The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 90: The Truth Pt. 2 (Eau-De-Zero)

Episode Date: July 18, 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 Truth”. A Rumpus! A Fracas! An Attempted Murder?!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:The Annotated Pratchett File v9.0 - The Truth Gus Honeybun would send coded messages to the LGBT+ community - Plymouth Live That’s Life - YoutubeFundraiser : Temporary housing for Lanta - GoFundMeMeet the Mudlarkers - Thames Festival TrustEdward Packard (businessman, born 1819) - Wikipedia The Plymouth Herald The Paul Foot Award | Private Eye OnlineEau de Nil, the Light-Green Color of Egypt-Obsessed Europe - The Paris ReviewEau-de-Nil - Discworld & Terry Pratchett WikiMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

heatwaffe. Phrases I found during the research today that I didn't follow up and I want a gold star for it, though not too flabberg. To him, Egypt was where he bedded Nubal young women after watching them dance the popular strip cheese, The Bee. How? Another phrase, Taylor had founded the Norwich Science Gossip Society. I want to know more about. I want to.

Yeah, yeah. How did you not? Because I had about an hour before we started recording, and I had to find out about the subjects that they came up during. Oh, OK. I'm so proud of you, but I want to know about this bee themed strip tooth. I know, but at least that's easy enough to remember to Google later. Do you want to hear about something completely unrelated to the podcast, but vaguely amusing?

Yes. Are you aware of the current Broadway drama surrounding Funny Girl? No, I don't know what that is. OK, OK. So Funny Girl is a musical. It was originally on Broadway in like the 1950s, 40s, starring Barbara Streisand as Funny Bryce, based on a true story. Funny and it's important to the story that both Barbara Streisand and Funny Bryce are Jewish.

It's it's a very famous musical. It's the one that don't rain on my parade is from. OK, yeah, I know that one. OK, so you've also seen Glee, some of Glee, because I made you watch it. Yes. So you're aware that the main character in it, Rachel, played by Lea Michelle is really obsessed with the musical Funny Girl. Yes.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to shout that. No, no. And it's a performing in a Broadway revival of it, which was completely fictional in the show because in real life, it had never been revived for Broadway since its original run until like this year. OK. The whole reason Rachel from Glee is obsessed with Funny Girl and blah, blah, blah, is because Lea Michelle, who played her, is obsessed with Funny Girl and blah, blah, blah.

Right. So when the revival got announced, everyone was like, oh, my God, are they going to cast Lea Michelle? But they didn't. They cast Beanie Feldstein. I don't know who that was. What we do in the shadows, she's the girl that Naja turns. Yep.

Yep. There we go. She's also in Booksmart and lots of other things. Cool. And this is very exciting for people because there's not a lot of queer plus sized women playing lead roles on Broadway. So she was supposed to be in Funny Girl up till September, but she got kind of bad reviews and the show didn't get nominated for any Tony's.

And then she announced that because of some production decision, she was leaving the show early, like things not getting nominated for Tony's. Like, does that matter a lot? It seems like if it's meant to be this prestigious award, surely most things wouldn't be. I think it was just kind of assumed. I guess it was so hyped that, yeah, OK, yeah, it was hyped and stuff. And I think it wasn't just not getting the Tony at non, but also like there were

a lot of bad reviews. I'm not going to voice an opinion, whether it's bad or not, because I've not seen it. So Beanie is basically being pushed out by production and then they did a casting announcement. Guess who's now going to be playing Fanny Brice in Funny Girl? Barbara Streisand. But well, no, Lee and Michelle. But the funny, well, the two funniest parts. This is a Jane Lynch, who played Sue Sylvester, is also in this revival.

Oh, I like her. Yeah, Lee and Michelle gets announced. Jane Lynch leaves the cast. I did hear that Lee and Michelle was a twat. Yes, there was lots of stuff going around. She's a twat. She's also I did get into some YouTube drama about her ex-co-stars. Just bitching about her, especially lots of racial microaggressions.

Anyway, so yeah, so Lee and Michelle gets cast. Jane Lynch immediately leaves. And of course, this has brought back the original conspiracy theory that Lee and Michelle can't read. So I just I'm having a lovely time on the internet right now. It's great fun. It's just one of those really fun. I have no skin in this game.

Slightly niche dramas that's taken over my TikTok and I'm having a great time with it. I really like Broadway drama, but I'm just not interested in seeing any of the shows and that does make it better. I'm kind of interested in seeing some of the shows, but also know that like 90 percent of them I'll just never get the chance to, unless they get a West End transfer and that only happens to like the huge ones. OK, OK, OK. If you could see any Broadway show alive or dead, what would it be?

Obviously, Funny Girl starring me and Michelle, obviously. No, I know it's a bit like not as good as Blah Blah Blah, but I would have quite liked to see Hamilton with the original cast. Blah Blah Blah was a fantastic show, but so was Hamilton. Or, you know, Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, like I genuinely would have loved to have seen that in its original because I feel like the cast recording probably doesn't do it justice.

No. All right, cool. Do you want to make a podcast? Yeah. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make You fret podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in Cron Lodge-Gloria. I'm Joanna Hagan and I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of the truth.

Yes, the 25th Discworld novel. Love it. And our 90th episode and our 90th official episode, which is a delight to mention the number whenever we hit around one. And it also means in 10 episodes time, we're going to hit the century. The century of truth and make you fret. What a delight. Just to let us know, part two runs from page 146 in the Corgi paperback

with sometimes seemed to William the whole of Ankh-Morpork was simply a mob waiting to happen and ends on page 301 in the paperback with I'm Going to See a Man About a Dog. Two very good quotes. I'm delighted by it. Note on spoilers before we get started. This is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book, the truth.

But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we are saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us as part of a stampede of terriers, livestock and a parrot with dog written on the side. Good, I love that parrot. Me too. I really want to draw that parrot. I think that's what I'm going to do.

Follow up. We've got things to follow up and haven't we? Do you want to start? Do you want me to start? Oh, I'll start. I've got a couple. Nariss on Patreon has told me that it is derogate. Not as I knew it was not, but enjoyed saying repeatedly to Rog. Thank you, Nariss. Sonda Vogel on Reddit has told us a little about the motto of The Order of the Gutter, which I mentioned as the strapline motto, whatever on the times.

The phrase supposedly goes back to Edward III, who founded the order in the 14th century. He wanted to found an order of knights. Some say to get the throne of France, hence yellow and blue, and had a ball. So one legend goes that the Countess of Salisbury, whom he was in love with, lost her garter during a dance, and he gave it back to her to the amusement of the knights and other people present. His response to it was the shame on him who thinks ill of it. And in one version, he wore the garter himself, hence the name and motto.

Another legend ties it back to Richard I, who made his knights wear garters round their legs in the Battle of Acres, which Edward III may have recalled, too. There, too, the ill thought may have been connected to his claim on the French throne. I love it. Thank you, Sonda. May I call you, Sonda? And finally, a couple of episodes ago, I was trying to remember what the local birthday announcement rabbit and Devon was called, and I asked Jack, and he was called Gus Honeybun.

And while I was trying to find a picture of him to send to Joanna, because he's terrifying and a cute way, I found the wonderful headline, Gus Honeybun would send coded messages to the LGBT plus community. Apparently, Gus Honeybun used to read out cards from Auntie Stella. The information within would hint that people wear parties were happening. Amazing. Yep. Gus Honeybun, a true gay icon. Absolutely. I'll link to that in the show now.

It's listener's seat and look upon his iconic. Scary face. Very iconic. I'm very glad I don't need to dress up as him. Yes. So if I know when your husband's birthday is. I have things to follow up on. Well, and letters to the editorics. What I know, feminising suffix is a bit.

Such a loose relationship with gender, but you will very much claim the badass suffix. Yeah, because it's cool. It is. Also, I was thinking about it the other day and obviously it sucks because it's not like one is masculine, one is feminine, so much as one is default, one is feminine. And I dislike that in general. And the only time where the feminine uses the default

is dominate tricks, which is sex work. And that says horrible things about the patriarchy, but also tricks sounds really cool. So I'm going to use it. Yeah, cool. Silly rabbit tricks are for kids. Anyway, from Tom. Can I run an American pop culture reference in there? Very good.

Tom in Munich emailed us and said lots of lovely things. Thank you, Tom. But Tom has a signed book proof copy of the truth that's sort of like a pre-finished, edited, bound version that still got typos and things in it with a couple of pictures, including on the first page, see page zero, zero, zero and onwards in the author's note. But Tom also asked the question,

do you know how many Pratchett book proof versions exist? I don't know much about publishing, so I don't know how common this is, but I assume they are around and said it would be fun to compare versions of each book and find the last small mistakes not caught by the man himself. I said it would be fun. I would find it fun, but I'm not sure anyone else would. I would.

And I feel like that goes for a few of our listeners. If any of our listeners have book proofs or know of the locations of them, let us know. We'll make a spreadsheet. Cool, cool. And Genevieve from New Zealand sent us greetings and apparently the moreporks say who, who as well. Thank you. Hi, moreporks of New Zealand. Who, who? Moreporks.

And Genevieve was pointed out my pronunciation of saccharis are probably is right because it's quite possibly etymologically linked to saccharin. Oh, like sweet. Like sweet and sugary. Good. Yes. Good job. And Angels One Five on Twitter sent us an amusing couple of tweets. Humorously shaped vegetables been playing on my mind. Awake this morning with the memory of Esther Ranson

and a bloke in evening dress and thick dark roomed glasses. Google and here we are. That's life was a BBC TV show that ran from 73 to 94. Esther Ranson is the main presenter. And there was a section in it that was devoted to unusually shaped fruits and vegetables. I say. Now, I did look it up on YouTube and I couldn't find any specific vegetable sections. So instead, I've just linked to a really funny video of a stuffed cat.

From the show. That's right. Yeah, sorry. Not just like a random taxidermy video. And lastly, before we start talking about the truth, because we've rambled quite a bit. Our very, very lovely listener, Atalanta, who has been with us from I think the very first episode is going through a very rough time at the moment

and possibly finding themselves unhoused. Atalanta is also the one who has the amazing Cats Boston and Slartibart Fast that we love deeply. So Atalanta is doing a GoFundMe right now. We're going to link to it in the show notes. If anyone's got any spare pennies, it would be very appreciated. Support is always good. Mutual aid. And we promise we are not going to make a habit.

But we like mutual aid and helping each other, because lovely community that we've got. Anyway, we're allowed to talk about the book now. Okay. Do you want to tell us what happened? Do you want to tell us what happened previously? So what I've done is written a set of headlines, which gives a vague overview,

because I think really I've given up on trying to be helpful with these. Yep, cool. Previously on The Truth. Dwarves turn lead to gold. Wordsmith forges new business. Pressing issues in Ankh-Morpork. Miss Bigot spot, despot, doppelganger. Sugs not invading city watch reports.

Anonymous bigwigs plot patricians downfall. Slant not on straight and narrow. Veterinary villain or victim. Imagine them spinning around with the headline. You know that animation? Yeah, I'm also hearing all of them in Matt Berry's voice. I did kind of put that cadence on it. I didn't mean to.

It's just that sounds... That's how authority sounds to me. What, Matt Berry? Yes. Doing headlines. Yeah, no, that's fair. I respect that. Headlines.

You should tell us what happened in this section though, in a slightly more useful way. I'm going to try and be useful and make no promises. Okay, in this section of The Truth. Ankh-Morpork mobs at the palace as detritus guards the gate and William writes his way in to chat to vines and carrot. Drum knots being stabbed and veterinary appears to have confessed before being found unconscious by a loaded horse.

He was in, he was next to the loaded horse. The loaded horse didn't find him. I didn't read this before I read it out. Oh, that was a thing. See, William dewarded it. Oh, William dewarded it. The facts may be facts, but they're facile and feel fictional. Implicit permissions and an auto incident

see William into the oblong office where Cheery's inspecting the crime scene until a dark light interruption gets William kicked out. Back at the paper, the story right up starts until Slant and Carney arrive for the shakedown, unfortunately missing the patrician's signal on the charter as the city seems leaderless. William goes to press.

Sakaris has been invited to Lady Celica's ball and William offers to get her dressed as Gaspoed answers the question who watches the watchman watching William. Vines is stressed and waffles as AWOL as William visits the watch. Interviewing an embarrassed drumknot and making wolfish assumptions.

Odds are good, he won't last the week. Pin and Tulip chat aftermath in an ankle bite as the paper finds itself out of paper. Sorry. Oh, I like that it went on a little journey there, though. It went on a journey until it ran out of itself. It was like an Eat Pray Love thing, but... William hires writers in a Slant-sense

Pin and Tulip dog hunting. William strikes a deal with the King of the Golden River. Otto has a moment and Sakaris sees flames in the dark light while photos from the oblong office show two veterinaries. A new paper with not-quite news arrives on the scene. The new firm are foundering until they spot an ad in the Times,

a reward offered for news of a missing dog. At a mystery meeting, Mr. Scrope is to be elected and someone wants the Times dealt with. While late at night, William weighs the finances and realizes veterinary couldn't carry that damning evidence. William and Goodmountain discuss turning lead into gold. After breakfast the next day, William takes a shortcut through some stables

and the mysterious Deep Bone takes the time to tell him he might get close to waffles. Multi-story stables. I'll talk about those. Okay. At the office, every animal in Inkmoorpork and their respective owners are waiting for a reward. Brother Pin and Sister Jennifer arrive to help

and William's held subtly hostage as they nab the terriers and also takes a picture losing his head in the process. Vimes arrives to inquire about a strange stampede and chat timelines as they discuss the soon-to-be-elected Scrope and a pardon for poor old veterinary. Terriers are thrown in the river and with a paper to get out, a doubting William goes for a walk. I'm glad that practice talks so extensively

about the solidity of the Ankh River because I wasn't worried about the dogs. Now they'll be fine, they'll bounce. Next up, helicopter and loincloth watch. And of course, Francine, if you'd read the latest edition of the Inkmoorpork Inquiry, you'd know that helicopters and loincloths have been seen in the city in abundance.

Oh, no, I'm sorry, I didn't think of that. I didn't have chaffence on me. All over the shop. Morepork's shopped in helicopter loincloth rumpus. There we go, rumpus or a fracas? Fracas, fracas. Like this is the inquiry, we don't have time for that kind of nuance.

Do you want to do your favourite quote? Yes. Talking about Mr. Windling. The table dickered. Yeah, the table dickered, thank you. The best way to describe Mr. Windling would be like this. You were at a meeting. You'd like to be away early, and so would everybody else.

There really isn't very much to discuss anyway. And just as everyone can see any other business coming over the horizon and is already putting their papers neatly together, a voice says, If I can raise a minor matter, Mr. Chairman, and with a horrible wooden feeling in your stomach, you know now that the evening will go on for twice as long

with much referring back to the minutes of earlier meetings. The man who has just said that and is now sitting there with a smug smile of dedication to the committee process is as near at Mr. Windling as makes no difference. And something that distinguishes the Mr. Windlings of the universe is the term in my humble opinion, which they think adds weight to their statements rather than indicating in reality

these are the mean little views of someone with a social grace of duckweed. I feel like Proud to have wrote Mr. Windling after. A meeting. What's your quote? So my quote actually appears twice in this section. Very short quote. It's very short quote.

It's on page 179 and page 182 in the call you paperback. Is this the tree's shall make ye fret? Is it the name of the thing? The name of the thing's in the thing. The name of the thing is in the thing. It's our thing. The name's in it. It was the name of our thing. Not only that, it was printed with beautiful surroundings

with the the florid. With a fruit salad on it. Yeah, with a fruit salad. In case anyone misses. Podcast with a fruit salad side. Yes. Very necessary. So yeah, and that is where we got the title.

For new readers. Yeah, finally we got there. The mystery's been 90 episodes plus all the bonus shit. Not gonna lie. If I could have gotten away with it, I would have called the podcast the tree's shall make ye fret. But that really wouldn't have made sense to anyone. He wasn't intimately familiar with this book.

We also get the tree's shall make ye fret in this section, which none of us want to be Fred. No. No, there's nothing wrong with Fred. Eddie Fred's listening. Well, I was thinking specifically of Fred Colon. Oh yeah. There's quite a lot wrong with him.

For sure. Yeah. Anyway, don't fret, fret, or fret listeners. Now you know. Now you know that the truth shall make ye fret. And it will. The name of the thing and the thing. All right.

I promise not to do this for the whole episode. Okay, we're done. We're gonna be normal. We're chill. We're cool. We're normal. Normal chill. The name of the thing and the thing.

Even people. Yeah. Yeah. Quick. I did wonder if I needed a backup quote in case I couldn't just be really excited about the title and the name of the thing and the thing. So I'm gonna throw in Sneedle Flipsock

from when the pneumatic speaking tubes weren't working properly. It just delights me how good Terry Pratchett is at putting random syllables together in a way that makes me laugh. And Sneedle Flipsock is my new favorite. Sneedle Flipsock is indeed. Sneedle Flipsock.

Obviously. Obviously. Considered naming the podcast, but I felt like it was a bit too obscure. Did you? No. Okay. Should we talk about characters?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. Like that. Cool. Okay. I'm gonna briefly mention Sheary. She only gets a little cameo.

But it was fun seeing her reaction to the dark light. Like we've seen the dwarfs within the press reacting to it, but it's kind of nice to know like how big an Uberwaldian conspiracy theory is. Yeah. Conspiracy theory or truth? Well, truth.

But you know what I mean? Superposition. Yeah. The internet is poisoning your mind, Johan. Sorry. Why am I apologizing? Fuck you, internet. It's your fault.

It's nice because obviously the dwarfs like Good Mountain and Bodden here in theory kind of knew to ink more pork. So they might be, you might think they're carrying small tip positions with them, whereas Sheary is like, seeing Sheary react to it is like,

oh no, this is like, this is our sensible dwarf who's been in the city for a while and doesn't hold on to silliness and she doesn't like it. Okay, I know this is a thing. Yeah. It was also a nice moment where

we got to see that William Dua knows how to pronoun. Good lad. Yes, immediately. Vymes. Vymes. It was one of my favorite lines again from the book.

He are not glad about being in a tent, as they say. He are not. Has he ever been a happy camper? I do enjoy when William's kind of getting the notebook out and Vymes is very like trying to learn how to keep a straight face in the face of this

notebook. That I'll talk more about the notebook because of the threat later. Yeah, he starts talking like a policeman quite quickly. Yeah, it was William's asking if drum knots being tended by a doctor and Vymes is doing the staring

fixedly. The doctors of this city are a fine body of men and I would not see a word written against them. Of course, there's lovely Igor from Everwald growing his swimming potatoes who's looking after drum knot.

I think that years of having to deal with that Nari has probably prepped Vymes for this quite well. Yes. I think this is a nice addition to the dynamic. There's a nice line about him from Slant's perspective.

The mysterious chairs are talking about what Vymes is going to do, especially with Scrope being elected. Slant says Vymes works by the rules and someone says well I've always understood him to be violent and vicious and he's like yes and that because he knows that about himself

he works within the rules. Absolutely and on that page as well actually I bit mark that for a couple reasons. That one and the fact that do we have Angkor on here? No. And the fact that Angkor has a real

little sinister edge to her now, doesn't she? Yeah. There are other werewolves here on there. Yes, but they won't help. There are a few of them Sergeant Angkor of the Watch is very important.

They won't help strangers because she will find out and bring the watch down on them. I believe she would not bother with the watch. It's like oh Angkor's got a little kingpin of the kingpin of the local werewolves which

I very much respect. Absolutely. Drum nods. Bless drum nods. Quite embarrassed about getting stabbed possibly by his boss. But definitely not as far as he's concerned.

And he knows he knows that Nari would never stab him. No, of course he wouldn't. It just doesn't make sense. It's not logical. Stupid facts. Stupid. Very stupid facts.

But yes. And how he doesn't join in with the whole oh yes horrible to wake up regal thing. It was like if it wasn't for eagle I would have lost the use of my arm. Yeah, I like how... I don't see how the fact that he's

stitched in for a very old shape has anything to do with it. I do enjoy how kind of straight and direct he is with William especially when he decides to sort of dismiss him. Yeah. And do that,

oh I don't have to talk to you. Yeah. Leave me alone. I like drum nods. I like drum nods. I'm a big fan of drum nods. And going on to another one of my favorite kind of...

Way. ...characters. Yes. Love Harry King. I've been talking about Harry King. He's great. What's this thing you put in about Edward Packard's senior?

Oh, so that was kind of a real life version of Harry King. Very loosely but I think that Pratchett must have known about him because of his nickname. So Edward Packard's senior, 1819 to 1899.

He was a businessman who developed like a massive artificial fertilizer industry in Ipswich so fairly local to us based on coprolites from the nearby Red Crag formation. Side note, places where you could get

coprolites and things like that used to be slangally called treacle mine. Oh, cool. Anyway, he was nicknamed the Coprolite King and the golden muck man of Ipswich. So, right? Right?

Yeah. There's something there, right? Yeah. There's definitely an overlap. He became so prominent in the community. He served as mayor of the borough in 1968. His son took over from him and like grew the business,

matched it with others, but unrelated but fun fact, Packard obtained a near complete Oh, Ixiasaur? Is that how you say that? I think so. Ixiasaur skeleton from Somerset and presented it to Ipswich Museum

where it can still be seen today. Oh, cool. We should go see the Ixiasaur. And there's a coprolite street in Ipswich for that reason. One of the reasons I love Harry King's character and the whole concept of what he does,

this waste management business he's built is I actually was reminding this the other day, I saw someone talking on Twitter about like a great world building question. If you're, especially if you're doing fantasies, where does it all go? Oh, yeah. And I've seen a lot of people react with,

fuck, I just didn't think of that. And obviously it's not something that goes to the forefront of most people's minds when they're world building. They're thinking about the climate and the religion and I don't know how the prince

gets out of the castle or whatever. Yeah, that's it. It's not fine. You don't think about the plumbing, yeah. But it's really weird when you start thinking about like most of the fantasy you've consumed or engaged with and gone, like, where are the toilets in Rivendell?

I mean, in castles, you've got a better idea, haven't you? Because like, we've all been around castles. Certainly in the UK, you've always gone to school trips to castles and they go, oh, and this is where everybody pood. But yeah, in like cities, towns, where? Yeah.

What's everyone doing? Throwing out the window, Tudor style? Yeah. I feel like in Angkor Pork until Harry King, yes. I think in the early books, that's probably what was happening. And there were, I don't know, some drains and things.

Obviously, we know we've got the streets underneath the streets. In fact, I believe we visit a sewer type street in which everyone had a gun. Men at arms, I'm going to say. That sounds right, yeah. Because, yeah, we talked about that the other day, didn't we, with the lighting there?

Yes. Yes. And when we were talking about the Fifth Advent, so yes, I enjoy the fact that waste management has a thorough use. And I think Harry King is kind of a delightful character with it. He is, yeah. Considering he's a titan of industry,

he's one that I rather like. An enormous man with a pink and shiny face with a few strands of hair teased across his head. Hard to imagine him not in shirt sleeves and braces, even when he wasn't or not smoking a huge cigar, which he'd never be seen without. So that's another character you could kind of copy-paste into an oldie-timey newspaper, isn't it?

It'd be the editor. He's the editor who yells at Spider-Man. That Peter Parker other. Yes. Get me a picture of Spider-Man. Guys, it's fine. It's fine. Don't tell anyone.

Yeah, he's lovely. I love how he loves these daughters and he's like, tries to be genteel for Effie's sake. And yeah, I know he's sweet. And yeah, he's not a bigot. And he pays people, you know, all right. And yeah, it seems very nice to everyone willing to pay a golem.

Good work, Harry King. Piss Harry. Piss Harry. Sorry, King of the Golden River. Anyway, William. William. William the word. He's got a lot going on for him this episode, isn't he?

He does. He does. He's honing his journalistic instincts. Considering he had turned his life to porridge, which I liked as a line, he created this incredibly dull routine for himself until his life became porridge. I respect that.

He's kind of dealing with a lot of the stuff to do with his father and like, admitting to his richness in this section. Yeah. You get this. Sorry. You get this bit where Sakaris is talking about finding a dress for the ball

and he's doing the very awkward, I want to see what you look like all over. I can get you a dress. And then he very quietly says, look, my family is rich. I'm not. Yeah. And this is,

we know about the chip on his shoulder, but the people around him learning about the chip on his shoulder. I thought it was worth mentioning the part where he claxed variants because thinking that he'd probably met him once, those kind of connections, like in journalism,

are very useful, very important. And poshos are still very over-represented in journalism. Like partly for that reason, partly because it's an old boys club. And you can kind of see why when they look at it like that. And like you can just talk to a random king or whatever. But obviously the issue is, well, A, lack of representation,

and B, they can, they've got the right connections. So that often means they go a bit easier on their mates. Exactly. Like for instance, getting the paper of Harry King, whatever. But you know, that's slightly different, but still a little bit of an ethics question there.

But the press must go on as they don't say. To be fair, like his newsletter was going to King Varense as well. So I feel like there's kind of a, did he use his family connections to set up the newsletter before it became the newspaper? Oh, almost certainly, right? Now you say it. Yeah, I didn't think of that.

But yeah, definitely right. Because I was thinking like, oh, it's not like his posh family connection. He has a question, how did he get it for the newsletter? Like that's from posh family connections. And like guys like that, I can imagine him not thinking it was through family connections though.

Like he said, I know, like I didn't get my dad to introduce me. I wrote to Varense myself and this and that. It was like, yeah, but it came with your signature. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You have the privilege whether you want to have it or not. It's your choice to have this life. Yes.

God, your dad, he could stuff it all over. It's a flat, sorry. But yeah, some of the stuff where he's trying to kind of explain his dad, and he's doing the, there should be a law against disliking dwarfs and trolls the way he does, where he's explaining it to Gibb Mountain,

and sort of explaining the lesser races. And the dwarfs kind of trying to explain that people will look at this a certain way. And he's like, what do you call those black humans that live in Hwanderland? I know what my father calls them. I've called them people who live in Hwanderland. Not that all my bullet points for my section of William are just,

father. Never do that again, Nirvana. You promised me. I did not mean it. Also, I forgot I promised you. I don't know if you did or not, but I feel like that's something he would have done to placate me slightly after the awfulness that was that fucking film.

Was it a series? I don't remember. God, I'm hot. It was a limited series. How am I this hot already? It wasn't that hot today. This room has just trapped all the heat now. I'm just stressful for you to speak to.

No, anyone would be. You're less stressful than most people, you know that. But yes, it's enjoyable seeing William's chip on the shoulder grow to the point where it's obvious to everyone, Otto picks up on it and then offers to give him some advice on women at the same time, bless Otto. And then later on, as where you're hearing, like I feel like it's okay for us to spoil the last word,

the book in that you're hearing the mysterious voice that wants the time it's brought down and then says the thing that William's father always said, which is the lie getting around the world. Yeah, that was a very heavy-handed hint, I'd say, so it's not really spoilery. No, it's not subtle, but it's good to, as you see the chip when it shoulder grow, see the other side of it

and maybe see where that chip came from. And Harry King picking up on that, oh, he's a born muckraker who was unfortunately born too far away from muck. Yeah, yeah, he's, sorry. Sorry, just fun side note that mud larking still happens today. It's obviously less of a trying to find money thing and more. It's like finding really random bits of antique stuff,

but very much still happens. It's quite cool. Yeah, it's more like an archaeological thing now. Ah, that sounds like something I would not enjoy, but I would enjoy hearing about from someone who did it. Yes, look up, Thames Mud Larks. That's such a nice word, isn't it, mud lark? I do love the word mud lark.

Sounds like a sweet little bird who pecks around in puddles, but no, it's people who go meaty and shit to find shiny things. The other thing I found really in the section is that I wanted to kind of make fun of William for being a bit dumb. Hmm. For things like guessing that Nobby is the werewolf. Yes. And then like the bit with deep bone where he comes to the,

aha, it must be a foreigner. Yes. And as one of those, you could make fun of him for being dumb. When it comes to Sakurisa, he is definitely a total idiot, but I really like that dynamic and B, he's not stupid. It's just we know a lot more than him. I was thinking that what he was like going through is the stupid rumors about the talking dog and the werewolf on the watch.

Yes, exactly. And all of that. I was like, ha ha, but also obviously you wouldn't believe that. We know all the ridiculousness. It's like a little wink from Pratchett, just that little bit, yeah. It is, and it's fun to read it once I kind of got that into my brain. It's also just fun to see Vimes like kind of just through William's perspective, because we're so used to seeing either inside Vime's head

or from people who really admire him. Yeah, yeah, like Sibyl or something. Yeah, I think like William's stupidity to put it that way is always very well framed within his actually being really observant and like a good to understand and all of that. So yeah, it makes it like hearted in joke rather than character damage. Yes, the book's not taking any fun at him. Yeah, yeah.

Oof, Pin and Tulip. Pin and Tulip, Pin and Tulip and the barbecue set. Tulip is somewhat delighted by. I'm the envy of my ing friends. Who's Alfrasco? And this nearly went into little bits we liked, but I decided to shoehorn it in further up instead, which is Tulip threatening to get medieval with a maypole,

a display of country dancing, land tillage under the three field system, several plagues, and the invention of the ing horse collar, which is elaborate, but I respect it. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure how it translates into physical violence, apart from possibly the horse collar, but. I don't know, the maypole can get pretty, pretty well.

That's true, actually. I know you said it. That's another pulp fiction one, isn't it, right? Get medieval on your ass. Yes, yeah. But perhaps it changed the spelling. Didn't change the spelling of medieval, because that's the American spelling,

but did change the spelling of ass. That's fair. Because ass is a sad, flat word. It's not if you say it to boneanly, ass. It's apple, all that. Oh, yeah, asshole. Yeah, asshole. Yeah, no, I'll allow that.

I do also like the bit where they're robbing the Omnion Temple and getting hold of their robes for the weekend. And he finds the candlestick, and it's like this whole antiques roadshow bit of if you got the box it came in, and my Lord, we didn't realize. It's a beautiful little bait and switch, isn't it? Where it looks for a second,

Mr. Tulip's going to stop Mr. Finn from hitting the priest. Because what kind of person are you to hit a priest? That's obviously, that's my moral line in the sand. It's like, what kind of man are you to use a beautiful candlestick as a blunt instrument? I just read it, especially when the priest starts looking hopeful and it was in furniture, and we kept it for sentimental value. Like, I heard the antiques roadshow theme tune

and smelled like the Sunday early evening boredom. I did not, but after I read the annotated project file I felt silly for naught. We used to watch it religiously every Sunday after our Sunday roast, so it is very ingrained in my brain. Yeah, I only ever watched it when I was off school, sick or something. I have like a weird Pavlovian reaction where like every time I hit the theme tune, like I smell gravy.

Because we used to have it like, it's all part of one memory. I love it. Which is very weird things to be associated. Anyway, God, sorry, gravy and antiques. Also. Poor Otto, I felt so bad for him when his iconograph broke. I know. And the little bit where they're trying to work out

if they can take pay cuts and things, and he's like, can I have this massive exciting new camera? No. All right, I want some money for expenses then. This is a weird job. Yes. He's got a new outfit. Has he?

Yes, he has. He's got the old, the photographer. He's got the photographer thing, but made in black with a red silk lining and tails. So we also do need to make that outfit. Otto Shriek cosplay could be pretty fun. That would be a fun one. But carrying that camera around is going to be a pain in the ass,

isn't it? The bit where he almost, right, pulls off the wagon. I found very intense. I think he wrote it very well with the whole, what's going to happen? You really can't tell for a second there. And then Sakaris, her kind of showing her loyalty to her new friend that he wanted to and he didn't.

That's the point. Even though he'd just been going on about the heaving buzzer, Sakaris is very, very good sort. Good egg. She's a very good egg. Speaking of eggs, I forgot to mention during my quote, the bit about the dwarf hitting the top of his egg with an axe, which is unforgivable of me.

I do apologize. It was the very calmly getting the axe out first. That's a really good kind of counterpoint. There is also just a terrible cheesy line that I love on Good Mountains telling us I'd stop with the dark light and says I don't want any more of these prints of darkness. Oh, there's been some, there's been some puns, Joanna. There has been punning.

What is next is gas bones. Gas bones. I see you've got two separate bullet points here, but okay. Gas bone. I wasn't sure if we were going to try and keep the mystery alive. I think anybody who doesn't know who Deep Bone is by this point in the book. No, I'm not going to make fun of them, but you know.

Is it William to word levels of observation? Except we had the background info. Maybe they haven't read the book. No. The rest of the book first, yeah. But is William thinking on this urban myth? You just mentioned all these stories that he thinks are clearly silly and including the dog in a city that could talk.

And the description of the dog in front of William didn't look as if it could talk, but it did look as if it could swear. Yes. Book was, yes, Gaspard is Deep Bone, which is a reference to Deep Throat. And I literally have never noticed before this read that the livery stable is multi-story. Yeah. I don't know how I completely went past that line.

But it's, that is message across. Yeah, they did meetings in multi-story car parks, which are just creepy places. They really are. Especially because of American dramas. I've never really felt unsafe in a multi-story car park around here. But if I were ever in America, I would not enter on. Because that's where people get killed in all of the cop shows I watched. That's what I used to watch for them on a Sunday night, like NCIS, whatever.

We did that when I was a bit older. I had a huge crush on the goth girl from NCIS. Because I understand what I did. Anyway, yes. That's a fun little reference. I enjoy that. Cool. Locations.

Locations. I've only put these in, basically, Shihon, in little bits. I like, we already talked about Lanker and the Klax turn from Varence. But I do enjoy seeing the story in the inquiries. I bet $1,000, that's not true, happening. Lanker, about $100, that's not true. Well, yeah, it has been explained. It is an ominous place.

It is a... Fortentious. When it doesn't. Omen. Then it's more fortentious somehow. The Klax turn from Varence. Women of Lanker, not repeat, not inhabit, bearing snakes. Stop.

Children born this month. William Weaver, Constance Thatcher. Catastrophe Carter. All plus, arms, legs, minus scales, fangs. Which is a wonderful thing. And also, it's lovely to get an update from the stars of Lords and Ladies. Yes, we have stars. Carpe Juculum was the last time we saw them.

Yeah, but they weren't, you know, falling asleep by fairy circles. Yeah, very true. It's nice to know. Catastrophe Carter. Beautiful. Beautiful name. Yeah, I might change my name to that. And Uberwald, when we're getting...

Also, it's an explanation of how the Dark Light works. Oh, yeah, yeah. Psychotropic. Yes, and Uberwald has psychotropic scenery. If I was to say something portentous, like the dark eyes of the dark mind, so it would be a sudden crash of thunder. And if I was to point to the castle on a towering crag and say, yonder is the castle, I've all for be bound to hell, mournfully.

That's true. And we feel like we need to acknowledge at this point that the whole thing with Dark Light is that there's no actual present because time is infinitely divided into past and future. And that sounded like physics, so I stopped reading. Quantum. It's the note I made there. Quantum.

I know for that because it's quantum. Anyway, that's the only reason I've got any locations. Nice, cool. Good. Well then. Little bits we liked. Muckraker. I enjoyed.

Harry King's kind of internal monologue about William, as you said, the Muckraker is too far from Muck. Oh, gosh, I've scrolled all the way down. I'm sorry. Anyway, it's a double meaning because Harry King recognizes William as a kindred spirit, as a Muckraker, which on Round World, of course, is slang for a journalist. Yeah.

Later, reporting on fire, William feels like vampire, which is also slang for, I don't know, on Round World. So I just thought that was nice. Particular kinds of journalists, though. I feel like we should do a not all journalist. I don't know. The private I refer to themselves and all other journalists is hacks and I quite like that.

So self-deprecation is a good thing to be good at. Wow. I'm a writer. Me too. I've known some words for some time. I keep saying that. Really, I think my heart is in sub-editing, but I make most of my money off writing still.

I'm not going to derog your language skills, Francine. Thank you, Joanna. Wallpaper words. Yeah, speaking of language skills. I just, I like this as a little idea. I didn't try and come up with lots of other examples, but Mr Slantz saying clearly, we cannot get a signature from a man in prison.

That's a wallpaper word. When people say clearly something, that means there's a huge crack in their argument and they know things aren't clear at all. Common sense would dictate, as another one you see on the internet a lot, stands to reason, as on the project likes a lot. It's a cousin of, I'm just asking, or in my humble opinion,

yeah, yeah, that's not a very thick disguise. This is that cheap paper thin wallpaper. Not a very substantial disguise. Oh yeah, so the animal witnesses bit. Yes. I didn't go looking for a whole bunch of round world examples because we've got lots to talk about. But in Ain't More Park, legal precedents put on trial

at various times, seven pigs, a tribe of rats, four horses, one flea, and a swarm of bees. You need what? You need granny in to interpret. But I did look at it in Anatole Pratchett, who directed back to, I think, men at arms or one of guards, guards when a similar conversation took place about animal witnesses.

And one of the round world examples that Anatole Pratchett provided, and my favourite, in 1713, a Franciscan monastery brought the termites who had been infesting their buildings to trial. Good grief. And a Brazilian court ruled that termites had a valid prior claim to the land and ordered the monks to give the termites their own plot.

I love that. How the fuck did that happen? Like, how did the course... Wow. OK. That's good. I like it. I want to know who insisted they took them to court over it.

Really don't know. Like, I feel like there's probably a lot more context to that case, which makes it less funny. So I don't want to know. OK. That's fair. That's unlike you not to follow the termite whole all the way to the bottom.

I also didn't allow a lot of time for episode planning. That's fair. I think it was that conversation that we had in that book. You told me about the time they hung a monkey as a Frenchman, right? Yeah, the Hartlepool monkey. Yeah, yeah. Cool.

Oh, Zutalo. Sorry, my little nephew's about to start doing French at school, so I was telling him all the French I know. So he now knows how to say there's a frog in the bedo. OK, OK, try it. No, yeah, no. Not all the French I know. Oh, yeah, sorry.

Headlines, headlines. City's biggest cake mix-up. Yay. The particular, the sad attempt at humour was exactly right, the sort of thing that would cause much mirth around, this is Arcanum's table. Absolutely. And you reminded me of the best place to go

to find amusing headlines. So, of course, today we looked at the Plymouth Herald. Yes, I do apologise, Plymouth Herald, but I will never, ever, ever stop making fun of you until you hire me as a sub-editor. We can sort your fucking writing out. However, fantastic headlines. Today's main headline was mad omit,

man admits torching Dereford travel lodge hotel room. Not the best, not the worst. Why would you go with the recent ones instead of the all-time classics, Joanna? I know, I've got the all-time classics. I just, I wanted to say what today's was for posterity. OK, sure, sure. You pointed out the best classics are obviously the seagulls,

such as gull dyes after man repeatedly kicked it for taking child's ice cream. Oh. Psycho seagulls force family to be prisoners in their own home. Yeah, that's a good recent one, yeah. Sub-headline, even their Staffordshire bull terrier crossbreed is petrified of the sweeping birds. Man, beaten up with a seagull in alleged Plymouth Cafe attack.

That is the, that is my origin story. Yeah, that headline, Jack read out to me, started me off on my obsession with the local Plymouth news. Plymouth, by the way, a city which is many hundreds miles away from where I am. Many hundreds, I don't know how big England is, which is many hours drive away from where I am. It's quite far away from us, Francine, you're fine.

My favorite non-seagull related, but still ornithological, fears for small children after buzzard sweep to grab Chihuahua. Beautiful, beautiful. And of course, as we mentioned earlier, Gus Honeybutton would send coded messages to the LGBT plus community. Which please me very much. Yep, gay icon, Gus Honeybutton.

Anyway, see us. Headlines are fun. They are. Which means if you've got great local ones, send them to us. I picked out some headlines I thought you'd enjoy for this occasion. First of all, I did find a man by its dog, which I sent you. Oh, yes, you did. Except from the Guardian in 1950.

Yes, from Paris. Monsieur Justin Droulet. A chemist told the Paris court today that he bit his neighbor's dog because it was a messy little beast. He also punched the neighbor on the nose. The court fined him five pounds. In Paris, which is interesting. Another area in which sports writers,

or sub-editors for sports pages, I suppose, shine is headlines. The classic in British headline history is the February 2000. Super Cali go ballistic Celtic are atrocious. Talking about an underdog football team beating then football giant Celtic. Some other classics that I've got in my little file. We've got the famous American, I'd say headline. Headless body in topless bar.

Gunman forces women to decapitate tavern owner. We've got an old Guardian one here, which I quite liked. A man, a plan, a canoe, Panama. Which is, of course, a palindrome. Actually fits the story, which is about someone who disappeared in a canoe with ill-gotten gains. And finally, 2017 times headline. End this chicken obsession urges Fox, which is when

Liam Fox was telling people off for caring about chlorinated chicken being imported from America. Of course. I also want to quickly shout out the Florida man. Sensation. There is an actual reason for it to do with Florida is a state where you're allowed to report that a crime has happened from that state, whereas a lot of other states there's some weird protections. But I prefer to think that Florida man is just out there living his best life.

Absolutely. Anyway, sorry, from Florida to horror. Horrider. Sorry, you were right not to do that. I do apologise. Yeah, I just thought considering it's not really a... Well, there are definitely horrible moments in it. But he puts in some really bone-chilling moments.

I thought, I liked the description of William DeWerd thinking about the gaunt shape of the press. And it's kind of brought up a surprisingly vivid thing there, I thought. The bit where they meet the part werewolves in beers and Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip watch the shadow grow on the wall. Yes. That's very hammerhorror-ish, I think. But also really quite scary because, you know, Pin and Tulip are scared of this dude. And we've very well established how scary Pin and Tulip are by this point.

Yes. But finally, the most obviously horror-horrific moment is the bit about the screaming shadows. The dark-light picture taken of Pin and Tulip. And the shadows were mouths screaming. And the shadows were eyes wide. They didn't move while you watched them. But if you looked at the picture a second time, you got a feeling that they weren't in quite the same place.

There's some really dark bits in this book. And God, it's good writing. Yeah. And it's going to... Another bit I nearly put in there was the premonition about the silver rain, which is dark because I know what it is, though. So, yeah, there are lots more dark bits in the last bit of the book, obviously. But I just thought, yeah, a few real little horror moments there, which I'm doing.

The silver rain moment takes us neatly into setting things up because that is a really nice, deep, dark premonition for the next section. Some other stuff. We obviously, I talked about the lead into gold setup in the last section, and we get kind of a payoff here with Give Mounds and explaining, like, yes, we're turning lead into gold like the hard way. Yeah. But explaining this thing from the dwarf culture of kind of buying themselves off their parents,

which just makes sense when it's explained. And it's a really nice setup for where we get to in section three with William and his relationship with his father and needing to get closure there. And then the only other bit I wanted to note was very small payoff to section one setup, which is that the inquirer is reported of a strange figure sweeping around the rooftops of the unseen university. Half man. Half man, half moth.

Or the purser. Possibly. So it's established, has been flying, but also since I read that in my brain, I just keep repeatedly hearing, moth man, I need to spend less time on the internet. But yeah, the big talking point then has to do with words and how they're used and the power and the damage. So do you want to kick us off with a solid point before we start rambling? I wrote the power of words, brackets, intimidating,

because I love the fear that's building up around William with his notebook. But the central pivot of this case, the murder mystery that's not really a murder mystery, but the police case that's the center of the book, are these stupid facts, the weight of the money, the out of character veterinary, because he wouldn't stab drum not, if he wanted drum not dead, drum not would just be dead. But there are these apparent truths. Veterinary was done conscious next to a horse with $70,000, drum not was stabbed by veterinary. And how stupid facts start working is very much within this power of words thing,

is what we start saying with the inquirer. The whole, as he said about veterinary, it was veterinary, they saw talking. I thought was nicely kind of framed by William asking the baker, whether he was a baker or not. I know what it looks like, I'm still asking the question. And the baker's like, oh, yeah, you got me, I'm a butcher. I enjoyed that moment. It's the facts, as well as the facts. And that moment happens as well, while William is getting around the palace,

using these sort of half-treats, like Vime said, I could go to the kitchens, I have spoken to Vime's. It's very much the painting of a pipe, isn't it? Yes. And for someone who has this very intense relationship, he says at one point, when Vime's asked who he's answerable to, and he says, I'm answerable to the truth, and it's like, you've got a creative relationship there, haven't it? You're not making things up, but you know how to use the truth in a certain way. Yeah, this is very much who watches the watch, but with watch crossed out and media in next to it. Who watches the William doesn't quite work.

We can have another W, but yeah. The watch is watching William. The watch is watching William. The William's watching watch. This is a tongue twister that I can't quite finish. And the Vuffles is Aval. How much watch would a William? Watchman.

Word. Watch. No, no, this isn't going well at all. Quickly. Remember when we had a podcast where we talked about things intelligently? No. No, good point. But there's aggressive writing things down at people.

He learns his power as this section of the book goes. We went like from a newsletter to a newspaper in the last section. Everything's happening very quickly. And here he learns the power of having the newspaper and having the notebook. We starts writing things down at Detritus, and Vime sort of has to have a Wednesday. Don't write things down at him. It's very unkind. And then it just escalates with writing stuff down on the literal press

while Santa's threatening him. The amazing, stop taking down everything we say. Full caps for the whole sentence, please, Mr. Goodmountain, which is just a great book. Yeah, absolutely. And Goodman playing along because obviously he's not doing it quite that fast because like later on he said, shall I set this properly or? But yeah.

Will we just wind him up? Yeah, it's such a good. Yeah. I think we've talked about before many episodes ago the power of the notebook. Is the clipboard hi-vis gets you into anywhere thing? No, no, literally. I think we have talked about the power, like how it unnerves people to write stuff down. I can't remember where it came up.

Oh, yeah. I think we have. But yeah, this is where I think Pratchett, who was obviously acid-densed, seen this, experienced it, enjoyed the little frisson of illicit power, and has finally gotten a chance to write it properly here. And you can see William like almost getting caught up a little bit in his own self-importance. Like William is a little bit lacking in self-awareness, as you can see very much with how he deals with Saperissa.

Yes. And possibly a little bit wanky, and I prefer him a lot better when he starts working out what he's doing, is when he's having a rant quite early on in this section, and is when he's writing up the first story after he's been to the palace. And Saperissa is sort of doing the, are you sure you're allowed to do this? I don't know. I don't know if I'm allowed to do it until I've done it. Yeah, I'm the first person to do it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a self-awareness in the book as well of how quickly we're just like rattling through history here. Yes. Like this is hundreds of years of debates and legal arguments and technological changes, and it's all happening in three days. And here it's Fimes puts down his truncheon, and William puts down the book, and they have a conversation. Yeah, the clash of symbols.

Her, her. Which is an interesting clash to have. Yeah, the notebook versus the truncheon, I thought was very good. It got me slightly wondering about what other professions you'd have, like an obvious symbol like that, chef and you wouldn't spoon obviously. Yeah. What, what about game developer? The keyboard soaked in tears.

Bam. Oh no, are you okay? Lots of things crashed today and everything's, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm about to go off in a tangent, so let's change the subject. Yes. But sorry. What about a sub editor?

Red Byro. Yeah, definitely the Red Byro. I've literally just had that moment of like, I've forgotten other professions. Yeah, me too, yes. I don't believe I've ever heard of another job. Butcher, baker and candlestick maker, but I feel like we kind of went through the symbols of those professions when we did Heraldry. Candle.

I've heard art brought that forth. Oh no. Huh. Funds. Oh God. Poor old that gnarly. Go on, he goes through the record, doesn't he? Talking about the power of words, this power of the Williams just learning this,

but obviously some people are a lot more confident with it, like the committees who want to elect him. And this method of character assassination, rather than just killing him, it's this very quiet, you know, poor fellow, it was the strain of the office. Yeah. The least we can do is call off the watch. We owe the him that much. And this sort of quiet putting him out to pasture.

Yeah, which is something that happens all the fucking time in- Oh, absolutely. And like directly fed from politicians to journalism, to journalists nowadays, because that's obviously a very established relationship now, which it isn't in disquels yet. But it's like they're not to jump into fictional television, rather than talking about the real world. But the whole thing in Doctor Who with David Tennant,

very quietly saying of Harriet Jones, doesn't she look tired to bring down her political regime? Yes, yeah. Yeah, I guess it's two separate issues there, isn't it? Is that the character assassination and the gentle way of getting rid of somebody without drama, the retiring early, the unpaid leave on, yeah. Which is you have the problematic thing of people being pushed out to, shouldn't be, but also people who should just be gone in disgraced,

instead very gently put to one side. Yes, exactly. Yeah. The scenario has to be in the former. We don't think he should be fired in disgrace. We think he should be allowed to be benevolent, tyranting all about the place. Yes, not because of our political beliefs particularly, just because we enjoy him as a character.

Yeah, pretty much. And we are that amoral. Oh, dearie me. And then, I suppose, the truth is the crux of it all, isn't it? And the truth and the truth. Watch the truth is the big truth, the small truth, nothing but the truth, but that doesn't mean anything. This is the thing.

William starts kind of learning that the truth is somewhat ephemeral and declaring himself as answerable to it is slightly pointless when everyone has a different one. Because the thing is, he could be answerable to the truth, that veterinary was trying to escape on a horse with $70,000. Or he could be answerable to the truth that $70,000 weighs too much to get on a horse. Yes. It's the question of journalistic integrity and being objective is a huge discussion point.

Michael Hobbs, who does a couple of our favorite podcasts actually, has some very clever things to say on this. But the idea that a journalist can objectively report the facts and not be biased in any direction is a flawed idea completely. Yeah, human beings have biases. Yeah. And actually, this is the perfect example that $70,000 on a horse. Even if you only report the facts, the choice of which fact to make prominent in that case

as in he was lying next to the $70,000 on a horse or $70,000 weighs through tons shows which way you want the reader to read it. Yeah. That's its own bias thing. Yes. There's not a huge degree of media literacy in the world. And it's probably worth arguing that there shouldn't have to be. There shouldn't have to be all these layers or whatever.

But I can't imagine a press without it. No. And it's nice. You can see Pratchett raging against the lack of media literacy here in this microcosm of Mrs. Arcanum's table. Yes. And using that as this tiny version of the big wider city and world. Yeah.

Especially when the inquirer comes out. And you start getting these theories about mystery fire. There was a fire that the inquirer called a mystery fire and said, well, it's not mysterious. The guy was lighting a cigar while bathing his feet in turpentine. This is the elf stole my husband, except he happens to also have a habit of running away with flow from Harger's house of ribs. Yeah.

And this is of course a different matter entirely again, isn't it? It's the reporting. This person said that and that is true, but there's not news. It's only news if you want it to be news. Yeah, absolutely. And then you have the extra, which I think we get into here, but the Sunday sport level of everyone knows it's made out of news. But the problem is you get the inquirer and you get people sort of stupid enough to believe

that maybe elves did steal someone's husband because you do hear about that far and often it's not far from the inquirer to pieces of news like the Daily Mail and the stories of Shrodinger's immigrants who are simultaneously lazy and taking all the benefits while also taking all of our jobs. Mm-hmm. See, I'd say that's a different kind of newspaper. I think the inquirer is more obvious tabloid and the mail is... I'm not saying they're the same.

I'm saying belief in one leads to belief in the other. Once people can start believing something because they've heard it happens far away, they're more likely to believe these kind of misreported facts of badly researched statistics and things that lead to these kind of Shrodinger's immigrant type stories. Possibly. That's where some of Pratchett's anger might have come from in this situation. Maybe.

I think it's a bit more insidious than that. I think the kind of people who read the mail and perhaps more so the telegraph, other papers, are the kind of people who think themselves too clever, obviously, to believe the Sunday sport or to believe the Angkor-Pork inquirer, but would fall prey to the more subtle emphasis, bias, whatever, from a newspaper skewed one way or the other. You know, I shouldn't leave myself out of this. I'm sure I am as well. Oh, no, I'm absolutely growing out of this.

Yeah, I think it's easy to get bogged down here, but yeah. Yeah, no, sorry. I didn't mean to bog us down in these kind of conspiracy theory pipelines and things. What I mean is a lack of media literacy and that's something you see very obviously here because this is a city that only just got newspapers. Yes. Of course, there's no such thing as media literacy can lead to problematic stories being believed and not just silly stories being believed.

And that's something you see in this table and it goes back to this thing from veterinary of people wanting alts. People want to hear that Al stole someone's husband because, of course, that thing happens all the time. Because they hear about it happening far away, as with women giving birth to snakes and things. It's a terrible problem I hear in Haverhill. Yes, no, very much so. I could believe it at Haverhill.

As the kind of connecting issue here for me is whether those damages are made up for by the good that the press does, which is another, and I don't come down one side or the other on this, I should say right away, the small mistruths that add up to really change a society and which have been kind of jacked into hyperspeed since the internet. And especially since algorithmic news feeds kind of stuff. Whether the good that journalists do kind of outweighs that because they are often supported by the same media organizations that are doing such bad things in the world. And yet within that, they have the investigative journalists that are doing a lot of good.

I mean, for instance, the mail on Sunday that you mentioned, the mail that one of their supplements live magazine, which is like the men's magazine supplement in the daily mail on Sunday, has certainly had, I'm not sure if it does anymore, the reportage section which published long pieces on things like the UN camps in Darfur and the plight of the Iranian Kurds. And the mail journalists have done a lot of really good investigative work, same with the Telegraph, same with the Sunday Times, which they're all damaging in the right way. And certainly the people who own those are very damaging in tabloid ways as well, because obviously you've got the whole problem of all the newspapers being owned by several

like two or three rich fucks, which is the whole thing. But then, yeah, so I don't know if you got around to listening to the investigative journalism for what's it. Totally forgot about it. No, cool, yeah, yeah. But I mean, the, sorry, half on about it, but like the pull foot towards this year, I just thought like a couple of the short lists, just to like underline how important this stuff is, like holding power to account, which gives the other side of the scales.

The speaking truth to power of it all. Yeah. So Hannah, Al Osman and David Collins from the Sunday Times, the murder of Agnes Wanderu, who was a Kenyan woman who was murdered almost certainly by British soldiers in a Kenyan hotel. And the soldiers have never been brought to account, never been interviewed even by the police. And this unsolved for a decade murder was solved within a month by these journalists, because all it took was just someone fucking looking at it. Yeah. And I don't know if there's ever going to be anything come from that, because the whole issue of how the military is brought and not brought to account in this country is really,

you know, something we don't have time for. But yes, so things like that. And then there are prisoners in Britain now who are there indefinitely, and maybe always will be for like stealing a phone in 2005 because of the imprisonment for public protection indefinite sentences. And that was Samantha Azumadu from Open Democracy, which isn't, you know, not really the same kind of media organization. But I think I read a piece on that. I don't know if it was that particular piece that was nominated. I expect you did. This is, yeah, it was fairly widely distributed. And that's the kind of thing you would read. Sorry. Yes.

But yeah, I mean, it's all this kind of stuff. That's the kind of level of importance here. And there are people's lives and societies that change for the better or certainly for the more truthful because of these. But does it can one exist without the other? Can this kind of investigative journalism exist without the profitable, damaging media framework? That's a, again, I have no answer. But no, me neither. What are things that get you in a froth about at 2am? I recommend it. It's nice to hold up a question mark. I feel like we should just blame, oh yes, let's get a question mark card. I feel like we should just blame capitalism and the patriarchy and then move

on to the Eversgear reference for Neil. Okay. I did almost keep going with saying capitalism wrong. I've done it twice now. We should blame caterpillars. I did want to say the, the, not just the capitalism, but the kind of mass appeal of the old and the news does tie into it again, which was the, why was Boris Johnson toppled by his parties in Crest Pinscher, not the flagrant corruption and huge law breaking for years on end? And the answer is, is the former make for more entrancing headlines. Yes. And it's, yeah, you know, nature of man, all of that question mark for you off, which is how I say obscure reference to Neil. Francine, do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me? Because I refuse to say off. Okay.

Well, you just did. So, and I edit this, I can take that. I won't, I won't mis-point you. That would be a bad editorial practice for me. Yes. Now you'll make it sound like I did. O'Donnell, Joanna. O'Donnell, that's what the Prize Mains will be wearing, isn't it? It is. It's mine and King's wedding. Correct. On Brand World, you will know, of course, that that translated to water of denial in French. It was fashionable in the late 19th to early 20th century particularly, partly fuelled by Egyptomania, which I know you're interested in. Yes. You must have brought it up when we did pyramids, right? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I bring up this side of it because I'm going to link an article in the show notes in the Paris Reviews that you'll absolutely love, and I know a lot

of our listeners will as well, which touches on things like fashion history, colour theory, French novelists, very you. This is where the Stricties B thing was mentioned, actually. Yes, there you go. Love it. Okay. Yeah, I need to read about all of this. It's very me. But the main reason I brought this up was Wickey L Space had cool annotations on the colour O'Donnell. Soul music. Death tells the hermit that this is the colour of infinity. Obviously, I don't think I would have remembered. But Wickey L Space adds its annotation. Some years ago, eminent scientists worked out that what with the red shift and the constant expansion of the universe and particular conditions applying during the Big Bang,

if the universe has a colour at all, it would be the sort of pale pastel blue green, which we otherwise know as O'Donnell. By a funny sort of coincidence, this is the nearest that we can get to approximating the eighth colour of the Discworld spectrum, octarene, which is described as a kind of bluey, purpley green colour, but not really. It is possible the universe has a lot of surprises for us to discover. This is a delight. I also like the kind of more airy, fairy, little questioning tone you get in the Wickey annotations. Annotated Pratchettphile is a wonderful resource, and because he was incredibly objective and tried to confirm all this and that, but I do quite like the possible the universe has a lot of

surprises for us to discover in an annotation. Because, yes. Someone on one of our socials, and I'm really sorry I've forgotten where now, did ask us if we know why the annotations stop on annotated Pratchettphile past a certain point. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I just read the summer that I believe that Leo Vrubart simply couldn't put the time in anymore. Plus, once Pratchett wasn't as available to confirm, deny or contribute the facts, which was a massive part of APS value. So the number of the annotations vaguely went down. That hasn't really been updated since 2005. So at some point, reasonably soon, we are going to hit the end of this resource.

Yes. As I said to the Lesnar Townsend who messaged us, I will at some point soon go through Leo's alt.fan.pratchett posts and see if I can confirm or deny that half-remembered story. Marvelous. Okay. Sorry, you didn't have anything more on Odinil, did you? No, no, no. There's only so much you can say on Odinil. But it's more than Odinil. Oh, sorry. France. On Egyptomania, though, I'm very excited because Nephi's birthday, I've bought his first horrible history's books. He's got Rotten Romans and Evil Egyptians. Absolutely fabulous. I fucking love those books. Terry Deary is a hero. Yeah, I'm hoping I can get him into the TV series because it's genuinely very funny.

Well, I never watched it, but clips have started coming up on TikTok because the algorithm was obviously got me down. Like it came out once we were already adults, but obviously, how in my life I was watching it with. And the group of people that do it is really funny. They're the same ones who now do ghosts. I haven't watched that yet. I keep meaning to you. Oh, it's very funny. Yeah, I hear it's very nice and the kind of thing I would enjoy. All right. Okay, see us out. Play us out, Joanna. I still need to go to Tesco. Yes, yes, you do. Thanks very much for listening to this episode of The Truth Shall Make You Fret. The name of the thing was in the thing. It was there. We did it. We did it.

We'll be back next week with part three of The Truth, which had the words The Truth Shall Make You Fret. You nearly did it. I did. I did. Which goes from... Auto complete your own sentences. Which that section goes from wherever this ended to the end of the book, starting with the new firm hurtled through the door of the empty mansion and bolted it behind them. In the meantime, however, dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram at The Truth Shall Make You Fret, on Twitter at Make You FretPod, on Facebook at The Truth Shall Make You Fret. Join our subreddit community, r slash t t s m y f. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, albatrosses, and fast moving presses, The Truth Shall Make You FretPod at

gmail.com. And if you'd like to support us financially, go to patreon.com forward slash The Truth Shall Make You Fret and exchange your herd and pennies for some bonus nonsense. And please do rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, because it helps other people find us due to the algorithms. And of course, just tell everyone you know about us. I think that's the fastest you've ever rattled through the outro, well then. Yeah, I can't breathe now. And until next time, dear listener. I can't, but now I'm in prison. Is he now I can fucking say capitalism?

That's why we have catapillarism. Yeah, absolutely. And eventually from that, we'll emerge the beautiful butterfly of our podcast. Done, done.