The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 65: Feet of Clay Pt. 3 (The Inherent Comedy of Towels)

Episode Date: October 18, 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 3 of our recap of “Feet of Clay”. Robots! Artificial Intelligence! A Whole New Existential Crisis!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:Grace Petrie - Black Tie - YoutubeJoanna and Francine at a gig(!)s0nderv0gel’s tangent follow-up - redditPune - Discworld & Terry Pratchett WikiNatural Language Processing (NLP) - IBMTay (bot) - Wikipedia "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison.(PDF)/r/HobbyDrama [Search: Neopets] - redditLife 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence - GoodreadsJoanna’s Inktober (Day 15) - TwitterJaclyn Moriarty BooksThe Truth Shall Make Ye Fret (Podcast) - TumblrMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Right. Are we ready? Ready as I'll ever be. I said that with some doubt, because I suppose if given some time, I might be ready. You know, were you not sure if you've had too much coffee? So you decided to just pour the last one and then you realise that's going to be the one that pushes you over the edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's very much the coffee I just made. Cool. So we can expect full and sanitary at what about locations? Yeah, I think so. Mark Burris, who is as everybody must know by now, friend of support, Oracleette, Terry Pratchett, expert, posted a quote, which has been going around, which is misattributed to Terry Pratchett, satire has meant to ridicule power if you are laughing at people who are hurting. It's not satire.

It's bullying, which is one of those ones. I'm not Pratchett is a very low level version. It seems of Churchill or Franklin, all these people who get Oscar Wilde get everything attributed to them. Yeah, because they're very quotable. And the other one, which somebody on Twitter reminded me of, but I did look up a while ago, was the in ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods. They've not forgotten this, which is far more widely attributed to Terry Pratchett.

But I was not able to find it in any of his works and neither was this other person. And so we think it was probably from a set of Anon cat quotes and then misattributed once in 2007. So yeah, I could find them. That's a weird one, because that feels like such a familiar quote, but I must have just seen it on a bunch of Terry Pratchett pages. Yeah, well, it sounds like it was kind of so widely misattributed and so long it was almost adopted and like it has been merged and stuff with it on now.

So it's never in print. I can find I am. I remember the bullying satire one going around like a few months ago, and it was just a very regular thing of it being posted everywhere. And yeah, it was only the Discworld subreddit, where I think people started pointing out that they couldn't find anything about him saying that. And I started looking it up and I couldn't find anything, but I couldn't be bothered to do that.

Yeah, I'm going to answer me. In case I was wrong. Yeah, yeah. It just it doesn't sound quite like him, does it? Is it it's his sentiment, but not his syntax? Yes, yes, well done. Sentiment, not syntax. Very good.

Yeah, that was my my vague. Pratchity, not even news of the week I had. That's more exciting than any of my news of the week. None of I don't really have any news, nothing Pratchit related. We're going to see Grace Petrie tomorrow. That's tomorrow, isn't it? Yeah. By the time this episode comes out, Francine and I will have bathed in the glow of

I've gone to a gig for the first time since quite some time pre covid. This will be my first music gig post covid. I mean, we're not post covid, but you know what I mean? Yeah, post covid lockdowns. Yes, I'm very excited. I think we're both going to have quite a few emotions. Yeah, I reckon we can. Haven't decided.

I haven't decided what I'm going to wear yet. Maybe neither. Do you have any idea? I'm thinking clothes. Good, yeah, because it's quite cold outside. Yeah. And like, I know it's a welcoming, inclusive space, but we're still going to walk there and back and some people might judge.

Exactly. Tell me, like, how extra you're going on a level of one to ten, and then I'll dress accordingly. I'm not going like extra, extra. Read all about it. Yeah. Well, extra, extra. Quietly contemplate it.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm going like philosophically extra. Yeah, OK, yeah. Not a full concept, but like a mild concept. People will be able to look at you and go, that person is extra, but very restrained this evening. Yeah, they'll look at it and they'll go, oh, that's an outfit.

Yeah, OK, I'm going to wear an outfit. Nice. See, I always put so much thought into the stuff and to be honest, I'm probably just going to wear trousers and a shirt, but we'll see. Well, in honour of Grace, I was thinking like a shirt and a waistcoat and things, but then I realised I've got any waistcoats that fit and I should not try and make a waistcoat last minute to go to a gig.

No, you should not. I don't have any waistcoats that fit you either. I have a massive waistcoat that I got out of. Do you remember that thrift shop that was not a thrift shop, like a vintage shop? And we went in there to get a bunch of stuff just before it closed and I got that huge waistcoat and I've still not gotten rid of it. Yes, because before it was a cool vintage shop, it was a weird little crystal shop.

That's right. I miss that weird little crystal shop. Yeah, they were quite nice about not forcing the vibes on you. Yeah. If you just wanted to go and buy pretty rocks. When I was little, I used to go to these crystal shops and like, you'd be as kids who were allowed to pick out a couple and I was super into it. I went through like the full on witchy phase that a queer teenager at Catholic school would go to traditional.

I had healing crystals and rocks for everything and tarot cards and incense up the fucking wazoo charging courts in the moonlight. Of course. Everybody. The original draft of the popular top. Decided it was a bit too niche in the end. You've got a really cool light leak thing going on on your webcam. The little thing thing.

That's great. I usually I put that on and filters when I'm being creative. I am before we start the episode proper, I will go and close another curtain because at this point, I'm just I'm glowing. You are. Well, something is near you. Oh, it's because the lights just hitting the window to reflect off my my China cabinet because I am ridiculously middle class. Middle class and ethereal.

Like a really middle class thing. Yeah. I only kidnap people with double double barreled surnames. See, this sounds like maybe a sequel to your very middle class valkyrie one log. Ah, yes, we can do middle class fame next. All right. Well, I need another coffee because yet again, listeners,

we have a episode or three of me. Yelling at my computer before they started. So apologies if the audio is a bit funny. If it's not, I'll cut this bit out. But if it is, it's because I completely failed again. Yeah, technology hates us. It's almost like buying the cheapest audio equipment two years ago was not the longest term solution.

What the fuck? Yeah, francing. So I will see, see briefly, see shortly. Not briefly. We've got like a whole podcast. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Shall we, shall we make a podcast? Make a podcast.

Let's make a podcast. Let's do that. OK, awesome. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make Key Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Bratch's Discworld series. One at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll.

And this is part three of our discussion of Feet of Clay. Feet of Clay, the explosive ending. Explosive. Like crumbling, you know? Crumbly, explosive, big bucket of hot wax. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot of textures. There's many a texture.

There are many textured ending. Perfect. Notes on spoilers before we crack on. We're a spoiler like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book Feet of Clay, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there.

So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Hanging on for dear life on the back of an arthritic old bull. Perfect. Or bulls. Or bulls, yes. Follow up. Follow up. Have you got any? I have a couple of people got in touch with this about the origins of the Brats chamber.

Oh, cool, cool. Sondervogal left a very good comment on a subreddit. I'm going to kick myself. We haven't mentioned that. That was such a good comment. Yeah, I will link to that one in the show notes. But as I've got this up, I'm just going to quickly read an email from one of our lovely listeners.

This is from Cheska. I've been listening to your podcast for about one and a half years now. Lots of lovely things about us. Cheska grew up and lives in Germany. The German word rat is equivalent to the English word council. It's the word for a member of the council as well as being the collective noun. And it's related from the word beraten, beraten.

Sorry, I don't speak German, which means to advise, to discuss and to counsel as well as ratten, which means to give advice, but also to guess. And every town has a rat house, a town hall. Cool. And in parts of Germany, the rats gamma was part of the judicial system and it still is in Austria. Unfortunately, we don't have a full explanation

of Germany's judicial system, but I will allow that. Because I don't understand the English judicial system and I've done jury duty. Yeah, I think there was there was some similar etymological research on Sonderbergel's comment. And also we've got. Some stuff about Yiddish and some stuff about Cockville Street and some possible, but probably not etymology there.

And, yeah, I was about to bring it up to read out the rest of it, but it's so long. There's lots of cool stuff that I will link it in shown it. And once again, thank you to our listeners for doing the research that we didn't get around to. Yeah, I know there's some high quality attendant explorations. Yes, we are very grateful. It's really good fun. So listeners, go and read our other listeners cleverness.

And listen to us. No, do listen to us. We've got to listen to us first and say planned. Well, there's paper here. I've got six pieces of paper. I have an incomprehensible pile of Google Docs. Fantastic. Right. And on that note, Francine,

would you like to tell us what happened previously on Feet of Clay? Certainly. Dorfel is interviewed and later dobs himself in for dastardly deeds, which our detectives think he didn't do. He's left dormant in a cell, while other golems face attacks from without and from within. Nobs gets drunk as a lord and hung over as a very hung over thing.

He is later invited to go hobnobbing as he comes to terms with his new station in life. Elsewhere, clues cluster in cellars and cheery concocts chemical tests, but the watch seems no closer to discovering the source of veterinary's arsenic induced ailment. Wherever the noxious substance is, it's taken out a bunch of local rats and two innocent humans,

which has made it personal with a capital P for samplines. Excellent. Did you find any helicopters? I haven't told us what happened this time yet. I'd have usually done it that way around short. Yeah, that's it. 65, that's 65. And I've got a friend of me on this bit of paper.

God, I'm good. Spoilers, I didn't technically find any helicopters. Oh, I'm shocked and appalled. This time on Feet of Clay, the carrot reports to Vimes, informing him of poisoned rats and golem suicides. Meanwhile, Colin makes an inquiry and gets invited inside. Vimes, still frustrated at the venom getting to veterinary, works through the whole dinner delivery process,

guarding a dumb waiter to bring visenaria pizza box full of clatchy and hot. Carrot wakes Dorfel and asks more about the golem they made, but Dorfel keeps Sturm and finds himself free to go. Nobby attends a soiree at Lady Selichise as Carrot reacts to Sheree's new look. Vimes receives a warning from Queen Molly and sits down to piece together the puzzle.

He assembles the golem's motivations, the clay of their clay brought to life. Before he can come to any more conclusions, he comes across a bottle of unexpected whiskey in the drawer. Colin waits to find himself tied up with string. The stench coming from the floorboards leads him to a hole in the floor and Weemad Arthur boating below. Colin realises how the rats are getting poisoned

and requests Weemad Arthur's assistance. Angwer follows Dorfel's scent and finds him in the hands of the mob. Carrot claims him, tries to return him, buys him and gives him to himself. A perplexed Dorfel runs away. Meanwhile at the party, the guests question Nobby's nobility as he's whisked to a private room. Colin finds himself under the cattle pens

and briefly swears in Arthur before setting off at a sludgy run from Meshuggah, the white-column baked-to-be-king. Mrs. Palm, Mr. Boggess and Mr. Downey arrive at the watch house to make an accusation and Carrot escorts them to Vimes' office only to find the commander unconscious in a booze-soaked room. They find a mysterious grey powder in the drawer, but before poison is proved, a very sober Vimes wakes to inform them that it's sugar,

having already pocketed the real poison he'd been framed with. The Guild heads insist that they were sent to note accusing Vimes of veterinary slow murder. And as Shari explains to Vimes, the arsenic exists in many jobs. Arsenicist. He finally puts it all together and heads to the palace. The Mad King Meshuggah continues to chase Arthur and Cologne,

pausing for some self-assembly. At the party, Nobby's offered the kingship and rejects it thoroughly as he yeets himself through a window, correctly assuming that Vimes would go spare. Alone in the cellar where the Gollum is met, words bounce around and out of Dorfel's head. At the palace, Vimes explains that the candles were the key. Meanwhile, Dorfel heads to the slaughtery yards

to let the animals out just in time to give Cologne a soft landing as he drops off a roof. Our ragtag bunch of concerned coppers head to the candle factory, in time to find a few people who've received Dorfel's sage and onion revenge and Cologne taking the bull by the horns. The gang head to the tallow works and Carrot and Co find the King Gollum cracking

under the pressure of the Gollum's hopes and dreams. Anguas spells vampire as Carrot confronts Carrie the Candlemaker. Carrot takes a hit and Cherie takes down a mad Gollum. Dorfel confronts the King and loses his chem. Vimes confronts Carrie, who gets carried away and a still living Dorfel takes down the King. Cherie finds herself stuck precariously

on the production line and Anguas in wolf form saves her and suffers the effect of silver underwear. Evidence of poison is found in the cellar as Carrot takes Dorfel to Agnus to rebuild him. Vimes finds the missing piece and takes a newly baked Dorfel with him to confront the dragon king of arms who's been breeding the best of Ankmoorpork for centuries

and wanted to prevent the risk of a werewolf on the throne. Dorfel assists in the arrest as Vimes in a room full of dry, papery lineage records lights a cigar. Vimes meets veterinary to discuss his new pay rise, new dartboard and newly adopted hippos after the College of Arms Fire, as well as the newly recruited Constable Dorfel who plans to save up to buy the rest of the city's Gollums

and give them to themselves. Angua packs finally ready to leave the city behind but Carrot's invitation to clean up the brev museum convinces her to stay just a little while longer. Ian. God, a lot happened. Also, no, I realised about halfway through that that I was mispronouncing Gollum and I couldn't stop myself.

Yep, yep, I'm very sorry, listeners. I'm not redoing it. That was a lot of words. That was a lot of words. Well done, Joanna. I've said things. I'm done now. The rest of the podcast is yours. If you want to check out, I'll just run through the rest. That's fine. The one thing I've got in our Things We Keep an Eye On

was, I think, some time ago, we mentioned we didn't know the High Priest Rickley's first name. And it is Hewnon. Hewnon, Rickon. Hewnon and Mustrum. What a pair. So, Helicopters, loinclothers, loinclothers. Loinclothers.

Loinclothers. Well, Dorfel still naked, appalling. How dare he? I feel like he's growing karma. Oh, yeah, good one. By the end, well, it melts off him, but he tried. He did try. I feel like the candle production line is standing in for helicopter.

Sure. Yeah, that was hovering. Hovering happened. Hovering happened. It goes round. Yeah. It's the best I can do. If you fall out of helicopter, generally, you do fall into that potwax. Yeah, it's happened to me many times. Which is why you stopped wearing silver underwear, of course. And stopped going in helicopters above candle factories.

Which is a shame. It was my favourite hobby. Well, in that case, should we move swiftly on to quotes? I just managed to open my book to the right page. What a miracle. Nice. The words exploded. Great slabs of them, mountain-sized, crashed in showers of red sand. The universe poured in.

Dorfel felt the universe pick it up and bowl it over and then lift it off its feet and up. And now the golem was among the universe. You can feel it all around the pair of it, the busyness, the spinning complexity of it, the roar. There were no words between you and it. You belong to it. It belonged to you. You couldn't turn your back on it because there it was in front of you.

Dorfel was responsible for every tick and swerve of it. You couldn't say I had orders. You couldn't say it was not fair. No one was listening. There were no words. You owned yourself. Dorfel orbited a pair of glowing suns and hurtled off again. Not thou shalt not. Say I will not. Dorfel tumbled through the red sky and saw a dark hole ahead. The golem felt it dragging at him and streamed down through the glow

and the hole grew larger and sped across the edges of Dorfel's vision. The golem opened his eyes. No master. That was a long one, but worth it, I would say. I tried to cut it down, but it's just all so good. Oh, no, yeah, you're good. That was so. There was also one picked from a list about seven quotes I wanted to put in. Now, that is one that would be difficult to put on screen, do you think? No, I feel like you could do quite an impressive visual with it.

Yeah. If you had the budget. If you had the budget, yes. I don't know. I'm finding it hard to visualise. The one I've picked is particularly, I would say, cinematic. And I can see it more clearly, but I know it's a bit more abstract in my mind. That's not to say it's bad. I like it very much. And I like weird, abstract, existential things, but, yeah. Yeah, that's to say it's not my job to come up with cool visualisation.

So I'm sure someone who's it is would. Yes, what's your quote then, Francine? Yeah, all right. So I'm paid three, seven, three, and it is another dramatic golem moment. Time slowed, nothing moved in the whole universe, but Dorzel's fist. It's swung like a planet without any apparent speed, but with a drifting unstoppable ability. And then the king's expression changed just before the fist landed.

It smiled. Shilling, right? That's such a good moment. That whole scene is, like, again, like very dark. It's so good. It's so clever. Let's talk about characters. Oh, shall we? King Golem. Shall we? Named Meshuggah.

Named Meshuggah, yes. Is that a name that is from something? It's another Yiddish word from what I found. It means sort of crazy, mad, like similar to it. Have you heard the word Meshuggah? No. Which is another sort of Yiddish word for sort of crazy chaos mess, that sort of thing.

Oh, OK. So they're related. I love the word Meshuggah. Meshuggah is great. Meshuggah is one of my very favourite words. Is that where we got Mishmash from, do we think? Oh, quite possibly, actually. Yeah.

I wonder. There's a really good line when Carrot's trying to it's really early on in this section, page 266, when Carrot's trying to kind of work out the motivation and he's talking to Torful, especially of the White Golem. What is it? I'm wondering if he afterwards something turned against them,

it found the world a bit too much. Yeah. And his motivation, like it's understandable. He's been piled with all of these hopes and dreams, and he's literally cracking under the pressure. Having not been baked properly in the first place. Yeah, it's. I think Carrot's almost projecting

a tiny bit there as well, maybe as the kind of the many shocks to the system he's had becoming a part of Bankmore Pork. And yeah, because I'd say definitely the motivation of Meshuggah is definitely a bit more of he's just there's too much, too much in his head. Yeah. But perhaps, yeah, perhaps compounded by too much outside.

I think I mean, relatable. Yeah. My brain does. That's my problem. I've just got too many thoughts, so I'm sticking to it. That's one of my problems. Cool. So, so, so. We then have Lady Salachi. Salachi, Salakai, I'm not sure.

It's got two eyes. I misspelled it in the episode plan. He doesn't usually eat what was it called, extremities, but no, her description is brilliant. Pratchett's always really descriptive. But a tall, angular woman with the sharp features and aquiline nose that were the hallmarks of the family. The impression was that an axe was being thrown at you.

There's something about the way Pratchett describes women specifically in motion. Yeah. He doesn't describe. Still women, this is this metaphor is terrible. But, you know, describing Lady Salachi as like an axe being thrown at you. He often describes Sibyl as moving like a ship under sail.

Yes. Not in an insulting way. She just has that sort of galley in about her. Yeah. Yes. Interesting trend. I'll try and pick up on it more. But I love it as a description and I love the very slow suspense. It's only a few lines, but the slow suspense of her coming forward

to meet Nobby that's kind of built in by the description. And then she curtsies. Yeah. She's a lot more pleasant than all the rest of them, I must say. I know she's part of the whole thing, but she's not as objectionable. No. And she just sort of. Pights and winkles, is it? Oh, very irregular.

All right. Winkles, you can cut the toenails up, of course, if you. I'll have a pint of winkles, too. What an awful idea. What an awful idea. Well done, young man. It really reminds me of when you do meet those really posh people and they're desperately trying to put you with ease.

Yeah, Prince Charles. Yeah. So what do you do? Oh, and do you enjoy that? Great. Oh, wow. Yes. Lovely. Well, do you know, as long as you're happy, that's the main thing. I just I'm just very glad that you're happy. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Lovely, lovely, marvellous. Must be on. Must be on. Must be on. Where am I? Anyway, sorry. Roger's The Bulls. Roger's The Bulls. Again, just very different, different character. Roger's The Bulls. I hardly know it.

No, that doesn't matter. Hey. Roger's The Bulls. We've only just met. Sorry. You know how we keep trying to make up jokes? Yeah, no, we should maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. OK.

Tell me about these these bulls. I love the description. This is another just squeezing in quotes and footnotes that I like. But this is Roger's The Bulls of universes from two ways, with non-overlapping views of the world, because they're so far apart. Yeah. And therefore, there must be two of them. There's probably some interesting science behind that, isn't there? The henna spears of the brains and prey animals.

I resisted the edge to start looking up how I work in prey animals and how it means their brains work. I've decided to just accept this. Yeah, no, I think that sounds about right to me. Yeah. All bulls contain dualities. Yeah. Both bastards. Both bastards.

Cows are terrifying. They are. I even had that as a note, like a couple pages after in this section. Memo. Cows are terrifying. Oh, you meant like in a book? I thought you meant just like, I'll post it somewhere up in the house. Yeah, just count it. Well, it's the moment when Colin, like, falls down into the farm yard.

Animals don't realize he doesn't want to move out to nature and buy a farm after all, because, wow, they're fucking terrible. And if you end up like near a cow, it's just really big. Yeah, they're huge. Jersey cows are a bit less terrifying or a bit smaller and very docile, but they kill people in Britain. They kill people here.

They just fall over on you. Bulls are also very scary. Jack had his ribs broken by a bull once when he was working at the vineyard, which had cows, I guess. I didn't know bulls were a common part of the vineyards. He did get to eat the bull later, so. Oh, you know, I think he was pretty happy about that. Yeah, you know what they say, a steak of the bull that broke your ribs.

Not sure that's going to catch on, but we'll try. Make you feel better, psychically, certainly. Yes, Mr. Cateraille will eat you is a really good threat. I'm not sure I'm going to start using. Mr. Cateraille, who's he? Mr. Cateraille, this is is a posh person. It's a really good call. It's one of the good callbacks to part one.

Oh, is he this Chopina? Yes, right in a part one. He writes a very nasty letter that's spread out. Yeah, he's the one that lives on Park Lane. Smart. And writes a letter complaining about things like lesser races in the watch. And someone is trying to explain to me is he's always writing you letters about the too many lesser races.

And Sam Sopson says, get some zombies. And I'd swear in a gorgon. He's like, reverse psychology, but with big tree and Sam. As soon as he sees injustice, he's like, I'm just going to go further the other way. Yep. Revise my opinions so that I am further away from this person. And it's just absolutely right. Absolutely right.

And there's the fact that Mr. Cateraille starts by addressing carrot with a. And you see here, man. I liked the line about the you there, which like cut to the core of vines every time. It's like, what was it carrot said? Mr. Vines reacted in a certain way to a certain type of person shouting, you're there. Ah, fun.

Now, Mr. Cary. Mr. Cary. The different sort of Chopina. Just as Twatty. Just as Twatty. He is somewhat responsible for the conspiracy. He's the one with the art brought forth, the candle coat of arms. Yes.

Well, not responsible for the conspiracies as much as the execution of it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, quite literally. Yes. Attempted execution. Yes. Well, now two people died and many rats. Two people died. Actually, yeah, that was one of the points.

Again, carrots dealing with him. In fact, yeah, no, I think I mixed this up with Mr. Cateraille. But carrots explaining, you know, the candles killed two other people, an old lady in a baby in Cockville Street. And Cary says, were they important? And Cary says, I was almost feeling sorry for you, but right now you're a lucky man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got you before Commander Vines did. Yeah. And it reminded me so much of a line Granny Weatherwax has at some point. I never met anybody who wasn't important. Yes. And again, this is my sort of overlapping

Vines and Weatherwax are the best and the most furious injustice parts of Terry Pratchett. Yeah. In very different ways. In very different ways, but pointing in the same direction. Yeah. They're like parallel rages. Yes.

I'd say Vines is a little harder to spark into a rage. Granny Weatherwax is kind of perfected the ongoing simmer, occasionally being brought to the boil on purpose, whereas Vines is a little very tinderful. It's fine. It's fine. I don't need to use the language. We've used the language. Speaking of the fine, how about that, Nari?

I start the sentence before I read it. I'm pleased to leave that in. OK. Anyway, looking back at some of our main characters and how they've gone through the book, Vettanari, who knew exactly what was poisoning him. Yeah, not from the beginning, I think, but it sounds like he worked it out several nights prior,

didn't he? And has particularly pretty much kept it quiet so that Vines could run around upsetting a lot of people. Yes. He was making such an effort and having so much fun being Vines. I'm not completely heartless. Yeah, it seems like as well, the fact that there was so much trouble going on was, you know, it was a benefit.

It's proving that things would still fall apart very quickly without Vettanari, you know, the head of the Assassin's Guild got punched in the face, etc. in a couple of days. The axe in the council chamber table. Oh, yeah, that, by the way, listeners, that rings a bell for me. And I'm not sure if it's just because I've read this book before. If anybody can track down a story or like a bit of symbolism about an axe being lodged in a table, please get back to me on that,

because I couldn't think of it. The bell rang for me, and it may be because, predictably, I started rereading them, don't judge me. But the Robin Hobb books, when Fitz leaves the knife in the mantelpiece. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, yeah. I would say that Drumknot gets the line. The thought occurs that if Commander Vines did not exist,

you would have to invent him and Vettanari says he did, which is a bastardization of a Voltaire quote. I can't remember the original quote. Oh, OK. Is that something about God being invented at all? Yeah, if something didn't exist, humans would have had to invent it. Right. Oh, God, probably, right. Probably. Or death or tax day. Probably not death or taxes.

That's the other guy. Yeah. Yeah. Humans did invent taxes famously. That's Terry Pratchett said. That's Terry Pratchett said humans invented taxes. Yeah. I also like Drumknot's little moment of being a dickhead pedant. Don't nobody move. She yelled the patrician's domestic staff looked up from their dinner.

When you say don't nobody move, said Drumknot carefully, for studiously taking a piece of plaster off his plate. Do you, in fact, mean? All right, I'll take over now. So it's fine. We haven't talked about Drumknot much this book, but as always, I remain a massive fan. He's so sweet.

He is. I know there is a lot of fan fiction about Drumknot on the Internet. More than perhaps would be fit such a low key character, but that's teenagers for you. Yeah. Again, I'm just going to assume that everybody who writes baffling, shipping fan fiction is a teenager because the alternative troubles me. I am not going to disillusion you, but you're wrong.

I don't want to think that anybody our age still has that much hormonal nonsense. I say, let people be horny. No, horny jail. I mean, horny is fine, but it's that special kind of weird shipping fan fiction horny where everyone's like, oh, you know, I'm like, people, there's all blushing. They are grown men.

They can have a normal romance. People are welcome to write what they like, as long as I don't have to read it. And as long as they don't argue about it publicly on the Internet, like if I mean, you're saying that in a way that, like, I just want to. I'm not saying ban it. Oh, I thought you were going against a point I wasn't making. Yes, they can write what they like.

I just hate it. I thought you were going full tyrant there for a second. That's not very affable with me. I heard the name of the last thing in this thing. I've got the name of the thing in the thing. Anyway, yeah, sorry. So moving on to the scenario. Let's talk about Vimes.

Yes, who gets many of my favourite lines in this section, including my name is Sam, and I'm a really suspicious bastard. I never went to AA, but I might now just go out. I love that scene, though. His incredible sober fury, the a peck of bloody pickled peppers, Peter Piper, damn well picked. I must say, back in my drinking day, I could do tongue twisters very well when drunk.

So I think I do them better when drunk. Although maybe we just thought we did. Yeah, good point. Anyway, point is it is hilarious. I love it. I liked the I put this down later on, but now we're here, the pun about the ghosts of spirits, fast or whatever the spirits of it.

Yeah. Yeah, just out of the little passing shop where Downey's like, oh, I must put your price off. And it's like, fantastic. I will upgrade my. I'll buy another. There's also the brilliant moment where Vimes has figured stuff out.

I'm sorry, I just hit the microphone. No, it's very exciting part. Vimes has figured a lot out and he's saying to Kara, what is it? I'm always telling you and Kara starts to assume, never trust anybody. Everybody's guilty of something just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority.

Doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded, little jerk. So I wouldn't say that. Last week after we had the visit from the campaign for equal heights, I'm sure I've said something pithy about police work. So I'll damn well make something up and start saying it a lot from now on.

Was there a phrase like he was alluding to that? It didn't spring to mind. Will you start getting lots of phrases later about to serve the public good and do this and blah? There's a bunch of Robocop references that I would not have got if it wasn't for annotated practice. I've never seen Robocop. No, Jack is still disappointed that I've not watched.

Like he's given up on most media that I refuse to concede. But it's one of those things that I feel like if you didn't watch it a couple of decades ago, it's hard to get really into it now. And partly because, like I will admit, from the sounds that Jack tells me from what I've read, Robocop is a classic in that it influenced a lot of other things. But because you've seen all the things that were influenced,

it's like it's just going to seem trophy, isn't it? Yeah. It's like Tolkien. Yeah. I'm going to go, oh, you don't elves and dwarves have you? Yeah, fucking. Speaking of Tolkien, the cover quote here from a Matt Seton from The Guardian is like reading Tolkien,

but with gags and good gags, too. Reading this book was absolutely nothing like reading Tolkien. Yeah, this is not one of the Tolkien-y ones. In general, it's very unlike reading Tolkien. There's a few, you know, there's a lot of adventure-y pistakes in the first couple books, but. And there's references. There's, you know, we had a Hobbit reference in

Which is Abroad? That doesn't mean it's like reading Tolkien. No. I feel like that's the only fantasy name you could think of. Sorry, Matt Seton. That's probably very unfair, but, you know. Yeah, I feel like you just pulled out the name of a fantasy author there. Yeah, yeah. Anyway.

Also, Tolkien had funny bits. There were jokes in Lord of the Rings. It's mostly Hobbits being Hobbits. Oh, yeah, yeah. Also, I might be thinking more of the films. Are you just thinking about the disaster bisexuals again? Yeah, I love my tiny disaster case. Anyway, also.

There's a couple of bits that, like, every world's got that Nobby's reaction of, I can't be king, Vimes would go spare. Oh, that's fucking brilliant. The only thing he's scared of is just, he can't imagine. The boss would kill me. He cannot imagine being in position of power over Vimes, even if he was king, but he'd go spare.

And he's right. Of course. He's absolutely right. But it reminded me of, slightly later on, an angua speculating on carrot, and she does it a lot. And Carrot says, Commander Vimes said, someone has to speak for the people with no voices. And Angua thinks he really believes it

because Vimes puts words in his head. And that's the bigger version of, you know, Nobby's Vimes would go spare, is he does create these people who are, in a sense, and obviously it's a subjective thing, but sort of better than him. Yeah, the same with Bette Narrow in Vimes, isn't it? It's like a passing it down the line. Yeah, and you end up with a carrot.

Yes. Who is very good. Well, like, he's very good. He's good again in this, isn't he? He is good again in this. There's a couple of moments where he, actually, I'll talk about those. But you get more of Vimes as in a monologue

than you do Carrots. You never see Carrot wrestling with it because Vimes has put the best words in his head. But then you see Vimes go through the more complicated thoughts this late, much later, near the end, as he's thinking about how to deal with Dragon King of Arms. Maybe a watchman had seen civilization

with the skin ripped off one time too many and stopped acting like a watchman and started acting like a normal human being and the sweep of the sword would make everything so clean. And he stops himself thinking like that. But he goes through that thought process, whereas Carrot never does, because Vimes has put the goodness directly into his head

that he's had to think through and choose. Like with the scene with the gun. Yes. We went through something more directly comparable in that scene, didn't we? Because Vimes was going through it in his head and then Carrot took it and broke it or whatever. He didn't have to think about it.

Anyway, so speaking of Carrot. Carrot, he's a character. He is a character. He is. One of my favorite moments that he gets is when he says, damn, we're going to have to risk it. Her linguistic heat. But I don't like how he reacts to Cherie,

who's taken on the new name in this section. We do get one of the more famous, more famous in the Discworld spheres I end up running in quotes, which is... What spheres do you run into? Not many. I'm doing one of those little hampstables. When Angra says to Carrot that seems

like a perfectly ordinary female to me, and Carrot gets a female, he told you he was female. And Angra says, she, this is Zach Morepork. We've got extra pronouns here. And it is very much done in a way of... It's never occurred to him to try and think in this direction before. And he does look like he's getting there by the end.

Like, he's still... But, you know, but we have to watch her back in the fight. And Angra's like, would you watch my back? Would you then, of course, but, you know, not in the same way. He sort of overcorrects from, oh, God, I can't think of you as female too. Oh, well, now I think of you as female. I've got to be misogynistic.

So he sort of does this massive swing, you know? I think he will end up landing in the middle. He's a chauvinistic rather misogynistic. Oh, yeah, okay. I believe he's pretty much over it by the next book. Yeah. And he gets one of his good sort of simple Carrot moments when he's threatening someone with a sword,

explaining that the sword is just a tool, like the golem is a tool. And it's this nice thing. Well, you see this in a turmoil with Vines that I was talking about, but then he just put the good words in Carrot's head. Carrot's not good bits come from a slightly different direction. Yeah.

Yeah. With the rest of the characters, with Angkor and Vines, especially there's quite near the end of the book when Ang was talking about being the werewolf, which says that the point is wanting to and not doing it. And I think with almost all the other characters, there is an element of that. And then with, yeah, again, with Carrot,

it's like if there is any want there, we never get to see it, which is... Yeah. But he sort of comes the closest because he's not going to. Yeah. And it makes him more, I don't know, intimidating, I guess. Yes. Yeah. Because he's not...

Because there's no manufactured, like, whatever. There's no chance of him going too fast. He doesn't need to stay 10 meters behind the line kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of that general thing, actually, I'm just going to insert a character here, Dragon King of Arms, who thinks he's so fucking clever. But two of the major pegs in his plot

are completely about, like, the personality traits and unpredictable aspects of people. So having a bottle of whiskey in Vines' drawer and assuming knobs would accept the title of King. Yeah. That's stupid, stupid plan. I mean... It is very much lacking. Sessing knobs up specifically.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, there's so much thought put into all of it. And then he's like, but these people, because I know people so well, will definitely act in the way I assume. But no, people are complex, it turns out. Part of it with Vines and Whiskey in the drawer, though, is that wasn't part of the plan from the beginning. That was the last minute,

okay, hang on, we need to get him out of the way. True. True. That was sort of a quick... I didn't even say like he was so sure about it that three of the guild leaders, by the way, very surprised at Mrs. Palm. Come on, Mrs. Palm. I do feel like she got the note, and so she went along.

I don't feel like she really... I may be a part of the overall plan, don't you? No. The people who were doing it were not necessarily the guild leaders. I think the point was that the guild leaders weren't part of the plan. Oh, no, yes, of course, you're right. I'm sorry to interrupt that meeting. Now, yes, they were going along with what was happening.

Yeah. Right, to Aphelua, but yeah. Molly Queen of Beggars, 10 points to you, minus two points to Mrs. Palm. Yes. I'm not sure. In our fictional writing, King. Yeah. Don't make a spreadsheet, Francine. Okay.

Don't make a spreadsheet. You're making a spreadsheet, aren't you? Yeah, right. Right now, as I hold this book in both hands. Making in my head. Mental spreadsheet. Anyway. Cherie... Let's talk about Cherie. I love her. Is she Cherie at the end?

Is she decided on that? Yeah. She's referred to as Cherie for most of the book, which again, just respect to the book for... name and pronouns being exactly what they are from the moment the character decides on them. I think, perhaps, it was pretty meticulous going through that, wasn't it? Yeah. One of my favourite moments is when she's decided to start being who she is a bit more.

She's wearing her skirt and lipstick, earrings, high heel boots. She's welded the heels on. Yeah, yeah. When she's had to work the front desk and checking in patrols and what have you, and a group of dwarves come in and sort of go there, but you're wearing female clothes. My mother never has disgusting. I can see her ankles.

And then a dwarf kind of quietly comes up and asks if she can try the lipstick. Yeah, it's like three phases now. There's the two stuck in the past. There's the one I'm going to randomly hit on you. And then there's the... Can I try? I like that she's hopefully slowly making changes for some of the other ranked more pork dwarves.

Also, I forgot to mention in Carrot Spit, there's much of a lot of his reactions irritating. I do like his line, I've got nothing against women, I'm pretty sure my stepmother was one. Yeah. Hard to be sure in the dwarfish world, but yes. Which is just so perfectly delivered. Then we have Angwa.

And then we have Angwa, we get a lot of insight from her, especially her sort of perspective on Carrot and things throughout the what's it book. Book, yeah. That's the word I mean. When she's thinking about leaving and she's thinking about the way Carrot treats her being a werewolf. And it's almost the way he...

It's a cousin to the way he treats Sherry when he's realized she's female and he's over corrected. So now he's saying, oh, well, maybe we shouldn't let her into the fray. Yeah. It's the way he reacts a bit too intensely when people kind of mock the werewolf thing. Yes. Yes, he's just, he now knows this is good thing to do.

So we'll do. Yeah. We'll defend. I like Angwa's thought on him of if only he had some decent human quality, like selfishness. And I made it very clear in the last book that this is probably one of my favorite discworld couples, Carrot and Angwa and then Sam and Sybil. I do like them together,

but I like looking at her thoughts on leaving the way she's so ready to at the end that she's literally packing. And all it takes is his sort of simple assumption that maybe she'd want to come and help clear up the bread museum. Yeah. And she can't quite bring herself to go. Yeah. If he proposed marriage, she would have gone. But it's like cleaning up the bread museum.

There's loads of bread and fresh coat of fade now. And her perspective on Gollums is really interesting. Yeah. It's kind of... Carrot gets his accepting of Gollums and weird about Sherry and then Angwa's immediately accepting of Sherry and super weird about Gollums. Gollums. Yeah. Gollums. Yeah. No, it's really awkward, no.

But it's the... She's so frustrated that she has to be careful all the time, whereas they get accepted and they don't get past... Until now, they've not had passing remarks about silver or garlic. Yeah. And I love her frustration of just you being reasonable again, deliberately seeing everyone's point of view. Can't you try to be unfair for once?

And that's really relatable. Like, not saying, oh, yeah, no, sometimes I want to be really racist, but like, sometimes you just don't... You don't want someone to be reasonable. Yeah, absolutely. It's like when you're really frustrated about something and you're bitching about it,

and the person you talk to very calmly offers you lots of solutions, and it's like, no, I don't want you to fucking solve the problem for me. I want you to listen to me rant about it and then say... Everyone else involved is a prick and I'm a saint. Thank you. Oh, that's really shit. No, why don't you just owe that's really shit? And I think Angwer deserves some of that sometimes. Agreed.

Agreed. Especially for supporting Cherie so well, despite being theoretically hated by her, because Cherie doesn't know. And then Cherie heard it around within three seconds, didn't she? Yeah, their resolution at the end. Oh, that whole bit, that's one of the things that made me cry. I couldn't remember.

But no, when Cherie rescued. The other way around, when Angwer rescued Cherie. Yeah, even though she's wearing the silver underwear, and then Cherie immediately sort of pouring them out. I think it's the dog. It's the dog hurt thing. I got. Yeah. Yeah. But they're another one of my favourite pairings, actually, not romantically, but just their friendship is so lovely.

I mean, to be fair, I could see it. Not like literally, I can visually see it. I don't know. OK, in the Watch TV series, like the way they were cast and put together then, I wanted to see the two of them date. But in this one, I feel like the power bounced a bit weird later on, maybe later on.

Yeah, currently, yeah, not in this book, it's power dynamics, which weirdly, you don't get with Carrot and Angwer. I think there's something about Angwer being technically the subordinate in the situation, but she's so aggressively competent and Carrot is Carrot. Yes. That it doesn't feel like a weird power

dynamic between the two of them. Yes. Yeah, I don't think we ever see them pulling rank. Yeah, although he ranks above her, there's no mentor-mentee relationship. No, yeah. Not beyond him showing her around the city at the beginning of Men at Arms.

And around the bright meeting at the beginning of this book. Poor Angwer. I wasn't really mentoring. I mean, I didn't really have anything for locations. Obviously, we've got the candle factory and we've got the slaughter yards and what have you, but we haven't really gone anywhere other than like Moorporg. No.

Your dog agrees. Yep, dog goes, woof. Dog says, woof. It's time for a coffee break. Little bits between light, punes or plays on words. What book is that from? I keep meaning to look that up. Pops up several times, apparently.

Yeah, OK. A pun or a play on words. Anyway, several of those. That's me still, isn't it? Yeah, the one I mentioned earlier, which I've never gone, which one that was. And my other couple of favorites that he's very into wordplay in this book, I think he gets into the swing of it

with his heraldry nonsense. Yes. I also liked the prefer charges that on page three, eight, four. So to prefer charges means to bring chargers to press charges. And you really intend to prefer charges? I'd prefer violence. So charges is what I'm going to have to settle for. And then the other good, goodest one, I think there are a lot of them,

which I'm going to read out page three, nine, six, right near the end where Bynes and Batonaria having their expedition conversation. Many final manuscripts in the place, I believe, without price, I'm told. Yes, sir. Certainly worthless, sir. That's a good moment. Bynes, is it, is Vynes-iest? Yes, that is Vynes-iest.

Yeah, there's my two favorite punes. What's your favorite little bit next? This was nearly my quote, it's short and sweet, but it's just Vynes trying to figure out what to do. That's not like you, you can't figure short quotes. Exactly. They're figuring out the whole, this is when they're at the palace and they're working through the whole routine of getting Batonaria's dinner.

Oh, yeah. He's sort of saying, oh, wait, was it in the seasoning? We aren't that stupid, are we? And Carrots immediately, I'll check directly. And Vynes says, not yet. I've been here before, we don't rush off shouting, give me a towel just because we've had one idea. Is it Eureka?

Yeah. And jumping out of the bathtub. As we saw many times when we visited a Feeb in a previous book. Yes. Yes, it is a Feebian for get me a towel, isn't it? Yeah, Eureka is a Feebian, forgive me a towel. Brilliant. So I'm going to start shouting, get me a towel much more often.

Towels are just inherently funny bits of kid, aren't they? They're in the Hitchhiker's Guide. One of them always know where your towel is. Yeah, one of the best lines from The Simpsons is, you'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel. The inherent comedy of towels. My little inherent comedy bit is when Fred is coming to terms with the reality of husbandry, of farm animaling.

Farm animaling. Farm animaling, as I like to call husbandry. Sure, your husband minds. Cows and Sergeant Colonsburg should go moo. Every child knew that. They shouldn't go meh, like some kind of undersea monster and spray with spit. The sheep went blart.

What kind of a noise was that for a sheep to make? And then Mr. Piggy. And this is the bit that resonated with me because, as you know, Joanna, I don't have a lot of experience in the countryside. World until Jack and I got together and being told that pigs weren't as small nor as pink as I thought. They are fucking huge, Joanna, pigs. They are huge.

This is the same point I was making about cows earlier. You just don't think about them. Yeah, except I knew intellectually how big cows were. It's just always surprising when you come across a cow and like, oh, God, yeah, you are fucking massive. But pigs, I always thought they were kind of like mid-thigh height. Yeah, no, no, no, they're like waist height and the wrong color and we'll eat you. So that's nice.

Yeah, no, pigs are fucking terrifying. Long with cows and very clever. And they have that whole thing where they end up standing up on two legs, two legs and fucking up communism famously. I like I like also that he had a little pig called Mr. Dreadful. I like, yeah, the fact that he's called Mr. Dreadful is never explained. More cuddly toys should be named Mr. Dreadful.

Agreed. Next time I get one, I'll try and remember to call it that. Cool. And you've got the last little bit. I like how we're whizzing through these talking points are fucking massive. So yeah, we're going to get I feel like we haven't looked at the existential crisis board for a while, but if it wasn't at zero already, I feel like it's in keeping with the spirit of the existential crisis board that I'm never really sure where it is. I feel like that's appropriate.

Yeah, shroding as existential crisis board. Oh, sorry, production lines. This was if I had had more time to plan the episode, would have probably been a full lecture on the history of production lines. I decided I decided not to let myself go there. But I like it's an interesting history. A producing line. It's a way of making thousands of things that are all the same.

And this is in the candle factory. It's the first time carrot seen them, but he's heard of them, which kind of works because this is sort of pre-industrial revolution. Yeah, they're more pork, but they were they were starting to come up. Yeah. And production lines really started around the industrial revolution. The Wikipedia article on production lines is fucking fascinating. I didn't I decided not to put all of this into the episode, but there was a lot so easy to lose entire nights.

I wanted to look at the like earliest methods of candle making and production lines in candle making. But probably the earliest industrial of a linear and continuous assembly process is the Portsmouth block mills, which were built around 1801, 1803. And they were designed by Mark Isenbad Brunel, father of Isenbad Kingdom Brunel. Oh, oh. I know that one. I know that name. He'd designed twenty two types of with the help of Henry Morsley

and a few others designed twenty two types of machine tools to make the parts for the rigging blocks used by the Royal Navy. And the factory was so successful. No, I don't know. It remained in use until the 1960s. And the works you can still see the workshop at the Dockyard in Portsmouth. And it still contains some of the original machinery. Yeah, Henry Ford is often cited as like having the first production lines,

wasn't it? But that was much later. That was in the early 1900s. I think, yeah, I think it's brought off as an American exceptionalism, kind of reinvented the production line. I mean, that was very impressive. Well, the difference is he didn't invent the production line, but the automation process. There we go. I've just cast shade on the Americans, though.

You know, I'm doing story of my life. Sorry, America. Please don't recall the diplomats. I feel like England's done worse to America. That's true. And I do spend a lot of time, like, sticking up for American English. Yeah. Linguistic drift. Anyway. Sorry. Yeah. Says me. Never mind. Right. Right. So talking points, big talking points, and I'm going to let you start.

Do you want to talk about AIs, Isaac Asimov, and parallels to Golems? I do. It's just stopping. That's going to be hard. I'll try and take over. I'll try and take over. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Three pages. I mean, this is what we've been building up to for the whole book. It is.

So the overarching argument here is are Golems people, are they sentient? Are they conscious? That is the moral issue that violence and anger and character wrestling with through the book. And I think I think I could be entirely wrong here that perhaps it is drawing a parallel to AIs to creative consciousness. Golems are creative consciousnesses.

Consciousnesses, yes. We talked about this a lot in Strata as what is sentience? What is humanity? I think was the talking point that made us erase the existential crisis for the first time this year. So I believe that Golems are artificial intelligences or more precisely artificial general intelligences. Do you know the term?

No, I don't. There's also known as strong AI and it's basically an artificial intelligence system that can think that has a mind and has consciousness or a weak AI, which is the other kind of AI, would be able to act as though it had a mind and a consciousness, but wouldn't actually. So the term AI can be used for a lot of things, but an AGI would have the ability to understand and learn as humans do or better, which would be a problem.

So I did quite a lot of reading and I have done in the past because I fucking love this subject of how can you tell? How can you tell if something has become conscious, become sentient? There's no generally accepted test yet. The most well known is obviously the Turing test. There's also the Robot College student test, which is like if a robot could go to college, study classes that you knew nothing about and come out with a degree.

There's the employment test, which is the same thing, but with a job. And then my favourite that I hadn't heard of until this little bit of research was Steve Wozniak's co-founder of Apple Contribution, which is the coffee test, where a machine would enter a typical American house and figure out how to make coffee. So where it would be able to find the kitchen, go around and find the mug, spoil the kettle. Maybe you don't make kettle in America. Find the coffee grounds and put the mince in the machine and the paper and the. So there's a lot of judgment needed there.

But although there's no universally recognised tests, there are a lot of traits that would definitely be needed. So an AGI could do things a creator wouldn't expect, and which is very much golem here, I think, where a lot of the people thought that, you know, you knew what a girl was going to do, turns out no. It can reason, it can strategise, it can, importantly, it can judge, it can make judgment when some of the parameters or factors are uncertain, which is where AIs really struggle now.

Yeah, it could solve puzzles. Again, you'll like this bit. Communicate in natural language, which is a language which is evolved naturally without planning, so not a programming language. Natural language processing is a whole subfield of linguistics, where linguistics overlaps with computer science and AI. Very cool. That's a rabbit hole. That's a rabbit hole, yeah.

And then also in air quotes here, imagination and autonomy, because they're a little bit harder to define. Yeah, given all of this, would you agree with me? Would you say dolums are our conscious, our AGI's? Yeah, I would argue that they were. Yeah, because they are making decisions, aren't they? Even if they are very bound by these rules until near the end, they are making the decision to go into the cellar.

That's something that their creators couldn't have possibly predicted. Yeah. And then the second half of this little spill is AIs posing an existential threat. So near the beginning of this section, the last section, there's a lot of violence against golems. Why are people splashing them, is asked. And, you know, the answer is a little bit hard to say in Warpork, but it seems to be the kind of intuition that it is dangerous.

It is dangerous to have a created intelligence that can act outside. It's given them, it's assumed limitations. Yeah. So there are three difficulties when it comes to like AIs and their existential threat. So the first two, you will relate to very much. They can occur with any computing system. They are routine, but catastrophic bugs. So a little bit of a syntax error or anything like that.

And suddenly the whole thing's not fucking working or has crashed your computer. And like, why? So that but like on a grand scale and then unintended behaviors. So a nice round world example of that is Microsoft's Tay. Do you remember this, the AI Chatterbot? No. So Microsoft introduced this chatbot that got really offensive within a few hours because it learned from people talking to it.

Yeah. So it got shut down within 16 hours because it's tweeting racial slurs. Ah, right. Yeah. And I think the Golem equivalent here is like Golem going to build 5,000 tables. That's like, yes, technically that is within what we programmed, but it is an unintended consequence. And now both of those problems, which are nuisances, annoyances turn into catastrophes when you introduce the third problem, which is unique to AGI.

And that's called instrumental convergence, which is an intelligence naturally resisting attempts to shut it down or to change its goals. So I've seen here with his door fall when he resists his head being opened and was Michigan when everything. Yeah. So that's cool. And then looking at how it will like, I'm drifting a little bit away from this world relevance here,

but I just kept going. So bear with me. I know. How will it fuck us up? A subtitle is always a fun one. Yeah. This depends somewhat whether an AI simply doesn't care about us or actively hates us. Yeah.

So through carelessness is the more talked about because it's more likely way that an AI is going to kill a soul. Yeah. Because it simply would not consider us if you say, give it a very difficult or unsolvable problem. Like you tell an AGI to solve Bernat's theorem. It's an example of CGP Gray used in one of his things. And to do so, it realises it doesn't have the computing power.

So it takes over all the computers and we don't have computers. And then it needs to be more computer. So it starts using up all the resources for more and more computers. And then at some point it decides it needs a lot of oxygen for whatever process. And it takes it all out the air and then we're all fucked. Yeah. Which is very much like the the the wheels of Angleport grinding people. And it's maybe, you know, try to.

Yeah, I'll let you have that. I'll let you have that ten years. But you can have it. I mean, that that's basically Stuart Russell, who is an academic on the subject, says it's essentially the old story of the genie and the genie in the lamp or the sorceress apprentice or King Midas. You get exactly what you ask for, but not what you want. Right. Yeah.

And then the other more terrifying possibility is that it would kill us all through malice. Have you read the short story? I have no mouse, but I'm a screen. No. I'll send you a link because it is. I mean, that sounds incredibly relevant to this. It is. Yeah. Oh, it is. Yeah. I was thinking of it before I even got to this point in the research

because yeah, the screening is so dark. But with no spoilers, this is like the opening. The the premises that the AGI in question was created to win wars and has done so. And as a result, it's humanity hates it. Right. And because AGI is unlikely to be far more intelligent than us. It's very, very good at working out how to make humans suffer. Right. Anyway, this is considered highly unlikely in the science of the community. I mean, this is also kind of the plot of Avengers Age of Ultron,

the idea that Ultron was created to create peace to prevent conflict around the whole world as it is a computer system. But it sort of scans the entire world and goes, well, humans made all of that conflict. So guess what I'm going to do? And it got taken to a much further, more terrifying conclusion in Marvel's What If, but no spoilers. OK. That is yes. That is it. I've never seen those. Otherwise, that is a perfect pop culture reference to draw.

Good work. Moving on from that. So if we accept that, really, AGI's do pose an existential threat. And I think every most do. I mean, Stephen Hawking Bill Gates included. Yeah. And Elon Musk, you know, I don't like listing him in reliable sources anymore. You're not advocating Elon Musk. No, I'm not advocating Elon Musk.

Elon Musk, thumbs down. Kate. Yes. Thumbs up. Ooh, which he can tie with AI with portal. Yeah. The game. Yeah. Yeah. Take as low. The control problem. If we accept that an AGI is possible, which we do, and that if we create one, it poses a massive threat, which we do, we come to the control problem,

which is when we make this AI, we make, in this case, the golems, how do we stop it from killing us all? Or from accidentally squashing us under its deity like feet? I mean, could you construct a cage to restrain a superintelligence? The question is not that relevant to this well, because we don't really get into the idea that Dorfel is exponentially more intelligent than a human. No. But basically, so physically,

we might be able to build this thing underground with a computer not connected to the Internet. And we would set, let's say we're going to put you in the room with this thing to guard it, and it is much cleverer than us. Like so much cleverer and the idea that people would never be persuaded to just disconnect it to the Internet. Come connect me to the Internet to see just just for a minute. Go on. Let me let me go check Neopets or Neopets.

That's what an AI wants to do, then it would get angry. God, there's a lot of internet drama about Neopets. Have I ever? Yeah, there's an NFT scandal right now. Yeah, on that hobby drama subreddit you put me on to, which I fucking love. I'll try and link to that in the show notes in between all these AI resources. I'll link to at least one of the Neopets posts because it's fucking amazing. Anyway, sorry, that was me. That was me and the idea that it could become that much cleverer than us is.

A bit more realistic, they might think on first glance, like, well, how we do even build something cleverer than you. That doesn't make sense. So because an AI would not have the same physical limitations that we do. So humans have become this clever in part because we were able to grow much bigger heads at birth. I mean, because of that, a childbirth is very dangerous and we are useless, useless babies.

But. And taking it much further in the evolutionary train, we'd probably do more harm than good when it comes to breeding, you know? Yeah, head size versus hip size. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if we are talking literally just getting a bigger brain. But, you know, that's not a problem for an AI or indeed for a Golem. If they start like.

So like, I know it's never explored, but I quite like the. Thought train of Golems can build up the Golems. Yeah, the idea of an intelligence explosion is talked about quite a lot. It's called recursive self-improvement. So it is kind of demonstrated here in that Meshiga is more agile, has the ability to speak in theory, more like scream like a ball in reality. But, you know, this is only their first go. Well, instead of exponential self-improvement,

once Dorfel learns that he can become more human is maybe not the right word by owning himself, he then rather than recursive self-improvement, he then starts the what will be a slow process of doing this for all of the other Golems by saving up to buy them so they can be given to themselves. And that's this. That's maybe intelligence isn't the right word, but it's a jump for them. Getting that freedom makes them freeze their tongues, makes them able to speak.

Yeah, just removing those limitations of I am owned. Well, I must say that little bit was not a bit I loved because Vimes is like bloody revolution. Dorfel's like, no, theft. I'm like, no, I don't think so. I don't think slaves rebelling is theft. That's no justified. But anyway, sorry.

Yeah, fuck. Anyway, all of this has been addressed in fiction many times before, as a 300th century or perhaps it knows and has loved more than I do. Most famously, of course, in Asimov's three laws of robotics, which are running themes for a lot of its books. I know you're not that into Asimov, are you? But your friend, yeah, enough to get the idea. So first law, a robot may not injure a human being also in action,

allow a human being to come to harm. Second law, a robot must obey the orders given it by human being except where such orders with conflict with the first law seems like stacking. And a third law, a robot must protect its own existence as long as this does not conflict with first, second. Right. And then going on to your like age, the zeroth law was introduced later,

and this is where in stories where the robots have responsibility or control over a large population of humans and the law is a robot may not harm humanity or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Right. These laws were written to be fallible. They are bent. They are changed, whatever, through Asimov's universe. And I think these laws are in this world are also proved to be fallible.

Even though, you know, ancient, they worked for a long time, but they didn't allow for for respite, which it turned out was necessary for. Speech for, yeah, I don't know. It's the idea of having. Of creating a super intelligent AI and imprisoning it, you know, quite apart from the existential threat it does pose us to create it at all. The idea of imprisoning it is.

Morally, yeah, I think that's the the missing piece that is where this links back in, especially to this book is the ethical and moral implications of creating and owning AI and specifically AGI is. Yeah. I mean, I know an argument that comes up a lot against they should be contained and they shouldn't happen. And there are threat is if they're given the opportunity to learn morality exactly as a human would, would they not develop the same

morality as humans and have the same capacity for good and evil? I think that's an oversimplification of a much bigger problem, because, like you said, there are the issues like the intelligence jumps. And because they don't quite learn in the way humans do. And I think this book interrogates the morality aspect of it. Yeah, I mean, the nature of golems in general, I think you thought about a lot more than me. Yeah, especially this idea of words in the head and self worth.

There's a line very early on. Someone shouts that all golems think about as money. And I think carrot points out money is or you can think about when you have a price. I can't help but compare it to fictional slavery. I'm not talking about the actual human slave trade, but they have been reading other fantasy books that have slavery and address the morality of it, which is obviously that there isn't any morality when it comes to slavery. It's just bad.

Yeah. But this idea of carrot freeing him by giving him to himself. Yeah. It's the point you were making. It's like, maybe bloody revolution rather than slavery would be better. But when it comes down to doorful proving that he's human. And this is one of the iconic disc world quotes, I'd say. Or it's definitely one I've seen come up in all sorts of what's it's.

And I think it's one of the biggest sort of address of AI. And he's it's having a conversation with with you non red color. And they're claiming that he they're not sure he's even really alive. And Dorfel says, I suggest you take me and smash me and grind the bits into fragments and pound the fragments into powder and mill them again to the finest dust there can be. And I believe you will not find a single atom of life. However, in order to test this fully, one of you must volunteer to undergo the same process.

And I like Rid Cully quietly emitting. We on a tricky theological ground here. Yeah, but I better think a little bit more about the definition of life. Well, that's what it comes down to when it comes to AGI is an arguing about the morality and the ethics behind it. But what point do we not just at what point do we say this is definitely an AGI? And it passes those tests at what point do you start respecting that as a life? Yeah, I don't mean from my point of view.

And I think yours it is when when it is sent in. If it passes these tests, then it must be treated. Like it is alive and treated with the same. So it's not just about fearing what we could create and how it could harm off, but it's about fearing what we could create and how we could harm it. Yes, yes, that's a much better way of putting it. Well done. Yeah, thank you. I'm good at summarising things.

Lots of practice at the top end of the episodes. And yeah, I don't have a big, shining, pointy answer to the existential threat of AGI's. Oh, you don't. Well, fucking fantastic. I thought we were going to fix this finally. No, sorry, I didn't. At this lecture, I was writing to the academics. I didn't wear my fixing the universe boots today.

Oh, fair enough, yeah. Or in the other room. Yeah, if I'm not wearing the right boots, Francine, there's nothing I can do. I'm just freezing. But we're not done talking about the book, but I think this is one of the things that makes this world great, is that it engenders this kind of conversation, is that in a silly fantasy bit of a who done it parody,

we can also really aggressively go, what is sentience? Yes, on the one hand, norby norms. Humanity, which I'm sorry, he does have a certificate in my bad. Yeah, side note, but I know it's been joked about before that nobby has to prove he's human, but it's the first time we actually see the card signed by the patrician. Like, oh, this is interesting. Mainly people just have a business card.

Well, on the balance of things, it seems most likely that. Yeah, I don't have any good conclusion for this, other than what's a bloody good book? I think it could, though. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of it being a very good book, shall we talk about the murder mystery? Oh, yeah, let's talk about hearings and clues. Let's talk about more about the definitely solidly in the book stuff.

Yes, you've actually written a properly handy list. Yeah, I was just noting them as I went through the book, you gave me the idea when you know plot points as you go through. So I was just like, I'll just pick up the clues. That seems good. There's before we go into it, A, there's an amazing quote from Vimes in this section. I'm not just reading out the whole book.

I swear for copyright reasons. This is not the copyright reasons. This is not an unauthorized book. It would be really shit. All the messing around with suspects and clues was just something to keep the body amused. Well, the back of the brain toiled away. And I love that because that's how I work.

You know, my whole thing of I need to always be doing three things at once. Yeah, that's because I need something to occupy one part of my brain, especially at the moment, so I'm doing this Inktober thing. So I have to have a jumping off point for a poem, and then I have to sit and let that brew and take away and roll around in the back of my brain while I do literally anything else. So like today's poem, which is actually one of my favorites I've written this month.

I wrote it while I was typing up the recipe for the blog I do for the coffee company. Oh, so I literally was typing it up and then stopping and writing a line of the poem and letting it roll around in my head and doing it that way. It is exhausting being me. Yeah, I mean, you say that, but also that I very envious. That you can.

I love that. I mean, that's how you're so prolific, to be fair. Partly is just your ability to to keep being creative in the face of or partly helped by drudgery. It's hardly drudgery. I don't know to make a joke. I can actually say that sounded like an explanation. I was giving you as I chained you to the stove or something. No, thankfully, we're not in the same room and you can't chain me up.

So anyway, yeah, A, I love that quote. B, there's just a couple of not clue things, but really good callbacks to the first part of the book. The reason, part of the reason I picked that quote from the first section about how when you take the king or take the king, the animals mill around or the people mill around like animals. Yeah. They milled around a bit like barnbread chickens.

We've seen the big world outside for the first time. Then they went back into the warm and shut the door. Yeah. And how that gets echoed with all the animals in the slaughter yard being let out, but they're not really doing anything. Yeah. Yeah. And then later on, Dorfel is talking about is freedom scary. Yes. Is freedom frightening, whatever it was.

People as castle. Yeah. It's something I've written down with no context, but a page number. I fucking love all these notes of mine. I'm like, this makes sense as I go through. Oh, there's another pun I didn't accidentally left out. Rex, you've you've seen the Rex. You've seen the oh, no, the people as castle thing.

Again, it's the metaphor being carried through, but it's the way Dragon King of Arms treats people. Is it frightening to be free? There we go. That's what Dorfel said. Yes. The other thing I like is Mr. Maxalot, who's complaining about Dorfel attacking them and is doing the I pay my taxes. I know my rights and then carrot responding with,

I don't see your name on the register of tax pay. And the lovely call back to season one with Mr. Iron fist. Season one. Part one. I watch too much television. Oh, no, it's charming. Like our bed and community sometimes. Anyway, the season finale in my life had lost you.

And now for the difficult third season. Anyway, so, yeah, red herrings. Red herrings throughout the book. So my favorite red herring was the licking of the fingers while turning the notebook. Because I must have something I've done, but I've noticed it in telly a lot. And I love it as a little red herring here,

where it's just very subtle. And it never points it out as a red herring so much that it says as explicitly as some of the others are. But yes, watching Fetnari lick his finger and then a little bit later, Drumlock does the same and then Bynes goes, yeah, get me a towel. That's a good one. What was your favorite?

A lot of them. I like all the stuff with the food in the dumbwaiter. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, I laughed out loud with the dwarf coming up in the dumbwaiter. In the pizza box. But especially because you had the extra red herring of that of in section two, as far as we did,

Vime's trying to remember the skipping rhyme and the salt mustard vinegar pepper. Yes. And so then he starts shouting it when they're trying to work it out, which is that don't run off and give me a towel just yet. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The wallpaper was so heavily hinted at throughout.

Like, I love to think of Pryche putting that in, because, you know, it was a real thing, the arsenic wallpaper, because arsenic made a lovely shade of green. I think we've talked about this before. That was the health message. Yeah, it's been a plot point in a couple of murder mysteries as well, especially like early 1900s. Makes sense. That would be, yeah.

Also in a more dangerous. Also in a much more recent book by Jacqueline Moriarty called Becoming Bindi Mackenzie, which involves an Australian teenager being poisoned with arsenic. Jacqueline Moriarty, you know. They're not murder mystery books. They are like books about teenage girls. I love them when I was about that age.

It's like a little trilogy. But just a couple of characters overlap. It's a different. But they're ones I've got a real real soft soft spot for. A link in the show notes. Anyway, anyway, I love that. Like throughout the entire book, he was dropping hints at the wallpaper and then it's like, no.

And I'll pay for her. I'm really annoyed that I can't. I'm really annoyed that I can't remember reading this book for the first time, so I can't remember what I thought was the thing. I can remember reading it for the first time. And I did think it was the wallpaper. I thought I was very clever for working out. I think I must have thought the same thing.

Yeah. And I do remember. Not realising what was happening when but Nari does that thing about bringing his own candle out. So that's a very heavy hint nearest the end. Yes, that's a very good one. And then actual clues built in. There are like two mysteries in this on there. Yeah, the Gollum storyline

and then the poison and building up to the dragon. They overlap, but they don't really turn out to be connected. They just happen at the same time at the end. So yeah, like clues for the Gollum storyline. You've got the guy who's helping with the oven. You've got the different types of soil or dirt. And I thought it was quite a cool little one. Obvious ones also do with like the matchstick

and the types of clay or whatever, because it's like explicitly brought up. The matchstick, I think, is one of my favourite ones. Yeah, the idea of it being a short straw. Just this I just when he turns up holding a broken matchstick and you can't really imagine constant context. Yeah, until you find the other unbroken matchsticks. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's very cool. Yeah, my favourite Gollum one was like wax being found on the fingernails.

And oh, no, wait, my favourite one, which I don't think was ever referenced again, but I pretty sure was meant to be a clue was but Nari's wicker man drawing. Oh, yeah, drawing a big man made out of men. Yeah. So like it looks like he was just kind of working on that little mystery on the back of his mind at the same time as being poisoned. Yeah. And that's kind of what Michigan was. He was he was the golem made up of all the golems and with everything they wanted.

Yeah. Do you want to take us through some of the main mystery clues? Oh, the poison and Dragon King of Arms. The littler has everywhere. Oh, yeah. That we know is we know. So back in part one, the that's sort of the Dragon King of Arms little vocal inflection and you get it in the beginning in like page 50, I think you've noted, but you get it the one I have never clocked before while reading this and I didn't even clock because I read the whole book.

And then I do the post its per section and sort of read again every week. So everything's fresh in my mind. I didn't notice while I was doing that first read through, I noticed when I was doing the posters and I've apparently never noticed before. When Colin is tied up and he can hear people discussing what to do with him, one of them says, aha, and they can self smell fear, idiot, aha. Why couldn't you have let him look around? I never noticed that before.

And all the other little hints of vampire, they don't really build up. A, the sort of not red herring, but the fact that you've got that comedy background vampire and all the different ways he's getting murdered. Comedy background vampire. Big scary foreground vampire. Vime's thinking about how someone could have got into his office. Yes. And there's another moment where something snatched from someone.

And again, it's got to have been someone flying. The all the hints at the diary, the wallpaper, the fog coming in. Actually, the fog coming in is a really good one because there's a bit of a Dracula parallel. Yeah, Dracula kind of moves on fog as fog. Oh, at least. Well, that's a very cool reference. I'm assuming that was meant to be a reference.

Yeah, nice. And the casual reveal of Nobby not really being an Earl. Yes. Of course not. Man, there's a kid in it. Which I also love in the party scene, when everyone's going along with whatever Nobby wants. And there's one steadfast person in the the bands and absolute oink. My favourite is probably the the lamp of poison.

Yes, but also that the opening of our brought forth the candle in Latin is our enixer, especially because obviously Pratchett had quite a lot of interaction with the fandom via like the old Fandoc Pratchett forums and things. He must have known because he was because I know he did get some criticism in the early days for the sort of dog Latin he used in other watch books. Yeah, he must have known

because he points out multiple times in the book that that one is in English. Colin points out, yeah, that was in English, not in that funny Latin. Yeah. That he has put the the clue in that in Latin is arsenic. Yes, yes. Because he knows there's probably some fucking nerds reading it who will have gone. Well, no one is in English.

If I translate it into Latin, arsenic. The candle maker did it with the lead pipe in the dining. No, wait. Oh, yeah, I did a little special mention to the couple of times finds goes. Well, there's no clues here. It's too covered in greasy finger marks or fingerprints. Yeah. I do.

We've got forensic. We haven't got fingerprinting yet. And finally, getting the long exposition bit when he confronts the dragon king, my favourite part. And it's what kept me watching Midsummer Murders always years. It's that I want one more thing. Poirot or Colombo, who did that one? Poirot.

It's just it's such a good book. It's we've talked a lot about how Pratchett edits himself really well, but this is a perfectly edited one where there's not too many quotes and red herrings and clues. No, I do like to think of him with a corkboard and string for this particular. I don't know how he kept his plots in order. But he had like a brainstorm. But you know what I meant to do was draw out the Vimes's

brainstorming session on a piece of paper, because it was like one to one. Now, I might do that later for funsies. Have you ever seen me plot a full thing like a full length play or script or anything? No. It gets corkboard and string, especially at the moment, because I'm working on a choose your own adventure piece, so I'm trying to work out. Oh, God, yeah.

Yeah, I've got a flowchart that looks like it was written by a madman. Good. Yeah. Do you send me pictures of your mad people stuff? Because I don't have any really good pictures, because also, like sometimes when I'm thinking of a big narrative, I don't write it in order, right? Right of bits is like as they come to me. Yes.

And one of my best ways of editing myself is to write longhand, type it up and edit as I go. And then to work out what order it all goes in once I've done that, just print it out and try and put it in places. And literally, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very little. It's very physical. Yeah, I've done the cut and paste before with articles.

No, not with articles, like with entire narratives. So not like I've written a paragraph from one section of the story in a paragraph from another, but I've written, like, four pages that go at the beginning, then I wrote four pages that go at the end, and then I wrote four pages that probably go nearer the beginning than the end. OK, yeah. Nice. It's bad, Frontsy. I mean, it sounds fun to me, but that's me.

But I just don't have anywhere to put a really big corkboard in this flat. That's that there's room on the wall behind me, isn't there? But yeah, I'm listening to seeing that every week. All of you. Anyway, I feel like we've trailed off. What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're still making a podcast, Frontsy. I don't have the episode plan anymore. You've got Red Herring's list episode plan.

All right, have you got a obscure reference for me, Frontsy? Yes, and you'll be pleased to. I was very sure. Excellent. On Carrie's coat of arms on page three, six, seven, it is noted that the lamps are crescents on either side. And I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up. The term to refer to a lamp where the wick burns in a cup or cavity, which can be of ceramic or stone, so they are like candle lamps.

Oh, lovely. I was wondering about, you know, lamps being on a. Candlemaker's thingy. And like, obviously, I know that lamps weren't weren't electric, but lamps to me were always like oil lamps. But yeah, yeah, and gas lamps. I only skimmed the episode plan before we originally meant to start recording because I'd come like straight back from the office.

So I misread it as the crusade for a second was really excited that you were going to talk about cast iron cookware. I'm sorry, but he did not mention it anywhere on the back. There was no casserole dish. I was confused. I'm very upset. It's not being more discussed. It's been something out of the oven shapes and the. OK, let's not. I feel like that's a reach.

I am going to before we kind of round out the episode. We'd never go for a reach would we, Dorana? We never make a tenuous connection in this podcast for our own amusement. Pay no attention to the helicopter along cloth watch behind the curtain. Right. Before I say that, we've said everything we need to say. The very bottom of the my notes had my quote shortlist. I've managed to shoe on all in bar one. So I'm just throwing it here now.

Go on. Another evening folded over the city and layers of fog. Nice. Tell me that's not a fucking brilliant sentence. That is good. Fucked. You know, I'm going to say finds refers to the shank of the night as well. Yeah, lots of night metaphors. You also. And at this point, I think we've said everything we can.

Oh, I think we're going to drift off pretty quickly into insanity if we don't cut a lot of coffee today. I think we let's cut the podcast to drift, let it let it go and do its own thing and stay safely anchored to anchored ish to earth. Let's sleeping podcast live, Francine. OK, you know, we've just got a week off next week. Wasn't that a good book? Yes. Yes. We do get a week off next week, dear listeners.

We that is everything we can say on feet of clay. What a bloody good book that was. Good book. Good book. Wasn't it good? So this episode is coming to you on the 18th of October. We are then going to disappear from your ears for a couple of Mondays. Nothing dramatic. It's just how months work. Yes, it's just the way that a patronising.

Friends in our Patreon will, of course, be getting a little visit down the rabbit hole from Francine in that time. I mean, it's all about the Guilds of London. I'm very excited for this. Castles as Nights Patrons await something. I haven't figured out what yet. We'll get there. We'll get there. You're getting a treat. Treat is probably a strong word.

Next month, we are not talking about a disqual book. We are going to conclude our proto-pratchett season. On the in the month that contains the 50th anniversary of its publication. Because I can't remember the fucking date. We're going to talk about the carpet people. Yeah, which is also recently being released as an audiobook with David Tenant. Has it now? It has, I think that was earlier this year.

So we might listen to the audiobook. We might not because it's a short one. We are only going to do two episodes on it. How many times do you read the carpet people for? I've read it a lot. I've only read it once and I was kids. So I'm very much looking forward to this. Unfortunately, that is going to be all you get in November,

but that's because we're planning a very exciting December for you and we want to make a head start on it. Yes, so that we can also sound. Audibly angry by the end of December. And so that we can actually celebrate Christmas. So we might be allowed to this year. Oh, yeah, that's what we thought last year. What a weird fucking couple of years.

Also, we can hunker down for the next lockdown. So sorry, that was rambling, but to clarify, we'll be back on the 8th of November with part one of the carpet people. Remember, remember the 8th of November. That's when the podcast comes out. Almost rhymed, well done. In the meantime. Dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram at the true shall make ye

fret on Twitter at make ye fret pod on Facebook at the true shall make ye fret. You can join our subreddit community, our slash T T S M Y F. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks and chunks of clay, the true shall make ye fret pod at gmail.com. And with it, we will create something beautiful and terrible. Not a cult. You're really wonky pot. Still not a cult.

If you want to become an elite cult member, still not a cult. You can go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make ye fret. There are reasons. And after you pass the initiation ritual, you can exchange your hard earned pennies for some bonus nonsense, allegedly. So if you miss us and I had so much coffee, I'm sorry. And if you miss us between now and the carpet, people, that's where to find some extra little treats.

We can go on Twitter and watch lots of videos. Joanna saying poetry. Oh, yeah. And I'm still doing in October. It's the last time I can shout out on here. So follow me at Joanna Hagen. I'm doing a perm every day for all of October. Sorry, really brief shout out to.

Oh, fuck, I've forgotten the username. But somebody contacted me on Tumblr for the first time, and I was delighted, delighted. Hold on, where is it? Was it because as I've discussed before, I joined Tumblr far too late for, you know, normal people and. Luxa, Luxa. Thank you, Luxa.

What? What are we on Tumblr? Oh, good point. We are the tree shall make you fret, but it's got hyphens in between because someone else had to. OK, cool. Anyway, in the meantime, that's mine, that's the social media I do. I'm another Tumblr.

In the meantime, dear listener. But for one day at a time, let it be a tomorrow. Well, as our recording's taken us into evening, I now get to have a glass of wine. So it's nearly six o'clock here. It's already six o'clock here. We're slightly further on the international day line this side of town.