fantastic sense of direction,

really quite amazing. And so if he's ever off work, coming with the swalking, I can print him out a terrible low res map and he'll be able to navigate us wherever. Excellent. And he just has a sense of direction. Yeah. I have something of a sense of direction.

It's not perfect, but it does exist. Yes. Yeah. Apparently, it's quite common with ADHD that you can't really position yourself on a map very well. Yeah. I'm kind of working on designing a map at the moment, because I'm obviously working on designing a board game

and it takes place. The board is a landmass. Because different players control different areas of the landmass and it is very challenging. Have you checked out the various cartography subreddits? Yeah, I've been looking at them, but I'm trying not to fall deep into the minutiae of it, because obviously what I'm designing is a playboard

that happens to have a map on it rather than. Right. Yeah. So I think what I really need. You're doing a good side track. What I really need to be studying is games like Risk. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

We ought to have a Risk night at some point. That'll help me. We absolutely should. I know we've been saying that forever. I am bad at it and I love it. As I've never played it, I will probably be worse. It'll be great fun.

Yeah, you always say that, and then you come and thrash me at whatever you've said it about. So. Yeah, no, I am. I am secretly wrote it. You are obnoxiously just good at things generally, so. Thank you. Yes, no, it's a compliment,

just with a side helping of anger at my own incompetence. Oh, okay. I'll take it. Thank you for people who email us. We do read them all. We're just sometimes raised, though, to reply. Thank you to Miguel, who sent us the Lords and Ladies DVD,

which we haven't had a chance to watch yet, so I'm waiting till Francine and I can watch it together. But yes, we've now got a DVD of a very, very low-budget, fan-made production of Lords and Ladies. Oh, fun. So we are absolutely looking forward to watching that. Speaking of listeners recommending things, if any listeners can recommend a tattooist

that does Discworld stuff and knows Discworld, give me a shout. Oh, you're back on that, are we? Yeah, I really want to get that done by the end of the year. In fact, if any of our listeners are a tattooist, then definitely give me a shout. Yeah, for sure.

I'm looking forward to seeing your tattoo, which has been planned for so very long, and then the apocalypse started happening. Yes, which is very rude. Right, should we start actually talking about the book? Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I forgot what we do. It's been a while.

It has been a while. It was a lovely summer holiday. Shall I try and introduce the book? Yes, introduce us to Masquerade, please, Francine. So as you said some time ago now, it is the 18th Discworld novel. What we haven't done in a while is read the blurb. Yes, shall we read the blurb?

Yes, so the show must go on as murder, music, and mayhem run riot in the night. The Opera House, Ankh Morpork, a huge rambling building where innocent young Sopranos are leered to their destiny by strangely familiar evil mastermind in a hideously deformed evening dress. At least, he hopes so, but Granny Weatherwax, Discworld's most famous witch, is in the audience.

And she doesn't hold with that sort of thing. So there's going to be trouble, brackets, but nevertheless, a good evening's entertainment with murders. You can really hum. That's a good blurb. It is a good blurb. I think whoever writes his blurbs has improved on it by now.

Yes. I also found a review that I particularly enjoyed on Colin's website as usual, but this is from SFX at the time, and I've forgotten what the time is exactly. He finished writing it around the end of 1994, I believe, so I think we are in the mid-90s. 95. It was published, though, yes, well done. Anyway, so it's a measure of Terry Pratchett's skill as a writer

that a book like Masquerade, which from any other author would elicit a review of justified hyperbole, can be dismissed as merely well up to his usual standard. The book is dedicated to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. So it's fairly obvious how it came about. What is remarkable is that while it lampoons opera for the ridiculous elitist, overpriced,

overhyped, and pretentious rubbish that it is, it also simultaneously celebrates opera for the glorious elitist, overpriced, overhyped, pretentious splendor that it is. That's an excellent review. It is. Have you ever watched an opera? No, I was going to ask you the same thing. Have you ever really gotten into opera?

No, but that's not for... I've just never tried, because you know me in long things. Well, yeah. That's the thing. I love theatre. I love musicals. I love ballet. So I don't need to understand with words everything that's going on in stage. And I think the reason I never got into opera, I mean ballet is sort of in the same boat

in that it's not very accessible. But that was sort of brought up in a young age. I did ballet for a little bit, although we didn't stick to it because we couldn't afford it. Ballet is expensive. Yeah, luckily that was terrible. But my mother took me to live ballets and things, but she wasn't particularly into opera.

So probably my earliest introduction to opera is the cartoons I've mentioned a lot, which are the Looney Tunes opera parodies, What's Opera Dock, and the... I can't remember the other one, but the one where they do the Barbara of Seville. That was a crossword clue the other day, What's Opera Dock. Yes, it was. I got that one.

It took me a year just to get it, and then I was like, oh, fuck sake, Joestar. But I've got a friend who really loves opera, who's someone I know through sort of theatre things, and she's really encouraged me to try and engage in it more. But it's really hard to... So with musicals and musical theatre, you can listen to a soundtrack,

and there's movie adaptations of a lot of the most popular ones. Things like, I don't know, with Shakespeare, you're brought up learning it in school, and with a lot of theatre stuff, there are low-budget productions that you can go to. If you want to get into theatre, you can go and find good theatre for a tenor. It still has its issues with elitism, very much so.

And musicals, actually. But there are accessible performances there. Exactly. With opera, there aren't really lower-budget performances. You don't get a lot of cheap opera performances. I'm not saying things need to be super cheap. I understand it's expensive to put productions on, believe me. But it is hard to see live opera

or to get into live opera in the way that you can with theatre and musical theatre, because it's just not there in the same way. Yeah. The difference between opera and musical theatre, it must have kind of split off about the same time that our listener had said, right? With the Wagner stuff.

Well, yeah. So I was going to look more into the history of this, and then I realised that there's only so many things we can cram into a single episode. Yeah. We can have a look next week, maybe. Yeah. This may end up as a rabbit hole at some point,

or I go into that entire history of theatre. Not a lot. The definition I've always sort of understood is the difference between an opera and a musical. And I could be wrong here, but it's something I've heard a lot of people say is that, and I could be completely wrong on listeners, please feel free to correct me,

opera is sung all the way through, whereas a musical is a play where people are also busting into song. Oh. So Hamilton would be an opera. Technically. Obviously, it's not the only definition, but it's one I've seen used a lot.

So the phantom of the opera is an opera. Yes, there's a tiny bit of speaking, but only reading the letters around and things, isn't it? Exactly. So I've never really super got into opera, which means there are a lot of references in this one that have definitely gone over my head. Yeah.

But the general atmosphere, I think, is definitely knowable from just having done theater stuff, isn't it, for both of us, even older me, but having done musicals and things. I definitely recognize some of the atmosphere. I definitely recognize some of the atmosphere, the superstition stuff we can talk about later as well. Yeah.

And even some of the things like the plays on names of operas, like I am aware a lot of them, because it's parodied often enough. Like I think most people have heard of La Treviata, even if they don't know what it's about, or Don Juan. Yeah.

And there are even some arias that we basically recognize. Oh, yeah, like you sent a voice message to our group chat the other day, humming something, saying, what's this one? Because it's annoying with classical music and I think pieces from operas you can't... Yeah, how do you Google that? And luckily I recognized it was the aria from Carmen.

Yes, yes, you are my musical Google, thank you. I have many uses. Anyway, so yeah, let's do the podcasts and stuff. Let's talk about the book itself. Do you want to summarize the first part, which goes up to page 125? It does go up to page 125. You are correct.

Let me have a sip of coffee and then I shall tell us what happened. In part one of Masquerade, when shall we two meet again? Nanny asked the burning question and burns the toast as herself and Granny meet on the mountaintop and Miss Magritte. Meanwhile, in Anc-Morpork,

a Mr. Goatburger receives a mysterious manuscript. As Nanny contemplates extending an invitation to surely still a maiden Agnes to join the witchy trio, our would-be witch herself confronts the Anc-Morpork opera house before entering to audition with an impressive rendition of the infamous hedgehog song. If you'd like to hear it, please check out the true Shamiki for our TikTok.

The opera house election committee, including new opera house owner Mr. Bucket, meet to discuss the auditions, both Agnes going by Perdita and the glittering if untalented Christine are cast in the chorus. Meanwhile, Granny starts getting itchy feet and Nanny visits Mrs. Knit, Agnes' mother,

and spots something shocking at the bottom of the teapot. As Agnes and Christine take a look around their new digs, Agnes begins to tell Christine all about the meddling local witches in her home village. The meddling witches in Agnes' home village discuss the mysterious face in the tea leaves before discussion turns to Agnes off on her operatic adventures. As Agnes complains to Christine of women who know what's best,

a letter interrupts Nanny's speculations and Granny learns of the hot new cookbook plund by a lanker witch. A moment of mental maths with a side of embarrassment has Granny concluding that a trip to the big city might just be for the best. Meanwhile, back at the opera, Agnes learns of a ghost that haunts the house,

selfishly holding on to box eight on opening nights, an accident with the big organ, and the smell of turpentine has the house in a panic, with Tommy and Mr. Pounder the Ratcatcher both claiming to have caught sight of the ghost as Agnes keeps her head. As Mr. Bucket tries to balance the books he learns of the smashed organ,

and Mr. Salzela provides a handy bit of ghostly exposition. As death coaxes out a swung song, Granny and Nanny catch the coach to rank more pork with Griebo in tow. The wizardly proportioned and mostly snoring Henry Slug briefly wakes to take part in a pork pie before receiving a falling reception at the local coaching in under the name of Enrico Basilica.

That night, as Griebo briefly revisits his human form, Granny and Nanny listen to Slug practice as both a vocalist and a pottyglot. The breath bathtub performance is interrupted, however, as the in-zoner asks for Granny's assistance with a nailing child. Granny stays up late to make a deal with death and the child lives thanks to four ones.

Agnes stays up late for the novelty and bumps into a suspicious Andre. Christine panics at a talking mirror and swaps rooms with Agnes who spends the night receiving reflective singing lessons. The next day, Granny and Nanny meet Enrico Basilica's translator before learning of Henry Slug's humble origins. He thanks them for their silence

with a handy pair of opera tickets. Meanwhile, Agnes eats breakfast and Walter Plinge isn't quite where he should be. Mrs. Plinge's mother learned that Mr. Pounder might just have found something marvelous. The rat catcher's joy is unfortunately short-lived as he meets his untimely end at the hands of the ghost and with more missives from the operatic phantom arrive

with a ragtag bunch of exclamation marks. Salzela wants to flush the house out and the ghost would like Christine to sing the part of iodine in tonight's performance. Thank you very much. Iodine is a lovely name for a girl. Really is. Very nice, very nice.

Loving the connective clauses, getting right in there. On to the helicopter and loincloth watch. Okay. The witches have decided to take the coach rather than using broomsticks and as broomsticks normally sub in for helicopters, the coach is now doing the duty. Okay, sure.

We have to just go through the layers here. Yeah, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. We have a copper jelly mould on loincloth duty. That one I can see more. It's clothing a loin. Cool, you don't see that every day. We used to have one on the wall in the kitchen when I was growing up.

It was in the shape of a fish. I was worried about how that sentence was going to end. I very, very rarely use it as a loincloth. On the other things we're keeping track of, we have not only no turtle opening, but no description of the disc in the opening pages at all. Oh, we are expected to know. Yes.

Death is here. Obviously, we still haven't had a book without death and we are in Ankh-Morpork. We still haven't visited or at least mentioned Ankh-Morpork in a book yet. Quotes, I believe I'm fast. You are. There were so many lines I could pick

because honestly, this is one of my favourite books for the sheer giggle moments. Nanny wandered the summer hayfields regularly and had a sharp, if compassionate, eye and damn get over the horizon hearing. Violet Frottage was walking out with young deviousness carter or at least doing something within 90 degrees of walking out.

Bonnie Quarney had been gathering nuts in May with William Simple, and it was only because she thought ahead and taken a little advice from Nanny that she wouldn't be bearing Fugient February. And pretty soon now, young Mildred Tinker's mother would have a quiet word with Mildred Tinker's father, and he'd have a word with his friend Thatcher

and he'd have a word with his son Hobb. And then there'd be a wedding all done in a properly civilised way, except for maybe a black eye or two. That is a beautiful paragraph in New Endo, not in New Endo, euphemism. Yep, euphemism, classic Lankra naming all the way down. Absolutely.

The excellent thud of the joke at the end. And good to know also that Nanny's still dispensing advice for those who need it. Also, I mean, fairly accurate, there is very little to do when you live in the countryside in the summer. Yeah, luckily I've never been quite that rural. That's not what I...

No, sorry. I say. What's your quote, Francie? Granny looked out at the dull grey sky and the dying leaves and felt, amazingly enough, her sap rising. A day ago, the future had looked aching and desolate, and now it looked full of surprises and terror

and bad things happening to people, if she had anything to do with it anyway. So, characters, are we going to start with Granny? Excellent. How's she doing? Well, she's got a little bit of ennui, unfortunately. Oh, no. I've had there's a cream for that.

Sorry. That's a loose end kind of ennui, isn't it? It is. They're sort of... They're missing Magra as the third member of their trio because she's gone off to Queen, as one does. They needed to be three again because things got excited when there were three of you.

There were rows and adventures, and things for Granny to get angry about. And she was only happy when she was angry. In fact, she was only Granny Weatherwax when she was angry. And you've noted here that Black Alice was mentioned again. Has she come up in which the broad, didn't she? Yes, this sort of proper evil fairy tale which that sort of went bad

because she had nothing else to do with all of her power, I suppose. And the idea being, I think, that because Granny Weatherwax has so much power, she could also become an evil, powerful witch. And it seems like Nanny's duty to try and prevent that, if possible, for the good of everybody. Thank you if Nanny's something to do.

But I like the pointing out that Granny sort of needs a bit of anger to keep her going. Yes, which is interesting, isn't it? Because one, if you look back before Weird Sisters, there's not really a suggestion that all of these adventures were going on. But I suppose she's used to it now, or she's definitely missing it now, it's gone.

And I think the sort of having the three of them work together, you see that relationship. Because it was one thing we didn't talk about actually, when we were talking about intro in the book. Weird Sisters, which is a broad and lords and ladies, sort of work as a trilogy. And those are the three witches books with the trios. And now we start moving on from that to the

more witches books, but not as that trio. Yeah, and we even get like another go at the intro from the first. Yes, because it's now when shall we two meet again? Yes. And so it's nice to see sort of a, and this is nothing like Weird Sisters really, apart from the fact that it's Granny, Nanny and a theatre parody. And then speaking of Nanny, of course, you see,

what's the word? Starting things going bit catalyst. She's the catalyst for the starting things going. What's it in an engine? Nanny wants to recruit Agnes as the third member of their little coven, but unfortunately, Agnes has gone off to thank more pork to seek her fortune. And Nanny's accidentally made a fortune,

which she is not in possession of. Yes. She must be a wonderful wife. Sorry, little Jane Austen joke for you there. Oh, I'm sorry. And Granny gets involved in this whole thing. And your quote about looking out, and now the future's full of surprises.

The line after that is in the scullery, Nanny will grin to herself. Again, demonstrating her more sly than she appears nature. A lot more clever than she appears. Yes. And again, a lovely touching moment where she's genuinely worried that Esme has flown off with the geese. Yes.

And then obviously we have Agnes. Who is the protagonist, I would say? I would say she is what Agnes slash Perdita, I suppose. Yes. And this is our main problematic thing to talk about in the episode. Yes. And do you have a purple post-it note?

I mean, yes, but that's because I'm using purple as one of my four colors I use this week, because I'm trying to mix them up since I was in it with purple leftover from my packs of posters. That's a good sign, probably. Not using purple for feminist rants in this copy is my point. But as a shorthand for rants, let's still use it. But as a shorthand, yes, we get a bit purple post-it with Agnes,

who is described as there was a lot of Agnes. It took some time for outlying regions to come to rest. Yeah. Agnes is fat. This is a key part of her character. And it takes, it's said in really irritating ways. Her fatness is very much a part of her character, and she obviously isn't happy with her fatness.

And there's a lot of fat jokes in the book that I think I've already had my rant when Sibyl was introduced that I don't like how she was described some of the time. Yes, and I must say this is much worse than that. This is much worse than that. It's frustrating because... It's very difficult to put my thoughts on this into words,

because in the one hand, I really love Agnes slash Perdita as a character. I think she's one of the better-written Pratchett protagonists. I think he's getting better at writing young women. Yes. I think a lot of aspects of her character are very, very human and not parody-ish. Yes. That overwhelming need to reinvent yourself.

Also, something I like about her as a fat character who is not totally happy with her appearance, obviously. She is not trying to starve herself or lose weight. She eats normally. Yes, because she is sensible about part of her personality as well, isn't she? There's an interaction with her and Christine. It's near the end of this section when they're having breakfast. And Christine has a single stick of celery

and makes a comment of, oh, I can't eat more than that. Or a blurb like balloon. You're so lucky you can eat whatever you want. And you can see Agnes sort of... I do it. Yes. Yes, that was what I was going to bring up, actually.

It's almost more frustrating because you can see that he's been so thoughtful in places. And he's taken experiences like being put in a box like this. You're going to be thoughtful and write on pink note paper. And he's taken things like the kind of thoughtless comments that people would make like Christine. He's thought about those, but then he's just felt the need to put in just...

Fat jokes. Fat. What's something else I found interesting, actually, is that... So Agnes is described, like I said, on page 17 as how outlawing regions taking a while to come to rest because there's a lot of her. When Nani Og thinks about Agnes on page 36, you need quite large thoughts to fit all of Agnes in,

as she was quite good looking in an expansive kind of way, approximately two womanhoods from anywhere else. Hmm. And it's not till page 43 when Nani brings up Agnes to Granny and Granny says, fat girl, big hair. And that's the first time she's described as fat in the book. And it's by Granny, which is a very good character thing. Granny is the only one who would call a spade a spade

in quite that way. Yes, and it is less offensive. Yeah, it is less offensive than her outlawing regions taking a while to come to rest. And that's what... It's that line that really irks me about it. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with the fact that there is a fat character. And I like that there is a fat character that is not trying to become thin,

whose ultimate outcome does not rely on her becoming thin. And very realistically is treated differently because of her size. Yeah. You could have this character without making the lazy fat jokes. That's what's frustrating about it. Something I completely forgot to look up, and I will look up for next week, is how Agnes Slashpedita is described,

who we've met this character before, that's a Merlin Boydell, in Lords and Ladies. She's part of Diamandada's little group. And she's one of the ones walking around with the black lacy gloves as one of the goth girls. That's why I want to go back and have a look at the description. I don't know if her size is mentioned or not. She was definitely described in terms of not looking like Diamander.

Yeah. And she was, again, the sensible one, wasn't she? There's a line about Nanny picking up that she's actually got some magical potential. She's got some witchy potential. Yes. Yes. I wonder if Pratchett knew then that he was going to pick back up on her.

Oh, if he was just planting a seed, so he'd have something to come back to. But yeah, I think she's interesting. And I like the idea of the Padita thing. I absolutely respect someone's urge to want to change their name or change things about their personality. But something I did notice is that Agnes is in the monologue, not her sort of Padita in the monologue,

but her is quite bitchy. Yes. Understandably, because she's really frustrated with the fact that she's become someone who's got a lovely personality and great hair. Yes. I'm never going to complain at someone for being a bitchy because I am a raging bitch. I was going to say, I didn't pick up on it as something grating,

I must say. No, I don't find it grating. I like it as an aspect of her character because it's her that's bitchy. It's not her Padita thoughts that are bitchy. Yes. And it's her that's bitchy and she still is capable of acting politely and sensibly. It's a lot more realistic than having an angelic character or a bitch character. And I do enjoy, I think it's good writing because quite often

when you have fat characters, especially in media, they can fall into these kind of lazy stereotypes. You have Sybil is fat and is endlessly polite and charming. Or you get the characters that are fat as a sort of horrible metaphor for evil and they're also horrible people. Agnes thinking about Christine. And it's sort of realizing the question that we asked, not because Christine in any way wanted to know the answer,

but for something to say. And my father is the Emperor of Clatch and my mother is a small tray of raspberry puddings. Yes. But she has especially about Christine a lot of bitchy thoughts that sort of come down to, well, would I quite like to be the sparkly one? Yes. Also quite fair, of course, because Christine is not listening. Oh, yeah.

And again, I like that. We've got a female character here who was quite realistically thinking, oh my God, you are quite irritating. And I wish I wasn't being passed over because I don't look like you. And yet is being perfectly pleasant to Christine is, you know, supportive. And also kind of understands that, yes, she's, it's not really Christine's fault. Yes. Who else have we got?

We've got Walter Plinge. We do have Walter Plinge. We have got Walter Plinge. Who, thank you to Mark for pointing out a connection I didn't make, which is that, I mean, the name Walter Plinge being used as a sort of joke name in theatre programs is a real thing, but he's also somewhat with the beret and the clumsiness based on a character, the Frank Spencer from Some Mothers Do Have Him. Yeah, which I didn't connect either, even though I love that program and

I haven't watched it for many, many years, but obviously the extra fun layer of connection here is that that was played by Michael Crawford, who then went on to play the phantom in the original. So well done, Terry Pratchett. That's a good one. Walter, I think we'll see more of next section. Yeah, we'll talk about him a lot more for now. He's just bumbling about. Bumbling about in a beret.

We have Mr Bucket. Mr Bucket, the... Is Mr Bouquet in the, in the, in the play? Yes. In the musical. That's a reference. Another reference to old television. We've talked about the bouquets before and keeping up appearances.

Yes. Harrison Bouquet. And he's the new owner. Yes, he's the new owner, self-made man in the wholesale cheese business before buying the opera house. Yeah, what do you think of him? I quite like him. I have got a soft spot for these sort of call of spade to spade, judge a man by his handshake characters that haven't got a clue what's going on.

Yeah. Feeling bad for him while also finding it quite funny. Yeah. And I love that he's just very willing to relate everything to the wholesale cheese business. Yes, of course. It could be applied to anything. And then we've also got Mr Salzala, who is interesting as a character.

Yes, what's his job title again? He's like that. He's the director of music. Musical director, yes. And then Dr Runtershaft is the choir master. Yes. Salzala is an interesting one because he's a sarcastic arsehole who thinks he's better than everyone else, but he's well written enough that you can totally get it and not dislike him for it.

Yes. He's the opera elitist, but he's doing kind of the rye, yes, minister type, if we're going to be constantly referencing old TV. I like that we get so much of his in a monologue, which just allows for Pratchett to continue being really funny. And we've got this bit of, I've been through the mill, I have, bucket began, and I made myself what I am today. Self-raising flour, thought Salzala.

Yes. Did you look up whether Salzala, the name is a reference to anything? I didn't. No, I didn't, but it wasn't mentioned in annotated Pratchett, which is usually my first port of call for those sorts of things. I do highly recommend I'm going to bring up some fun anecdotes for the next episode, but have a look at annotated Pratchett for this one because there's lots of good stuff. I'll link it at the top.

And then who else do we have? We have Andre, of course, the mysterious musician, organized. Yes, a very heavy-handed lookout for this guy near the end. Oh yeah, it is not subtle. I love it. And then obviously, yeah, we have Christine. You didn't put exclamation marks after her name. I'm also not going to try and squeak, so I've got a bit of a sore throat after screaming.

I was screaming at drag queens last night. Yes. Christine, nice. I like her. I really like her. I like her very specific cleverness of knowing that she's very pretty and that certain things sort of happen to her. Christine has wanted to be in the opera for a very long time.

She may have absolutely no talent, but she did go and study it. She has obviously a wealthy father and what have you, and has gone and studied a conservatory, and she wants to be a famous opera singer. She is passionate about it. She's really excited to be working to the opera. It's a dream come true for her, whereas for Agnes, it was a job advertised. Agnes wants to be a singer, yes. She wants to go to Angkor, but she didn't know the opera house existed.

She didn't know opera existed. And there's something really lovely about that dynamic between the two of them. When you find Agnes living a bit of Christine's life and Christine just constantly excited to be here, even as she has to nibble her ideas into very little bits. And then who else? We've got Mr. Goatburger, the publisher. Oh, yes, sorry. Yes, yes.

Again, we'll see more of him, won't we? For now, he is. But I wanted to point out because this will become relevant in, where are we on? This is the 18th book. In seven books time, his chief printer entered clutching a sheaf of proofs. We're going to have to get Mr. Cripslock to invade Engrave page 11 again,

along with a line at the publishers explaining that the printing press doesn't really exist in Angkor pork because wizards don't approve. Yes, yeah. Put a pin in that. And then Henry Slug slash Enrico Basilica. Yes, our good friend. Which I like him. Something I do want to point out on the topic of him quickly going back to the fat jokes.

And he is obviously a very large man and he's described as a man of almost wizardly proportions. Yes. It is nowhere near as snigger snigger as some of the jokes about Agnes. And I think it's going to be quite interesting as we go along to look at how his size is discussed compared to how Agnes' size is discussed. Yeah. I think Nanny makes a couple of mean remarks. I mean, it's not handled in the same way it never is, is it?

No. Fat men and fat women are two very different things and not just... The locations. Yes, locations. Obviously, we start in Angkor with the witches. I've only really bothered mentioning this as a location because do you ever have a line in a book or from a TV show or something that just lives in your brain and isn't on its own even that funny but you sort of find yourself wanting to reference it all the time?

Yes. For some reason, there's something about the way Mrs. Knit says, and there's the fare every Soul Cake Tuesday, regular. Oh, right. That just lives in my brain. Yes, it's the one thing to do. Especially because of the sort of town we live in where there's, you know, there's the Whitson Fair and the Christmas Fair and the Food and Drink Festival.

Obviously, these haven't all happened recently because of COVID, but there is something where you can point to what I'm going to say. It's Soul Cake Tuesday, regular brackets, pandemic excluding. I don't know why I just really love that line. It's one of the funniest in the book for me and it is not that funny. So I really wanted to fit that in. Now, I think I've definitely had a few that I've brought up. So I'm not going to judge you for loving that one so much.

And then, yeah, obviously, more pork in the opera house, a big rectangle that someone's glued some architecture to. Sorry, because I only read the whole book last week, I think I'm referencing some things that are from part two, but it's not a major spoiler that that's a joke that's made. I might look up some of the more interesting opera houses architecture, actually, because it is a playground of a genre for architects, isn't it? And it's sort of massive and goes over about three acres and has some elephants stabled in the cellar, just in case.

But have you ever been, obviously, not an opera house, but you've wandered around backstage at theaters and things, haven't you? It is fun seeing the absolute chaos and bits of things compared to the massive Yes. What have you of the stage? Yes, I'd say it's comparable. Anyone who's worked in retail to back of house and retail. There's a place in town that's sort of like a member's bar that's got huge rooms and one of

the rooms we've used as a theater. There's a stage that can be kind of assembled that lives in pieces in the cellar, along with lots of other stuff that's stored, and it's how you get through to some of the beers as well. And I've occasionally helped out with other things there, so I've helped get things in and out of the cellar. And every time I wander down there, it's like, oh, that's the captain's wheel from when we did Robinson Crusoe at Christmas. I love that.

That's a bit of the Shakespeare set. Oh, yes. Gosh, back of house hospitality mixed with back of house for theater, that's a... The really lovely woman who did costume for all of those shows is an amazing seamstress, and she'd always go overboard and make beautiful new things for everything. But what was great is once I'd done a couple of shows with her, she'd turn up with said, I've seen that before. I wore those trousers when I was pretending to be a boy to sneak onto a pirate ship.

I've worn that doublet. So the opera house also has a cellar that is flooded that we've now learned about, which we'll revisit. Four shadowing. I wonder how a flooded cellar could be relevant in apparently a phantom of the opera. Get me my floating coffin slash chase lunch. January. The apparent home of Henry Papersilica.

January, I hardly knew that, sorry. So we have been to January. January was the home of which is abroad, wasn't it? Yes, yes, that's the main city. So January in which is abroad was New Orleans, basically. And now is apparently Italy. So Enrico Papersilica is from January and keeps getting fed pasta and squid, and they keep giving him olive oil and tomatoes all the time.

You can imagine it, can't you? Like, is that whole thing about once you become known for liking something, that's what you get given as a gift, but in food form? Yeah, which is why no one knows my favorite animal. I don't have anything else to say about January, other than New Orleans is apparently now in Italy. Or Italy is now in New Orleans. I don't know, maybe they've got like a little Italy there.

And that's the very specific part that Henry Papersilica's from. The idea of being said fried pasta wherever you go is a... I mean, fried pasta is quite nice. Is it? Yeah, you can do like sort of pasta chip type things. I think it is. What? Well, I mean, it's dough, it's flour and water.

Also, think about how the best bit of lasagna is those crispy bits at the edges with the sauce on. Okay. All right, fine. Okay. I'm not suggesting you just take a handful of dried penne and throw it in some hot oil. That's what I was imagining.

And you can do like crispy angel hair pasta nests and... Yeah, so okay, I take some a bit back because I was definitely imagining just frying dried pasta. Yeah. Although, if you've ever had a chance to try deep fried gnocchi. I have, and yes. Yeah, okay. No, wait, no, I haven't.

I'm thinking of the little balls. That's gnocchi. Arancini. Oh, arancini, the risotto balls. Yes. Okay, right. We need to stop talking about food on this podcast. Balls!

A masquerade ball. Oh, well done. We'll talk about that after the short break. Don't worry, we haven't got out. We are not going to start advertising. No, we are not. I didn't profit. Little bits we liked.

Folk, Hocom. That's so fun to say. Folk, Hocom. It's when Granny is curing, what's his chops? Mr. Jar... Jarred Weaver. Jarred Weaver. A bit like George I suppose.

With his, with her suck rose and aqua. Yes. Solution. And put a pine board onto your mattress, obviously. So he has a harder surface to sleep on, which is good for his back. But he's like, oh, so's the knots in me back end up in the pine. And Granny was impressed.

It was an outrageously ingenious bit of Folk, Hocom, worth remembering for another occasion. And I love it. Just a little leap of kind of almost logic. And the fact that Granny is like pouncing on it, like, yes, that is exactly what it is. I also really like the whole she can see people coming because the cottage neatly overlooks event.

She wasn't looking that way, but that's not the point. And the little thread on the thing trick. If I ever live in a house, well, that's possible. On the one hand, I'd love to live in a witch's cottage. On the other hand, imagine the dusting. And the heating bill. And the fact that I really like having vast amounts of natural light in my home.

And that's not really a thing when your house is covered in ivy. Yes, as much as we would like to be, I really don't think we have the kind of hardiness of a granny weather wax. I am not as cottage core as I would like to be. Let's talk about autumn. Let's talk about autumn. And now this is the, what I think, more important than it seems to be part of this world, especially around Lanka,

that Pratchett really enjoys describing the seasons and the weather and the natural landscape and little snippets throughout books. Yeah, Pratchett really does write beautifully about the turning of the seasons. He manages to make it thematic in books where it isn't relevantly thematic. Yeah, there were a couple of lines like,

and this was the worst time of the year, with the geese honking and rushing across the sky every night and the autumn air crisp and inviting. And the wind had died away, leaving the sky wide and clear for the first frost of the season, a petal nipping fruit withering little scorcher that showed you why they called nature a mother and kind of thing. And I wonder if it was autumn as he wrote it

because it's all very, very vivid. And I love autumn. I do, autumn is the one season that really inspires me to write about nature. For a start. There's a real beauty to it, and there's something really lovely about a cold, sunny autumn day.

Yes. And that sort of wind that's just brisk and nice when you've been on a walk and you come home all chilly. Yeah, and it's, I'm not sure what, it is hard to describe, isn't it? Which I suppose is why so many poets have a crack at it and it's harder for me to go for it. But, and it's kind of tied into new beginnings

in a way that's quite odd because it is the death of summer. And that, I wonder if partly it's just because it's tied into the school year. Yeah, the sort of school starting in September. Yeah. And then obviously you've got harvest. So it's the start of a new cycle in that way, isn't it? It's before you sow and...

Yeah, it's not, it's not my favourite time of the year because I was joking earlier about, you know, seasonal depression. So I love spring. Spring is my favourite time of the year because it's that real transitional season. I also get seasonal depression quite badly. Spring is worse for me almost because it takes so long to get going and I get the frustration of it.

The one day, finally, when it is sunny and everything's in a million shades of green, it's almost worth it. But you've got the vitamin D thing, haven't you? So my mind doesn't kick in nearly as quickly as yours does so. And it probably just does not make vitamin D. I have to take huge supplements in the summer alone in the winter. But there is still something I do really love about autumn, about crunchy leaves and...

It's very aesthetic. It's the bluster. When you've had a hot summer... The bluster, yes, perfect. When you've had a hot summer, there's something about the chili winds and the leaves blowing. Yeah, it's very... It's not...

It's nearly ennui. Yes, but not quite. Nearly ennui and you can walk with your hands shoved in your pockets and the wind slightly stinging your face, but not so much that you're desperate to get back home. And there's something I was talking earlier. I can't remember if this was in the soft open or kind of before we got going, but one of the things I always look forward to is when it gets to October

and it really gets chilly, I make a beef stew. And I make very, very good beef stew and it's a very all day meditative process. You do make good beef stew. And there's something Sasha's like. Says the vegetarian. There is really no good vegetarian alternative, I'm afraid. I love a mushroom stew and it's got similar kind of umami tastes,

but you really can't do the same things with a mushroom stew. However... Piles of mashed potatoes, basically. That's what I look forward to about autumn. Oh, and bonfire night and baked potatoes and sausages and things. Yeah. I'm mostly just thinking about food. I'm not even that hungry.

I had a really good breakfast. I'm actually not for once, luckily, yeah. Yeah, sorry. So what was I... Oh, yes, the podcast, that's right. Yes, I like the description of autumn in here. That's my little bit there. What's your first little bit?

Well, obviously the great joy that is the joy of snacks, Nanny Ogg's new cookbook. Oh, yes. I do actually have... Let's see if I can reach it without slinging my microphone across the room. Always a challenge. Nanny Ogg's cookbook. Oh, fantastic.

Which was gifted to me in a... I think it was an Amanda Palmer gift exchange a while ago and it's very silly, but it includes recipes for things like chocolate delight with special secret sauce. Have you tried making any of them? I've actually never tried any of the recipes for that. And I think for this month, I really ought to. Yeah, that would be fun. Actually, the chocolate recipe with the special secret sauce does sound pretty nice.

I might try that at some point. That's fun. But also, I like the name, the joy of snacks. There was sort of quite a famous book, I think, from the 80s called The Joy of Sex. But that itself, the name was a parody on a very famous cookbook called The Joy of Cooking. Yes, I was going to say from the 80s. But yes, it's like the classic. The Joy of Sex was a play on it and that was a classic.

And so The Joy of Snacks is obviously playing on both and it makes me giggle. Yeah. 31 is The Joy of Cooking. I love the idea that Nanny was so proud of all these recipes that she's come up with, scribbled on the back of things and she's ended up sending it off to a publisher because she's like, well, other people might like these. Yeah, this is lovely, isn't it? And Granny's incredulity is Nanny's explaining the book to her that eventually says, is there anything in this book that doesn't relate to goings on?

Goings on. She is a lot less shocked than she used to be, isn't she? I think she spent enough time with Nanny now. Yes, she's not shocked. She's just sort of slowly resigned herself to Nanny's film. That's all I'm going to say this, but she isn't just randomly calling her a heartlet anymore. What about the Maids of Honor? Well, they start as Maids of Honor, but they end up as darts.

Oh, I love it. Do you know, just the word tarts always reminds me of this, that my grandma, when I was a teenager, I think, we went clothes shopping a couple of times and she looked at a top or something and said, oh, I don't know about this. It's a bit tarty. Like, that was too much of a swear word for my grandmother. Was this Shiju? Yeah.

Having met her, I can absolutely picture this. Your grandmother is marvelous. She is. I love describing something as someone as a tart or calling things tarty. I don't know why. It's such a, well, nowadays, certainly harmless. Yeah, calling someone a tart as an actual insult just makes you sound very old-fashioned and probably quite prudish, but there's something about a friendly calling someone a tart.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw that at some point as a tart, as a compliment, kind of language evolution thing. It is almost a compliment now, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, what? Name. So names, yeah, just a brief interlude. I think I've talked before just how much I love Pratchett's talent for coming up with

nonsensical names that roll off the tongue or have, what was it, have rotational capability as it was put. So as mentioned in your quote, actually, it was violet frottage and deviousness Carter, I particularly enjoyed. Agnes's father and uncles, primal, medial and terminal knit, I particularly liked. And seldom bucket. Seldom bucket is marvelous. My picks of this part of the book for silly little names that I like so much. I also enjoy Mr. Goatburger.

That's the main reason he was listed in characters. His Goatburger is quite a fun name. And I know I mentioned, you know, this is a, oh, pin in this for seven books later, but Cripslock is just a great name. Cripslock is a lovely name, yes. Cripslock is just good to say. You know, I like clicky words. We do like a clicky word.

Exclamation points. Exclamation points. Exclamation points. Oh, there you go. You've got your sweet back. I'm slowly waking up on my fifth cup of coffee. This is not the first time this has come up because it's a, I say an argument, considering some of the arguments I see on Terry Pratchett Facebook groups,

this is a very innocuous one. But when someone brings up the quote about exclamation points as a side of madness, someone will say it's a reaper man and then someone will say, no, actually it's from masquerade. And then someone else comes in and says, no, actually it's both. And another one on top of it, isn't it? I think we've already come across it twice, haven't we? I think it was in another, which is one.

It might have even been weird sisters. Yeah. I feel like the Duke probably was a five exclamation points. I think that's it. Yeah. But here we really see it in action and listeners, I will tweet the marvellous calligraphy Francine has done in preparation for the episode. Well, I try and get some handwriting practice here and every now and then,

and when you've got something so... Dramatic. Stupid. Yes. Salzela patiently saying, what sort of person sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? Five. A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. And I don't understand, is this man mad?

Salzela puts an arm around his shoulders and led him away from the crowd. Well now, he said, as kindly as he could. A man who wears evening dress all the time, lurks in the shadows and occasionally kills people. Then he sends little notes, writing maniacal laughter. Five exclamation marks again, I notice. We have to ask ourselves, is this the career of a sane man? I think it's just because I'm also a sarcastic arsehole.

Yeah, he is a beautifully written arsehole. And I love a beautifully written arsehole. Yeah. Please put that on my gravestone. Oh, yes. And yes, even the fact that Christine's double exclamation marks throughout do kind of keep you in mind that she's always talking like this. Yes, and she's always...

And it's not annoying somehow that he's done that. No, it just worked. And the interrobang? God, I love the word interrobang. Yeah, it's... Oh God, you know, no, I'm not going down this route. But the guy who came, there's a whole load of really like similar odd punctuation that I heard about in a podcast recently.

And I'll tell you about it another time. Don't, because I'll get out my PowerPoint presentation on the ampersand. Oh God, I kind of want to see that. I originally learned about it from your husband, actually. He was the first to explain to me how it came about. That does not surprise me. But yes, the exclamation points thing is one of those funny, pratchety things that comes up over and over, not over and over again, but it's a running joke throughout the books.

And it's one of the ones that's... It's one of the not annoying ones that stuck with the fandom. Yeah, for sure. I could live without ever hearing a joke about a duck at all. But I don't mind if a pratchet fan says, oh, I feel a bit five exclamation points today. Yes. Oh, and the last one, theater superstitions. So on page 85, Sal Zella explaining to Bucket.

And he's talking about the superstitions that largely exist because actors are very paranoid, that it will become their time and they won't be relevant anymore. And everyone's on edge. Everyone worries about luck. Life flowers are unlucky, green, real jewelry worn on stage, real mirrors on stage, whistling on stage, peaking at the audience through the main curtains, using new makeup on a first night, knitting on stage, even at rehearsals. A yellow clarinet in the orchestra is very unlucky.

Don't ask me why. And you never stop a performance pro, it's proper ending. The show must go on. Exactly. The show must go on. One of my favorite bits from Milan Rouge. Oh, God, yeah. Jim Broadbent. Oh, we should rewatch that soon.

We should definitely, we should have a musical night. Yeah. Anyway, what did you find out? We both looked up some fun little theater superstition things. Oh, yeah. So I went down the route of looking at the dancers stuff because I figured you'd have a better idea of what theater ones were. So I looked at somebody else's research.

So ballet dancers themselves are part of the opera and are a very superstitious and obsessive lot. Yep. I found a 2013 thesis by Maria Aranzazu Baselga about her observations of and others observations of ballet dancers, like ritualistic checking of shoes, tying, retying, tying, retying, using a specific hair elastic each time because they had a great performance last time. So use this hair elastic again or this pair of tights again.

They must always practice on a certain spot in the bar. And this becoming defined as a superstition academically because it also comes along with a feeling of dread that things would go wrong if they weren't adhered to. Yeah. There's a big overlap between superstition confirmation bias and OCD. Yeah. I was, yeah. It does sound very much like kind of compulsive.

Compulsive tendencies. And that doesn't surprise me because from what I understand the world of the ballet dancer is extremely stressful and kind of the idea of being in control of certain parts of their life. And compulsive tendencies do very much come about from an overwhelming need for control. And if you think about the fact that being a ballet dancer comes with an automatic side of eating disorder, you're going to find those compulsive tendencies. And speaking of someone who has some compulsive tendencies, that doesn't surprise me that there's so much superstition slash reading into every little bit of confirmation bias in things like

the ballet. Yeah. So yeah, I'll link to that study because it's interesting. Yeah, that sounds like a really interesting thesis. Did you find some more theatre relevant things? Yeah. One thing I found interesting, I looked at some of the ones that were actually mentioned in the book. One thing I found interesting that I hadn't read before or ever heard was that

peacock feathers shouldn't be worn on stage. I knew they were unlucky somewhere. It's the eye. Apparently it's an evil eye that brings bad luck. Oh, would that go for the rest as kind of evil eye amulets? I wonder if in Turkey and Greece, for instance, you'll often have evil eye and their good luck. Yeah, I wouldn't know. That was one I couldn't find any origin things other than peacock feather, evil eye.

I'm sure there is more if I had more time to research. Green costumes, green and blue costumes, both considered unlucky for different reasons. The green costume thing, superstition that they're bad luck partly came from, so you know the phrase the limelight comes from spotlights that were made with quick limes. So they would have like a greenish tinge. I did not know that, but that's interesting. So if you wear green under the limelight, you'll somewhat render yourself invisible because you're wearing green under a green light, as that's part of green being unlucky

because you're rendering yourself invisible in the spotlight. Isn't that interesting? And nowadays, you wouldn't wear it if you're about to go on TV in case there was a green screen thing. Exactly. That I found interesting, but there's also in 1673, Molière, a French playwright performing in one of his own plays, had a coughing fit during the play brought about by tuberculosis and started to hemorrhage while on stage, finished the performance still, but died a few hours later still in his costume, which was green.

Yeah, that put you off. Yeah. Blue costumes, there was a rumor spread that they were very unlucky, that was actually because blue dye was really fucking expensive. So it's a bit of a double-edged sword of the rumor of them being unlucky because they were so expensive, but also blue costumes along with silver are considered very lucky because it means that it's a very rich production. Whistling on stage is considered unlucky, and that's because quite often stage hands would use whistle cues, moving scenery and things around backstage. So if anyone whistles on stage,

it could confuse things. And obviously, when lots of heavy stuff is being moved around, that means accidents could happen. Real jewelry and real money on stage are considered bad luck, and that is because it was encouraged not to use real jewelry and real money because obviously then there's a higher risk of robbery. And one last one I really enjoy is the ghost light, which superstition that there must always be a light left on in the stage. So there are ghost lights left on in a theater whenever the theater is dark, it's not often a single light on stage. And one of the theories, no one's really sure of exactly

how this came about, one of the theories is that obviously originally it would have been gas lamps, and a single gas lamp was left running to stop any gas buildup because there was something for it to run through. I was going to say, because it seems dangerous with gas lamps, but that makes sense. Yeah. Another theory is, and no one's quite sure how true this story is, but there's a story of a robber attempting to rob a theater, which was dark, and falling into the opera pit because he couldn't see it, and then successfully suing the theater because he fell into the opera pit. And so now it's always lit, so that can't happen. It became popular from about the 1920s, but it's still very much done today. Theatres always have a light left on on stage, so during

the pandemic, there was a ghost light in every theater when all the theaters had to close. Oh, that's quite romantic. Yeah, there's something quite sweet about that one that I'd enjoyed. I couldn't find anything about yellow clarinets, though. No. Oh, and that might have just been one he threw in there, he does that. Mirrors on stage were also sort of considered bad luck, but it's really just obviously they reflect light awkwardly. Yeah, yeah, that just seems like a common sense one, doesn't it? A lot of the bad luck things are common sense, like the green costumes, and they're not having real jewellery and real money. But I like the real jewellery and real money ones that reminds

me of Back in Weird Sisters, where the pretend crown that's all paste and plastic looks so much more real than the real crown. Yeah, yes, the theater versions of things are. And things like with them, with Dragon Ballet performers that always say like cheap Swarovski crystals and rhinestones sparkle much better than diamonds do, especially under stage lights. Yeah, we get on to the bigger bits. Yes, all right, let's. My big talking point first is honestly, this is just so good. I like that. I always forget how good this one is. Part of it is honestly, I mean, there's loads of different aspects to why it's so good, but it's so funny. There's so many little

moments that make me snort and laugh out loud. And it's not even like I'm not a huge fan of Phantom of the Opera, or a huge fan of opera, but I really enjoy it as parody. But there's so many little details like the foreshadowing. And obviously, I'm not going to talk about everything that's being foreshadowed because we're in section one. But as always, we do allow spoilers for the rest of the book, but things like the placebo effect, George and his placebo effect right at the beginning with Granny. And how she ends up playing on the placebo effect right near the end of the book in the big climax of it. Yeah. Little moments like Griebo's human switch flipping.

Yes. Happening early on because obviously, spoiler, but we'll get human Griebo properly near the end of the book. And I always love a bit of human Griebo. And there's one little moment, and I'm going to point this up now, so I remember to mention it again, in a lovely moment right at the end, that when Mr Slug is talking about where he grew up in the shades, that they shared a drain with two other families and a man who juggled eels. Right. And of course, the check off chandelier and the whole thing because everyone reading this book, it has some awareness of Phantom of the Opera. And the other thing he does so deftly that it's really quite beautiful is the tonal whiplash of that scene with Granny and

Death in the stable. You need a really good writer to pull this off, and obviously Pratchett's an amazing writer. But in a very funny book and a very pacy book, there's not a dull moment. It ticks along from point to point, especially if you look at the structure of it compared to the structure of say an opera or to the structure of Phantom of the Opera and where it's building up towards an end of actual moment. Yes. Which obviously we haven't had the chandelier crashing, but we somewhat are getting to that point of the ghost ramping up his threats. Yeah. Actually, let's make a note of that when we get there, see if it is about halfway that that happens, I wonder. Yes, I think we probably will. But it takes such a clever writer to,

in a book this pacy and this clever and this funny, to put that scene in that doesn't need to be there. No. And if you'd asked me to recount the plot points of this book, I wouldn't have remembered it to be that, to be honest. But the two death scenes in this section don't need to be there. The swan bit is just funny. Yeah. And throws a few more opera bits in, but it doesn't feel jarring or why are we doing this when we could be getting on with the book because it's just written in as a really fun aside. Yeah. And then to get to the bit where we stop at the coaching in and in the midst of all the fun and the chaos and the silly coach journey and the silliness of the ghost, because really the ghost thing is quite silly,

although obviously we have a horrible death at the end of this section or near the end of this section. I think, yeah, it's, that's a really good point. And it makes me think of the kind of the moment of seriousness of Nanny when she sees the thing in the, in the tea leaves and like runs up to granny as well. It is this kind of minute of something very serious is happening. And Nanny, who's always making the jokes, is the one delivering this news and she's scared that Esmeem will have died and, and the kind of seriousness of the moment is broken when Nanny nearly throws water over. And granny says, could you not? Yes. But no, you're right. It's these little injections of, and don't forget the things at stake and these witches are powerful and

moral and the full bond bit, by the way, is something that went over my head every other time I've read it. And I think I might have seen someone pointed out since we started these podcasts. Oh, no, I love that moment. It's one of my favorite death moments. This is for the listeners. Granny offers a single hand of cards against death for the baby's life to save this baby that's in a coma. For the baby's life and her own, I think. For the baby's life and her own, because they're playing double or quits, draws four kings. And death says he can't beat that. He only has four ones. Four ones, of course, being four races, which would be kings, aces are higher. Yeah. And he chooses.

Yes. He has the little wink moment. I see in my head, the beforehand, I'm pretty sure what I thought was, he knew and swapped the hands deliberately. Yeah. So that he'd lose. But no, he chose to interpret that. He chose to interpret that as a loss to let the baby live because he was somewhat intimidated by Granny. Yes. And then fixed his shoulder, so the kind of back into comedy. Yeah. The healthy respect that death and Granny have for each other almost is one professional to another. Yeah. This does seem like the first time they've met, doesn't it, almost? Or talked at length. They must have met briefly before if Granny can see him and has helped people in and out of the world. Yeah. I think they are aware of each other as professionals. And I think it's...

Oh, and the moment with the candle. Yes, when she blows the candle out and death's like, yeah, all right, you made your point. Yeah, I just think this book is amazingly well written to manage that pace, to put that tonal whiplash in without it feeling jarring and to plant so many seeds for the final act. And to be as well structured as to kind of somewhat match the structure of the musicals. If you think about it, the sort of the death of Mr. Pound or the Ratcatcher is that moment where someone had hanged in Phantom of the Opera, that sort of two thirds of the way into Act One. Yeah, it is another little jarring moment, isn't it? The bit that jarred me more actually was the bit afterwards where Agnes is kneeling on the stage and

Salzela, I think, looks off and sees something spinning up there. It's the little moments of horror that are written in without making it horror. Yeah, very good. Alternate personalities, Francine. Yeah, speaking of kind of themes that run throughout, actually, the one I particularly like in this first part, and it's all kind of introduced, and obviously we'll see it evolve, as the dual personalities, the chosen alternate personalities of so many of the characters. Yeah, so many that I'm quite comfortable calling it a theme, not just a thing I noted.

So obviously, you've got Agnes and Perdita. She was a good repository for all those thoughts that Agnes couldn't think on account of her wonderful personality. Perdita would use black writing paper if she could get away with it and would be beautifully pale instead of embarrassingly flushed. Perdita wanted to be an interestingly lost soul in plum-coloured lipstick. Highly relate or did, certainly, as a teenager or a kid. Did you kind of had this alternate version of yourself that you wanted to be? I don't have it now. I'm a lot more comfortable in myself now. I like who I am, but I definitely do still have moments of trying to channel this cooler version of myself. There's a book I really love, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern,

and the main character in that, whenever I sort of want to feel a bit more calm and in control, I sort of try myself channeling her because despite all the sort of mischievous that happens around her, she's always very poised. And I am not naturally like that. I am, like I said, I like who I am as a person, but who I am as a person is Chinza Kimbo, wildly manically gesturing and accidentally got out a PowerPoint presentation on the nature of the ampersand. And I like that about myself, but sometimes I want to be very cool and very poised. Yeah, I've told you about this before. I can't remember if I've said on the podcast, but when I went from middle school to upper school, I made a very concerted decision this

is the age of 13 for anyone who didn't grow up in the ridiculous three-tier system, made a very concerted decision that I was going to be a different person now. I've been bullied quite badly throughout middle school, and I was like, you know, done with that now, I'm going to be this person. I had this vague idea of who it was in my head, and I did it. I absolutely channeled this new person, which I'm going to say is just a very direct way of growing as a person, like I didn't do it in a very normal, gradual way. Before that, I think I definitely had some of the as well. I even had like a name for the person I'd wanted to be was Sasha. I was really like the name Sasha as a kid. Yeah, I still do like it,

not so much that I'd want to change my name to it now. But yeah, no, the idea of the very cool and coordinated, importantly. And I kind of gave up on that idea, but I wanted to be more of a life. Unfortunately, you have got quite a lot of limb and not not a lot of control over said limbs, not quite to multiple inch levels, but no, no. Yeah, I did have a massive growth spurt at about 11 and just never really gained control of my center of gravity again. Unfortunately. Yes. Anyway, so that very relatable for teenage girl kind of stuff. And then the other ones, I mean, you've got nanny's gnome diploma. And then the kind of aside that nanny respected anyone's right to recreate themselves,

which I rather like. Yes. And interestingly, was not one of the quotes brought up in the recent unpleasantness. No. You've got Henry Slug and Enrico Basilica. Basilica, thank you. Oh, like the building. Yeah. And then you've got, as you mentioned, Griebo and the human two sides. And he's the only one who's not decided to have the alternate personality, which is interesting. No, he's just sort of got it in his back pocket. When he needs, and it's not even really an alternate personality. It's an alternate physical form, but the personality is very much the same. It just manifests very differently. And that's that. That's a fun kind of subversion of the rest of the alternate personalities.

Yes. Anyway, I liked that it's so many of them, they were all for slightly different reasons, but kind of the same. And I love granny's just self-important enough to worry that people might think she is the lanker witch. She'd probably be right. But not many people would just say so. I think this actually granny is a really good counterpoint to all of this, because granny went through all of this, you know, we see some of teenage granny, especially in lots of ladies, and which is abroad when we talk about her sister. Yes, and we see what she could have been in physical form. And granny is now just incredibly confident in herself and who she is. She is, although she's got her own way and her itchy feet and wants to be doing more,

she obviously she loves borrowing and being in the in the other bodies. She is through all of that very solidly granny weatherwax, and that is all she needs to be. And I suppose there's a kind of connected point in that having the third member of the coven would cement their identities further. Yes, and this kind of brings me on to all the different bits of witchiness in this, because we're in a witch's book. I like how Pratchett writes the witches, and I like how he writes the shifting dynamics. And this is the thing nanny is hinging on right at the beginning of the book is this maiden mother and crane thing. That I've talked about a lot before and I love that dynamic. And nanny sort of not to put too

find a point on it. She is one she fits into one of those roles well and granny fits into one of those roles well whether she likes it or not. And nanny is not just a mother in that she has had children, but she is a mother in that she is, you know, she's described in other places, she had a way of making people feel at home in their own homes. She adopts everybody on the coach and gets to know their families as soon as she's sat down. She is maternal. Yeah, nurturing in her own way. Granny is is the crone. And they need a maiden to round out the trio or it doesn't really work. Yeah. And really, you need somebody to cut the bread. Exactly. And to toast the marshmallow fish. I don't know about you. I cannot cut bread in Australia. The trick is I don't like bread

knives. I just use a very sharp kitchen knife to cut bread. And that works quite well. I might try that. Also, if you've baked bread, let it cool down for at least an hour. And I like it when it's hot. I know, but then you crush the crumb and it comes out funny. But on the other hand, it's all right if you're going to eat the whole loaf in that sitting, though, isn't it? Which is honestly what happens a lot when I make bread. One of the other bits I like on the witchy things is granny's frustration at the fact that people don't think properly. And this goes on to the running thing throughout the book of what's the first thing you try to take out of your house is on fire. And when nanny says that she'd take gribo because it shows she's

got a warm and considerate nature, granny says it shows you all the kind of person who tries to work out what the right answer is supposed to be. That's a witch's answer. Do you know what yours is? Probably my phone. You've got that in your pocket. Let's assume that's already on you. My laptop. A lot of my life is attached to technology. I can replace photos are fine. They'll go or they won't. I couldn't carry all of my fabric stocks or pick some of the fabric I like. But all of my writing and a lot of works in progress are on my laptop and I use it. Do you know I have it backed up to the cloud? Oh, no, I do have it backed up to the cloud and stuff as well.

Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt the podcast election on the importance of that, but I would. One is none. I am fully aware of that. But still, like, yeah, absolutely. It's massive inconvenience. Yes. Yeah, I could function as long as I have my laptop. Yes. What about you? Offsend as a factor, mentally, I assume I can just replace the technology with insurance or whatever. And but I want my teddy bear. Thank you. Oh, the dog, obviously the dog. Well, yeah, I feel like assuming the dog is fine. Yeah. Then my teddy bear, which I've had since I was one year old and a piece of jewelry that Jack got

me as a wedding present. This thing, I do have a lot of those sentimental things in the house. Like I've got my passport. Yeah. That's a fucker to get replaced. Actually, I need to replace my passport. I've got like bunny bun bun who I've had since I was a baby and Tico the cat who I've had since I was two named after the Tico Tico song from the whiskers and but I'm just not that attached to things anymore. I think yeah, when you end up a quite because I obviously had to clear out my mother's house and she was very sentimental. So we end up with all these things. And it my sister and I constantly had to go through this. Oh, but we shouldn't get rid of an eventually saying we're just going to put it in attics until somebody

else goes through. Oh, but we shouldn't get rid of if that's the case, then let's get rid of it now. And it's made me a lot, although I love all of the things I have, it's made me a lot less attached to them. Yeah, it's a quality I should probably work on. I do get very sentimentally attached to silly things. And what it's more than sentimental attachments kind of a panic that one day I will miss them. Yeah, more than I want them now. It's a but what what if one day this person has gone and I wish I had this. I am still very sentimental. And I have lots of things. I have a whole board in my room that's just gig tickets and little cards from people and posters from plays that I've been to and plays that I'm in. And I've got like boxes of theatre programs and things like I'm

not not someone who holds on to those things. I've just I'm willing to accept that I may not always have those things. That's good. That's healthy, I think. Anyway, sorry, that was a sorry. Yeah, what are we talking about? Oh, yeah, my bad. That was me. The other the other sort of which of it I like is the pull of the edges. Ah, yes. Ah, yes, like the half moon, like the half moon sort of liminal spaces, which is a drawn to the edges of things where two states collide. They feel the pull of doors, circumferences, boundaries, gates, mirrors, masks and stages. It's nice because this is bringing back the theme from Weird Sisters but now with an understanding of it. In Weird Sisters, theatre was new somewhat to Granny and Nanny, whereas now, obviously,

they they do understand it. Yeah, and they get the travelling theatre through occasionally, like I was just mentioned, yeah. And obviously, you know, they they know Tom John and he's fairly successful that it's company he's involved in. And although it's not the stage, the same thing was said about the ring, wasn't it, the dancers? Yes, it's the edge of something, it's a space. And I like that idea of because it's such a classic part of Gothic literature is this idea of the liminal and the edges and that's and so to have this be a theme specifically with the witches in the Pratchett book. And there's probably people listening who've got more interest in things like neo paganism, you can tell me more about how it's still a thing today.

It's not something I've seen no much about at all, being an overwhelming atheistic cynic. But I do kind of understand that pull of things like mirrors and edges. And I love that mirrors come back as a theme having done which is abroad and the mirror magic there. And obviously, then the theme of it in Phantom of the Opera with him teaching her from behind the mirror, which is always a terrifying prospect, isn't it? Yeah, it's true mirrors are scary. Yep. Mirrors terrify me, even though I quite like looking at myself. Oh, yes, I'm massive narcissist when the when the time arises. But in the middle of the night, a mirror is like, what is something else? Is that a kind of prospect?

And that was all I had to say, I just love the way he's got all of these lovely witchiness in the witches brought it back in, brought in the kind of narrative, but without being so explicit about it. But he's like, he's having his characters point out that they know they belong in this trope or that trope and they don't want to be in. I think there's something very comforting about being on what's now the fourth slash fifth witches book, if we count equal rights, is that he it's like settling back into a comfortable hoodie. Yeah. We know these characters and we know what tropes he's going to play with so well, but it's it's a very comforting read because we're familiar with the rhythms and he's still

it's still new and fresh and exciting and clever. But it's very nice to revisit these characters and sort of be, oh, we're in a witches book, not in a not in a dull way, but in a, oh, so we're going to have liminal and we're going to have edges and we're going to have the maiden and the mother and the crown. Yeah. And how's he going to make those fit in this completely new setting? Exactly. Yeah. And especially with witches in Enkmore book, I always love it when there's a witch in Enkmore book. Yeah. We'll talk about that next episode. However, in this episode, Francine, do you have an obscure reference for me? I do. I found another physics one you'll be appalled to learn. Yeah. Now, I nearly looked this up, but I literally hit

Wikipedia sort of physics and yeeted myself out again. I nearly did that and then went to a psych theater instead, which had far few mathematical terms. Yay. Anyway, a catastrophe curve is what I've looked at from page 79. A catastrophe curve, Mr. Bucket, is what to offer runs along. Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong, Mr. Bucket. It works because of hatred and love and nerves. Actually, I'm going to point this out now. This is the first time I've noticed something that perhaps it starts doing more and more, which is to have a character as he monologues, put the other characters named several times in the speech as a kind of punctuation mark, just a writing device that I

noticed. But point is catastrophe curves, a catastrophe curve in itself isn't a term I could find a lot on, but searching for it brings up catastrophe theory in mathematics, a quote from the Britannica is a simple example of the behavior studied by catastrophe theory is the change in shape of an arched bridge as the load on it is gradually increased. The bridge deforms in a relatively uniform manner until the load reached the critical value at which point the shape of the bridge changes suddenly, it collapses. And that kind of process is something that can be applied to things like airplane accidents, for instance. Generally, what you'll look at is a lot of things being neglected or done not so well,

and a lot of little things going wrong and everything kind of degrades in a similar fashion until suddenly one little thing goes and then catastrophe airplane crashes with 200 people and died, you know, and I'm guessing same thing with opera and theater is fine until suddenly it's really not. And it is a concept that I enjoy and have read about before and hadn't read about in this kind of context before. So. Excellent. Cool. And I was pleased to be able to avoid the terrifying looking graphs. Yes, they intimidated me. I'm not built for that sort of thing. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of The True Shall Make You Freight. We'll be back next Monday with part two of Masquerade, which begins on page 125 with the line

the stagecoach, the stagecoach rolled to a halt in Stata Square and ends on page 254 with the line, do you think I might just have a few hours without something awful happening in an opera house? In the meantime. In the meantime. In the meantime. You can follow us on Instagram at The True Shall Make You Freight on Twitter at Make You Freight Pod on Facebook at The True Shall Make You Freight. You can join our subreddit community, r slash ttsmyf. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks and arias, the True Shall Make You Freight pod at gmail.com. And if you'd like to support us financially, you can head on over to patreon.com forward slash The True Shall Make You Freight and exchange your hard or not so hard earned pennies

for all sorts of bonus goodies. We have had some good bonus goodies recently. The next down the rabbit hole that we do is going to be epic because I'm already gone down five tangential rabbit holes. I'm very much looking forward to it. I can't wait to talk about it. So we shall see you next week. And in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you. I can't remember if this was on record, but Joanna has a black hat on a tripod in the background. And it really is like a side character in this podcast for me. So just so I'd mention that.