The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 87: The Fifth Elephant Pt. 2 (Oh No! Consequences!)

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “The Fifth Elephant”. Werewolves! Vampire! Candelabra! Oh My!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:AITA for refusing to talk to my boyfriend becuase he won't stop using the phrase: "Do you want some "Pwingys", for the room?" - Reddit You're Wrong About: The Dyatlov Pass Incident w. Blair Braverman - BuzzsproutFerrero Rocher ambassador's reception - YouTubeFatsup Recipe - Discworld HelpFlame Safety Lamp | Mining HeritageHistory in gas detection: Coal Mine Canaries & Flame Safety Lamps Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I'm like slightly behind schedule because I struggled to function today. Well, I'm sure it'll be much better tomorrow when it's five degrees hotter. Did you see everyone talking about that elephant with a grudge on Twitter yesterday? No, that was working. I feel like it's... What was happening? Relephant. Tell me about the Twitter.

Apparently, apparently there was an elephant in India that like basically trampled a woman to death and then like went to her funeral and stomped out the pyre and chucked the body off somewhere. And I think like went and trashed her house as well. Like this elephant had a grudge. Was that definitely an elephant or was it like three human enemies in a trench coat? No. Well, everyone was sort of tweeting about it like, yeah, no, elephants do have really good memories and they will fucking hold grudges and shit. And everyone's like, I'm sure it is justified, but we all want to know what the woman did to the elephant.

Yeah. Well, no, I know that elephants hold grudges and have long memories and like there have been a lot of recorded instances of this, but I don't know how well they can read like funeral invitations and addresses. Well, I'm guessing it all happened in like quite a small area. All right. I didn't like deep dive into the facts. I just thought it would be fun to talk about an elephant with a grudge. Agreed.

But like, what do you do to piss an elephant off that badly? I mean, use it for work, probably. Oh, yeah. Good point. Yeah. Almost anything that people do to elephants is bad. So I was trying to think of like entertaining answers like, Oh, I'm sorry. Right. Yeah. No. Like a social snub didn't invite him to tea, that kind of thing. So, yeah, we are experienced as following our long hell tradition of talking about the

weather because that is our culture. It is hotter than it has been today. Today it is hot. Tomorrow will be hotter still. We're both wearing dresses. We are. It's not unusual for Joanna, but for me it is. It's too warm. Joanna is wearing a crown, which is normal summer wear. Yeah.

Do you not have a summer crown? Yes, but mine is far too florid and huge to fit under my headphones. Oh, okay. That's fair enough. I'll allow that. You gave me this crown. I know. I know. It seemed to be appropriate hat for this month. Good natured hat mocking.

But yes, no, it's very, very warm. And I've discovered that this is in fact the warmest room in my flat for most of the days. And I'm just sweating like a little pig. Have you tried putting a fan in there? I mean, not while recording, but... You've seen this room. Where the fuck would I put a fan? There's no flaws from the ceiling.

Well, do you remember the nutshell? They did that. Oh, yeah. It was like duct tape to the wall, duct tape to the ceiling. Oh, I'd forgotten about that. Yeah. I'm not going to spend on my electricity just to duct tape a fan to the ceiling. All right. I disagree with that conclusion, but I understand it. Especially as I couldn't have it on while we're recording. Well, yeah, is that not your sewing room, though?

Yeah, but I literally come and do the sewing in here, like all the cutting and marking and everything I go and do on my bigger table. Yeah, it's fair. That's fair. It's mostly fair. I didn't really think about the logistics of having that nice cross breeze when trying to work with pattern tissue paper and silk. Sounds horrible. All your hobbies sound so difficult. Everything is very stressful. All of the...

I play with colors. It's much more peaceful. After this, I'm going to have a little break from sewing. I don't need anything else until I have a huge clear out. I don't need anything else. Joanna is sewing a friend's prom dress, by the way. Listen to this. Yes. I'll probably skip that whole bit, will we? Which is irritating.

Played by microphones. I've talked about that. I'm making a lovely ball gown, and it's not for me. That's very upsetting. This is why I don't sew for other people. Because after all of this... You say for me, you made me a nice dress. Well, yeah, that's fine. Those were nice for you, but they weren't ball gowns. This is very upsetting to put this much work into a ball gown that I won't wear. Yeah, understandable.

And I'm not going to make myself a ball gown, because... You don't go to any balls? I don't go to a lot of balls. Weirdly enough, in our status of not even a little bit aristocratic, nor talking to anybody in that circle, we don't get invited to any... No. Diplomatic balls, any... It's probably better. I'm not that fond of Ferrero Rocher,

and a lot of them do get shot up from what I remember from popular culture, I'd say. I would like to go to an old school fantasy masquerade ball. Aller, which is abroad. Yes, but with less of the frog guy thing. I think it would be worse putting up with the frog guy for human grimoire. Yeah, good point. Slash Casananda. You have to give 100 frog guys to find your... Humanoid cat.

...the cat guy. Oh, no. No, cat boys. Tumblr ruined everything. Grimoire is a cat boy. Well, no, I've upset myself. Did you remember when I went through that very brief phase of wearing like all black with those really cute little gold katties and whatever? Genuinely, no. Well, yes, I've got a picture of you. Yes.

Yeah, I was goth kitty. Yeah, they wear a thing for a while, actually, when they're in rose gold. Yeah. Yes. I quite like rose gold, but it has made it really difficult to find anything in copper, which is the colour I like more, because now everything is in gold, silver or rose gold. And I like copper and bronze as a... Fair. I like bronze. I do like bronze. I've got a very nice chunky copper bangle that's gone down the side,

back of some shelves that I need to dig out. I have a litter picker, which I did buy to pick litter, but I'm going to be honest, is mainly used to get things from behind things in my house. In my defence, I got it to clear out some of the river behind my house, and I didn't realise when I got it that that river becomes 90% nettles for most of the summer, and 90% flood for most of the rest of the year. So there's about two weeks where you can realistically do something about that. Actually, a bit stuff out of it.

Yeah, yeah. I've got limited commitment to that, so being wet or nettle is not really on the cards for me. Wet or nettle, title of your sex tape. I've been rewatching Early Brooklyn 9.9, so I should have been primed for that. I was really cute. I'd forgotten how much I liked the first season. Yeah, it's quite sweet in the early episodes. I haven't seen the latest seasons or I think the final seasons coming out. I've watched the final season now, yeah.

Most of it's on the... Yeah, pretty good, yeah. I mean, it's not... I don't like it as much as I liked the early season. I didn't like the last three seasons as much as I liked the first three seasons, put it that way. But that's not because of any plot differences or anything like that. It's mainly because they did that thing where they take the part of a character that's funny because it's rare and keep doing it over and over again.

Captain Hulk breaking the statue looks. It's like he was constantly doing that from season... What about two seasons ago, onwards? Yeah, it's the... If you let a show run too long, it becomes every character, becomes like just a parody of themself and it gets really painful to watch. Flanderization, I think it's called, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, anyway, Hulk got flanderized and that made me sad.

No, that's a shame. Does sound like a cooking technique, doesn't it? I'm showing my friend Parks and Rec for the first time at the moment, which is mostly a fun game of him going, but that person was in that. Ah, yes. It's also that when Megan Mullally playing Tammy comes on for the first time and I get to go into that,

oh, but you don't get it. So she's actually married to him in real life and she was in Will and Grace and they met on the set of Will and Grace when he was a plumber and she kissed him and it was a thing. I didn't know that. Yeah, they met on the set of Will and Grace. He played a plumber, she kissed him. It was a thing.

I don't know what I was clarifying by just repeating myself that... No, I don't know either, but I really enjoyed it. It just brings me a lot of joy because they make a really cute couple. Oh, that's so nice. I really like... It's always starting in Philadelphia for that reason. Dee and Mack married a real life. Oh, are they? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's cute. Which makes it even funny that they're just horrible to each other all the time. What have you been watching? What have I been watching? Well, the new series, Kenobi is out. I haven't seen the latest, latest episode yet, but I'm enjoying that. Less for being a huge Star Wars nerd and more for older you and McGregor with a beard. A very...

I can see there's something called Ms. Marvel that's come out. Is that good? Yes. I've seen the first episode so far. It's really good. I'm really enjoying it. It's fun. It's like a bit teen girly as far as Marvel shows go.

Is she a teenage girl? She is a teenage girl and she's a well-written teenage girl. And she is played by a teenage girl. Well, that's it because I didn't know. Because the one thing I know about Ms. Marvel and the reason I like it, I'm never going to watch it. But the banner on the PlayStation TV bit is of Ms. Marvel. And it's usually of some grim, male-oriented show, so it's just nice to have some colors. I was like, but it's so stylized.

I can't tell if that's a teenage girl or a very young looking woman. She's a teenage girl. But it's also quite nice because the whole idea of the character is she's a huge obsessed with the Avengers before she realizes she's a superhero. Yeah. And the actress playing her was like a huge, huge Marvel nerd before she got cast. There's all these sweet stories about like she was watching WandaVision while they were filming Ms. Marvel. Ah, gosh, that makes me feel sick.

But I'm so... I'm glad for her. It's just a very sweet fan thing. The entire Marvel feedback loop makes me... It's a... I wouldn't yuck anyone's arms and I understand why people like it. I just don't... The entire thing gives me the slight ick.

That's fair. Yeah, I think it's the budgets. It's the... You know, it's all of the corporate-ness about it. It is insane when you kind of think about it objectively, like the giant money machine than it is, but... I like it. I find it entertaining.

No, no, exactly. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I think it's since it got part of Disney as well, it just... Well, it's the weird, like, homogenization because, like, everything is slowly coming under this one, umbrella. Yeah, and I feel like it's all kind of tramping slightly towards average-ness because of that. I think we've talked about that before. The TV shows aren't so much by the movies.

Yeah, very much so. Lowest common denominator, smugness. Although I will slightly defend the movies because Doctor Strange 2 was Sam Raimi and he lent into his horror roots a lot and it doesn't feel samey. It's... I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't love all the horror stuff because it's not really my thing. I could kind of appreciate there was a thing being done.

That was enjoyable. That's cool. I get that. Yeah, I like horror movies for me, same as very spicy food. I just cannot do it. I can't do it, but I can appreciate, like, the taste, the craftsmanship underneath. Yes, it's just not your cup of tea. This is physically painful and I cannot continue, but I can recommend this to somebody else.

Now, please allow me to go and have a nightmare. That goes for spicy food or horror movies. Non-MCU, but on Disney Plus thing, the How I Met Your Mother reboot, How I Met Your Father came out. Oh, that's the banner it replaced, actually. It wasn't even a male-oriented one. That made me feel sick. How's that?

Have you watched it? Yeah, I have watched it. It's okay. I have a giant crush on Hilary Duff, so I am not looking at it. Hilary Duff, really? Hilary Duff's the main character. Oh, well, do you know what? I'd probably watch it for that.

It's not only is Hilary Duff the main character, but the old... I fucking love Hilary Duff. The older version who's telling her story is Kim Cattroll. Oh, that's pretty high. Who I also have a giant crush on. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, so I would watch it. Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, we have talked about nothing relevant to Discord whatsoever. That's not true. You brought up an elephant and I steered it immediately away from it. Yeah, right, fair point. I've got an important question for you, Francine. Do you want some pointies for the room? Oh, fuck you. Fuck.

I'm sorry. Stop letting myself go on to Reddit via Twitter. It's the worst of both worlds. We'll link in the show notes, listeners, but I refuse to talk about it further. That's fine. Do you want to make a podcast then? Yes, I would like to make a podcast, though.

Hello and welcome to the Trisha Miki Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of the fifth elephant. The drama is beginning.

The collapsing candelabra. Right. Now on spoilers, before we crack on, we are a spoiler-like podcast. Heavy spoilers for the book, The Fifth Elephant. Including that one we just did. Including that one about the fall in candelabra, but that was this section.

But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. Including any future candelabras. Including any future candelabras. Which may or may not fall. And we are saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there.

So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Oh, fuck. Oh, it's the first time I've not been able to come off with one on the fly for ages. Come on the journey with us, running with a wolf pack, fairly keeping up. Good effort. There you go.

Running in the flattened snow in the wake of a wolf pack until you fall exhausted onto the ground. There we go. There we are. And then on a sled. And then on the sled, yes. I just listened to that. Sorry, this isn't relevant,

but I just listened to that You're Wrong About episode about the Deatlov Pass incident. And I know what, and it was kind of the intention of the episode, but it did make me really want to like go hiking in snow with a wolf pack. I'm not sure I'd keep up with a wolf pack. Well, no, but like sled dogs, maybe.

Like I want to go like out. Oh, sure, sure. Like sledding in the wilderness, that kind of thing. Have we got anything to follow up on other than the Deatlov Pass incident? Yeah. I was stuttering over as much as I am now, the scone, scone, the scone, scone stone.

And it is the, in fact, pronounced scun, the place, or scun, I can't do it properly. As a couple of listeners have told me, thank you listeners. I very seldom embed corrections in the actual episode, but I'm really annoyed with myself here. It's pronounced scoon, not scun. I don't know how I wrote that down.

And misremembered it so poorly. Two listeners told me very clearly how it's pronounced. I do apologize. And so when we talk here about the scone of stone. Speaking of the scone of stone, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Fifth Elephant?

Something's afoot in Uberwald, and it's spilling into Angkmalpork. The low king's coronation demands high society guests, and Vetnari has vines in mind as an ambassador. And no, he doesn't have a choice. So the desultory Duke, his well-bred wife, assorted attaches and a peculiar pen pusher pile into a couple of coaches

for the long journey to the old country. While back home, a much depleted watch tries to solve the riddle of what happened to the scone of stone replica. I made it worse, good. Meanwhile, news from home has Angkmalpork heading to Uberwald on a different path, followed by kind of Captain Carrot

and his brave little dog. Carrot is driven by love, but not, unfortunately, by anything more substantial and is woefully unecruped for cross-country pursuit in the snow. But just as his considerable energy drains Angua turns back, surely he couldn't have known that that would happen?

Surely. Shall I tell us what happened this time? Yeah, all right. Then we'll dive in. So on this section of the Fifth Elephant, Vimes and his ragtag retinue find themselves rudely interrupted by bandits at the Willoughness Pass.

I don't want to let pass the joke that I just wrote for myself for my little son, Marie, so I put an exclamation point after bandits, so it's like panic at the disco, but it's bandits at the Willoughness Pass. Cute. I just need you all to know that.

Oh, that's nice. I like that. Sibbles briefly are hostage as Inigo gets nasty and fills Vimes in on his assassin scholarship as they travel onto the Inn. Meanwhile, Carrot wakes under a pile of wolves. Angua's been having family trouble and Carrot's determined

to join the journey to Iberwal and help out. Vimes attracts rumours as bandit bodies are found and isn't daunted by dwarven document checks as they make their way to Bonk. Meanwhile, back in the city, Colin faces controversy as the newly formed Guild of Watchmen

goes on strike. In Bonk, Vimes learns that the genuine scun of stun is missing, as is Wando Sleeps, the acting consul. As Sibbles starts preparing carpets in the consulate, Vimes heads out to present his credentials starting with the new low king. There's tension in the mines

and Vimes gets a midnight request from Dee, the king's ideas taster. To the Lady Margolotta next, who gets subtle about politics and drinks, as dwarves face the threat of no longer being dwarves. Then to the werewolves, who can't quite manage subtlety

but get the pointy teeth across. On return to the embassy, Igor has been injured in not an accident and Vimes and Sibbles ride out to the clacks to find them abandoned, with controls smashed. Inigo stays to wait till dark and send her for flair,

while Sibbles shows Sam a newly discovered spy room at the embassy. Inigo is attacked, but Vimes is none the wiser as he prepares for a reception in the dwarves' candlelit caverns. As Ionax and Bloodhammer plays out, Vimes visits where the scone isn't

and starts looking for the crime amongst white sand and a ransom note from Aggie Hammerthief. As mineshaft meetings mingle and Vimes meets Wolfgang von Uberwald, Angwer's less sane brother, they await a formal presentation to the new low king,

but disaster strikes as Vimes leaps to rescue Rhys from a falling cavalcade of candle wax as a chandelier descends. Super. Helicopter and loincloths. Oh yeah. Well, someone's flying about.

Someone's a helicopter. Don't know who. Someone. Okay. It's implied. Someone's flying about a bit. Sure, sure. What about the boat being lifted in there?

Yeah, sure. I'll do. Don't be like offhand with me as though I'm the one whose fault this is. But it annoys you so much more than I do. And I feel like that's become a key part of the bit. Yeah, all right. Yeah, agreed. It doesn't owe me more.

All right, continue. Kind of lacking in loincloths, but Detritus has got a lovely new suit and I'm very happy for him. So I'm going to take this loincloth watch to celebrate his cultural attaché look. Okay, yeah, yeah. And as cultural attaché, he does, of course,

celebrate loincloths himself, I'm sure. Right, quotes. Something bad was going on. He could smell the tension, the sense of quiet panic. The air was thick with it. Occasionally, other dwarves scuttled past, distracted on some mission. Something was very bad.

People didn't know what to do next, so they were trying to do everything. And in the middle of this, important officers had to stop what they were doing because some idiot from some distant city had to hand over a piece of paper. That's good. I particularly enjoy that kind of mental image

of just sheer panic in the mines. Panic in the mines. Panic at the mines. What was your quote, Francine? The door slid back. Bimes looked out onto the night sky, underground. The stars were all around him, below him. I think we went down too far, he said.

I like that because he thought they'd gone all the way through greater to it, I guess. Did we go through a turtle? Yeah, I don't know, I read that a couple of times, I was like, that's very sweet and disoriented. That weird feeling of having gone so far, you can't work out where you are, that you lose all sense of space.

Yeah, also happens if you just wake up in a different bed than usual. Oh, yeah. I remember once waking up on a sofa and not realising straight who I am, sort of doing the, hang on, I don't have my, I don't have risk. My TV doesn't go there.

There's a guy in a spider costume. No, I'm in a spider costume. No, I remember that night. That was a weird, that was a weird Christmas. Yeah. Anyway, characters, let's talk about characters. Start with Inigo, because this section really starts with him coming out swinging.

Yeah, and ends with him going out swinging. Yes, R.I.P. He did his best. He did a good job. He did a very good job. I think this is a good place in the book to take out the overpowered character though, you know? Yes.

Because until now they've had, it's like getting rid of Gandalf, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Except I don't think he comes back at the end. Inigo the White. Also, I can't imagine Gandalf like slamming a hand into someone's neck and their head coming off. Well, you and I have very different head cannons.

In my AU, Gandalf has ninja stars. But so something interesting that occurred to me when I was staying in the Nates for this, because then that's why I have sort of vimes next, is how do you think it feels for vimes to have someone like Inigo sent along with him, especially by veterinary? I think logically, he gets it.

Yeah. He knows that he's not as powerful as competent as usual. He's a city boy. He's gone over this a lot of times. But I think in everything but logically, it must hurt like a bitch. Well, especially because Inigo's actions and techniques

are the sort of things that vimes just would never approve of. Not him as a cultural expert on where they're going, but the violent side of Inigo with the weapons. And I do think vimes like has a grudging respect for him by the time he leaves him in the Klax Tower. Yeah. I mean, they're two working class boys, done good, aren't they? Yeah.

Yeah, they do call each other like the fellow bastards kind of thing. That's quite a sweet camaraderie there. But yeah, I can imagine vimes being like quite upset that he's sort of got this to supervise. Yeah. I found it interesting that Practi is the same kind of wording for Inigo with like the calling him a butcher that he doesn't mind killing as he does with his villains usually.

I think this is the only time I can recall so far where someone who's not coded as an antagonist has that kind of aptitude for killing. Yeah. Apart from Kohen, the butler, I mean, honestly. Yeah. That doesn't count. That's a comedy.

Comedy murders. Well, it kind of spoilers for later in the podcast, but when I start looking at this, part of the thing is Inigo is not a bad guy in that he's trying to do what's best for Hank Morpork first. And the book really makes you question a bit, is what's best for Hank Morpork, what's best? Yeah.

Yeah. He's been good at his job. Yeah. Yeah. Very competent. And as you said, he's not an antagonist. I do always appreciate someone dying mid-capped phrase. I just think that's funny.

Yeah. Oh, we haven't really tried out his laugh yet, have we? I think it's a, as somebody with a constant nervous laugh, I get it. I imagine it is a bit kind of Mutley from Wacky Races, to be honest. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, it's not. Well, like posh Mutley.

Okay, talking about his like, his fighting techniques and how Vimes feels about them, I thought Vimes with the gun, the gun, Yeah. was a really interesting contrast from back in Feet of Clay, actually, because in Feet of Clay, there was this huge long scene about Vimes struggling with the idea of using it and eventually allowing Carrot to take it from him.

Men at arms. Men at arms, sorry. But this is not quite a gun here. It's like a very powerful single shot crossbow that's. It's the same thing. Yeah. That's the idea for the purpose of this comparison. It is, you know, a single shot weapon he would hate to use.

And I mean, I know later he kind of excused it by saying he was going for the shoulder or whatever, but I don't know. I suppose the difference is largely that he's, he's protecting Sibyl. Yeah. I think that makes a huge difference to what he's willing to do. He's not bringing a murderer to justice. He's not. Yeah.

He's not doing his job. He's doing his person. Yeah. Person job. That came. Person job. I didn't make it better. I added another word and isn't that what matters?

Wow. That's the least editor thing I've ever said. Like going on to Vimes, his reaction to Inigo's weapons, he's got this, he explains this difference between, you know, you have them so you don't have to kill people. They're for having, for warning. Open cares. This is, yeah.

And this is for hiding until you bring it out and kill someone in the dark. And he's clear on that distinction because he has to be. Yeah. Again, I think he might be giving himself the benefit of a doubt a lot of the time because he's a bar fighter. He's a brawler. He's not like a, he's not Queensbury rules. He's not carrot.

No. And I get he doesn't like sneakiness about it, but I feel like that's just because this job doesn't call for it more than he's above it. But I get why he would be seeing himself in this way, especially when he's on this weird trip. I think he wants to put himself above the assassins. Yeah, for sure. He doesn't want to think of them as on the same footing.

And I get that because it must be infuriating talking to people who literally try and kill them for a living. And then being like, oh, you didn't play the game properly. He's like, fuck you. No, stop shooting at me. Yeah. The explanation of what he's done with some of the assassins that come after him makes me laugh though.

He sends one on a ship bound for Gat via Cape Terra and not to take the chains off before Zubingo. I really should have got the map out for this one just to try and track that journey. Ah, we've got the fucking map. Next week. Next week for sure. I think our listeners just had exactly the same reaction. It makes you feel any better listeners.

I'm just as disappointed in me as you are. In fact, far more so. I've had 30 years of this. It's just constant. Never goes away. And yes, one of the others was found tied to a fountain painted pig and pink and with a flag somewhere, which is an effort. It sends a message.

It is a deterrent. I'm not sure where to shoehorn this, but I really enjoyed dwarf brackets indicating miscreant. I didn't know where to shoehorn that either. So I'm glad you just pulled that up there. Is it one of your favorites as well, Joanna? Brackets indicating miscreant. I like the gentle sort of admonishment from in a go of maybe not the time for your street dwarfish. But I like that it wasn't just vines being shit at dwarfish.

It is like it's just the way you talk to each other. That's quite nice. Yeah, it's the sort of colloquial dwarfish he's picked up on the streets of Anglopork is not the diplomatic dwarfish you use in Uberwald. It's equivalent to me going, all right, dickhead. Which there's a time and a place for it. And it's not when you're having your papers checked. No.

No. I very rarely insult people looking at my ambassadorial. Yeah, ambassadorial qualifications. No, not qualifications. Credentials. Credentials. There we go. We got there.

Too many syllables altogether in that off the cuff remark. Far too many. I liked Margolotta's appraisal of vines. It's just a very angry man. You can see it piling up behind his patience. I wonder how far he can be pushed. Brackets, I wonder how far I can push him. Yes.

Vines is not hiding it. Well, I think I can get. Yeah. It's very clear that Vines has a breaking point. And he's quite a rather large collection of titles now. Oh, yes. Have you got them? So he is his grace, his excellency, the Duke of Angk

commander, Sir Samuel Vimes. But and his grace does not cancel out sir. Right. Because he's going with the full set of titles and he's got Blackboard Monitor as a tiebreaker. Yes. Which I like very obviously it feels like a throwaway joke. And then like less than 20 pages later kind of gets held up

as a very important title for him. Yes. Because he doesn't think about the kind of cultural relevance of it to the Dwarfs. No. And neither does Inigo actually, does he which is interesting, isn't? I think it's kind of a no matter how much you learn

about a group of people to beat for the sake of diplomacy, you'll never know the ins and outs in some way, such as Blackboard Monitor. When does that ever come up? Yeah. No. And then after Vimes, you've got Sibyl. Yay.

She's doing well. You've got some good moments. Oh, yeah. That's a real Sibyl character in this. Vimes doesn't realize that she's upset was really upsetting where the sort of innkeeper's wife is the one who picks up on it and he suddenly turns around and is like, oh, fuck, she's shaking and crying.

Yeah. Well, because she's doing so well. And he's really proud of her for, you know, coping perfectly well with being taken hostage. Yes. And you know what? She may well have been, she may not have felt an ounce of fear in the moment,

but it's once the adrenaline wears off, isn't it? Yeah. Suddenly you are shaking and crying. Yeah. Yeah. Break down in a moment. Yeah. I say that like somebody who's really experienced

and being held hostage at Crossway Point. But no. I've never been held hostage at Crossway Point. In general, once you're once you're out of a risky situation, that's when it hits. It's not. I've had trauma. I also very much enjoy,

she's trying to explain this whole thing about measuring carpets and finding this room. And immediately goes into the not really listening thing and she goes, think like a policeman. I am telling you about this for a reason. And he's immediately, oh, fuck, wait. Yeah. No, sorry, what?

And the two of them actually working together on the kind of, no, we're not going to throw our cohorts on the bus because of your bigotry, actually. Yeah. Vimes and Sibyl, very much on the same page here. It's her and Sibyl. Vimes and Sibyl, both Vimes. The Vimes is her immediate.

And there's a reason I sort of wanted to follow Sibyl up with Cheery because her immediate exception of Cheery for everything she is. And taking her on as a lady's maid, I think is particularly sweet. Yes. I did also actually like Vimes is appraisal of her. Well thought Vimes, she comes from a family

where people go off in strange clothes to face explosions far away from the sun. Very nice, he said, to the sequined dress. Yes. Oh, the sequined dress bit, actually, I love for many reasons. And that, like I said, I'm saving my big, oh, yay, gender for next week. Yeah, I wasn't sure if you put it in this week or not.

There are no things to be sad, so. Yeah, I'm going to save it and do it all in one hit. One big gender hit. One big gender. That sounds terrible. The gender reveal party of the podcast. Fuck off. It's gender brackets opinion reveal.

Yeah, Cheery gets to show off her lovely new ball gown. And there's sort of this explanation of deciding their bones if they were going to overturn thousands of years of subterranean tradition, they weren't going to go through all that for no damn twin set and pearls. Which, A, is that kind of thing when you start really experiencing gender euphoria for the first time, you always want to go like all the way in the other direction.

But also, I quite like it as a comparison to Lady Margalossa, whose whole aesthetic is not looking like a traditional vampire and very much embracing the twin set and pearls. Yeah, yeah. With bats. It's a nice, yes, with bats. And in Cheery's case, it's a draw. I'm not getting rid of my identity, I'm simply tailoring it.

And adding sequins. But Albrecht's reaction to her and Vimes' immediate kind of jumping to a defense and it's almost a bit like he's gone, hang on, I miss Sibyl getting upset and maybe I need to make sure I jump to the defense of the women in my life a bit. Because they're the ones getting a bit of shit here. I mean, Detritus does the same, doesn't he? Neither of them are having slurs for our new Cheery.

Detritus, when it comes to Cheery is, well, Detritus is always very sweet, but especially when it comes to Cheery. I know there's probably a little bit of like, regret sees. I shouldn't say regret sees when I'm talking about the death of a colleague. But that's for when I go out without an umbrella, not for Cuddy. Cuddy? No.

Cuddy. Cuddy. It was Cuddy. Acting comfortable, Cuddy. We hardly knew you. F5. Leaning into that. But there's just a very good moment where Vimes is very quietly supportive

when they've come out of the mine and he sort of notices Cheery was, Vimes saw that Cheery was shaking and he kind of gives the out of, cold air really hits you after the warmth underground, doesn't it? Yeah. And let's just have that gently instead of deeply going into, hey, so how was that traumatizing for you? Absolutely. Now, I enjoy doing the opposite to you when you're crying because the wind is in your eyes.

And I say, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize this coffee shop upset you so. That's the kind of friendship we have. But I would do it. I would do it the proper way around for you should the need arise. I just enjoy deliberately misinterpreting things. Yeah, no, that's fair. But yeah, I feel a bit for Cheery and for Detroiters, especially in this section,

because they've kind of been, Vimes has trotted them out to use them as like these kind of political game pieces of being extra more porky and not really thought about what it must feel like for them to go into this situation. Yes, I think he's, I mean, he was pretty inquisitive before they left. They was like, are you sure you're okay with this? Kind of stuff. Yeah, he does kind of check it out with them.

Yeah. But I think, yeah, he doesn't realize the gravity of it until that moment where they're approaching the king. And he's like, I brought a fucking troll. What have I done? You get it, they don't use like, what if, like in the moment of, you know, righteous anger or just righteousness generally taken action. And then as its consequence approaches, you're like, oh no, consequences.

Yes. Oh no, oh, who could have foreseen this? Shut up, everybody who told me who could have foreseen this? What is that? It's me sewing, me reaping. What the fuck? The fuck? This is terrible.

What? But I would love to have had like just a little bit of seeing some of it from Detroiters' perspective when they're down at the kind of dwarf reception and approaching the king. Yes. More than just teaching the world about Morpork's great culture, mostly the inside of the opera house. Absolutely.

It must be, it's particularly odd, isn't it, that trolls are, I mean, not within the dwarf society, but going up to bonk that trolls are considered these lesser beings when they are up in the mountains and a pretty good brain capacity at most of the time. Yeah. And then also a lot bigger and stronger. I feel like it's maybe just their sort of fewer in number. Yeah. Yeah, you can, you can pretend that they're not real people when you never come across them.

Ha, it's almost got some kind of parallels to real life. Ha. I mean, I don't believe there's anybody whose brains are made of silicon, but I can't prove that. Don't upset our new AI overlords, Francine. I never would. You know I never would. No, that's fair.

I'm not even pretending to be onside. I'm well up for it. They can probably... Upload me. I, for one, welcome the new benevolent AI dictators. I say that. I've been playing on the AI art half again a lot recently and it's a, you know, a little terrifying. I'm on the waiting list for Darlie, too.

And I'm going to be safe, please, when I get in there. I am sick of just seeing weird Darlie images on Twitter, which is great. McDonald's funeral. That was a good one. Yeah. These are all like the Darlie mini ones, aren't they? Yeah. I don't really spend any time on that because the traffic's too high and I can't be asked.

But I bought a premium thing on the Wombo art app. I love seeing that just generating art and you get to play with lots of different keywords and like you can start making it better once you start realizing what to put in and like there's a Discord channel is really cool. That does sound really fun. Right. Anyway, Angua. Sure.

Yes. It's also a character. Going to get us back on track. Angua is not overly happy to see Carrot because Carrot has turned up sleep deprived with no winter gear, having not eaten anything. Yeah. I mean, he's not made himself an asset to the mission, has he? I have a lot of sympathy for her in this moment because she's dealing with like all this family

drama, Gavin, who's come all this way for her and she's just like, and now I have to look up this. In fairness, again, with the, yeah, could have sent her rummer. Yeah. Like could have left a note. Yeah. Yeah. I've got, I've got sympathy for her in this moment. However, what did she expect?

I think honestly, she probably did expect Carrot to follow a little bit. Like it sort of implied that maybe he knew that she'd hear of him on the howl and but I think she assumed Carrot would follow because Carrot is normally so sensible. I think she assumed that he would follow like wearing like winter clothes and with supplies. Yeah. Like that he would have stopped to think because that's what he does. And probably she'd only admit to herself that she thought he would stay in the city anyway. Yeah.

Because, you know, he never leaves the city. But he did because he loves her so and that's very sweet and gratifying, but also, oh my fucking God, Carrot. No, nothing to eat three days, huh? Great. Good. Well done. And you're going on from Angra to Gavin.

What a weird name for an alpha wolf. Brought me a lot of joy. I know a few Gavin's. And none of them are particularly alpha. Most of them are fine. Not very nice, but just not like, I dislike both of the Gavin's, I know. They're weird pub Gavin's. No, yeah.

I know one weird pub Gavin. Gavin the wolf. Yes. Gavin the wolf. Well, he ate someone called Gavin. That's right. Yes. That's why his name is Gavin.

A normal Gavin. Yeah. He is not a dog. Very important. He is not a dog. There's a great moment where he's getting a bit threatening with another wolf and does a sort of harm. And a gasp is thinking of it as.

Wolf infection. Loved it. Harm. Really vibrated the bones. Right down inside gasp bones, it bounced to harmonic, which said at this point, when you go two ways, there is the easy way and that is very easy. You will never know about the hard way. But there's kind of like a carrot parallel.

Like carrot has that very similar attitude of. Sorry. Sorry. No, that's fine. I can't see. I do apologize. Bracket's miscreant. I'm going to change my zoom name to Joanna Bracket's miscreant.

Right. Sorry. Yeah. The carallel can't stop saying it from seeing you broken. Well, you saw what happened. As soon as it popped into my head, it was going out. I'm sorry. But yeah, I get that.

I think I agree. He's. In a less violent way, but carrot is the very. Yeah. It's different species again, isn't it? Yeah. Carrot is not people. Sorry.

Carrot is people. Gavyn's not people. Carrot probably rarely has to pee on things to establish territory. I think the carrot not immediately being best friends with Gavyn was really like a really powerful demonstration of wolves not being people. Like in the carrot gets along with everybody. And yeah, the wolves not having humanity. And that not necessarily being a bad thing.

No, no. Although then I feel like the next paragraph almost for them for morphizing them when it's like, and they're saying just far away back from the fire to be independent. Don't need no fire wolves. I think it's impossible to write. Yeah. No, it is. Carrots full and not anthropomorphize with them.

Absolutely. Especially if you're, you know, trying to be vaguely amusing. Yeah. Poor little Caspone. Fagely amusing. Sorry. Poor little Caspone is flirting attempts. Well, I'm not sympathetic towards anyone who goes up and says,

what's up bitch and strikes out to be honest. Not. What? What did you say? Feel like I come from the eat things like you. That's amazing front scene. Thank you. Thank you.

We did promise some bad accents and I feel like we've not delivered really yet. So. Oh, I'm definitely saving mine up for next week. Good. The gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya. Oh, yes, the gloomy trousers. But yeah, carrot himself, you know, like as we were talking about kind of gambling on the howl and anger coming looking for him.

Because as much as carrot is wholesome carrot, he's also not stupid and possibly quite manipulative in ways. But we'll never know. But we'll never know. Because we never see it from. I know you want to talk about perspective shifts a bit more later, but it's more noticeable in this that we never really see anything from his perspective whenever in his head, the way we are with Angwer or with Vines or with Gaspoed.

Right, Colin, who is being a wanker. Yeah, unsurprising. Not more of a wanker or less than last time. I don't think really. No, busting out more slurs as he loses his shit with everyone. And immediately confronted with the Guild of Watchmen, which is something that brings me joy. Nobby's unionized.

Yep. Police unions, generally a bad idea. In this case, probably justified. I mean, within the context of Discworld Link Moorpork, ignoring the realities of, you know, round world policing, a Guild of Watchmen actually makes quite a lot of sense. I don't know. Is it necessary when Kylan's not in charge?

Less for the unionizing aspect, but for maybe the organizing aspect. Like, I don't know. I don't feel like I haven't thought this through enough now. If it's run as one of the Disc's Guilds, the Angmoorpork Guilds, I feel like in some ways they get a lot more respect than their current kind of still somewhat underdog status. Yeah, but I don't think that's good. I don't think the police should be respected like that, honestly.

I think the fact they are this underdog, civilian, ragtime kind of miscreants. I think because I'm thinking about it so much in the context of these Watchmen who aren't bad. Yes. Nobby either? Oh, right, good point. Maybe I didn't really think this point through.

I'm going to move us on. I'm amazed that Red Shoe didn't just take over as head, as clearly the natural leader of a union effort. I feel like he's, Nobby's in charge pretty much in name and he's the best person to go and talk to Fred specifically. Everyone knows Nobby. I also feel like if, and I feel like there's going to be a Nobby veterinary conversation in the next section,

but I feel like Nobby can talk to veterinary in a way where Reg might struggle. Yes. Captain Tantany. Ah, he's nice. He's very sweet. A winter prize because his eyes barely flickered when Vime's telling me he's got a fly on his nose.

Which I feel is like a more portable version of the Orange Test. A more portable version of the Orange Test, yes. You don't need to throw an orange. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. But the world has been crying out for a more portable version of the Orange Test. Now with Wi-Fi.

Pods off a cumquat. Yeah. And then D, the ideas taster, which is such a already kind of ramping up the neuroses. I do just generally enjoy the scene when Vime's is taken in and sat with D and everyone's very pointedly ignoring the rabble of noise from just outside the door as they react to everything that's said.

Yes. And D is just like escalating the volume louder and louder. And that won't be necessary. It won't be advisable. Everything is fine. And then the low king, Reese Reeson, who is apparently quite unassuming as far as dwarfs go. Yeah, like a dwarf.

Yeah. And has kind of come into this political context through not being the offensive choice. It's happened to a few world leaders. He's like a Lib Dem 15 years ago. Yeah. 15, 10. However long though.

Yeah, something like that, 13 years ago. Whatever. His Nick Clegg is what we're saying. Yes, he is Nick Clegg. Except I assume he's not going to go on to work for one of the world's most evil corporations after he retires. The point is?

The point is. He's bland. He's acceptable to almost everyone, apart from the people that really wanted Albrecht Dalbertson. Because he seems reasonably affable and like he wants to make things better in a peaceful way. So that's good.

Well, I like this kind of one, two, three of you have the meeting with the low king, the meeting with Lady Margolosa, then the meeting with the wolves. And the politicking at vimes, getting less and less subtle as he works his way through. But Reese is kind of lacking his own sort of subtlety that works very well, which is when he's just very calmly

explaining, yeah, these call me law and ornament and short ass. And sort of watching for the reaction. Testing vimes, for honesty. It's like, which has echoes of what's his chops, Prince and Jingo. Oh, yeah. It was like, what did that person say?

A sloth? Yeah. Well, is it still the same in Angkorporg? He's like, well, it's better than it was, but now you're probably still getting insulted. Yeah. Yeah, people are still going to be digs, so it's me. Yeah.

But yeah, then you go into Lady Margolosa and her sort of fairytale castle and her twin second pearls, because she's gone for the very subtle one. She's gone for the very subtle look with the sitting room in which every conceivable piece of furniture was upholstered in chints. I enjoyed the, I try to look on the bright side, little line there, I thought that was quite clever.

Kind of a little hint at stepping away from vampirism. Yeah, I also like the description of her as she looked like someone's mother, possibly someone who'd had an expensive education and a pony called Fidget. Yeah, definitely. But her subtle, like trying to push the drink on vines to see how he reacts, because you then, you kind of don't realise it's a political move

until you see the wolves do the same thing a lot more clumsily, where they just keep trying to give him a drink. She doesn't try and give him a drink there, does she? She offers him bull's blood and then them and angels. Yeah. Maybe she kind of, she brings it up. Yeah, she brings up the fact that he's an alcoholic. Yeah.

Yeah, whereas the wolves just keep trying to give him a drink. Yeah. And then she kind of almost completely digs into to the point of really eviscerating his character. And that's just the really nice, I have learned everything about your personality I possibly could, which must be quite terrifying to be confronted with. By a stranger, yeah, for sure.

Especially by a stranger who you're already like slightly scared of slash really don't trust. Yes. What do you think the weird vibe was when she asked him how old that Nari was now? I feel like it could have been, oh, you're supposed to think that veterinarians may be a vampire. Ah, so I was like,

more thinking she's genuinely lost track of time and can't remember how old her fling would be these days. Also possibly that. I think it could go either way. Yeah, I like that. And then, yeah, we have the Baroness, who, as I mentioned, are a bit clumsier when it comes to the politics. Yeah.

Yeah, they think they're being, well, no, he doesn't. She knows, she thinks she's being smart. And it's just being run circles by vines is equally clumsy, but doesn't give a fuck. Bath, that's Nari. Yeah, the subtlety is not really there, but I think we can forgive him that because the subtlety is not there on any side.

No, he's not trying, is he, either? It's great when he notices the wolf that's clearly Wolfgang. Like Angra had this sense of movement still, but where Angra always seemed to look as if she was poised to flee, this one looked poised to leap. Yes. Which is a fun little comparison because we haven't seen the two of them together yet.

No, yes. And then when we meet him. Fight or flight. Yeah. And they've clearly got different ways of handling things. And then when we meet him in sort of human form, we get the much deeper, like, oh, no, those aren't. Sorry.

She knows I'm talking about wolves. Yes, Wolfgang doesn't have animal eyes or wolf eyes. He has the eyes of a bottle-covy or sodden-nutter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody who will shatter a bottle on a table and then try and stab you with it over a relatively small disagreement for someone who's not familiar with horrible pups. Possibly a hint of tea time to him, actually.

He's got that same total lack of middlegears. And the mad eyes. Yeah, two matching mad eyes in this case, though, which tea time was somewhat lacking. Yeah, I think Pratchett definitely leans into the trope which I particularly like, which is just describing the fact that this villain has fucking mad eyes. Yes.

And there's like the implication that goes with it of, this villain won't be reasoned with or get a nice, sweet redemption arc. Yeah, yeah. And then places. You can get any villain return. Massively off track here. Yeah.

Are there any villain redemption arcs in this one? Probably want to talk about next week, isn't it? Let's keep an eye out for redemption arcs. Yes. Listen, if you spot a redemption arc, send it to a sort of place. Report it to your local authorities. They are invasive species.

Invasive redemption arcs. Locations, this is, didn't really need to go in. It was just, I enjoyed that it was referenced, which is vines threatening to put something where the sun doesn't shine. Yes. And in a go saying, that's the amusingly named place in Lanker, isn't it?

Hmm. I was like, the Lanker was mentioned briefly. It's across an embassy. It's across that. Why have they got them? They rented a house for the occasion, right? But I really want to think about this, because either King Varens and Queen Magra have come themselves,

or they've sent a diplomat. Which is definitely Sean Ogg. Which is definitely Sean Ogg. Possibly with his mum tagging along against his will. It doesn't make sense for Varens and Magra to have come, just because I can't imagine a version of these events where Magra doesn't end up involved. Maybe Varens on his own.

Maybe Varens on his own. Maybe Magra's got other things to do, and this doesn't seem important. And there's a baby, and they don't want to take the baby on the coach all that way. In which case, yes, Varens would probably just be very helpful and around. But I really like the idea of it being short.

Possibly with Nanny's supervising. But then how much would you enjoy a scene between Nanny Ogg and Lady Sybil? Where Nanny Ogg demolishes a pyramid of Ferrero Rocher. Well, Lady Sybil's very polite and secretly impressed. Yeah, just standing there holding the Ferrero Rocher while Nanny just goes to town on it. Is this a good point?

Is this an internationally recognised reference of the Ferrero Rocher ambassador thing? That's a good point. I don't know. Possibly not. Anyone who's not familiar with Old English, I think, adverts, there was a very famous advert about Ferrero Rocher, which are little chocolates with wafer spheres. But they're wrapped in gold.

Yeah, and basically being shown around an ambassador oil party. It was like, oh, ambassador, you do spoilers. And everyone remembered it because it was very silly and fun. Did you know that it was incredibly different to make those spheres of wafer? That was quite an architectural challenge. Yeah, Jack was telling me about that. I've got a lot of traffic.

Ambassador Ferrero Rocher, Nanny Ogg, Sean Ogg. Lanker. Lanker. We're in locations. You've marked underground as a location. Do you mean a specific area underground? No. OK.

Just in general, quite likely. Yeah, no, I couldn't remember. I didn't know. Is there, like, a name for the town that the dwarves are living in? I tried to scroll back and find it, but I couldn't. No, I've just been referring as to, like, the mines. Yeah, the mines, yeah. Anyway, yeah, that is a location that was interesting

because Fines was imagining, yeah, little mines and shrieking little cottages. Yes, this huge city of an underground place with a lot of candles in the end. Please, you must tell me how you've achieved such a delightful lighting effect here. Lots of candles. This is when Sybil's in her full duchess mode, isn't it?

Sybil's gone full duchess. Let fly the duchess. I also promised that I only said, and they called it a mine three or four times to myself while reading this section. Lord of the Ring. Yes. Film, Gimli's waxing poetic about the beauty of Moria

before they turn up and, like, this isn't a mine, it's a tomb. Yes, I remember now. I can't remember what, if anything, I wanted to say about the underground if it wasn't just the starts. Oh, no, the whole sleigh system I found really cool as well. Oh, yeah. And experiencing a lift for the first time.

Yes. Yeah. Because he's just sort of going into it, like, there's another door out? What the fuck? Yeah, no, it's the de-familiarization thing again, isn't it? Yeah.

Yes, yeah, and you've just gotten used to a normal lift then you get put in the seasick lift, which I also would not enjoy. I feel like that would be quite fun. Oh, I don't know. I'd claustrophobia around fear of drowning at the same time. I'm not, you're all right underground. I'd be very claustrophobic.

That book you gave me, The Gastro Atlas. Oh, yeah, yeah. Mentioned in the England section that there's, in Nottingham, there's loads of cave systems around there. There's, like, an underground cocktail bar you can go to. There's, like, massively underground and built into caves, and now I really want to go there. Sounds like you're planning nonsense.

Yep. So I need to go to Nottingham. I bet they have cheese somewhere. They probably do have cheese. I feel like the cave was originally kind of used for, like, beer storage or something. Ah, yeah. Because consistent temperatures.

Anyway. Or do I just assume that all caves have cheese because the one cave we went to had cheese? I think, honestly, it's because we took you to Wookiee Hole. And now you just assume all caves have cheese. And that's the cave I've been to and therefore, yeah. All caves have cheese. All caves have cheese and dangerous chandeliers.

Chandeliers, chandeliers. Chandelabras, I like it. Buy your same logic and based on that same holiday, Neil Gaiman will be there whenever you go to Bath. Will he not? No, no, no. Buy that same logic. Every time I go into a civic building in Bath,

there should be a Neil Gaiman. Okay, right. Suddenly fine. What was it? Was it a theatre or something? I think it was a theatre. I don't remember. It was many years ago.

It was. Anyway. I like the Turkish convenience shop. I like the Turkish convenience shop. Yeah. The Cheetos were Iranian. That's right. The guy was Turkish.

Yeah. The Watermelons were giant. The Vibes room. You have to edit this. No, I don't. All right. Yeah. No, put it out.

I'm fine with that. Right. So what now? We take a break. Can we stop? Can we go away? We still got half the episode. All right.

Well, yes. That's for future us in five minutes. Let's take five and then we'll record the rest of the episode. How does that sound for us? Sounds good. Sounds good. What's in that? Rose and not what it looks like,

which is a massive glass of whiskey. Okay, good. Yeah. Don't worry. I didn't even try to mask my concern there. Don't worry. I have not started just chugging huge glasses of straight spirits on the podcast.

Good. The listeners don't need that. Right. Little bits we liked. Perspective. You're a perspective. I am a perspective. I thought practice kind of use of perspective in this was particularly

interesting. Yeah. The way he makes the hands seem really far away. Actually, we could have, you could probably tie that in with the, oh, the fucking mountains. He kept thinking that he could touch them. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Very nice. Well, thank you for letting me get through my first sentence on track. And let's start with what we mean to go on. I'm not sorry. I know. The fight scene right at the beginning.

Yeah. So because it's such a confusing scene, actually I had to read it a couple of times to find out, like to understand what was happening. Who's doing what? Yeah. And I think in order to give us any chance at all, he had to shift from Fimes to Inigo,

which he wouldn't usually do like midway through a scene. So it went from Fimes's point of view to Inigo made out the shape that appeared at the very edge of the light. And it felt, that was very movie-ish. I thought that whole scene. Yeah. More so than most of it in this book. And I thought that was pretty cool.

I thought that it was interesting how they did it with Sibyl as well. Because we've had Sibyl's perception of things a couple of times in this book, at least once anyway. But I think he deliberately didn't, when we were working up to the revelation about her crying and him not noticing. Yeah. Which I think was a...

She needs to be like off to the side for that to work. Yeah. There's a revelation. Yeah. Quite cool to see Gaspode as the straight man for Carrot, whose view were never allowed, from Carrot's perspective. We've talked about that in other episodes,

because that would ruin the mystery of what the fuck is Carrot about. And what's he actually thinking about? Yeah. And while we did get Angus every now and then, as he said, it would ruin the mystery of human romances. Well, and also the whole point of her attitude perspective is that on paper it doesn't make logical sense that she's annoyed by the fact Carrot isn't annoyed.

Yes. So I think if you see it from her point of view, it doesn't work as well. Yeah. You'd have to like really spell it out with the like, I know it doesn't make sense. Yeah. You know, which can be done well.

But and then the heads, the heads. Oh, the heads on the wall scenes. I know in theory it's not like a nice idea that there's a decapitated troll on the wall. But these two scenes together, I don't know why they were always stuck in my brain from this book and I find them very sweet. When they first walk in,

they see the troll head and sort of trying to stand in front of it. And I'm not that wide. I'm not that tall or that wide. And then to try to see, it's obviously a lot quicker on the uptake up here. There's immediately going, being very calm about it and saying, yeah, there was a lot of that. Here's this bit of human skull I carry around.

Yeah. There's a different, definite difference to me between having the keepsake. There's kind of weird as that is. I'm like proudly displaying a trophy. So I think he's definitely being gracious about it or as gracious as you can be while waving around a bit of skull. Yeah.

No, I think he is being very gracious about it and he's very calm when he explains why it's okay when he says that things are different and now you don't chop off our heads and we don't make drums out of your skin and everything is hunky-dory. The reminder that I could make a drum out of your skin, but hunky-dory.

But I think it's also like he wants to acknowledge that there has been that very fraught past. Yeah. And it was two-way. They weren't just victims. No. Yeah. And I think he wants it to be appreciated

that he's not making drums out of anyone's skin. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. He's like, yeah, no, no, I'm not just someone to be protected here. But yeah, in the other moment. There's a gun called the Peacemaker. It's not spelled like that. Oh, right, as in PE.

Yeah. But similarly, yeah, ironic. Vibes. Why do I keep saying vibes today? I've forgotten all my thesaurus's synonyms. Synonyms. You've forgotten all your thesaurus's. I've forgotten all my thesaurus's.

It's like that nightmare. You wake up in an exam hall in your pants and you've forgotten all of your thesaurus's. My many, many thesaurus's. But yeah, the follow-up scene when the heads are being taken off the walls. Yes. And Vimes and Sybil are very quietly, like,

rolling over and half asleep naming them. And they both say swordfish together, which I did just note with a little heart next to it. I don't know why, but it brings me a lot of joy to it. Just imagine them both doing swordfish. What did you think of the three empty hooks, though? In the werewolf one. Yeah.

I feel like it's implied that that was a troll as well. Yes. And that they've heard. Could be people. I think you're right that it's trolls, but... I think they heard from the embassy and got rid of things before Vimes kicks off. Yeah.

That's how I read it, but it could be people. Yeah. Or could be yet to be filled, as they said. Yes. Because they are fond of the game. Anticipatory. I see you hanging hooks in antici... Wait for it.

Patient. Anyway, security system francing. It is difficult to properly assess or to audit on-zone system. And it is very important to get in outside auditors. And I think this is very well demonstrated here, as Vimes comes into this quite smart-looking setup that they've clearly been sticking to for hundreds of years without incident and immediately pulls it apart.

Yeah. Like, okay, I can see four ways we could break this. Come on, dudes. And I sympathise very much with Vimes, who's going in and like, stop doing things just because that's how you've always done it. And with them, because it is very difficult to see the obvious problems with something you've built from the ground up a lot of the time, which is why you should always pay for it.

Bring in external auditors. Yeah. Yes. Auditors, yeah. And yeah, I think that ties into isn't really the same point, but they're made about in a go talking about the Klax Tower. Now, you, your Grace and myself as well, because we are bastards, Vimes supplied.

Well, yes. And I like his straightaway idea for this. The Klax not being able to be operated unless the trapdoor was shut. And you know me, I like a bit of automation as to you. But the thinking through, like, you need to know if there's someone up here. You need to know why you need to think through the actual risks of it. Yeah. And then Inigo is an extra level of bastards.

He's like, no, we need to wait till night before we send this because he's to say the next two towers aren't also empty now. Yeah. Poor Inigo. Poor Inigo. He does have a rough time of it, doesn't he? He does. I like to think he enjoyed some of it.

Oh yeah, I think I like to think. He had a nice outing before he was brutally murdered. He did go down with like respect though, didn't he? He's like, oh, they are clever. I feel like he appreciated a job well done during his murder. Yes, I suppose for an assassin. Yeah, he sort of appreciated the craftsmanship. Maybe that's why he seemed so much less enamoured with the idea that those assassins had been

kidnapped and the receipt and all of that was very distasteful. Whereas, could you just tell me where you put the body? It was just simple. Yeah. And it's kind of that thing if he assumes everyone deals with things the way he would potentially deal with an assassin being sent after him. Several knives. And I think he's also somewhat putting himself in the centre way assassin's shoes

because they're put in particularly powerless positions. And Inigo is obviously having come from sort of nothing and risen his way up, just not joyfully anticipate being in that sort of powerless position again. Yeah. I've now got Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw in my head. Beautiful perhaps. Inigo solves his problems with several knives hidden about his person. And he never has the same problem size.

Anyway. Except he did, unfortunately. So food. Food. So my initial Googling of fats up, I stupidly was looking at like fat soups, historical recipes. Don't Google the word fat followed by any kind of food stuff because what you will get is 18 million hits for best fat burning soups.

Fat burning soup. Yeah. There was a lot of cabbage soup advertised to me. Most of the links I found for fats up. There's some kind of dog food supplement thing called fats up. So that also takes up a lot of Google. But I linked to the recipe I found the same which is sort of a beer and garlic and sausage stew type thing that I'd eat.

Yeah. Yeah. As long as towns. This is the sort of thing I'd be a sausage and go. Hey, if you date is nanny or you're in for a good night. Absolutely. It doesn't matter what you eat. If you date is nanny or.

Yeah. Good point. But yes, on the list of menu options that you got provides, we have while ago, Noggy, Thuglot, Thuanflet and Thothadjith. There's not a lot of historical basis, apart from the fact that things like dumplings and stuff are very prevalent in cultures we're talking about. I don't think there's actually a pastry made from curtains. Was it talking about like flax?

Buckwheat, which is very popular in that area. I don't know the ins and outs of agriculture, but I believe it's easier to grow in colder climates. Okay. Which is why it's very popular like brushing cooking. You have a lot of like buckwheat pancakes and things in this case, Noggy are apparently buckwheat dumplings. I'm sure the actual name is reference.

Yes, I assume so. The Thuglot is apparently bread made from parsnips, which I couldn't find much of a historical influence on. I'm not sure I'd want to make bread from parsnips. Parsnip, Parmesan and sage bread from Delia Online. And if Delia isn't our shortcut to genuine Slavic recipes. Then probably a genuine Slavic person would be. Yes, maybe that.

I don't know how to Google into Relic Joanna. Me neither. And that's why I don't have a lot of details on this. I've been researching several cultures together in an incredibly offensive way, much as I would do with Parmesan bread. So let's Parmesan bread, parsnip bread. I've just looked at the thing and it's Parmesan bread for James McKenzie, Great British Chefs. Yeah, Google is really not helpful for finding anything related.

Yeah. Couple of other food moments I really like. One isn't really a food moment, but I couldn't work out where else to cram in and I enjoy the line. Vimes got lost in any song more complex than the sort with titles like where has all the jellies just not the same. I highlighted that, Ziya. And then of course, this is a fairly infamous footnote from the Discworld books.

I've seen this quoted many a time. He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery. It fascinated people. They sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures. And sometimes when they were really hungry, they created vast banquets in their imagination. But at the end of the day, they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato. It's a good observation.

It's a good observation. I highly recommend a fried egg and chip sandwich. Slice of tomato? Ketchup. Tomato in a sandwich works if you're going to eat the sandwich right away. Otherwise you're asking for a zombie sandwich. Unless you're only using the edges of the tomato or taking all the seeds out and really who's got time for that?

No. I like a BLT. I like a cheese and tomato sandwich with just a little bit of mayo. Is it explained later on in the books that BCBs have burnt crispy bits? Yes. OK. Because I know it's been explained before as... When it comes to food that's been explained.

Now specifically in the fat ones. I wasn't sure if he'd gone really like, here's a little reference if you've been paying attention. So should we talk about diplomacy? Yes, we could, couldn't we? I'll let you start. That's very diplomatic of you. I just like the evisceration of diplomacy of diplomats of ambassadorship as the theme

in this book. I think practice had a lot of fun with it. And I think we can all agree that a lot of it is nonsense based in some real need for nations not to be constantly warring. Diplomatic immunity, I thought was one of the really interesting points from there. As I told you before we started recording, I did start looking into like, oh, I bet there's some really fun examples. And there's some really unfun examples.

So we're not going to go too far into that. But I quite enjoy the fact that as of 2020 diplomats in London, over 116 million pounds in congestion charges that they just won't pay because no one's going to do anything about it. Amazing. So yeah, New York apparently is parking fines similarly. The whole idea as I'm sure you know of like not shooting the messenger, not shooting the envoy, not shooting the diplomats.

It's ancient, ancient times. And I like how it's continued to now. I think it's one of the few truly civilized things we've managed to hold on to as a kind of globe. To harken back briefly to the history of clowns rabbit hole I did. It was part of the function of court gestures is that they acted as diplomats and messengers for kings and they had like a protected status. They weren't to be killed in enemy camps.

So now every time you think of an ambassador, please picture them in a stupid jester hat. I will. Something that doesn't apply to farms, but I quite liked as a concept as I was reading about diplomats in general, was apparently a big issue with one's diplomatic service is that they can become quite detached from their home country, from the patriotism because they live in another culture for so long.

Yeah. Sir Harold Nicholson acknowledged the diplomats can become denationalized, internationalized and therefore dehydrated an elegant empty husk. That is a fast, fabulous sentence. I know, isn't it? I also liked his then rest of his quote, which tied back into violence, which is nobody who has not actually

watched statesmen dealing with each other can have any real idea of the immense part played in human affairs by such unavowable and often unrecognizable causes as lassitude, affability, personal affection or dislike, misunderstanding deafness or incomplete command of a foreign language, vanity, social engagement, interruptions and momentary health, which is troubling. And I think what Vimes quibbles with this whole saying, isn't it?

It's like, what the fuck am I doing here? Why are any of these people with their weird niceties, with their weird niceties? Well, it's a reminder that, you know, the bottom of all of this is not perfectly bred automatons, but human beings. Yeah. You will react to each other very humanly. Yeah.

But I mean, in this case, I think Vimes is both automatically doing it and also finding some distaste in kind of spreading the Hank Moore pork as the best sentiment, which is what you kind of looked at a bit, wasn't it? Yeah. Well, it's this idea of a kind of diplomat out of water thing. And it's really interesting, especially comparing this book back to Djingo, which is the last watchbook we had.

And that Vimes is diplomatting, but on his home turf. And by the time he makes it to Clatch, he's not really there for diplomacy, such as he's basically in hot pursuit. He is trying to persecute the crime that took place in Hank Moore pork. And he is very much just following the Moore pork law. And we already kind of talked about where he handles it well, where he's kind of a dick, where he has to be called out on

let us be bastards too. Yes. And it's very interesting to see the lessons he's taken to Uberwald from Clatch, obviously having gone home for a bit first. Yeah. Where he's now fully aware that everyone can be a bastard. I wonder if it's made easier here by the fact he has worked alongside wars and trolls and not so much clatchings.

But then you look at his distrust of vampires, Lady Margolosa, mostly, he actually has a comparative amount of trust for some of the werewolves because he's worked with Angwer. And he's sort of thinking, oh, I'm dealing with her family. Yeah. Oh wait, never mind. No, no, you're horrible. Okay.

No. Oh God, you're horrible. You're why she doesn't live here. You're why she lives in Hank Moore pork, aren't you? I thought the phrase padded with years was interesting, by the way. Just kidding. No, I like that description of her. I also really like the very brief but intriguing description

of her dress, which I want. The dark green. I really love that color. I know it's only described. You don't see it, but I love this dark green. I'm imagining that like perlin green thing. Yes, it's going around on Tumblr. Anyway, sorry.

So he's looking at this idea of definitions of good guy, Inigo talks to him about. There are definitions that don't automatically mean likes Hank Moore pork. And that's the thing. Vimes has to kind of untangle because he's there as an Hank Moore pork diplomat. He's got to do not what's best for people.

He does. It's not just what's morally right, but what's best for Hank Moore pork. Yes. But then he knows at the back of his mind, he's been sent there because there's been some sort of crime. And what he's got to do is the best for. Yeah.

Untangling the crime. But he's got to work out what the crime is because what's illegal is different. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day. Why veterinary is not sent me here because I'm the best ambassador for the job of negotiating fat deposits. Am I?

Obviously I have not. It would probably be amusing, but if this is important, he wouldn't have sent me for it. So what am I here? Yeah. Yeah. And that's most of his section is kind of trying to work out why he's there without pissing anyone off too much.

Despite the fact he is very pissed off by a lot of them. And you can tell from the fact he's mostly in his element around the dwarfs because they're the most familiar to him. Lady Muggle also sets him on edge because he's so uncomfortable around vampires. The werewolves set him on edge because they're Nazi wolves. They do set people on edge, Nazi wolves, I've noticed. Yeah.

I'm not a fan of I love wolves. One of my favorite animals, Nazi wolves. Less of a fan. Yeah. Inside me, there are two wolves, both of them are far too hot. Honestly, it's roasting in here. But he confronts it. Like I said, he finds himself almost more comfortable around

the dwarfs because he's been around them. They are human to him. And I don't mean that in a insulting way, but I mean, he feels very, it feels familiar. It feels like, you know, somewhat being in a more book because he's thinking a dwarf is a dwarf is a dwarf. And it's put him in this different weird fish out of water environment where, like, cheery has to kind of quietly keep

explaining to him, like, no, I think it's kind of. Dwarf isn't a dwarf, a dwarf, a dwarf. And no, it will mean quite a lot to us if, if Alberson becomes the king and we're declared not dwarfs anymore because. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't know a lot about this, but minds were collapsed on top of hundreds of people. And yeah.

Yeah. Explaining this kind of hidden war that took place. This idea of the knocker men and finds thinking to himself, wonder why the hell it was that dwarfs believe they had no religion. Being a dwarf was a religion. People went into the dark for the good of the plan and heard things and were changed and came back to tell.

And had a religious schism and yeah. And had a religious schism based on mining technology, which is a really fascinating idea that does it so well. And he gets this kind of confusion. Bearing in mind, you have Sherry, who's like one of the first out female dwarfs, and even she's correcting him when he's asking about Blood Axe and Iron Hammer and going, oh no, they're both dwarfs.

Yeah. I've come out as female, but it still doesn't matter. Like at the end of the day, they're both dwarfs. Neither of them chose to. No. Yeah. That's really cool. Just finds listening as well, isn't it?

Yeah. When he's corrected. He tried, I think, at one point to argue back for a second. And then I was like, wait, no. This is something that I don't have my understanding. But yeah. So I think this is a really good logical continuation of Jingo. The watch books up to Jingo, like so, you know,

Guards, Guards, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay kind of got stuck in this rut of telling the same story in different ways, which the story being, how do we else festinari? Yes. Jingo let the watch breathe a bit more by giving them something else to do entirely. And mostly did it well. There were a couple of Blair moments that we talked about.

But here it lets the watch breathe by taking it almost entirely out of the city. There are two scenes in the city, the two colon scenes. And that's very much a sea plot there for comic relief. Yeah. And it's such a testament to how the characters are written that they have grown so much from book to book that you can take vimes from almost making the war worse

in pursuit of a crime. And it probably would have got a lot worse if Lesh Paddent disappeared to actively working to solve a crime and in the process prevent a civil war in a different country. Yes. The growth that requires, the writing that is required to put that kind of character growth in between two books is incredibly impressive.

How much character growth do you think it takes though? Because at the end of the day, would he stop trying to solve that crime if that was the right thing to do to stop the war? Oh, that's an interesting one. And I hadn't thought about that. I think he's closer to maybe being able to make that decision. It does seem very much like veterinary knows where to put him. Yes.

He is still very much, I think he's been described already as veterinary's terrier. And he is still very much going where he's told, which is great when you've got that Margolotta kind of takedown of him. But yeah, I mean, he'd have never been able to be so successful talking to Lady Margolotta a couple of books ago. No, you couldn't see even feet of clay, vimes,

managing to talk to Lady Margolotta. No, struggled enough with the golems at first. But that's what I mean. He's listened, he's learned, and now he knows to talk to people. It's a more interesting thing to watch. And it makes the fish out of water story a lot more fun to watch because we just watch, finds, learn how to accept what Aunt Morfolk is and uphold the law within it

and become quite proud of it. I know he doesn't like being a duke or being married to a Duchess, but I think he is underneath quite proud of his station within the city and what he's managed to do for the city. And he was capable of setting Civil off into full Duchess when it benefited the situation. Yes, he's learned how to use the Duchess. And learning from Civil being able to walk somewhere,

knowing that nobody would ever stop you. Yes, he's learned the clipboard walk. Yes. But now he's been taken, like I said, he's got this, this out of water thing and then suddenly he's put in a context where he doesn't have the backing of Aunt Morfolk law. Yes, the backing of Aunt Morfolk's diplomacy, but not law. Yeah.

And all of his protections are gone. And he's got to kind of paddle a lot harder to get to the surface. I'm trying to continue the fish out of water thing here. Yeah, if a fish wants to get to the surface, then so be it. Exactly. But if it's out of the water, it needs to get under the surface. He's got to flap a lot harder to get back in the water. I feel like I said something intelligent like five minutes back.

So I'm going to leave this here and ask you for an obscure reference for Neil Frantz. Let's flail towards the end of the podcast, i.e. the pond. So working deep underground in mines, you do need something to light your way because otherwise you're kind of fucked. Then most mines don't have the helpful skyrim dungeon glowing mushrooms. But as on this world, bringing fire, whether that's a lamp or torch or a candle into a mine on Round World was rife with danger

because mines contain pockets of fire damp, which is methane, which when mixed with air becomes explicitly dangerous. Yes. From solutions in gas detection. In the early 19th century, we have the first recorded gas detector or gas tester. They enlisted a person to wear a wet blanket and carry a wick with the end lit on fire. They would move the lit wick along the walls of mine. And if there was a pocket of methane gas, the wick would ignite.

A damp blanket kept the tester safe most of the time. However, sometimes large pockets of methane caused the entire area to be engulfed in flames. So it was a risky job. It was a risky job. The risk was largely accepted, but it became more common as mining became deeper and more of these pockets became found. Were found. Thank you.

Underground explanations were common, but the impetus to find a solution to the problem, from mining heritage, came from the felling pit disaster of 1812, which 92 men and boys were killed. Jesus. And literally in the next couple of years, the first flame safety lamps came about. So they were oil lamps with mesh covers, almost as described in the discos here, which stopped the flame igniting the methane. When the flame rose higher with these first ones, that's how you knew you were in the presence of methane.

The technology was developed in various parts by George Stevenson, Dr. William Reed Kline and Sir Humphrey Davy, who presented his design in 1815. He did refuse to patent it, although it did become known as the Davy lamp. Right. In the late 1800s, Sir William Garforth, excellent name, developed the Garforth lamp, which resembles more closely the device used on the disc well, because the flame does turn blue in the presence of methane. Amazing.

Okay. I think I managed to keep that fairly brief. Well done. I feel like I should also just throw in the mention that there were canaries for checking for certain types of gas that knock you out as well. Yes. And it's the phrase canary in a coal mine. Yes.

I thought that was probably fairly non obscure. It is. But I feel like if we talked about mine safety, we should mention the canaries. Poor little canaries. Poor little canaries. Right. I think we've said everything we could possibly say about part two of the fifth elephant. You look really confused though.

So now I'm concerned I've missed something important. No, no, no, I just come back to the page and apparently canaries didn't like pass out or whatever when they got gas. They would start shaking their cages all stop singing. Ah, interesting. Well, I'm glad we looked up canaries. Unhappy canary was the warning. Not unpunctious.

Anyway, right. Now we've said everything that we could possibly say about part two of the fifth elephant, at least until one of us interrupts the other again. Which might happen. We will be back next week with part three, which starts on page 303 in the Corgi paperback and starts with the lines. Vimes woke up in darkness. Ooh.

Until next week, though, dear listener, you can contact us on Instagram at the true shall make you fret. Weird way to contact us, but fine. People comment. People say hi. I like it. It makes me happy. Shout out Boston's Larty Bartfast, who often get like we get tagged and post about them listening. They're cats.

Oh, that's nice. And we get tagged and posted about them listening. So yeah, no, do contact us. Do we now? All right. Fine. Fine. Well, you never show me this.

No. Tag us on your cats. I think we're actually an act of violence. Not showing me things we've been tagged in with cats. But okay, we'll talk about that later. Right. Can I do the rest of the outro? Yes.

All right. You can contact us on Twitter at make you fret pod. Is that acceptable? Yeah. No, I don't care. Okay. I've tuned out now. Carry on.

Okay. Facebook at the true shall make you frets. Join our subreddit community r slash t t s m y f. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks and terrified canaries. The true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com. Yes, Francine. We want like a Lady Margolosa castle or more of a. Where will he castle?

Lady Margolosa, but then with like the werewolves furniture because that sounds more comfortable. I don't like chints. All right. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Like fairy tale on the outside. Yeah.

Kind of dingy, but like comfy on the inside. Okay. But with a moat so that we do have it. It depends. But with a moat and like no decapitated heads. Okay. Cool. Comedy taxidermy only.

Yeah. And if you would like to support us financially so that we can buy our own comedy taxidermy for our eventual castle. And I don't have to try and make it. Didn't your husband once try and taxidermy a stote? Yes. And I don't want to see that again. Anyway, no, sorry.

You can go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make you fret exchange your hard earned pennies for bonus nonsense. And we can spend them on therapy for Francine because of the timer with the stote. And until next time, dear listener, don't let us detain you. When you read the bit about like where they got into the spy on bit and the wall. Yeah. Did you read the, did you do the Nanobimp voice aloud as you read that bit? Yeah, obviously.

Yeah. Thanks baby for a fortnight.