The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 73: Jingo Pt. 3 (Night-Time In The Dessert)

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine “Doesn’t Mind A Sardine Tangent” Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 3 of our recap of “Jingo”. Donkey! Minaret! Minaret! Donkey!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:Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell (PCM Stereo) - YouTubetaking the hobbits to isengard - YouTube99% Invisible Mini Stories Volume 14 (one of which is about the fire fighters)Omnibus Episode 427: Damascus Steel (Entry 314.PS4503)Lego Ankh-Morpork - TwitterChocolate sponge and pink custard – the recipe - mintcustardChocolate crunch/brick recipe (from The Moreton Hall Book of Recipes, 1991)2009 Swiss Minaret Referendum - WikiSheldrick Wildlife tweet (photos from pilots, not drones!) - TwitterSunTzuSaid.comForeign-Looking Font - TV TropesTranslation Punctuation - TV TropesAs Long as It Sounds Foreign - TV TropesOzymandias - Poetry FoundationMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.comSound effects: Desert Monolith, Proxima4 - Freesound

I am so sick of this flesh prison. I know. One day we'll be on the cloud. I am sick of the flesh prison, but I keep fucking hearing adverts for ways to shrink the flesh prison, so I'm determined to exist in it harder. Yes, I keep getting ghost sober for whatever adverts, which seems a bit of a waste. Yeah, I feel like advertising sobriety to you is a bit like when you buy something on Amazon and then you get 20 million adverts for that thing you have already purchased. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, somewhere the algorithm has picked up on the fact I'm interested in not drinking, but has not picked up on the fact I've not drunk for nearly six years.

Good little algorithm. I don't even mind or I do mind noob advertising. I feel like adverts for fucking diets and shit should be as strictly regulated as alcohol and gambling. But I can deal with them if they're just like their adverts, they're onto it at fine. But it's when you're listening to a podcast and it's one of those adverts where the podcast hosts are reading the adverts. Oh, which one? It's the Friendship Onion, the one with Don Monaghan and Billy Boyd. I don't know how I know those people. They play Mary and Pippin in A Lot of the Rings. It's a nice podcast. It's the guys who played Mary and Pippin in A Lot of the Rings talking about

that and their lives and Don Monaghan was also Charlie and lost. I know him. Yes. And they had James Masters on for an episode a couple of weeks ago, which was a treat for me. He was spiking Buffy. Oh, speaking of Buffy, what do you reckon of this new spate of Josh Whedon hate? Josh Whedon hate? Josh Whedon's an arse. I feel like we know that. I do. Did you read the article? I didn't. I can't. I know he's an arse. I believe the people who've been repeatedly speaking up for a while about the fact he's an arse and I can't be bothered to read a whole article about

the fact that he's an arse, but he's also an artist. Yeah, that wasn't really what it was about. Oh, I didn't. Yeah, again, I didn't read it. Can you tell? Yeah, I mean, he tried to put that across in the interview, I think, but the interviewer writer was not having any of it. I didn't expect the article to be sympathetic. I just didn't feel the need to read more about it. I do feel a bit bad. I can't cut Buffy out of my life the way I can, something like Harry Potter, but I feel like there's slightly different situations. What do you mean you can't cut Buffy out of your life, sorry?

I mean, like, when Jackie Rowling turned out to be a bit of an arse, it's like, all right, yeah, I'm not going to watch the Harry Potter movies. I'm not going to buy merch. I'm not going to engage in that fandom. And then it was like, oh, actually, this is a good thing. Hang on, I needed to outgrow Harry Potter and say, does every other fucker of my age read another fucking book? Whereas with Buffy, it's a bit like, Joss Whedon is an arse, but God, I still want to watch the show because I love it deeply. Oh, okay. I don't want to rather than can't. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's not like I'm legally in a contract.

I'm not judging because I really don't give a... I don't know. I think it did... The J.K. Rowling thing did put me off the Harry Potter and definitely off the fandom. But I don't think I made a conscious decision to, and I certainly don't judge anyone who still does watch it. Oh, yeah, no. No, I mean, I'm not... And at the same way with Buffy, I have even less motivation to watch it now because I wasn't that into it anyway. Yeah. So, yeah. Again, I think when we were talking about Rowling before, like if it was something I was massively into, then... Yeah, and also... It hasn't really happened yet, luckily. It's not... Yeah, like,

Terry Pratchett can't come out and say something terrible now, can he? Find some old writings. What if that's why he's steamwrote now? Of course, it's not. He's kind of flyer for the dramatic. But yeah, no, it's not like with the Harry Potter thing, I consciously went like, I'm breaking up with J.K. Rowling now. It's more like she genuinely, at one point, turned around and said, people are still spending lots of money on Harry Potter stuff, so they must support my beliefs at which point. I was like, oh, none of my money's going there now. Yeah. And also, now it just feels very toxic to be anywhere near... But again, I don't judge anyone

who's still engaged in it. Yeah. Did probably hit at the time of our lives where wearing that kind of thing would become just unbearably cringe anyway, so... But yeah, it's also not like I walk around wearing a lot of Buffy merch. We're buffering the Vampire Slayer merch because who doesn't love a Smash the Demon Lizard Patriarchy t-shirt? Exactly, and that can apply in any situation. Yeah, that's a multi-purpose Smash the Demon Lizard Patriarchy. Also, teenagers use Harry Potter to bully millennials now, and I'm very easily bullied out of things, so... Yeah, no, that's fair. So yeah, other rents. What else can I rant about?

Meatloaf's dead, that's quite sad. Meatloaf is dead. R.I.P. That is quite sad. Bat of Hell was a very important part of our Saturday nights for a while. It was, and then it was... Along with Total Eclipse of the Heart, I think there were two real staples. The rest of the Power Ballads could move around those two. But those two always happened. And then it became part of my Saturday nights when I was doing dinner rushes at work because nothing will get you quite like 20 tickets, just came out the machine at once, like putting on Bat of Hell and singing it very loudly. What do you do when the quiet bit comes on though?

I very dramatically plate up burgers. Yeah, nice, I can see that. I'll tell you what, I could not have told you within a decade how old that man was, so... No, I was surprised. I was like, Meatloaf's dead. I was 74, like that's still too young, but not as shocking as I was about to be when I was like, was he like 50? No, obviously not. Yeah, I thought he was in his like 50s or 60s. He's kind of ageless, wasn't he? He looked middle-aged from when he became famous and just stayed looking that way as far as I was concerned. Also, as I said to you in the group chat, I have a thing where I'm not very good with faces. And if there's two similar enough

looking people, and I know one of them better, I will just paste their face over the other person's face. And so as far as I'm concerned, Meatloaf had the face of Jack Black. Which is fair. And I imagine made Fight Club very interesting. Nothing could make Fight Club interesting. Oh, look who's all fucking judgy about Fight Club now. You loved it just the same as everyone else back in the day. I know, I know. Nothing about Fight Club. It's a good movie, just because it's got a shit fandom now. No, I tried. What about Chuck Pallaniak? I'd like some Chuck Pallaniak, but I tried rewatching Fight Club and I just can't, I don't know. I think it's not so much judgy. I'm better than the fandom. There's

too many well-meaning boys made me watch Fight Club. It's the same reason I don't like Prog Rock. I've got nothing actually against Prog Rock. It's quite good. But well-meaning boys made me listen to Pink Floyd a lot and now I hate Pink Floyd. Yeah, no. Yeah, I had the same thing with Pink Floyd and Stoners. I used to hang out with Stoners a lot. See also Star Wars and oh, there's gotta be a bunch of stuff. Breaking Bad, I never really watched. Yeah. If something, I am very, very contrary of once something hits a certain point of popularity, I will refuse to engage in it. Not even in it, I'm cool. I'm gonna tell you I don't like Breaking Bad. It's just I can't be asked to watch this. Now too many people have talked about

it. I missed Malcolm in the middle. That was a good show. There was a very good episode of Bondavision that kind of paid homage to it. I must remember to watch Bondavision if I ever get around to getting a month of Disney for the Beatles documentary. Have you watched that? No, I haven't. I keep meaning to. I've heard good things about it. I was gonna watch it while down to serve Christmas, the big Beatles fan, but I forgot. And it's six hours long. I'm willing to make that kind of commitment for Extended Lord of the Rings on the basis that I don't actually need to pay much attention to Extended Lord of the Rings. And yet you will live tweet it. I like to think you've now got auto-tweet like

just in your head to just like, I know what's going on. I can find a meme without looking. I live tweeted it the first time and the second time that I watched your three in one day. But January this year, my friend and I have been spreading them out. So we've done fellowship in Two Towers. I didn't bother live tweeting. But it's really fun watching them with someone else who is exactly the same kind of shit posting nerd as you because you all get excited at exactly the same bits. Like we're getting to the bit where in Two Towers, Legolas is running up the hill and we're both sat there like, say the thing, say the thing, say the thing. They're taking the hobbits to Isengard. Oh, I'm sorry. That is good revenge for me getting.

We need to remix those and then we can just leave this earthly plane knowing that we've made it a little bit worse. I feel like I've already made this earthly plane worse, Francine. There's someone on Twitter who's making Angwerpork out of Lego and I need all of our listeners to go and have a look at Lego Angwerpork. When we say building Angwerpork out of Lego, that sounds like it could be like quite cool, but not that cool. But I really need you all to understand the amount of fucking detail and love and time I assume that's gone into this and like the photography they've done of all the little scenes and it is the most impressive little weird bit of fan art I've ever seen. It's amazing. They've done like the Bender Drum

so far and I think they're kind of building out from there. And they've been doing like little scenes with Watchmen that take place there. Yeah, like Two Towers and Rinsewind. And they did a great like explosion shot of the Alchemist Guild earlier I think today. So go check it out. Go check it out everyone. Linked in the show notes and tell them we sent you. Yes. It makes us look nice. It's always good to be explicit about our emotional manipulation. Oh, yeah, no. I mean, honestly, the best policy. Because then it's kind of, what's the word, not disarming. Yes. Right. Do you want to make a podcast?

Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make You Frat, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Bratchett's Discworld series, one as time in Cronlodge Gluder. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part three of our discussion of Jingo. Let's have my name really weirdly. My voice broke. Finally. Part three. We're on the final third. Yay. Nearly there. Nearly there. Nearly there. Note on spoilers. We are a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book Jingo.

But we will avoid spoiling major future events in the Discworld series. And we are saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Ground, until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Galloping through the desert on a camel, which you are hitting and going hot, hot, hot. Which we all know camels are massive fans of. Do we think, I forgot to put the camel in characters, but do we think it's related to the camel from Pyramids? Could be, could be. Then again, perhaps it would result in the implication that all camels are related in the same way that like, you don't ask every Irish person if they know anyone else from

Dublin, you know? Yeah, I suppose. All right. Sorry for my accidental camel racism right off the back. Is it xenophobia? Camel xenophobia. What's species? Racism. Speciesism. Francine, have we got anything to follow up on before I keep digging this hole? Sure, sure. I think I dug that hole for you. There wasn't really a hole to dig. I've really got the hump now. I'm sorry. Ding-ding. Firefighters. Of course. We talked briefly about firefighters that set fire to things in Angkor Pork. Yeah. So I looked into that out of interest. Firefighter doing that, historically I couldn't immediately find anything about, but I did go down a little rabbit hole reading about

firefighter arson, which is apparently like, concerningly common in some parts of the world, North America, particularly. I think they do it for attention. Right. And I guess if like, you're a pyromaniac in waiting, then being around that much fire would probably bring it out on you. Yeah. But then historical interest at one point in American history again, this might be true for all parts of the world, but American stuff's easiest to find. There was the issue that insurance companies used to only pay the first force to the scenes. This is like 1800s, I think. Yeah. And so this kind of led to a scramble because they were all volunteer units at the time for them to get to the fire. So they like, it's literally the

first ones to get water on the fire would be the ones who got paid. It was mad scramble to get there and quite bad behavior once they were there quite a lot of the time. Like they drank a lot. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Nice. Thank you for the follow up. Nadja, you want to tell me what happened previously? Previously, on Jingo. Ankh Maupork is at war with Klatch. The city's gone to rust while Vettnari's gone underground slash underwater, which leaves Samuel Vimes to forge his own path. Members of the watch, now technically a regiment, dive down one leg of the Trials of Time, hop aboard a vessel or three and end up in a roundabout way in hostile territory. Vimes becomes hostage to a group of

pleasantly terrifying warriors. Klatch and Bigwig, Prince Cadrash strategizes in the face of Ankh Maupork's worst and dimmest. And Vettnari, Leonard Cohen, Leonard Cohen, Leonard, Colon and Novi explore the depths below the contested land of Leshp. I've got a kind of vocal auto correct going on there. First, we take Leshp. Then we take Berlin. Right, sorry. And this section. Yes. Back to the show plan. We're on tape aground there. So in this section, fuck my auto correct. I've written dessert instead of desert so many times in this summary. Yeah. So many, like two in the first three lines. I'll just read it as a dessert. I think that's only fair. That's a radical honesty.

It's night time in the dessert. Is Dregs and Watchman prefer to face Klatchian combatants? Ah, just a tribaling error. Oh. I'm crumbling under pressure. Take some biscuit. All right, I'll shut up. I'm just going to meet myself. I think that's best. I think I might meet myself as well. I think that's the sport of this. Okay, right. Okay, you can do this. I'm sorry. I'm making everything very difficult for you today and I don't know why. Oh, because otherwise I'd be functioning perfectly for our scene. Absolutely. Yeah. Is night time in the desert as Dregs and Watchman prefer to

prepare to face Klatchian combatants? After a brief scuffle and polite surrender, the now guerrilla soldiers head into the dessert as Vimes heads off with Jabba to find 71 hour Ahmed. The boat surfaces in Al-Khali and Fred and Nobby go clothes acquiring, returning with a donkey in the borrowed aesthetics of a local circus troop. Veterinary explains that they're off to engage in a bit of recon and the ragtag troop perform before heading to the pub. Fred takes charge of not conspicuously more porky and mingling as Betty, the Watchman previously known as Nobs, heads to a nearby well to chat up the local women. The women in question are commiserating over battle-bound fiancés and

Nobby gets carried away cheering them up while Fred draws suspicion and is reliably informed that the army's gone somewhere, the sun does not shine. Valerie, the donkey, climbs a minaret and veterinary misdirects and gets her down before stealing a magic carpet. The trio head for Jabra thanks to Nobby's intel acquired by Feminine Wiles. Vimes rides blind on a camel and learns how 71 hour goddess Timely nicknamed. He's taken to the dead city of Tacticum and as a confused disorganiser delivers appointments, he comes face to face with Ahmed's voice and we learn that Ahmed is in fact a fellow policeman. Ahmed admits to the official assassination of Snowy Slopes and manipulating Vimes to clatch, explaining that Khufra's almost assassin was indeed part of a

clatchy plot to kick off the war. Ahmed started the embassy fire to rescue Khufra from his brother, Prince Cadrums, murderous wishes and Ahmed wants justice. A squad of eight more pork skirmishers attack Vimes and Ahmed and unfortunately they don't all make it before Vimes finds himself face to face with Willikens and the fighting comes to a halt. We learn that Lord Russ' supply planning hasn't panned out and the army is not marching on its stomach. As Vimes and Ahmed watch on, Carrot organizes the dregs, clatchians and more porkians, rallying them to ride under a rolled up flag. Lord Russ surveys his armies and finds himself impressed with his underwhelming efforts. Prince Cadrum surveys Lord Russ' armies and finds himself unimpressed and just underwhelmed

as he heads for a polite breakfast with Russ before the war kicks off proper. Vimes and his ragtag gang of misfit regiments ride up under their flag of surrender and Vimes attempts to place Cadrum under arrest along with the entire battlefield. The armies stand down and Carrot reads their rights as Vimes and Cadrum get confrontational. Just in time, veterinary arrives, an agreement of surrender in hand and Ahmed makes a plan to disappear into the desert. Lord Russ isn't pleased about the chance to surrender and threatens to get political as the armies play football. The men head home, veterinary back in the boat, informed by Fred that the city will be planning his sacking. Vimes takes ship and on the more pork

docks is advised to arrest veterinary for treason. He politely escorts veterinary to the arraignment only to witness the announcement that Leshpa's sunk back into the dread depths from whence it came and more pork's surrender is meaningless. Veterinary takes charge of the city once again. Vimes makes it home for a minute before being summoned back to the palace to learn that Conan and Nobbs will be rewarded with a new traffic beat and he himself is to be rewarded with his wife becoming a Duchess. And as Leshpians battle over the last of the driftwood and a not dead disorganiser swims in a shark, a second convivium takes place and Vimes leads the procession. Once more, he breaks to give chase. We got that. The deserts follows him.

Did not interrupt you, but I should have because that would have made a lot more sense then. It's all right, I've got that. Kind of just stuck a post-it on my brain to revisit and it didn't, yeah, it didn't slot back in. Helicopter and loincloth watch. I'm going with flying carpet for helicopter. Yep. It does fly. Better than most of them. Close enough. Leonard's carefully drawn, not overdressed warriors. This is pencil lovingly caresses the paper.

I feel like there's a hint of loincloth implied there. Well, possibly. I feel like that's how Leonard would draw. I don't know. I've seen some of Leonardo's ones. Well, look, I'm choosing not to imagine them dicks out while rowing. Yeah, all right, all right, fair. Therefore a loincloth. Otherwise, I think, you know, splinters if the boat's made of wood. Yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, and one thing I haven't mentioned, but death is here. We've already seen him in the book, but he's here now. He briefly meets the disorganiser. Yes. It's kind to him. He's kind to him. Frenzy. Also my diary. Bingley, bingley beep.

Frenzy. Quotes. Quotes. Quotes. I'm first because you're at the end, aren't you? You stole my bit. I don't care. That's fair. You get to read out a fat poem today. Yeah, so I know you're not really upset. Page 372 for me near the bottom.

The sensation flowed into his veins like fresh warm blood. It was the feeling that you got when the law ran out. You looked into a mocking face on the other side of it, and you decided you couldn't go on living if you did not step over the line and do one clean thing. I just thought that was good. I mean, I'm going to talk more about the scene that happens in, and everything that happens around that section later. The phrase, when the law runs out, is great, isn't it?

It's just suddenly being faced with this wall of corruption. It's such a good mirror to the stone face find story. That I just think it's... We were saying it was almost embodying him in that point, wasn't he? Yeah, and then the little breaking of tension with that narrow. Yes. Grabbing the arrow is fastidiously as a society lady holding something sticky. Your quote. Yeah, it says, right at the end, and it is, and Sam Vines ran.

He tore off his cloak and whirled away his plumed hat, and he ran and ran. There would be trouble later on. People would ask questions, but that was later on. But now, gloriously uncomplicated and wonderfully clean, and hopefully with never an end under a clear sky in a world untarnished. That was only the chase. And I thought that was a brilliant description, or like a summary of Vines as Terrier, because...

I've always quite liked the actor of Vines as Veterinary Terrier. Now, having spent some years with a Terrier, which I hadn't when I first read all of these, I definitely get the kind of pure joy they seem to get from the chasing, and the kind of complete lack of acknowledgement that there are consequences. D&O's very well to come back when called, and to generally be fairly obedient these days. But if she's chasing something, it's like a fixed pattern behavior, I think it's called. Various species, it's just like, that's what's going to happen. This is happening. Chase, chase. Vines is very that.

They've never really thought to compare. I know the whole Veterinary Terrier thing, but I never thought to compare Vines specifically to your dog. Yeah, no, it's more Terrier in general. I wouldn't say Dea shares many traits with Vines. She's not the Vimes-iest dog I've ever met. No, she will do the whole tearing at a thing until she finds its weakness and chasing things, but apart from that,

she's very cuddly and has never yet tried to arrest an entire army yet. I also now like the idea that just most of the watchbooks are effectively Veterinary throwing a tennis ball for Vines. Yes, and some of them, he's being very unkind and using a laser pointer. Right, characters, which I somehow didn't a really weird order. I'm sorry about that. I'm not sure what happened to my brain there. That's all right. Let's jump around. It's fun.

Let's hop about. First up, Al-Jibla. Al-Jibla, our favourite infinitely iterating template. Yes, we haven't actually spent much time with Dibla for a while, so it's nice to... Honest stick. Yeah. Honest stick. It's nice to have a visit from one of his compatriots. Well, he had a couple of books where he took quite a large role, didn't he?

So I imagine he's lying low. Yeah, after the snow globes. Fucking snow globes. So yeah, so it's nice to see him or see an iteration. And then bigger one, more excited. We're finally at the reason I love this character. Willakins. Willakins.

Willakins. I'll cut your tongue off, you greasy. Is that you, sir Samuel? Oh, he's ever sewed jeeps in this one, isn't he? He's sewed jeeps. Ah-ha-ha-ha, sir. Said Willakins. Do excuse me one moment, sir.

Knock it off you mother loving sons of bitches. I had no apprehension of your presence, sir. Then there's the... Well, we're having a brew up. I'm sorry, sir, you don't have a biscuit, do you? I'd hate to offer tea without, but we haven't eaten for two days. Been a while between noses, has it? Good old Willakins. And then the very touching bit at the end.

And yeah, it's just a really nice circle, isn't it? It's a nice circle, and it's nice to get that layer to the... There's a reason he's one of my favourite side characters, and some of it is he's incredibly polite, while also being willing to bite a man's nose off thing. I support it as a character. Note. Agreed.

Good old Willakins. Well done, Will. Not Will, sorry. That was too much. I was too familiar with him. He would never accept this. No. Prince Cadrum.

Prince Cadrum. Sorry, I was finding a page. Speaking of people who will not accept informalities, actually, I don't know. Whatever. I tried to segue, it didn't work. Prince Cadrum. I don't know.

He licked a sword. That's not very formal. Yeah, it's very unhygienic, but did make a good point. Showboating. He did make a good point. Unless there's a thing about Damascus steel the other day, where does that make me think?

What about Damascus steel? What the forging process? Yeah, about how we don't know what it was. Ah, right off. It was like a lost secret. I think they're trying to like, like they've got some ideas now, but it was this incredible steel,

and we just, yeah, just lost the secret of it. Because I reread the Aragon books a couple months ago, and there's a whole long scene where someone forges a sword in that. I started reading up about sword forging techniques, and that was a cool rabbit hole. Was this when you were telling me you might build a forge on the balcony?

Yeah, I want to be a blacksmith. I think you'd make a good blacksmith. I would make a really hot blacksmith. You would, yeah. I think that would be a really good aesthetic for you, and you know you'd be good at it. You've got like a weird amount of awful body strength, and not like weird, but you know what I mean.

Unexpected amount of body strength, and you're good at making things, so yeah. I'm all for this. I will say like, as a, although I'm supportive of your dreams, I'm also supportive of your continuation on this planet, so maybe wait until you've got a slightly bigger property to build a forge. Yeah, okay, that's fair.

I'll accept that. As we are trapped in these flesh prisons. As we are stuck in the flesh prisons. I'll suppose there wouldn't be much cool for a blacksmith if we weren't programming. Our program source. Technically, you'll be there. When you're doing your game, Dev, you can make people armour.

Yes. Not quite satisfying, perhaps. Bioware. Hi, Ami. I'm assuming they're listening. Yeah. All of Bioware listen to this podcast. Oh, I really like to think my future employers

don't listen to this podcast, but yes. Anyway, anything anarchic I may say on this podcast, feel the in good humour. Absolutely. Right, yeah, sorry, Prince Cadrum. Yeah, I don't have a lot to say about him, apart from... I think he's very well written considering he's only in two scenes. Yeah, you get the idea, don't you?

Yeah, you get the Empire Builder Prince. And has come upon this thing that so many Empire Builders do, which is that the bigger you make your boundaries, the more boundaries you've got to defend, and the more people you've got within them to make happy. I like veterinary looking at it as a brains race, rather than a gnomes race as well. Like I think he sees enough of a challenge with Clatch,

with let's maybe take Prince Cadrum out of the picture. Yeah, yeah. And Prince Cadrum is like, let's pick an enemy that everyone can agree is an enemy. Yeah, and we're all very willing to dislike Hank Morpore, can't we? Moving on to Nobby, because I think we'll talk more about the Prince later. Yeah, Nobby's probably the character I have the most to say about.

Well, no, just the whole, just because I happen to be a woman jumping into the identity cell wholeheartedly. And it's one of those like... Bit heavy-handed. Yeah, exactly. I'm not like, I don't want to jump on some massively offended high horse. It's not offensive, it's just over labored. Yeah, yeah.

It's something that is a joke from Life of Brian. One of the characters is Judith and wants the right to have babies. And there's a very similar joke in one of the like six Nobby bits about, oh, just because I happen to be a woman, why do I have to do the cooking? Yes, which, yeah, it's an overdone bit, isn't it? That's all. It's an overdone bit.

It may be laugh slightly that he's like, well, you just started doing it, no one asked you to. Yeah, it does make me laugh that Nobby is taking on the, oh, you're oppressing me. Are we? Are we Nobby? Are we? Have you just got a bit too into this?

I like his vehement defense of his donkey. I do. I support Nobby and Valerie as a friendship. I think it's very sweet that he burst into tears while speaking to the women for the first time. He got a bit of emotional support and was allowed to let it all out. And that was kind of a more subtle way of showing like the differences in female relationships, perhaps, but...

I like the scene with him and the classroom women. It is a bit sort of, when I first wrote it, it was like, ah, yes, women can't go in the pub, it is written. It's a bit like lazy. Ah, let's make the foreign country just slightly weirdly sexist. I mean, what country is this based off? Yeah, I know. And it does fit the narrative that we're talking about.

It was like a brief, hmm, do I have my hackles up? I can't tell. I'm quite tired moment. I think there is not much to be said. I don't think it's gone any further or actually anywhere near the limit. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Also, Angkor Pork is...

Do you know, I've never heard... No, beers, I was about to say. I was like, I can't think of a bar scene with women in it, but beers and I think Susan went to the broken drum. Susan did go to the broken drum. She was somewhat in disguise and semi-visible at the time. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to hang out in many of those Angkor Pork bars on my own. No, probably not.

Without the voice of my eternal grandfather to call upon if I got in trouble. Well, she was specifically at the broken drum for a gig, and I used to do gigs at Prius. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. Fairly similar. No longer exists, unfortunately. Speaking of the women, we have Barna Nettal and Mrs. Atbar, the mother-in-law.

Briefly. Wait, no, the mother-in-law. They're the older women, do we mean? Yeah. Like the much older women. Yeah, right, right. Because the middle generation stormed off in between. Yes, Nobby realised that if you cut her in half,

the words mother-in-law would be all the way through. I mean, I do like that. I suspect you know a lot about the pleasures of men. Oh yeah, a beer's favourite. You can't beat a good cigar. And it's like, oh, she's funny. It's like, oh, I'm bad at this. It's very sweet of Nobby to get a nice getting to hang out with a bunch of women

and just be treated nicely thing. Yeah, yeah, it was a little treat for him. And I like that it helps him mature enough that he can reconsider Verity Push-Bram as a prospect. Yeah, a source of eels if nothing else. Oh, fuck, that's another song in my head. What? The eel song from the mighty bush.

Oh, that's not quite enough words to stick in your head for long, don't worry. They'll soon be replaced again by a bunch of women. Where are you? Right, where am I? So yeah, Nobby, gender stuff. Good on him for exploring that side of himself. Yeah, yeah.

Well done, Nobby. Like everyone should have to wear some revealing gauze and saucepans at some point to go on an emotional journey. Yeah, certainly. It's a coming of age trope, isn't it? Yeah, you've got to get your pots and pans on. Get your pots and pans and gauze. I looked into the word nought girl, by the way,

because that was mentioned. And apparently it's a particular type of... I don't want to use the term exotic dancer, because that seems a bit odd now, but entertainment dancer in India. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

I just went out. The troupe they stole the costumes from were Guli, Guli and Betty. Yes. Is that a... Annotated Pranchet had something about it being a reference to something I've never heard of. Yes. Which I feel like this is also the time to went out there.

A, I am aware there are a bunch of Lawrence of Arabia references because I looked at Annotated Pranchet. I've never seen Lawrence of Arabia, so I'm not going to point them all up. Anyway, what's the other thing there's references to that I wouldn't get? Oh, yeah. Veterinaries like Pata, like Dunkey, Minaret, Minaret, Dunkey, Egg Bellen, Mellon Egg.

That's a reference to Tommy Cooper, who's like an old British comedian who wore a fez. Oh, yeah. I only know that. I'd like I'd never heard of him. I only know that because I saw a Facebook post about the fact that younger readers probably wouldn't get that reference. Like a few weeks ago when I kind of made a mental note of,

no, I wouldn't have known who that is. Anyway, who was I actually going to talk about? Ahmed. Ahmed. 71 hour Ahmed. 71 hour Ahmed. We learn why. Why?

Gerard. Why? So he's called 71 hour Ahmed because Dregs officially always owe hospitality for three days, which is 72 hours. Three days. And Ahmed killed someone at the 71 hour point in his own tent. I didn't wait an hour. And I like that we learn about it twice.

The first, we learn about it from Jabba, who's appalled by it, and then sort of says, you know, as an afterthought, I mean, I guess the guy killed an entire village, but whatever. Yeah, it's a three days. And then you get the Ahmed side of it of, you know, he poisoned the only well for 20 fucking miles. Why would I wait an hour? And I had the execution warrant or whatever it was.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of him going against tradition in a way that all of the ineffectual lot are refusing to do. Yes. Which is nice when you then parallel it to Prince Cadrum needs to be arrested at the end, but who's the court there? Yeah.

It's an interesting one, him being like the policeman for this whole huge range. I was reading some time ago about parts of Australia that have like a population of I can 20 over 500 square miles or something ridiculous and one policeman for that whole thing. Yeah. A very different job, as he was saying, and a very interesting one. Yeah. Although I think there's a bit less of hunting people with the sword in Australia. More kangaroos.

Less, but not, not obvious. Sometimes hunting a kangaroo with the sword. I wouldn't put it past him. Kangaroo meat's very cheap in Australia, and I can only imagine that's why. Yeah, possibly swords. Swords are doing it. I like the reveal that he was a member of the Assassin's Guild. Yeah.

Yes. It was like being patronized by rich fucks for a few years. None of this scares me now. I'm like, yeah, I get that. Yeah. I bet. It's... I wouldn't have done well at Borley School.

He's like, oh, this is the best years of my life they tell me. They tell me. If I shut my eyes, I can still recall the taste of that peculiar custard we used to get on Mondays. I can make that custard. The trick is, I must have said this on the podcast before we've been doing this too long. The trick is to use blemange powder. Listeners, if you want that peculiar custard. If you want the pink custard.

If you use the long powder and just don't let it set, yeah. And if I haven't already, I will link a recipe to school dinner, chocolate, break and pink custard, which I've used a couple of times too. Great effect. It's very good. I once broke one of the bowls at school, trying to get through like one of those. The chocolates, yeah. I never ate the chocolate brick at school.

Because I was... I'll make you some. No, I mean, I've had it since because I was... In primary school, I was still really intolerant chocolate, so I never had the chocolate dessert. Oh, did you have the vanilla brick though? I had the vanilla brick, so I was aware, but I never had the chocolate brick. You get the textural frustration of a child that can't really

eat what it's given with a spoon. Similar to the child whose mouth is glued shut for an entire day after a portion of conflict art. Oh, yes. Oh, I might try and make that. I've got a recipe for conflict art somewhere. I reckon that's why I liked that Polish cake so much. Because it's like cake and pie.

Because it's jam. Yeah. Yeah, it's the... Yeah, I thought that was it. I ate it. I was like, this is really good and familiar. And obviously, I'm not eating it, but it's just good. And yeah, I reckon that's what...

Okay, anyway. What? I didn't eat before doing this. That will become increasingly apparent listeners. You should have told me. I could have waited so you could eat. Oh, fuck me. It's 20 to 9.

How did that happen? All right, carry on. Let's go. Fibble, vimes. I'm not editing this. Vimes, vimes, vimes, vimes. I like this whole interplay between vimes and somebody when I'm at where I'm at.

It's like, no, you don't want to suspect a clatchy. And because that makes you like the likes of Sergeant Colin and the rest of the clatchy and fags are made of camel dung, camel dung brigade, which again, for American listeners, fags in this context mean cigarettes. I always feel like I need to throw that in. And it's this sort of just let bastards be bastards,

like be really equal and accept that there's bastards on all sides here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just not just as, but it is also racist, not quite right, but in its own way to like be, oh, they're all, it's the kind of noble savage thing almost. Yeah.

But a bit, yeah. It's overcorrection to the point of being patronizing. Yeah, exactly. And it's nice to see vimes have the bigger version of the realization he had with the small and phased man challenging him about the not imprisoned chorus. Yeah. There's lots of like nice, you know, I haven't done a big red herring section,

but we had lots of nice seeds like right in the first section, Fessenari talking about the fact that they trained quite a lot of clatchy and assassins in Ankh-Morpog, so to get that paying off. And then, and vimes going into these big plans of he wishes he could kind of have a bigger policeman the size of a country and deal with the big crimes, make laws for countries, not just for people. Yeah, it's not that factual when you do it, though. Well, all right, yeah, but it can feel optimistic.

Maybe it would be vimes, yeah. Maybe it would be if it was vimes, but. Yeah. Look at me being all down on the UN like I could do better. I could. Just don't want to. Quickly, because there's some trouble brewing. Just a little war with Russia.

No, we'd have 100,000 troops on the border, 99,999, it's fine. Mm-hmm. Sibyl. War with Russia. Yeah, Sibyl, sorry. Jesus. Love Sibyl. Now we're duchess.

I love that she's knitting this ridiculous sock. He hasn't gotten the hang of it. It acts fairly. And after that little reunion, and then vimes gets dragged to the palace and veterinary makes a comment on the nice scarf he's wearing. Oh, yeah. Fine. Because I'm wearing this.

Obviously, I'm wearing this, dear, shut up. Oh, maybe he's going all the way. But she's so patient. Like, he just fucked off without telling her, didn't he? I feel like he did, like he must have had a message sent to her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She found out somehow, but still. You know?

But yeah, no, he didn't go and say. If I got like a secondhand thing from Jack saying, I've fucked off to another country, I'll be back one day. Also, war. I'd be like. Well, how am I meant to plan dinner for the week? You know, just inconsiderate. Yes, I feel like that would be your reaction.

But I do also like this whole thing with Etinara saying, yes, I'm sure she wouldn't feel anything about being a duchess. Wouldn't be at all faintly smug. She'd be entirely unmoved and not faintly smug in any way. She wouldn't swank. She'd just be very comfortable knowing that they knew, that she knew, that they knew. And I respect that.

I think if anyone deserves to be a duchess, it is Sibyl who very much already has the bearing of a duchess. Agreed. Obviously abolish the peerage and what have you, but in this context. Of course. Of course. Speaking of knowing, how about curiosity in the form of squid?

This is a fun callback. The curious squid, as Lesh was sunk again, and the curious squid is swimming about it. They had no idea why at enormous intervals, their city disappeared up into the sky, but it never went away for very long. It was just one of those things. Things happened, or sometimes they didn't.

Which I like, is a nice callback to the substitious thing, where sometimes things just happen is one of the substitions. So the curious squid, is a very substitious squid. Yes, yes. And I'm glad it's got its nice little city to swim about in. Yes, I was expecting that there would be another mention of, like, the fact they had colours through language, you know. Yeah.

Which didn't come up again, which is a shame, because if it had, I'd have looked into it for this one, or rather I'd have said, Joanna, I assume you're looking into this, because that's more of your area of expertise. Yeah, I feel like that was a detail that would have gone into more deeply. And then maybe Pratchett realised there were too many tangents, which is something we never realised.

Like, maybe I can't get that much marine biology in here. Next time, we'll set a book underwater. And then locations. We have the desert. We do. And we have a reconnection with the idea I liked. I think it was possibly in a previous section, maybe even in a previous book.

We change in the desert. You can feel your mind expand to the horizons. No wonder this is where religions start. Yeah. This idea of suddenly being in this massive open space, and it just does things to your brain. Yeah. Which I thought was a very, very nice description.

Anyway, the desert, it is vast. Vast, yeah. Swallows people. And then from wide to tall, minaret. Minaret? Is that a location, Joanna? Is that a full location, is it? It's a physical place.

The minaret is located. Yeah, but I notice like no caravan sign or... All right, fine. This is a little bit I liked, but I'd already put too many in that section. Oh, well, how about the minaret? I like the donkey and minaret a bit. I like veterinary being the one who can get the donkey

down from the minaret, even as the expert very, very calmly. It keeps explaining. Can't turn around. See, past time, can't turn around. Can't turn around. Won't go backwards. Well-known fact. We've all met that expert.

Yes. That was a fake donkey head, I thought. Yeah, he had a donkey in his pocket all along. Obviously, seeing him do it with doves. But also, I wanted to make sure I knew what a minaret was and that I was picturing the right thing, so I googled minarets. And they are these very long, tall, thin towers,

usually built on mosques. And then this bit, not so much something I like, but just a very her moment. You know, when you google something and then you get, like, suggested questions people have asked. So I googled minaret and saw the question, why are minarets banned in Switzerland? I thought that there's got to be more to,

you can't just, like, minarets are banned in Switzerland. Islamophobia, it was the 2009 Swiss minaret referendum and a right-wing party ran this referendum to ban minarets being built on buildings. Right. And all sorts of weird claims, but it was, they're built on mosques. It was a, to discourage mosque building.

But it passed with 56% of the vote and minarets are banned in Switzerland. Gosh. Was there a problem with many minarets being, or not a problem, but you know, was this provoked in some way by a lot of minarets, or did they just decide on something they thought might be quite easy to pass?

There were people making complaints and trying to, like, prevent them being built before an official referendum came passed. They were individual small groups trying to claim all sorts of violation of building regulations because it's a particularly tall tower, obviously. There are building regulations that have to be stuck to and things have to be applied for.

And it was just being repeatedly blocked through government even before the ban actually happened. It looks like in Sabaphobia in Switzerland is very institutional. I know. It's, that was part of the... Come on, Switzerland.

Yeah. Guys, unban your minarets. Is it? Where else are the donkeys going to go? I like minarets. I do. It's cool. Add a bit of interest to this timeline.

Yeah. Anyway. So I've linked to the Wikipedia page in the show notes if anyone wants to read more about the 2009 Swiss Minaret referendum. Yeah, it's just having a little scroll as we were talking there. That's a, what, a disappointingly long article as well.

Yeah. As in so many sections of people who supported it. Yeah. Depressing. Yes. Onto older, more distant, imperialism. Tacticum. The Dead City.

Alexandria, I suppose. Yeah. I would assume that's the big reference there. Great library there, one time. Yeah. Damn. Shame about the fire. Should have paid your fire service better.

There we go. Got back on track. It's kind of. Tacticum is the Dead City that was built by General Tacticus, including a big Latin sign that says, I can see your house from here. But there's an Ottoman dias reference, and that's one of my favorite poems.

There's, he pulled himself up and, one was a little higher than the others, he pulled himself up and found on its flat top, two huge feet. A statue must have stood there. It probably stood, if I was doing anything about statues in some kind of noble attitude.

Now I had gone and there were just feet broken off at the ankles. Giant stone feet are a very effective way, I think, of showing a dead civilization, although I will still always present lost for showing a giant stone foot and not really paying it off well enough. No, and never explaining why I'd only had four toes.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I wasn't trying not to shoehorn a lost reference in there, so thank you. I'm aware not every reference to just giant stone feet is an Ozymandias reference, but like this fairly clearly is. I don't know, I feel like it would be pretty hard

from practice to make a giant stone feet reference and not have it a bit Ozymandias. Well, I feel like that Ozymandias always feels a little bit implied. Yeah, at least. But I'll save making the listeners listen to me read the poem for what was good to be at least the second time on this podcast,

until at the end, so you can just skip it if you want. Yeah. They nicked Jonah's last paragraph moment, so. Yeah. And I can't just say that all the time. This is a concession, so we did negotiations like in the Art of War. Yes.

Well, Francine can't have actually got a massive army behind my sofa, they're just all crouching down. Well, what are you going to do about it? We're in different places. Fuck. You buffoon, you amateur. Well, your army's right outside my door, is it? I haven't got an army because if you'd read the Art of War,

if you'd read the Art of War, you should know that you don't start amassing armies until you're absolutely sure what to do with them. They're expensive. Why are we at war? Oh, I don't think we are, no. Oh, okay, good. I just said the word concession or negotiation,

and that took me into war mode. We both got food military there. Yeah, sorry. Little bits we liked. My first one is Colin trying to find an appropriate food stuff to use in a battle cry. Gods ain't more pork on my mum's favourite knuckle sandwich. And to complain about Nobby's version of,

for the gods ain't more pork. And amazing things Nobby's mum can do with cheese. Snappy. I like that as a battle cry. I might start using it. Speaking of snappy, snapping out of it. Oh, very good. Yeah.

Yeah, this is when Mimes is, it's just a very recognisable moment. He's kind of going down his own internal rabbit hole, or he has been for a while. He's just been very caught up on what's going on immediately around him. And he's like, right, I've got to organise all these people who I've been held captive with.

Because as each incident happened, he's like being reactive to it. And then just suddenly he realises, no, wait, no, I don't need to try and organise these. I need to go and do what I'm here for. Yeah. And it was just really well written. Like he didn't make it dramatic or anything.

It was just a, yeah, just a, no, I need to go. We're leaving. Bye. And that was it. Yeah. That was a very good moment. I liked it.

It was kind of a build-up, something that didn't happen. I thought it was good. Yeah. Small victories. Small victories, Lord Rust claiming all of the marvellous underdog victories that Ant Moorpork has almost had.

General Tatskis was outnumbered 10-1 when he took the Passer Valley B. There is Menraal Mounted on Elephant, sir. Speaking of, have you gotten a relevant elephant for me? Um, it's the David Weld Sheldrick Trust, again, because I was looking at the Twitter earlier and no, I don't have one. But they're doing some really cool photography

from the overhead drones they're using to map elephants and keep an eye on them and stuff. And there's some really nice photographs. And all three of the herds they've photographed recently had young ones mixed in, which is very nice and good for the elephants. Baby elephants are nice. We like baby elephants.

Baby elephants, I got very emotional about baby elephant earlier. It's very cute. It was waving its trunk. It kind of made a little purry rumble noise. And I'm not even hormonal. That just made me very emotional. I had a feeling and it wasn't a terrible feeling.

So. Oh, that's nice. What a treat. I can't afford therapy, but I think it's doing it for me. Baby elephants. Baby elephants and podcasting. That's therapy.

Yeah. Talking to you about absolute bullshit. For a couple of hours has always been a good form of therapy for us. And yeah, baby elephants are better than most things. That is true. Anyway, okay. Talking about small things.

How about making them bigger? Oh, yeah. Like a big elephant. This is just a really nice one-two punch of lines, which is, that's to make things bigger device, isn't it, said Lord Rust? You are upstate. They were only invented last year.

I didn't buy this. My Lord, I inherited it from my grandfather. Hmm. Did you look up where telescopes come from? No, because there were too many things and I didn't want to go down tension until rabbit holes because I thought you'd yell at me. I didn't yell at you for tension until rabbit holes.

I yell at you for the bullet points. I enjoy them while we're going through them. Exactly. I felt like there were a lot of bullet points. But to clarify, and this was confirmed in annotated Pratchett, but I thought so, the make things bigger device is not a Leonard invention. Ponder Stibbins came up with it.

Oh, yeah. That's just a very Leonard name. It's a very Leonard name, but I just like the one too. They were invented last year. I inherited it from my grandfather. Yes. Speaking of ending up with things,

that wasn't quite as good a segue. That was good. Fred Souvenirs. Which are you a buying Souvenirs person? I used to be. I'm not saying much anymore. Sometimes I went through a phase of collecting fridge magnets, but they fall off.

I don't know. I always feel like I want to bring something home from a new place I've been to. Just as a, I don't know. I'm a mentor. I've been here. Yeah. But the older I get, the less of that,

just because I really am terrible for accumulating clutter. Yeah. When I was a kid and we used to do, like we did a couple of like those sort of cheapy package holidays to Greek islands and things. And it was a big thing that I had to bring something back for each friend. And there would be like drama.

If I got that one, a seahorse necklace, but didn't get that one, a seashell necklace. I remember this, yeah. Which these, I don't do a lot of, I don't go on a lot of holidays. No. And none of us really give a shit if we get Souvenirs or not. It's always delightful if someone gives me something.

It's delightful because it's unexpected. And if, say, a partner went away and bought goat bells and a coffee pot and a miniature camel saddle and a strange glass tube with little bands of different color sand, and I would hate that because I've worked very hard to remove. You're saying you don't want a fur hump that smells of goat leaking sand in your living room floor.

I just don't think it really goes with my dystopia lux aesthetic. That's okay. I've got the receipt. Okay. Where did you go? It's all right. Don't ask questions. That's fine.

Let's move. Francine, stop espionaging. And some wind change to do it, Francine. Several times because it's a motif. No, I'm going to keep using that word now. I've remembered it. I'm proud of you. First in Tacticum.

Actually, I think I haven't before this, but in Tacticum was a good one for two reasons, one because it's called repetition of theme here and also because there are these ancient cities that have become abandoned for reasons we know not what, but which are potentially to do with things like them drying up because of climate change and the wind literally just blowing the fucking topsoil off them in some cases.

And in some cases, we've seen that happen because we do things like E.G. putting goats on an island and letting them fuck the entire thing up until the wind changes one day and then all the soil's gone and then that's it. Can't resoil it very easily. All those freak rains of tin sardines that completely destroy an entire country's economy. Oh, yes.

I mean, it just causes high for inflation, doesn't it? If you've already got a sardine-based economy, that seems great when it starts raining sardines, but then... Get inflation and concussion. Sorry, I ruined your actually quite good point there. No, no, I always enjoy sardine tendons. You know me. Good old Francine enjoys sardine tendons, Carol.

That's what they call you. Oh, I'm getting tired again. Okay, look at me not drinking a coffee right now. It is nine o'clock and I did not make myself another coffee. You're drinking a diet coke. I am, but shush, because the next part of my sentence is going to be, and therefore, if I don't sleep tonight, it's not my fault. You're drinking a diet coke though, Francine.

But it was already open. Oh, that's fine then, it's not caffeinated if it was already open. I meant the sin of conceiving caffeine when I shouldn't is watered down by the avoided sin of wasting the fizz in a drink. I would have drunk it anyway, but... From a tin can of diet coke to a tinfoil hat moment, Francine. Okay, very good. All right, so stay with me.

Is this going to get wake up people? Because I'm going to take my hat off, if so. Oh gosh, but no, no, no. Keep your hat on for now, because I'm not sure you're going to be very impressed. So when they're in veterinary's office, and he gets made a duke, and when he's just talking to veterinary on his own near the end, and he's talking about, he says, all right, but look, I thought only a king can make someone a duke.

It's not like all these knights and barons that's just well political, but something like a jeep meter. Look to veterinary, and then a carrot. Veterinary said he'd been reminded. I'm sure if there ever is a king in Antmoor pork again, he would choose to ratify my decision. So veterinary smoothly. And now, you can choose to interpret that as a carrot doing his usual thing,

of just bringing up obscure ancient law as a kind of point of interest, or oh, you could always do this for command of items type thing. Yeah. Because binds in veterinary both kind of tacitly. Yeah, tacitly acknowledge that carrot probably would be king if they wanted such thing, and if you wanted such thing. But I like to think that in that moment of like carrot and veterinary thing alone, and you'll never know because we never get the internal one log of either of those two characters.

The carrot will say, or maybe veterinary will ask a kind of weird permission, or the carrot will like, both of them will acknowledge that he is the king of Antmoor pork, but has no interest in being so. But in moments like this might say, yeah, you can make him a duke. That's something I will say as a king kind of thing. Yeah. Maybe there is more behind the scenes to this carrot as king

than we'll ever get to find out. I really want a headcanon that is true, because I just really like the idea of carrot getting to have those moments behind the scenes. And I say guessing to because not in a way that I feel like he particularly deserves them, he's very happy with the life he has. But that it's good for veterinary to acknowledge that almost enough. There's the real thing that could knock me off here if it really was wanted, more than any kind of silly conspiracy.

If carrot just stood up and said, yeah, I'm king, that's it. Yeah, especially because he's just like charisma. Exactly, because carrot is carrot. Veterinary could not help politic carrot if it really came down to it. And I like to imagine that that's tacitly or not tacitly, but more specifically dealt with behind the scenes. Anyway, yeah, that's my tinfoil headcanon. Good, I'm glad you're on board with this.

Very on board with it. Yeah, I don't think we'll ever get more confirmation than that, but I just enjoyed that. Also, now we're talking about carrot. I really enjoyed the bit where Angwa was talking about why she loves him. I think that was a really well done bit. Just those couple of pages, I won't read out quotes, because it's a whole long thing and it's just nice altogether.

But yeah. Yeah, she sort of acknowledged it's not quite the same reason everyone else follows him, but he's kind without thinking about it. Yeah, yeah, he's just auto-automatically a good person. That's why I like my husband, I think. I think that's why that bit rang through. The next bit where she was talking about him, making room in his head for people and everything like that, not so much,

because that could be even more introverted than either Labour or not. Yeah. Just the whole, like, you're just a good person, aren't you? Weird. He's always thrown me off of it. I like it because... Nobody tell him. No, nobody let him know that I do not deserve him.

It's very important. It's fine, he doesn't listen to this. Cool. I enjoy the anger acknowledges and a couple of other characters acknowledge and the book acknowledges with Carrot. The part of the reason people follow him is just out of a sick fascination of seeing what happens next. Yeah, it's like rubber-necking, but slightly more wholesome.

And it is kind of that for her as well. It's partly like, he's just so kind, it's amazing. And part of it's like, he's just so kind, it's amazing. Yeah. It's like, I'm not going to not find out what happens next. So onto the bigger things then. Which one did you want to do these in? Because you've got slightly more serious ones.

Do you want to start with those or finish with those? I'll lead off with the alternate timeline and kind of go into what I've got and you dive in as and when and we'll transition into yours. Okay, cool. But yeah, the alternate timeline, I mentioned in the last section that this bit with the disorganiser, I always forget it's in this book and it's just so heartbreaking, dumped in this sentence. So when you actually read out loud, 802am, death of corporal little bottom,

803am, death of surgeon detritus, 8033, 3am and seven seconds, death of constable visit, and death of Captain Carrot Iron Foundesson. And if I'm thinking to himself, I really didn't, I nearly stayed in Ankh-Morpork and this is, that's what would have happened. Yeah. From a practical level, is it that them getting there somehow stopped the invasion?

So the whole reason- Because I'm confused that the invasion would have happened by this point? No, so the whole reason, I don't think it's a clutching invasion. I don't think it's just a clutching invasion. I think it's a combination of clutching forces and Rust sends the boats off because Vines goes off with Jenkins. That's right. So yeah, so it sends up on clutch turf.

Yeah, okay, got it. Yeah. There it is. Without that opening up on- I was like, I missed something. I'm sure it was explained this isn't like a plot-holdy kind of book. Yeah. Okay, okay, thank you.

Yeah. Anyway, yeah, it's heartbreaking, fuck. And it's such a short bit, isn't it? And it looms so large in my head of just remembering, like, disqueld my- Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the big scenes I remember because you just see everyone die very quickly, although they don't, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. And actually, Little Bossam and Detritus don't really get a lot to do in this book. No. No, Detritus gets to beat some people up cleverly during the night time, and that's it. Yes. I like that he gets his smart moments in the night. But you get, slightly later on, Vime's kind of thinking through it. And it's when he sort of sat down in shock after veterinary sort of taken over at the

last minute at that sort of breakfast meeting. And he's not sure what to do now. And he's like, I mean, at least there is a future. He didn't have to think about the disorganiser's death roll, which sounded so accurate. So he's kind of stuck with this, like, I have no control over this now, but like, I must have done the right thing, because if I hadn't done this. Yeah, at least you know you made the right choice. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No matter what happens now, it wasn't that. And it sounds like, yeah, that was definitely the other. But it's in there with this section of, after this paragraph of veterinary very much, sort of putting him back in his box almost. Very difficult for him and quite difficult to read in a way, isn't it? It's like, ah, but necessary, but like, ah.

But it kind of goes into this bigger thing, especially in this section, but kind of across the whole book of how disposable people are. Because every time you come, stop looking at a big army and come down to an individual soldier, it's so human and so not disposable and no one wants this. Yeah. There's, when they're dealing with the Clatchians and the Dregs are convincing them to surrender. And the commander gives in without a fight and he says, you know, how that man can make water run uphill? He has a commander. I love the idea of giving him without a fight.

I have fought for 10 years giving him without a fight is what I've always wanted to do. Yeah. That bit about the water uphill commander thing, by the way, is apparently a warship down reference. Oh, is it? Yeah, I didn't feel that. But a very long time since I've watched warship down. I'm still traumatised from the last time I watched warship down. But yeah, I like how Pratchett kind of makes it obvious how disposable human life is during war and then makes it obvious that it's not on a human level at the same time. So like, when Willikens is like, yes, but pass me the young man's head and here is his life story. Yeah, as we just took him out in half a sentence. Yeah. Private Hobbly,

ginger to his friends, 19, made bootlaces, caught a young lady, a picture of whom he was close enough to see me last night. And that's a very tropey thing as well. You meet the young soldier and he's showing off the picture of his girl back home and then the soldier gets killed. That's been in like every period drama that involves World War One. Yeah. And then I like that he then doesn't like lean into it too hard and then goes and the other guy who, you know, also important, we don't know much about him, he's called Spider and was playing the harmonica a lot and told cool stories. Spoke Longingley of Home. Yeah, it's something so human about it. And then, and Willikens is, you know, we mentioned briefly earlier his reaction when

you know, he manages to get back before vimes because the silverware's gone to rack and ruin. Yes. The Cutlery there. But he says, you know, did we win? Yeah. There was a slight tremble in his voice. And it's very much like the world has wobbled on its axis and he needs to know that really it's still there. Because his life is so much about the world being a certain way and certain standards being kept. Yes. And he went off to war and did this because it was to say that more pork wasn't it? Yes. Okay, thank you. And he needs to know that. Yeah. And vimes can see that instantly and doesn't do what he might have done for anyone else, which is go, well, I wasn't really, I think the win was

there. But yes. I'm sure there's a joke somewhere in this bit as well about the fact that yes, we won on penalties. I think it's vimes to Jenkins, which I like the football match. I can't chance we're winning on fouls. I like the football match, Mick, because it is what Carrot would do after after vimes arrest an entire battlefield, Carrot would get them playing football. Oh, speaking of Carrot, or I forget, I can't think of anywhere else but this, but when he skates down Sandin on his shield, that's him coming back on his shield. Ah! Ah! Ah! Also, the idea of him like taking a shirt off and walking around with a whistle on is like, you know, made me feel things I wasn't expecting to feel about Corporal Carrot.

Corporal Carrot still. Look at me, Captain Carrot. Captain Carrot. Is it bad that when I read the hymn surfing of the sand dune on his shield, my brain went to that bit in Lord of the Rings, where like a lask goes down the steps on his shield while he's firing a bow and arrow during the battle of Helmsdeep. No, because that's perfect, yeah. Not that like that moment lives in my brain, but I was so excited in the sand while that I bounced. I imagine that's like your version of a screensaver, whenever you're not actively thinking of anything else, it's just like, like I'm skating down, like bouncing off the corners of your internal screen. An Aragorn with a horse. Yeah, just standing there. It's like whenever I

let my mind idle for too long, you know, where you just suddenly think of a little joke you've seen once and chuckle to yourself. Yeah. Every time my mind idles for too long, it's shadow facts show us the meaning of haste, dictionary, haste. It's not even funny. Anyway, God, sorry, I'm talking about serious things and lives lost in the futility of war, and I got, Helmsdeep was a war. That was my fault. I brought up carrot skating. Yeah, no. No, we were talking about football. It was okay. That wasn't too whiplashy. No, it wasn't. We got there by a football. Yeah. And I'm now trying to work out how to circle back to the serious of

people bought and sold, or it's fine, I'm talking about himself being bought and sold. And veterinary says, you know, fine, but not needlessly spent. And it's a, it's something I don't love about the end of this book of the sort of, it puts a neater bow on it than it deserves because obviously a lot of lives were still needlessly spent. Yeah. Like the ones that we just talked about. I suppose one could argue that if they hadn't been spent, there would have been more. Yeah. That's the point that veterinary makes. It's needless because they Prince Cadrim needn't have started any of it kind of thing.

Yeah. I suppose from veterinary's point of view, it wasn't needless. This is the best outcome. But also, yeah, I mean, it's not his finest moment. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not so much disagreeing with Pratchett for putting that there, but I disagree with veterinary. No, I agree. Yeah. It wasn't like the nicest bit to read. After veterinary's had such a weirdly relatable book. It's had fun. I say relatable, like I can juggle swords. I can. I was a bit about like the, if you most fond chainsaw, your problems have only just begun. Maybe really laugh that loud. That made me chuckle too.

But yeah, those were the notes I had on it. I do think this is a really good one. I was kind of worried going in because apart from the disorganiser stuff, I couldn't remember a lot of it in detail. I thought there was going to be more problematic stuff. Yeah. But I forgot just how good a book this is. This is one of the last watchbooks I read as well. I read this after I'd read like Fifth Elephant and Thud and Nightwatch, which are not in the right order. It's just lots in quite nicely though, doesn't it? I think it's a. It's lots in nicely, but I was, because I'd already read those, I was more attached to a lot of the characters that die in that disorganiser role. So it really hit me.

Yeah. Yeah. Whereas at this point, if you're reading this brush, you're feeling it through vimes rather than through. Yeah, like you met those characters, but I don't think you're as attached to this. You can still be as attached to the line, obviously. Your mileage may vary. Yes, you may find it easier to form attachments to people fictional or otherwise. I find it quite easy to find. Joanne has been hurt too many times by fictional characters that she loves. Yeah. Anyway, they always leave. They always leave. I keep finishing the fucking books. So just continuing on the theme of war somewhat, because that is the book.

I thought I'd kind of mention how apt the art of war is throughout. I said, in the first episode, I hadn't read it or possibly all the way through. I genuinely couldn't remember. So I did so just to background reading. And I highly recommend sunzoo said.com, which I'll link, which has the whole translated book with commentary and cross-references and everything. So that made it a bit easier. And there's a lot in here that I think it's must be deliberate that Rust did the opposite. An army is exposed to six calamities, which don't rise from natural causes, but from faults for which the general is responsible. I'm not going to read them all, but all of them very much were Rust's mistakes as well. So when the general

allows anger to dictate the next action instead of tactics or when they refuse to acknowledge the fact that they're outnumbered, 100 to one or whatever, you know, that's quite cool. And like tactics was obviously saying paraphrase bits from it. And there's just, it's very quotable, all of this. I can see why some of those, it always seems to be slightly asshole people who quote it. It's a big thing like CEOs all read the art of war. Yeah. But yeah, so it's just things like, hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Marvelous. Very quick. And then from that, I was like, do you know what? It's very much a trope in historical dramas and stuff that I've watched that before a battle, the leaders would meet in the middle and have this like weird diplomatic moment. And I've never really thought to question it before. I was like, yeah, no, that seems like that would happen. Because like, if you think back to, if you think back to World War One, which we remember so well, if you look at World War One, for instance, which like, obviously that didn't happen by them, but it's very, all of them were still writing letters to each other and being like this gross. It's kind of also like an opportunity for one side to surrender

and prevent the bloodshed. And yeah. And I think that's it. It was kind of less gross than like with the actual meeting and going, can we, can we part without the massacre? But yeah, so I decided to look into whether that had actually been a thing. This seems like, yes, although I'm not sure how commonly exactly. It's quite easy to find by a couple of examples at least. So Hannibal and, I don't know how to pronounce this, Scipio, Scipio apparently did. And then later on the Battle of Fratié, Black Prince and Tallyran, the French diplomat, tried to not have that battle quite vehemently, but it happened anyway. And then one I found particularly interesting was in 1022, Russia, let's see. The leaders of a voting size, there's this whole

background I'm not going into, but decided that a duel would settle the whole war. A duel between the two leaders, which I prove of. Yeah. A duel between yourselves, yes. But only the losing prince autonomously. They did hand-to-hand combat for ages to prevent further bloodshed. And the other guy agreed, but unfortunately decided to pull out his dagger eventually and mortally wounded the opponent. And the opponent, as he was dying, forbade his compatriots to to avenge him so that he could still preserve his people, which was the whole point of this exercise. And so the victor claimed leadership of the whole nation and was nice to the Lusos family, like gave them positions in court and things. Yeah.

I mean, that's a more civilized way to solve things, I suppose. Yeah. And during that, I also found out that, I think I must have known this already from back at school, that this type of battle is called a pitched battle or a set piece battle where like both sides are anticipating the setting and the timing. And so either may disengage until the last minute or possibly just after the last minute in some cases. And I didn't realize how early that kind of battle was, like, introduced. So it's prehistoric, pretty much so. But during the Neolithic period, so like 10,000 BCE to 3000 BCE, violence was kind of happened as it happened. But then still during the prehistorical period,

during like 3000 BCE, battles started becoming like Bronze Age battles where starting to be pitched. I didn't think it went back that far either. I would have put it as like... It sounds like when missile weapons started becoming right usable, I think was, yeah. That makes sense. And obviously stuff like ambushes and sort of whatever still happened. Yeah. And sieges. Sieges, Sun Tzu has a lot to say about that. Don't do... Well, it does seem like a silly idea.

Yeah. Everyone loses energy. It's like if you can avoid it, don't do a siege. If you got to the point where you're doing a siege, you're already fucked up. Yeah. That makes sense. General strategist, writer, philosopher, Sun Tzu. Also my business card. No. Don't be silly. I'm not a writer. Yeah. So that's... I'm not sure if that's a talking point really or just talking at you, but... I enjoyed it. I guess my overall talking point is like the weird civilisation on the fringes of war always

grabs me up for the wrong way a bit. The weird politeness and rules. It's a bit like the Queensbury rules thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's like at the beginning of this book where Rust is being like kind of diplomatic with Vimes even though the thing and then the ambassador comes in and they're all polite to each other. I said, well, I suppose we must go to war. I suppose we're going to war then. It's like, yeah, I guess. It's weird for there to be so much civility over what is just a bunch of people killing each other.

Yeah. Truck all the uncivil. Sorry. I was just thinking to myself, uncivil doesn't cover it and then... But this book handles it really well. It points it up. It points out how fucking silly it is. Yeah. And it doesn't need to do it explicitly, even not even through like Vimes in a monologue, which I think he has for a lot of these kind of things. It's just so self-evidently silly here. That's beautiful. And we're saying that about a Discworld book. Which are never silly.

Of course not. Never. Of course not. Do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me, Francine? Yeah. It's a bit different. Okay. So I don't know if this is the case in all the editions, but in the Corgi paperback, certainly, when people are speaking in Clatchian, it's shown in a different font. Which I thought was interesting.

Like within a novel, you don't see it as often. You quite often see that kind of thing in comic books and that. So I thought I'd have a look. I did find out that this legend script it's called, this particular font by an F.H. Ernst Schneider. Fun fact, Schneider was a member of the Nazi party. This is a very famous font. I've seen it in many places. I did not know it was designed by a Nazi. Right. Yeah. I'm not sure I'd have guessed that. Slightly more fun. Fun fact, this kind of foreign looking font trope is, TV Trope's has a page on it, unsurprisingly. Excellent. And I like that it is noted as an alternative to translation punctuation,

which I've seen but never really thought to categorize. Which is like, if you read a comic book, often when they're speaking in a foreign language, they'll like, encase it in angular brackets or something like that. Yeah. I mean, and yeah, that's a whole thing. Or it'll be like a tele-sized door. Yeah. And then in one of the, you may also like to read links that always drags me into TV Trope's what I meant to be sleeping. There's an, as long as it sounds foreign page, which is basically like a trope of how

that they'll get foreign language is wrong and they'll just make it sound vaguely foreign and it's a fucker for the subtitles and stuff like that. And it uses a practic quote to illustrate in the moving pictures, Sol Divla, I don't think Juana's is the right word, uncle. C-M-O-T Divla is clutching, isn't it? Sol Divla. Well, technically, but I think it's the wrong part of that, to maybe offend these or something. C-M-O-T Divla, just so long as it's foreign.

Yeah. So, Divla gave us this good, good example. It was the first character we had. Yeah. Yeah. Look at that. It's a little circle. All right. Do we have anything else to say about the book Jingo? It's good. I like the book. It's such a good book. I know we said that right at the beginning, but I'd say again, so it's all circled.

Yeah. It's just so worth reading again. C-M-O-T Yes. Yeah. Very much so. C-M-O-T Yeah. I'm glad we got to this point. It is very peak fracture, this kind of era, isn't it? C-M-O-T Yeah. C-M-O-T In all of the things I think of as discworld are happening in these books. C-M-O-T This year's set of books, I think, are just a tonne of my favourites.

C-M-O-T Yeah. C-M-O-T Just a tonne of some of the really good, good discworld stuff. C-M-O-T What are we due to do next month, then? C-M-O-T So next month, if I'm remembering correctly, and now I'm starting down myself, C-M-O-T I'm sure next month the plan is to cover the Brameliad Truckers, Diggers and Wings. C-M-O-T Uh-huh. That sounds right, yeah. C-M-O-T Yeah. Yeah, that is what I said. C-M-O-T Going up to say it's February, Brameliad, yeah.

C-M-O-T Yeah. C-M-O-T Oh, then it's the last continent. C-M-O-T So yeah, so next month, February is the kickoff to our terrific trilogy season. Terry's Trilogy's. That feels weird. C-M-O-T Yeah. C-M-O-T Yeah. C-M-O-T I don't know. C-M-O-T That's too familiar.

C-M-O-T Yeah. No. Sir, Terry's Trilogy's. C-M-O-T No, no. It sounds like C-M-O-T They're terrific, good. C-M-O-T Terrific Trilogy's. C-M-O-T Terrific Trilogy's. C-M-O-T So we'll be covering, we'll be doing a week on each book, rather than trying to split one of those into three. So we'll be covering Truckers and Diggers and Wings next month.

C-M-O-T Get hyped. C-M-O-T Get hyped. C-M-O-T I haven't read these since primary school. C-M-O-T But I've seen so many. C-M-O-T It's got a lot to read in a fucking... C-M-O-T They're quite short. C-M-O-T It is. Not last time I read them. C-M-O-T Right. Anyway.

C-M-O-T That's fine. C-M-O-T Until next week. And then, yes, we'll come back to the disc world in March and talk about the last continent. Until February, dear listeners, you can follow us on Instagram at TheTreeShowMakeyFret, on Twitter at MakeyFretPod, on Facebook at TheTreeShowMakeyFret, join our subreddit community r-t-t-s-m-y-s-f. Jesus. TheTreeShowMakey set. You can email us your thoughts, your queries, your questions, your castles, your albatrosses, your snacks, your friends, your Romans, your countrymen. TheTreeShowMakey, your angry camels. Thank you, Francine. Don't get the hump.

Email us at TheTreeShowMakeyFretPod at gmail.com. If you'd like to support us financially, go to patreon.com forward slash TheTreeShowMakeyFret. Change hard-earned pennies for bonus nonsense. We will have a rabbit hole episode hopefully coming next week or so. It's Francine's turn and we're talking about... Francine. We're talking about C.S. Lewis and his... Well, J.R. Tolkien and his relationship with C.S. Lewis, I'd say, is more of a focus on Tolkien. Awesome. I'm hyped for this one. It sounds quite dry when I say it like that, but there's drama.

There's so much drama. Fine academic drama, which is always stupid. Academic drama is ridiculous. And until next month, dear listeners, I met a traveller from an antique land who said, To vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert, near them on the sand half-sunk shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mopped them and the heart that fed,

and on the pedestal these words appear. My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair. Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. I did the dressing gown sleeve in the handle, and it was the hand that was holding the cup of coffee. And it was my first coffee, and I was just out. It's the little things, Francine. I got coffee all over the curtain earlier. Nice. Okay, that's worse.