The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 91: The Truth Pt. 3 (Why, Oh Why)

Episode Date: July 25, 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 3 of our recap of “The Truth”. Extra! Extra! Dog Bites Man!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:It's Always Sunny star mocks his 'unrealistic' body change - BBC News  How Mary Toft Convinced the World She’d Birthed Rabbits - The Paris ReviewWord Avalanches: incredibly contrived setups for homophonic punchlines - RedditDiscussion about American copyeditors  - alt.books.pratchettBill Bryson Sr. - Wikipedia   The Magic of Terry Pratchett by Marc Burrows - Goodreads  Terry Pratchett and his first job - Bucks Free Press Terry Pratchett: 'Journalism makes you think fast' - Poynter Pratchett takes swipe at Rowling - BBC NewsYou're Dead to Me: Julie d'Aubigny - BBC Radio 4 Book:The Truth/Annotations - Discworld & Terry Pratchett WikiMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com  

Let's not start talking about the book this early in the book art trance scene. That's not what that's not on brand for us. No, no, what would people write us about if not our absurd rambling intros? How's your week been? Oh, yeah, dad got me an iPad for my birthday. So I've been learning to use Procreate, like digital art stuff. That's been really fun. Nice. How about you? Your week?

Well, I spent the first two days melting because Yeah, that did happen. Yeah. Because it was like 39 degrees, which England's not built for. But yeah, apart from that, it's been good. I've been babysitting, which is fun. I got to do a bunch of Pokemon origami yesterday, which is very exciting for me. Yeah, you said it again. Girl, love that. Do you have that to the hand? No, no, it's not mine. I let him keep it.

Oh, that seems and San Diego, San Diego Comic Con's happening right now, which means lots of news is coming out about various nerdy properties. So all of that's very exciting for me. Anything good? Many trailers, a couple of trailers have come out now for Rings of Power, which I'm very hype for. That's the second age Lord of the Rings type series, trailers for House of Dragon, which looks really good. I'm very hyped for that, which is the Game of Thrones prequel series that's coming out about the same time as Rings of Power. Yep, yep.

So I'm sure that'll be a ratings battle. And they'll be constantly compared, just like the only thing that really comes common is they're very fantasy things. Oh yeah, the Balrog looks so cool. No way from that trailer right now. Closed tab. I'm responsible. So yes, hype for that. And lots of Marvel stuff, especially lots of animated Marvel stuff that all seems very fun. What is your favorite Marvel movie?

Oh, that's difficult. I'm not sure I can answer that off the top of my head. Okay. Thor Ragnarok is definitely up there because that one's Camp and Silly and has Jeff Goldblum in there. Regret getting me this. Audio listeners, audio listeners, listeners, my, my, my hands are currently clashing a little reporter's notebook that you're trying to got me. Oh yeah. I really like Thor Ragnarok. I really liked the Black Widow movie less for the Black Widow movie and more for introducing

Florence Pugh as Yelena because she's my new favorite character. All I know about Florence Pugh is the memes that came out after Midsummer because she has an amazing frown. She's just got an amazing face. Yeah. She's completely delightful and I love her. Oh, even if I think it's kind of weird that she's getting that graph, I just feel like she could do better.

Who's that? Oh, no, I know he's like graph scrubs. Scrubs, the scrubs guy. Yeah. Oh, but she's like Rage. Yeah. Yeah, I like those. I like the Marvel movies.

I like the TV shows more, I think. I enjoy all the kind of, ooh, what's going to happen next? What's this all about? I think I'm more excited for upcoming ones than the ones I've seen, the prettiest one by far though, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings. Just fucking gorgeous to look at. So, Chinese. Yes.

Tons of like weird, cool CGI creatures and animals and it's just stunning. It's really pretty. I've got, I've got with the iPad actually three, three months of Apple TV. So what am I going to watch? Mythic Quest, Mythic Quest, Mythic Quest. Mythic Quest, okay. Actually, I'm going to write these down, not just use it as a prop. Mythic Quest.

Mythic Quest, Ted Lasso, lots of people love. I'm not sure how much you'll enjoy it, but I'd recommend giving it a go. It's, it's heartwarming. I've, I've had plenty of recommendations. So I don't mind trying it. Yeah, it is good. It's good fun. What else?

Ooh, the Essex Serpent, which I'm only halfway through at the moment, which is, have you read the book, haven't you? Yeah. The Essex Serpent. Yeah. It's very good. And it's Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. And God, I could look at Claire Danes for a very long time.

She's so beautiful. I love her. And Tom Hiddleston. And Tom Hiddleston. He's always one of your, your likes. I feel like that kind of goes without saying that. Oh, that's true. Yeah, it's like one of the obvious references.

Yeah. But I feel like Claire Danes. Obviously, I want to stare at Tom Hiddleston, but also Claire Danes. Oh, and Dickens. It's good. Have you watched Severance yet? I haven't watched Severance yet. That's on my list.

I'm, I've heard really good things about it. And Dickinson's really fun. What's that? It's about Emily Dickinson, but it's sort of historical, but with like lots of modern music and jokes, Jane Kukowski is in it as her mum. Hailey Steinfeld plays Emily Dickinson. Wiz Khalifa plays Death. That sounds like something I will watch on my lunch breaks, not with Jack.

It's very gay. It's a lovely joy. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I really need to clarify. It's very gay. Also, they make fun of Ernest Hemingway. All right.

That's five full shows that will keep me going for three months. Thank you. Yep. But yeah, if you're only going to watch one, then definitely Mythic Quest. That's my fave. Yes, cool. Cool, cool, cool. That's the one that's like D&D based, right?

No, it's more like they work at a company that makes an MMORPG. So like a World of Warcraft type thing, but it's the company making it. And it's Rob McElhaney and Danny Pewdie and Rob McElhaney. McElhaney. McElhaney, thank you. You'll like for other reasons because he has spoken out against the Hollywood and general TV nonsense making actors change their bodies dramatically for. No, he did a whole bit on It's Always Sunny, like a multi season

bit where he put on a bunch of weight for one season and like made it a joke through the whole thing. And then for the next season got super fucking buff. He just thought like that would be funny and then like used the media stuff to like talk about how it's like, yeah, no, anyone can do it. As long as you spend 12 hours a day on it, can afford a personal train. I can do this and that. And I have you with the fact it's probably going to wreck my body for ages.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I love him. I love him. At least it's not as hard as it was. I did all right with the the old ice cubes in front of the fan thing. That made a pretty good ad hoc air con.

Oh, I just closed all my curtains and windows and died. But thank you for resurrecting yourself in time for our recording. I like the idea that you would auto shriek it, but instead of like blood, what would be in your little vial to make you come back? Because I've done a ton of writing this week. I'm going to say ink and be a little link cartridge. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, but realistically, it's more likely to be gin.

Gin or espresso. Yeah. Yeah. Espresso martini done. Yeah. Espresso martini. Grace, not gross. Cause it's gross, just gross.

Cause I thought it was the most wanky thing ever there. Sorry. Mine would definitely just be shits and coffee. So it's fine. Yeah. That is just life without recordings to use. Yes. Well, eventually one day when I'm very wealthy, when I've married well.

Yes. Any eccentric billionaires listening to this podcast that aren't Elon Musk. Hit joiner up. Yeah. Hit me up. I mean, even Elon Musk, if he promises to die, like on the wedding night. Or even if he promises to like just never be in the same room as me after the wedding. I think that's the agreement he and Grime's had, and that didn't work out well.

No, no, they still had a child, didn't they? Yeah, named it unpronounceable string of letters. But password safe. Yeah. Oh my God. Getting a password manager to keep track of your children. Love it. Do you want to make a podcast?

I do want to make a podcast. I've been looking forward to this one so much. I'm really, I am excited, but I've only had two coffees so far today. So I'm going to go grab a third. OK, yeah. Good idea. Hello and welcome to The Two Shall Make You Fret, a podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discord series.

One is Simon in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part three of the truth. Yeah, it is. Now it's the whole truth and nothing but a lot of things other than the truth, because we can't control ourselves. Absolutely not.

No, on spoilers before we crack on. We're a spoiler like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book, The Truth. But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel until we get there so you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Tunnelling up through somebody else's office floor. Perfect.

At some point, I want to go back through all of our episodes and collate all of your journey lines so I can try and actually map this journey. Well, I straight up refuse to plan them in advance. So I'm not going to be happy about how they sound. But OK, yes, that sounds fun. I'll only do it when I need to procrastinate something important. If someone gives me a deadline, that'll get done. Have you got anything to follow up on, Francine?

I've got a couple of emails. Do you want to do your emails first? Yes. Because mine are book related. From Craig. I'm not going to read all of this out. It's not Craig's fault. But because this came through our website feedback, it's not formatted.

It's a very large block of text. Fun. Craig was writing to tell us about. We talked about a game where Celtic lost to an underdog team. Yeah, I read that email. I'm standing by it just to be a dick. Craig has told us the story of that game in particular and some of the context around it and has contested our comment that the underdogs beat the then football

giants Celtic because they are not then giants. They are still giants. I should have, I should have worded it top of their game. I don't know. It's when they were fucking like massive on an international stage. And I believe they're still obviously a very big team. I'm sorry. Thank you for sharing the blame there.

That was a wee. That was the times believes that the truth shall make you fret believes. Look, I have no skin in this game. That's fair. Who else? James Compton wanted to send some fun headlines. One from 1986, possibly from the Times Foot Heads Arms Body in reference to Michael Foot being made the head of a Nuclear Disarmament Committee.

Fantastic. Which great concepts. I'm only nine to in those seem to be 20. So I wasn't alive at the time to read it. I became aware of it after a game of trivial pursuit in which it features a question. My family should probably update our version of the game since it still thinks Tony Blair is the Prime Minister. Other clever bits of language.

The batsman's holding the bowlers willy, of course. I don't understand cricket, but I assume that's funny. Sure, that sounds like it might be. And a possible headline from the Sun over the shoulder bowl of bowls over and over the shoulder boulder holder, Mulder, in reference to a cricket player having a relationship with a lady who made a fortune making bras. Oh, smart. Which just side note that I saw a fun Twitter conversation that was trying to

find the origins of the phrase over the shoulder boulder holder the other day. Yeah, it was interesting. It was like a generational thing as well. They were like, oh, anyone under the age of 40 even know that? I was like, there must be a little, there's a little window there of those of us who got it from George Nicholson books, right? Yeah, definitely. But they were talking about older films, but they were referencing

something from the 80s. And I think it's earlier than that. I think I know Iva Biggan has a song where he sings about an over the shoulder boulder holder. So all a similar comedy act in my head, it's Iva Biggan. You should write a book about it. You should write a book about it. I'm writing a book about Iva Biggan and over the shoulder boulder holder.

Yeah, bigger than one of the most nishi satirica books. You know, I'd buy it not just because you're my friends. That's the kind of shit I want on my bookshelf. So, yeah, that was those were fun. Thank you for that, James. You also recommend a subreddit, Word Ever Lunches. Oh, thank you. Hold on.

That we'll go and get heavily invested in. Oh, and we got a message on Facebook as well. Oh, nice. Incredibly contrived set ups for homophonic homophonic homophonic homophonic punchlines, not homophobic, not homophonic. Caitlin on Facebook sent us the article that may have inspired the women who gave birth to the cobra, which is the story of Mary Toff to convince doctors that she's given birth to rabbits.

So I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. Anyway, sorry, did you have you had actual book follow up, didn't you? Speaking of headlines, in fact, I found this practical quote in front of 2002 in a forum, leaving aside differences in the way people read anyone who has ever been a newspaper subeditor develops a special sense for puns and especially double entendres, usually to avoid them turning up where they shouldn't, as in the famous World War Two headline, Russians push bottles up German rear.

Amazing. Also, we were talking about proofs and vaguely related to that. I found another discussion. I was in the forums very deep to look at practice on journalism, which we'll talk about later. Spoilers, no, not spoiler for shadow listeners. Signposting, whatever. There's an interesting discussion about the changes made to American

versions of the book and copy editors, decisions, stuff like that, which I'll link to in the show notes. Yeah, practice being fairly, pretty fair-minded about the whole thing, actually, considering it's clearly very annoyed, as it always is on the internet. I feel like we can't mention this without mentioning the iconic German publishers of sorcery putting a soup advert in the middle of the book. Oh, yes, that was beautiful, which remains my favourite practice. Well, not one of my favourite project anecdotes.

Finally, I'm going to read out a passage from The Life and Times of the Sunderbolt Kid, which isn't the one I was trying to find, if I find it later, I'll read it out, but it's Bill Bryson's dad, who was a fantastic baseball writer, and I just wanted to give you a taste of that. As I said, two episodes ago now. Dodger, reliever, Ralph Branker threw a pitch that made history yesterday. Unfortunately, it made history for someone else. Bobby Thompson, the flying Scotsman, swatted Branker's second

offering over the left field wall for a game-winning home run. So momentous, so startling that it was greeted with a moment's stunned silence. Then, when the realisation of the miracle came, the double-deck stands of the polo grounds rocked on their 40-year-old foundations. The Giants had won the pennant, completing one of the unlikeliest comebacks baseball has ever seen. Amazing. Like, I would read those columns on baseball.

So, yeah, previously on? Yes, that bit, yeah, cool, sorry. What happened, what happened last time on The Truth? Well, previously on The Truth. William weadles his way into a crime scene in the oblong office. He's quickly kicked out, but not before sussing out now for a scoop. But where's Waffles? Fimes and DeWard are both desperate to interview the tottering terrier.

William follows a mysterious lead, while hundreds of dogs, et cetera, descend on the times. This issue ends with a full-blown fracas, as fracas fracas. Fuck, I put it in there again. Why didn't I just say rumpus? As two thugs of indeterminate virtue pop in, William can get papped and push off for heading the paparazzo and leading a stampede of insulted animals.

William is confused and doubtful. Vimes is confused and pissed off. Who watches the watchman watch DeWard? We do, in part three. Nice. The only handover I've ever done, I think. So I'm going to run by having a swig of coffee before I try and read this out. Oh, no, that's fine.

So suspense. In part three of The Truth. Hin, unaccustomed as I am. So let me get my Tory power stance on. I'm the next Prime Minister. Legs a Kimball. Hot potato, office drawers, black to make amends. Sorry.

Right. None of this should be in the upside. In part three of The Truth. Pin and tulip hide in an empty mansion and plot to get out of dodge. As the misbegot gang save a sack of terriers will head to the apothecary for strong sense to get the werewolf off his tail. Unfollowed, he finds deep bone at the stables and makes a plan to meet waffles. Meanwhile, the printing dwarfs take a walk in the inquirer's cellars

and find a miserable dibbler making headlines. Gas boat needs a disguise and saccharisa goes to get a dress as William goes to see a dog about a man. Trixie Belle, the poodle leads him to the misbegotten misfits while an assaulted Angwer has Vimes unhappy. William interviews waffles, whose ronds had all along and learns that there were two veterinaries in the room that day. Pin and tulip blackmail Slant and threaten him with fire

as they acquire the funds for the firm to fuck off. Slant sends a letter to a lord as William takes the misbegotts to the office and Pin gets spiritual and plans to slay Otto. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Because he's getting spiritual. Because it's Pin. Sorry. Depends how much.

Depends how much lead he's inhaled. At the big house, saccharisa and Rocky spot footprints in the dust before finding a tipsy Charlie and the new firm arriving get excited. Will makes it back to the office only to find Pin and Tulip holding saccharisa hostage and an arrow hits a lamp starts a fire. Waffles gets out as tins explode and the press starts to burn. Pin and tulip get trapped in the cellar as the press melts and salamanders wake. Silver rain falls as the dark eels flash and Pin kills Tulip for somewhere to stand.

Tulip crosses the black sands and his life flashes before others eyes while the fire dies down. William and saccharisa try optimism as they pick through the wreckage, but they're pressless and unprintable now. Pin rises from the ashes and William stops him with a spike just as Otto returns. Will searches Pin, finding the organiser imp, a hefty handful of jewels in his old home address. He hears something familiar from the imp and heads out to borrow a press. Over at the inquirer's office, Cryptlock threatens Carney and with a handful of rubies

gets hold of a press. William tells a story as the storm hits and has to see his father instead of naming names. Gaspode interferes and Otto wants to help. Meanwhile, in the afterlife, Tulip heads off to reincarnate as Pin arrives with a potato. William arrives at the mansion and confronts his father and almost finds himself exiled by violence until Otto drops in and shows impressive self-restraint. William stands by his choice to not tell the whole truth as he speaks to vines and demands a lawyer. Slant gets him out and things get settled and the morning papers announce veterinary's innocence.

At the palace, with veterinary back in office, William writes things down and vines gets commended. And one week later, the paper's hire new writers and veterinary visits. He will of course be attending the king wedding. William and Sakuris are head for lunch, but a brewery crash brings a new headline. The press never rests. Very good. Okay, helicopter and lung cloth watch. Hailstone's the size of golf balls, possibly. They're on helicopter duty.

As I wouldn't try and fly a helicopter through Hailstone's the size of golf balls. I see. Yeah, no, got it. They explain the lack of actual helicopters, which otherwise would of course be in abundance. Yes, exactly. And we don't have loin cloths. We have lovely ball gowns instead, which I think makes a nice change from the usual loin cloth. Super deep, huh? Other bits we keep track of. Death is here.

Yes, there he is. It's had quite a lot in the book this time. He has, yeah, which I guess makes sense. Yeah. We don't have any wizards. That's when the deaths happen. Yes, we haven't got wizards. Blinds is getting up close and personal with the trials of time.

And Death of Rats is here as well, which always delights me. Yes, remind me, remind me which other character got taken by the death of rats, because we've talked about this before and I can't recall. It was someone who had the annoying he, he, he laugh, because rats, the death of rats, does the sn, sn, sn. Yes, it was in soul music. Yes, thank you. It was, uh, it was part of the Guild of Musicians, wasn't it?

Yeah, did he die? Well, I'm assuming so. Oh, I don't remember that book at all. Good grief. Well, well, remember that detail though. That would have never occurred to me. I was going through my head. I was like, more snow. That's not right. Well, Death of Rats didn't exist anymore.

He doesn't come into existence to reap a man. Um, cool, cool, cool. Little follow up on the weather. As you say, golf stones, hail balls. That's right. I stand by that. I just, I, I just wanted to again, underline the drama of the weather while they're working through the night, shouting the words to get the newspaper out on time.

The storm and the hail stones. Yes. I just thought that was fantastic. Yeah. Bam, bam, bam, bam. You can just, again, it just grounds you in it, doesn't it? Yeah. Super. You can hear hail stones on like a corrugated iron shed roof. Yeah. I also just like the idea of William going,

I've got to find a golf ball because it reminded me of you going, I've got to find three coffees and Lord of the Rings. I was trying to find more so I could average it out and therefore it would be a better data sample. So it's a very niche joke for people who've not listened to every episode. Yeah. But it, I think anyone who's listened to any episode can guess that that was just Joanna being very,

very into getting this fact right for a bit. Wasn't even my fact. But yes, no, I like the idea of the, no people of Angkor Park don't really care about whether or not someone actually gave birth to a snake. But if you report the weather wrong. Yeah. Yeah. She only just been through a record breaking heat wave in the UK.

That tracks, that really tracks. But it's the whole suspension of disbelief thing, isn't it? It's like in a fantasy movie with somebody going, actually, I don't think that medieval people would have used a morning star in this century. But what about the fucking dragons? That's, that's a conversation that's happening at the moment, but I'm not going to go into that

because I'm going to keep us on topic today. We're going to go to quotes. Cool, cool, cool. Silver beads appeared around the lead and inky slugs. Letters shifted, settled, ran together. For a moment, the words themselves floated on the melting metal. Innocent words like the and truth and shall make you fear. And then they were lost from the red hot press

and the wooden boxes and amongst the racks and racks of type. And even out of the piles of carefully stockpiled metal, thin streams began to flow. They met and merged and spread. Soon the floor was a moving, rippling mirror in which the orange and yellow flames danced upside down. And if that isn't a fantastic way to describe lead melting, I don't know what is.

That was, that was one of my potential quotes. I had so many marked for this section. It's so good and so quotable. I know. And just for my own curiosity sake, I looked up what molten like looks like and it's so liquid. It's not like I was imagining kind of a mercury type thing. Do you know what I mean?

But no, it's like silver water. Yeah, silver rain. Yeah, I was thinking like lava where it looks a bit like honey. Right, my bit. I'm going to edit a bit as I go along since it's quite a long section, but God, I fucking love this moment. I don't know what they say, Mr. Wendling,

but you know what they say, Mr. Wendling. Why don't you tell us what they say, Mr. Wendling? Why don't you tell us who told you, Mr. Wendling? I'm very sorry about this, Mrs. Arcanum, said William, still holding the struggling man. But I want to know what everyone knows and I want to know how they know it, Mr. Wendling. They say he's got some sort of lady friend

who's very important in Uberworld and I'll thank you to let go of me. And that's it. What's so sinister about it? It's a friendly country. Well, yes, but they say William stayed standing, breathing heavily. Well, I wrote the article in The Times, he snapped,

and what's in there is what I say, me, because I found things out and checked things and people who say ing a lot try to kill me. I'm not the man that's the brother of some man you met in the pub. I am not some stupid rumor put about to make trouble. So just remember that before you try any of that, everyone knows stuff.

And then now or so, I've got to go up to the palace and see Commander Vines and whoever's the patrician, and a lot of other people to get this whole thing sorted out. And it's not going to be very nice, but I'm going to have to do it because I want someone to know that things are important. I'm sorry about the teapot, Mrs. Arcane, and I'm sure it can be mended.

Oh, good. Good ranting. I'm glad we both got a rant in. Both about Mr. Windling. He's a very rantable character, isn't he? Yes. What a provocation on legs. And speaking of characters.

Well, you got so alone. That's for sure. Yeah, well then, let's talk about them. Let's start with Mr. Pin, who gets religion out of the horrifying, after the horrifying after effects of the photograph taken with the eels and all of him now seeing all of his screaming victims. Yeah, not great, not great.

No, I do like, I want to shout out his wallet saying not a very nice person at all. I'm assuming it's another Pulp Fiction reference because one of the guys in that has like bad motherfucker or something on his wallet. But I now kind of, obviously I don't aspire to be anything like Mr. Pin, but I kind of want a wallet that says not a very nice person at all.

Noted. It's just watching his kind of terrifying, he's a terrifying character through the whole book, but in the first two sections, he's very in control of everything. I'm watching his... It's definitely a character regression, isn't it? Yeah, watching his breakdown is just great.

The bit, more than my potential other quotes, is when he's threatening Mr. Slant, especially with fire and he's just sort of this hypnotised. I mean, this is a bad thing, but it's not that bad. It's like the opposite of exponential, isn't it? Like one killing is bad and then the next killing is half as bad. And diminishing returns. Yes, that's probably a mathematical one, isn't it?

Yeah, it's exponential. No, no. Yeah, sure. In intranential. Yeah, sure. I'm sure a lesson is going to send us. Expose it the same as actual. Never mind.

It's fine. Let's go. Oh, prefix. Why do you allude me? Oh, prefaces. Prefaces, prefaces. Wherefore did you go? Wherefore did you go?

And yeah, you watch him have this breakdown that culminates in him in the cello with Mr. Tulip and Mr. Tulip kind of trying to cheer him up with. Remember all those people we scrapped? It's like, yes, I fucking do. Oh, Mr. Tulip's trying to be a good friend. He's trying to help. And Mr. Pinn takes his potato. Right, OK.

OK. I just want to say I don't understand why they couldn't both use the potato. Why did he have to steal his potato? Could he not have shot him and then he's got his potato when he died, then taking his potato? I mean, that would have made more sense, but I feel like this had the better time. I'm sure he wasn't feeling rational, but I just...

If he'd just stopped to think. I just read it. I was like, why would you? Yeah. It's such a weird way to, like, if you're trying to make up for things, I feel like betraying your only friend as he dies is going to take off, you know, probably not as many as all the horrible murders, but some karma points. Yeah, but then he's not thinking about comically.

He's literally just thinking he needs to have a potato and he will be OK. Yeah. He is completely self-absorbed at that point, which is great. And obviously, you get to the reincarnation moment and the way death interacts with him differently with Tulip of, okay, I feel like I can make you be sorry eventually. Yeah. And you have the idea of your potato, which is what you believed and that's important. Whereas with Pinn, it's like, she's going to turn you into a fucking potato.

Yeah, if you've come in here pretending to repent. Yeah. Tulip, I feel like I'm obviously there, but it's interesting because having that much sympathy for a character who was a monster is a very clever thing to do. But it's like, as he turns up in the afterlife, he's got a clear head for the first time in decades, isn't he? Yeah. And I feel like it's interesting.

It's kind of built up before he dies that you get these kind of weird little flashbacky moments to the potato-based religion of this kind of, there were forests, candles and secrets. Yeah, the potato thing itself, I assume it's like a, because obviously they were living through a famine and a war. That all sounds very slavic. I'm guessing it's like, comes from the idea of having a seed potato to get you through the next. The next crop, whatever. And obviously he's then taken that to mean religion. Because it wasn't that long ago I listened to, I think it was a Behind the Bastards series on the Irish famine or the Irish British-led deliberate starvation.

And one of the things that killed so many people in, I think it was the second or third, possibly year of the crisis, was even when the Blight had receded, they'd eaten their seed potatoes. Yeah, they didn't have. Because there were no other potatoes to eat. And they didn't have anything to start the growth again. So yeah, always have your potato. Agreed. But these moments of going, sorry, we've gone into Tulip a bit now.

Oh, sorry, yeah. These moments of something. They overlap. They very much overlap. It's sort of the connoisseur of lives thing. This idea of while Tulip's been a connoisseur of everything, death has kept all of these lives and now Tulip seeing his life as it flashes before other people's eyes. But I think there is a redeemability in his character. Because there's this trauma from his past that when he comes into the afterlife and he can see clearly, he can kind of

acknowledge he was sent in a direction and maybe a lot of his editing out the bad memories is also what led to snorting laundry powder and probably thinking about this way too deeply. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because we're given Tulip's redemption arc, as it were. But we don't know Pinn's background. We'll have to just imagine that perhaps he had no excuse for being how he was or... No. We don't know if there is the potential of a similar redemption arc in there. No. At the end of the day, all that mattered was that when Tulip died, he was ready to learn and Pinn wasn't. But then again, maybe after a life as a potato,

Pinn will be able to try again with the repenting or whatever. I don't know how it works. How bad can he be as a potato? You've at least got to come out of that neutral, haven't you? I've met some terrible potatoes. Actually, going from Pinn and Tulip onto William, and one thing that I feel it isn't very interrogated, and this does happen sometimes because William does kill Pinn, which is fair. I'm not saying this makes William a nasty character. It's in self-defense. He doesn't mean to do it. I know there's a lot going on at that moment, but you don't really see him

processing the bit where he's taken part in ending a life? No. I wonder if that'll happen later for him. Yeah, I feel like he's going to have some extra. I hope he gets some therapy. Yeah, I found a long comment from Pratchett about William Dwyer's character progress through. Basically, he was saying that his character progression isn't necessarily good and it doesn't have to be good. One of the commenters was saying, well, when William Dwyer interferes with Vimes, he's in the wrong, and Pratchett says, well, unfortunately, William has not been in a position to read the earlier Discworld books, which is kind of what we were saying.

But yes, Pratchett's basically saying William is trying to define various things, and there is character progression, but by the time he appears in the next book, he might be even harder and even more arrogant. I do like the fact that the protagonists don't have to be morally sound to be liked. We've talked about that a bit, but there's a difference between William and Vimes, especially. And I mean, he's not immoral. He is morally sound, I'd say. He's just not perfect. Yeah, which is fine. We can't all be carrots. That's the name of my new indie band. But such a good writing moment when William hears the recording and the like and run around the world with it. And there's no adjectives.

It's just, he pressed the button. He pressed the button again. He pressed the button. And you can, but you can see it so clearly in your mind, can't you? The total shell shock realization. You can definitely hear it. The dead silence before he rewinds it. Yeah, and us getting to know that and understand it while watching Sakurisa being like, what the fuck? And kind of figuring it out a few pages later as well, where she does the thing. Just remembering what you said about that quite. Yeah. How you going? How you going, bud? Oh, yeah. I'm William with the sword as well. I thought that was a nice little aside that gives you a lot about his character. He was very good at the swordsmanship stuff at

Hugglesons because that was one where you had to slow down and think, but you get a nice little chunk of his arrogance there. Like he obviously thought of himself as above Hugglesons for a fairly good reason. Yes. But yeah, for sure, you get the, I love that even though he is, like obviously he's separated from his father and he doesn't live the life of aristocracy, perhaps he hasn't given him like this perfect. And now I've separated myself from that kind of person. It's like, no, he grew up in incredible privilege being told he was above others. And that doesn't completely leave you if you grow up like that. No, he is still very much that person, but he gets a really good interaction with Otto about it later on after they've kind of dealt

with Lord of the World. And he does this, oh, God, did I say thank you? It's like, no, but you noticed you didn't say thank you. We get better a little bit every day. Yeah, for sure. Did I, sorry, I was just, did I put this later? I don't think I did actually. The, that whole moment actually made me think of a conversation we had a few episodes, many episodes back. I might be one of the first episodes, we're talking about the two different types of villain that the lawful evil and the fucking psychopath, as I believe the DMV terminology is. I think it might have been like Fantastix, we were talking about the character that Tim Curry played. Yeah, versus the film. Yeah. And then, thank you. And yeah, just the, you've got the pin

and tulip, chaotic evil and the rust and downy and deward trio of posh lawful twats. Yes. The privilege, literally the private law twers. Yeah. The moment where Slantz saying, oh, you know, send this note to deward, which one? Not the one with the music. Oh my God. Jesus. Which is, it's like accidentally almost sending it to the wrong contact on your phone, isn't it? Which I am so paranoid about. Yeah, that's such a, because that's kind of a big reveal moment as well. Like it's been so clearly hinted that it's Lord the word, but I think that might be one of the first times it's actually said, but it's not a big, ta-da, because of course the audience is worked out by this point, because they're not stupid.

Yeah. For sure. We've not got Poirot sitting there going, it was the word. Little confirmator is like, yes, you were right. I wasn't fucking with you. It is that, it is that posh twat, not another posh twat. He is, it's a good feeling character, what we're confronting William and this, the guys from the estate start coming in and he's just very calmly talking about exiling him. Yeah. And he puts his hand on his sword and William's like, right, okay. Confirms it. You are just total trash. Fantastic. That one moment where he does wobble, where he learns that someone tried to kill William though.

Oh yeah, no, that is a moment, isn't it? That's a very good moment. And again, Pratchett does not writing extreme, like not while he is writing extremes, but not writing like a fully doesn't care about his son cartoon. He writes the gray areas very well. Even gives like the big fuck off villain a little bit of gray. Yes. Just a little bit. Yes. And now off with you. I'm blackmailing you. Excellent. And then onto slightly more fun characters. Charlie. Oh, Charlie. Oh, Charlie. Glad you're feeling that now. I'm glad he's feeling better. I do want to point out that well, I forgot to put this in

helicopter and long court, but keeping track of random disc world years. We have year of the amending camel and year of the translated rat. Oh, I miss that. Must have skimmed wherever we were there. No, wine years when he's drunk in the cellar. Yeah. Okay. But his outcome and sacrifice. Oh, you're going to lock him away, you know, man in the iron mask style. I don't think she actually referenced man in the iron mask because I don't think Alexandra do must exist on the disc. But no, that seems unlikely. It was implied. I feel it was implied. He'll be in querm somewhere anyway, so.

Yes. But yes, no, he's enrolled in the Guild of Actors doing children's parties thing, which I like the veterinarian says, yes, very risible. That's a word that should be used more. Risible. I love it. And also smart on that narrowest part, because although obviously he'd never admitted, useful to have a double. And he's on the Guild books now. He's not going to disappear without trace. What, you're going to scrag him? No, obviously not. That would be weird and getting rid of a useful resource, but having him on the books of the Guild means you know where he is. Also, everyone in the city now knows there's a veterinary lookalike running around,

which means like if veterinary does something weird and out of character that could be grounds to get rid of him as patrician, they can go, hang on, I say, are you charlie? Are you doing a bit? Oh, that's that comes up with a little kind of potential ethical thing. So doesn't it? What if practice, what not practice? What if Fetanari is like, no, that wasn't me who threw your father into the scorpion pit? There's another very similar scorpion pit. Fetanari would just admit to throwing. Yeah, no, no, no. Fetanari wouldn't lie about throwing someone in a scorpion pit. That's fair. That's fair. And then Sakurisa, who gets some fucking great moments in this.

Slight note before we get the great moments, though, is that Fratchit pointed out in, again, one of the forum prizes. I spent so much time on that this morning. Oh, no, the forum is such a great resource. I know. It's just, I get so into it that I just lose track of time. But yeah, it is a real name, Sakurisa, quite old. He came across it in a history book as the name of an 18th century lady. And it is a lead Sakurin like set. So, yes, the lovely listener who was correct. But yeah, she gets good moments. When they realise they're breaking into the inquirer sellers and she's like, you're not going to kill anyone. Make them a bit sorry. She's got the sort of about to burst out

disrespect ability. We've all known someone like that, which makes it even funnier. Like, you've been with the girl who's going to her first house party. And now you're like, please do not set fire to the hedge off the table, off the table. Get down. No, don't go wrong with him. We've definitely all been there. And when she finally starts threatening Kani, and he's sort of trying to doing the patronising, mollifying her. And she starts doing, she says, you used to chase me. I used to hit you over the head with a wooden cow. Wow, here we go. Threatening. It was a lovely cow. And I broke his leg. Yes, well, she's threatening him. And she's got the sort of, it was a lovely cow. And one day

I hit you so hard, one of its legs broke off. Reminds me of Becky when we met the very first time we met. She accidentally tricked me off and then got cross with me. We've been friends for 20 years. So that's how to do it. That is how you do it. But yes, I love her. I'm glad she gets to have those moments in this. Yes, I do feel a bit bad for her when she's getting kidnapped. And she's, I'm going to write things down at you. And she's not quite learned William's method of intimidating people with a notepad yet. Yeah, you have to be quiet. Which never worked on Pin and Tulip. You're neutral. Yeah, no, for sure. It's A, she hasn't quite got the hang of it,

B, what an audience. That's not who you want to go for on your first try. No, she's great though. She is really just a she's easily the words equal and brings like the alternate perspective of the more working class without like, it's not hammed up that oh, I'm so destitute and you're so rich or whatever. It's just like a yeah, no, most people don't have entire suites of wardrobes. Just FYI mate. Yeah, you massive fucking posho. Most people don't have $40 for a dress, let alone whatever these cost. I want to sparkly blue dress. I want to sparkly blue dress. I want to, I hope she did get to wear it and go to the ball at some point. No, she haven't. I don't. I feel like that she could

have probably gone back for it at some point after the fire. Yeah, we never heard about the ball. Oh, I'm sure lovely time. I bet they went to the wedding. Oh, they would have gone to the wedding more and their best. Anyway, sorry. Also, the favorite also moment is like a page after Sakaris are threatening Mr. Kani, which is when, oh yeah, they're threatening the other workers of the Enquirer and he's saying, everyone who goes home early because of a headache gets some money. And they say, well, if we don't go, also does the veil. And then you get a headache. And there's a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. And he's like, yes, it's doing it. Finally, getting on board. Let's try once more castle, the thunder rolled again. Now we're really

cooking once more with feeling what a big castle. Dramatic thunder sounds. Oh, it is beautiful. He does. Also, he's great, isn't he? Because he's his kind of comic side character, but also he gets a really intense bit right at the end. I love it. Also, quickly before we get on to his really intense bit, though, when he goes in and starts threatening to fight them in the traditional more pork fashion has also read the marquee of Fantaia, because I feel like he has. He definitely has. Or is he at least familiar with the rules? I feel like he's definitely familiar with the rules of the marquee to bloody Fantaia. But he will never have a gravestone on which to put them. Absolutely not. But yeah, when he's threatening lord to word,

and he's called an it, and he's like, oh, you're going to call me an it, are you? You're here as well. It then. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Are you going to, do you want me to act like you're treating me? Pardon? It said, do you want me to act like you're treating me kind of thing? Yes. Very, very much so. And it's just William trying to call you back. And it's sort of the, okay, maybe I won't do it because William thinks I'm a good person. Am I better than you? And then he kisses him on the forehead and just, I love it. And the line that eases the tension is, well, maybe Zococo's not too bad. And the young lady who plays the harmonium, sometimes she vinks at me. But also, I felt like we just need to shout out also for being really fucking horny for a loss

of this because it's iconic and I respect it. Yeah, he's not like this. He hasn't lost all his other urges. No, he's lost any of the urges, but yes. Oh, yeah, there he goes. There he is. We have people like you back home. He said, the other ones, they tell the mob what to do. I come here to Angkor Morpoch. They tell me things are different, but really, it is always the same. Always there are damn people like you. And now, what should I do with you? Wow, my accent went on a full European tour there. I do apologize. But yeah. That was, that was wild. Thank you. But yeah, just the always, always says you here. Yep. Am I going to kill it? No, no, all right, fine. The harmonium.

Young lady who plays the harmonium. And then later on, when there's blood again, and it's, it's okay. He's fine with it that time, but you still get the moment of the dwarfs who had to be kind of chivied into helping last time just straight away going, oh, come on, fellas. Let's sing the song. Yeah. It's just they've sort of added it to their like health and safety protocol now. Oh my God, yeah, let's add that to the documentation. In case of vampire emergency, breakout wheel walk in sunshine. We've got the fire marshal. We've got the vampire marshal. Cool. And then we're moving onwards and downwards to about knee height. Gaspode slash Trixie bell slash deep bone. The dog of many names. The dog of many names.

I just think it's very sweet when you see his little panic moment where they're taking terriers, terriers that what about people that just look a bit terrier like look a bit terrier like. And then yeah, this decision that he needs a surprise and this sort of description of Trixie bell as pinkness. The effect was not of a poodle, but of malformed poodleosity. That is to say everything about it suggested poodle, except for the whole thing itself, which suggested walking away. Like the opposite of what practically usually talks about would like is the essence of thing, even if it doesn't look like it. This is entirely the aesthetic of the thing, but put on something that is just not the thing. No, it's not the thing.

But well done. Well done Trixie bell. Good disguises. Excellent disguises. And well done waffles. Well done waffles. I love the idea of two gods in the room waffles being an old fashioned dog you see. And getting very, very into his memory of the event enough to bite William. And then William very calmly after pin dies just measuring the bite marks on his leg versus the ones on pins leg. He's very diligent. Yeah, no, diligent measurements. Good thinking. That's a sign of a journal, isn't it? Oh, the amount of times I've had to measure dog bites. Dilligent measurements is my really dull stripper name. Good. Speaking of diligence, I'll tell you who's not into that.

Dibbler. Dibbler, not very diligent. Dibbler, that's what they call it. What's his first name? I got the fucking middle name thing wrong there. Cut me own. His first name is cut me own throat. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Fuck it. No, carry on. Yeah, Dibbler. Cut me own diligence. He has evolved. He's evolved. Writing is tabloid sausages. Nice. I just do, I like the comparison because once you think about it for a second, yes, absolutely. A Sunday sports style news story is a bad hot dog. Yes. Oh, what foods are various publications? The Guardian. Quinoa. Oh, no, quinoa's a bit passe now. No, wait, but so is the Guardian. So quinoa, but from a pret and like a... Oh, yeah, like a

pret, like a sad quinoa box eaten in a cubicle. Yeah. A telegraph is going to be a bacon sandwich. Oh, okay. I was going to go with like artisanal bacon sandwich. Okay, yeah, yeah. Like, we're not posh, but posh. Oh, the telegraph is posh. Well, yeah. Oh, I can probably transfer salmon moose to the times, actually. Sounds fun. Yeah, I think the times can do a salmon moose vibe. Daily Mail is curry that has raisins in it. Yeah, Daily Mail is Mrs. Arcanum's curry. Like a Tesco's microwavable chicken tikka masala. Oh, Private Eye is something really good, just in case anyone who writes for it ever listens

to this, I'm sucking up. Private Eye is, oh, really good chips in a newspaper. Yes. Yeah, there we go. Private Eye is very much that. The spectator's roast swan. Oh, good, yeah. Nice. Okay, right. This is off topic. I do like... The devil you say. Dibbler's career shift into ad sales because he could sell nothing like in any business. Nothing, nothing. It's what I sell anything. That's the problem. Yeah. Let me sell nothing. Lassie, I wanted to point out one of the veterinary things, which is obviously the votes around Scroop being elected. What a fucking word. Scroop. Scroop. Put that with Scroop. And the ones who adjourned, the beggars, seamstresses,

launderers, and Guild of Exotic Dancers, so Queen Molly, Mrs. Palm, Mrs. Maynter, and Ms. Dixie Voom. Well, an interesting life Lord Veterinary must have led. That is a fun one because, well, A, it's a nice little joke, but B, it's like, that is interesting that the traditionally downtrodden sectors of society vary into Veterinary, who's clearly... Well, this is the thing. On the surface, it's a bit of a pervy joke, huh? You know, it's the seamstresses and the exotic dancers who don't want to get rid of... But no, it's just like you have Veterinary who has generally probably made the lot better for those people. Like, I feel like he's probably engendered some equality as opposed to someone

like Scroop who... For sure. If Lord Rust was in charge, he'd have never allowed that to be a Guild of Seamstresses. Exactly. Or exotic dancers, all launderers. And you can see a lot of the Lord Rusts, the Lord DeWords, don't want a Guild of Beggars because it's the streets look untidy. Yes, that does outlaw homelessness. But not to give homeless people homes. We're not going to house the unhoused, but you can't be unhoused. Yes, you are. You are a criminal for existing. Oh, fun, social commentary. Let's move on. I'm adding vines to the end here. Vines liked to refer to himself as a simple copper, just as Harry King thought of himself as a rough diamond. Williams suspected that the world was littered

with the remains of those people who had taken them at their word. It's kind of veterinary because veterinary likes to say things that you probably better not take literally. Yes. Little bits we liked. Little bits we like and won't cause us to cry. In theory, where are we? The gun again. The gun again. Come and gun again. Okay, the gun has popped back up. Third book is now. The little spring pistol crossbow thing. Yes. Not technically a gun. Well, it said a spring gun. Oh, yeah. It is a gun. And I'm confirming that in the last one, it was a gun as well. I'm winning this argument. Okay, it's not a gun in that it doesn't use explosives. It's not a firework stick. No, did the last one? The first one, the one that was the gun

that Leonard De Querm designed, and that was the whole plot of Men at Arms. Did it have gunpowder in it? Yes, because one of the Gargoyles refers to it as a firework stick. Oh, yeah. Okay, no, you would have gunpowder. You in the argument. This is a new modified gun. Yes. No, in my head, because it was fireworks, because they were talking about the smell of fireworks. I was thinking because of the dragon. No, you're quite right. Anyway, dragon was a different book. It was technically a legally crossbow, and the human strength compressed the spring. All the list of any one court was won by the Assassin's Guild would find its ability to be hidden on the human body attested to the extreme. I like the idea that now we have the

technology, it's not going to disappear entirely. That's kind of realistic version of events. Yeah. But steps will be taken against it. Steps will be taken against it as being very repressed by the Assassin's Guild, and I imagine Vettnari standing behind them going, this is not going to be a commonplace item. But it was a member of the Assassin's Guild who had one in the last book. Yeah, for sure. But like Vettnari's special, special little assassin boy. Yeah. So he was a loud one. Maybe he keeps a couple for his special assassins. Anyway, I just like the kind of, yeah, realistic, this kind of thing's never going to disappear. Now it's popped up. It wasn't one of the magic cinema appearances, whatever. But they are doing

a decent job of repressing it, as I think would happen. So yes, that's a nice detail. Values and traditions. This isn't a bit I liked, but this is a quick bit I wanted to point up, which is when Vimes is sort of checking in on who's Mr. Scrope and what's he going to be saying. And it's that he's looking forward to put a new era in our history. I'll put Ankh Morphe back on the path of responsible citizenship. He wants to return to the values and traditions that make the city great, sir. And it's such a gross political rhetoric we've all heard. It's kind of following on from the point about veterinary and the guilds that chose to abstain. They're the guilds that may not fit in with values and traditions,

despite what Mr. Scrope makes themselves, which are leather accoutrements. But I do like Vimes immediately coming out with, does he know what those values and traditions are? This is Ankh Morphe. Our national anthem is we own you wholesale. And again, like a British, what a British values. Go on, name one that you'd be happy to see in a headline. Chips. Yeah, I don't mean you particularly. I mean, the politicians like, go on. I know what you're hinting at, but say it out loud. Go on, go on. Say the quiet part out.

Would you like to put any of this in a letter to the editor, Francine? Absolutely, always. Burying them on you with the editor. Why, oh, why, oh, why? Yeah, the bit about Mrs. Tilly. Mrs. Tilly, I think you wrote a lovely, well-spelled and grammatical letter to us, suggesting that everyone under the age of 18 should be flogged once a week to stop them being so noisy. Yeah. I love the unhinged letters to the editor in general. I think that's great. I think I've talked before about green ink and the whole, you know, the special brand of madness that comes to

people who regularly write to newspapers. I've got a little book called Am I Alone in Thinking, which is unpublished letters to the Daily Telegraph. Amazing. And I found a very similar one to the one paradigm in here, which I thought I'd read for us. Sir, if the government were serious about ending knife crime, it could go so in a week. All that would be necessary would be for anyone found with a knife without proper excuse to receive 10 lashes with a cat or nine tails. Fear is what prevents offenses. Liberal do-gooders have got us into this mess we are now in, and that has got to stop.

Yes. Flogging. Flogging. Good book, very funny. So speaking of things that are horrific. Yes. No, there's some good horror moments in this book. And more than that, this last third particularly has a couple of really good horror moments. But what's so good about them is that it's not a whiplashy tonal shift. It's a very good horror moment as the story keeps going, like in the hands of a lesser author, it'd be like, Oh God, what the fuck was that? Why are we back here now? But Pratchett puts them in so well that it works for me. We've already talked a bit about pin killing tulip, but the actual moment of it, of this, I've got a plan, it's for the

good of the firm, and then shooting him in the head. It's dark, it's terrifying. I mean, for more horror horror, pin coming out of the cellar. Yes. Smoke poured off him and he was screaming one long incoherence scream. It was imminent pain that occupied all of his future. The face of the creature was inches away, eyes wide and staring through him at something horrible, but his hands were ticed around William's neck. That is the horror movie moment of the villains not dead after all. Fuck. Yes. And the very last ominous press moment that's a fun like, almost could be a bit of setup for something later on as well. If it wanted to go that way, that we've been reassured through this whole book that this isn't a music with rocks in. This isn't anything like Mr. Hong

and the Three Jolly Luck takeaway fish bar. It's all very normal. And then William kind of looking at the press and this, it looked back at him. And he thought you don't need old sacrificial stones. You put your mark on me, I'm on to you. And then he's like, right, we've got to get out of here now. Gotta go. As you say, it leaves the door open, but I don't think Pratchett ever intended to go through it. It's very much this is what the press does to you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I don't think it was it was doing this in case you did another book, but it's nice to leave on that kind of slightly ominous note about it. Pratchett apparently had to insist that Mr. Tulip died. The editor. Oh, yeah, he did for the life of Mr. Tulip. She really wants him back in another book.

This was part of a longer rant about him once again being really pissed off that people keep saying Pin and Tulip are nicked from Neil Gaiman and Croup and Vandemar. Yes. Which I just want to read one paragraph. The fact that some in character reminds someone of another in character is not, I suggest, an annotation unless there are some very severe similarities. A pair of heavies, one mostly the brains, the other mostly the muscle is so generic that it's a cliche. Of course, I'm not going to pinch from Gaiman, but I might share the same sources. Yeah. I love angry Pratchett runs. And actually in the same bit, I'm not sure where else I put this, but it's kind of, you know, general long term discussion about Pratchett and tropes and

genres and things is saying that newspaper stories and crime stories are genres in themselves. A lot of things in them remind people of other books, movies, whatever in the same genre. That's why it's a genre. Yes. The first bit is the thing is that, yeah, newspaper stories and crime stories are their own genre. Horror comes from crime stories, I guess. It does. And I, oh, gosh, wouldn't you love to see us take on true crime podcasts? Yes. Oh, dear me. Oh, yeah, the vindictive geography moment, on the other hand, just made me laugh. Oh, God, the mayor of Querm's been struck by a meteorite again. How can that happen? It's from a sensible chap that says this time it was waiting for the mayor in an alley.

We know someone who's got a son who's the lecturer in vindictive astronomy at the university. So I love this moment because it's ridiculous that the meteorite was waiting for the mayor and alley, but also because it reads like an inquire a story and it's not it's taken very seriously by the times. And it's a nice reminder in a book that's one of the least fantastical, I'd say, of the discworld books. All right, yes, there's a vampire and a talking dog, but the discworld comparatively. Yeah, so you have all these ridiculous couldn't be true inquire stories, but then you have this quite obviously very factual. Yeah, no, of course, he got hit by a meteorite and it was waiting for him an alley. And yeah, no, we know the

professor of vindictive geography because that's something that the discworld does have. Yeah, because there's enough of it. And I just really like that as a moment of reminding us that we're still on the disc. It's all still astronomy once and geography once, which do you mean? No, I mean astronomy. I don't know why I've written geography. I can't be trusted. No, that's fine. I mean, it's now on the ground and it would be geology, not geography, I suppose, but it's going to get mixed up with the professor of cruel and egregious geography. Got it. There we go. There we go. Sorry. Luckily, that paid off much like a lot of things in this book. This is lesser payoff than just a callback of a high priest, Rick Cully, telling everyone

he thinks the Lord veterinary went mad because the day before we'd been telling him about a plan to make lobsters fly through the air. That sounds right. Which I enjoy being called back to. You get obviously the big dramatic moment of William buying himself back off his father and throwing the jewels at his feet, which is nice because that didn't feel like a heavily signposted setup. That was a good conversation and a nice bit of worldbuilding about dwarf culture. Then William gets to go and have that moment. Of course, we get the big payoff of the headline dog bites man. Oh, it's brilliant, isn't it? It's alluded to all throughout. It's a very extended writing device. That's it. Yes. Ha. Ha. Now it's news. Now it's news. Ha. In fact, that's nice,

isn't it? Because if you've got a story like that, that's what you want to go with. You want to go with the something so obvious that people look at it and go, wait, why is that news? Yeah, and that's when they pick it up and read it and go, ah, all right, let's talk about the bigger stuff. Yeah. The free press. It's slightly morally grubby. Oh, it is a bit grubby. Well, this kind of jumps back onto the conversation we were having earlier about the Vimes and William comparisons and William not needing to be perfect. I think it's interesting to compare William to Vimes because it makes sense to in the context of this book because in another world, this could be a watchbook. Yeah. This is sitting next to a watchbook, which makes the line later on where,

you know, Vimes is saying to William, look, we're on the same side. And William's like, well, no, we're not. We're on sides that are next to each other. Yeah. I like it when the Williams writing things down in the meeting about Mr. Scroop having called in sick and Downey saying, well, he can't just write down anything, can he? And Vimes looked William in the eye and said, there's no law against it, which is very the enemy of my enemy as my friend, I think, because suddenly suddenly Vimes' tone changed as soon as Lord Downey was involved. Which is fair because I feel like everyone just wants to kind of fuck Lord Downey off a bit. But you have really early on with Karen Angwer being very reasonable after Angwer's been hit by the oil of skeleton.

And he's like, I'm going to ban him from doing this. You can't. I mean, you could stop him from writing things down, but I don't think you can stop him from writing down that you've stopped him from writing things down. Yes. And the kind of call out that, you know, Vimes actually gets a couple of call outs for immoral practices here, having somebody followed illicitly and bring up the fucking forum again. I'm sorry. In fact, in one of the related threads I saw Pratchett point out something we've talked about before, which is there are loads of bad policing practices in the watch. And he alluded to specifically, Detritus' slab raid, where he like, pin someone off against the wall. And one of the commenters said, oh, no, you know, drug

police should be more like that. Pratchett said, well, you know, you might think that if you're reading it from the point of detritus, but what if you were the innocent troll who had his ears nailed to the wall? And I was like, huh, you get it. Yeah, I'm glad Pratchett knows he's doing it. And I'm glad Vimes gets called out here, especially when it's in the case of William being followed. And Vimes is trying to say, you assaulted an officer. It's like, oh, did I? Did I? Was it an officer that was known to me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why was there an officer there? I was just throwing gross stuff around. Okay, there might be a lawyer against that, but not a serious one. And the moment when he's actually writing up the story, he's written everything

that happened, but before he's gone to confront his father, and Sacheris is saying, are you sure it's all true? And he says, well, I'm sure it's all journalism. And then for someone who is very, very close to the truth to have that kind of gray area in journalism, is it true or is it not? And this is a question this book points up. And this is not a criticism of the book or of William. It's why I think the book is so good is that in becoming the guy who invents the paper all in about three days, as opposed to a few centuries, he becomes this arbitrator of truth versus journalism. Yes. And it's sort of what gives you the right and it goes back into his arrogance. It's like,

well, I can do this and I'm the best person for it because I know it when I see it. And it just, it doesn't work if you dig down into it for more than a few seconds. For sure. For sure. He doesn't have the editorial office behind him, is the thing, as well, isn't it? Like, nowadays, you try and do a huge expose on a politician, on a scandal, whatever. You've got the lawyer. It turns out William does have a lawyer, luckily. But not before the fact. Generally, you get a lawyer to look at it before you publish that. But how quickly can you make that happen if it's such a time-sensitive scandal? I actually don't know how a newspaper room would work with something that high-profile with that tighter

time limit. I wonder how that would go. Well, especially as at the moment, we don't have libel laws in Inkwell book. Yeah, of course. Yeah. You've just got the knowledge that somebody won't like it and that somebody probably has a big stick. Which is a conversation that's happened a lot about like press trials and things and things that get published in the UK and don't. And people have to often explain like the UK has much more stringent libel laws than most of the US. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's what makes it such a good book. And I think one of the things that works with William when you compare him to Vines, the Vines is not a perfect character. Vines is very morally gray, but at slump when it out in

the last section, he knows that and he keeps a very tight leash on himself. William hasn't learned that self-awareness yet. He's keeping a leash on himself to try not to be like his father. He hasn't learned to keep the leash on himself to not be like himself, which might be something he needs to do occasionally. That's true. He's still becoming himself. He's learning his own Vines elbow. He is. And then you get towards the end of the book and you still have this arrogance that makes sense, which is when he's talking to veterinary about this idea of the free press. And it's like, oh, you should be free to print what you like because it's in the public

interest. You have stories people are interested in and human interest, which is what humans interested in and public interest, which no one is interested in except the public, which isn't the same as people and humans. And the public thinks big sensible measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things, which is a nice thing to have pointed out. I don't think there's a big answer to, oh, no, the public is this and the human is that. But I think it's nice to have it called out that there's a difference and there's some arrogance sometimes in how things are published. Yeah. Following from that, I thought a particularly good point from veterinary. It amazes me how the news you have so neatly fits the space available.

And every day something happens that's important enough to be at the top of the first page. How strange, which is very, yeah, no, it's, if you're going to print a newspaper every day and nothing happens, you need to be sensationalist. That's going to happen. You're going to have to elevate something. And from that, you are going to not just observe what's going on, but be biased because you are picking what to make important. It's, and I love the whole like cutting things down for the page, whatever it's like, Oh, amazingly, yes, as you are just being an unbiased reporter, it just so happens that it all fits into your format. But yeah, isn't that nice? Yes, how helpful.

We also kind of want to put a bit of a pin in veterinary and his keeping an eye on William DeWerd, especially veterinary taking an interest in a new public surface run by a potentially morally grubby character. Because this feels like a bit of a first draft for some for some later books that we'll get. Yes. I feel like a bit of a character template starting here that will get used again, but expanded upon. Yeah, I don't know about character template, but we'll talk about that more later. Definitely not identical. But I think it's worth having the pin in it here. I think there's some fun comparisons to draw later. And you want to talk about the role of the observer in all of this as well. Yeah, so the last, the last kind of bit of journalism you see

that there's a cart crash and William watches and it's described in detail to us. They lead up to the cart crash and the old woman and her canes and the cart careering along. And then Captain Carrick jumps out of nowhere and saves her. And William realises that instead of going to help what he's done is pulled out his notebook. Yes. And that's got a whole set of discussions when it comes to journalism and documentary making especially. Yeah. There's always controversy when a documentary maker does anything or when they don't do anything. And then I thought it also pastes nicely onto a world that Pratchett didn't live to see, which is the, well kind of dead, but not to the extent it is now, which is

why are you filming that on your phone instead of helping? Or you get the same discussion under every one of those videos, which is somebody needs to observe, somebody needs to report, except it's all of us now, except instead of a designated observer. Yeah, the role of the observer versus the helper versus the observed slash needing to be helped. All those lines of blurred a lot more is like social media has become a bigger thing and we are all kind of our own reporters. Yeah. Yeah. That's good way. Yeah. And most of us aren't talked about journalistic ethics and aren't bound by the rules of our newspaper or by. This jumps on what we were talking about last week, as much as there's this kind of issue

with a lack of media literacy, there's a lack of understanding what power you might have. Because even if it's just tweeting about something or sharing a video, you're engaging in this media machine. And of course, you're going to be biased every single fucking, there is no unbiased person, it's impossible to be totally unbiased and a lot of those biases can be unconscious. Yeah, for sure. And often things are shared and reported on with an agenda, both in newspapers and just by people sharing things on social media. But I feel like there's along with a lack of media literacy, there's a lack of responsibility and no one learns to have a sense of responsibility about what they're sharing and how they're talking about it.

And actually, we're doing the slightly wrong order to rewind slightly, which is the ever-expanding role of the observer. What perhaps it did live to see was the easily available platform of the internet for news sites. Yeah, like newspaper websites and articles being available online. Yeah, for bloggers, for whatever. The gatekeepers suddenly disappeared. And for some reasons, that's a good thing. But for many reasons, it's a bad thing. And there's this huge, huge debate to be had about the value of having gatekeepers for media. And I think it's perhaps becoming a little more obvious that the value was there than it was 10 years ago.

Yeah. But of course, then, who hires the gatekeepers who watches the watch. They watch it. Yeah. The press should be free, but people should maybe think about how it's getting out there. Yeah. Pratchett also had a bit to say, not in this book particularly, but about how the observer changes what's going on by the mere point of observing it. So it's a bit quantum again. Yes. But not quite. Things changed by being observed.

Yeah. A quote from Pratchett in an interview, I think, was that, my journalistic career unfolded with a certain routine. Of course, there was always a court somewhere that needed the presence of a journalist. Actually, they didn't. Justice was dispensed, more or less satisfactorily, whether we were there or not. Nevertheless, justice has to be seen to be done. And therefore, our stalwart from the Bucks Free Press had to sit there in his deep jacket and write it all down in impeccable pitman's short hand, which is the, yeah. Oh, fuck, we're going to get a mess here. It is the observer being observed to observe, which is important. We need to see that somebody is watching.

Even if we're not interested in the court appearances of that day, it is comforting and correct to know that an independent observer was there. Should we hold them to account? To hold power to account, I think it's a phrase we haven't said yet, but it's obviously the one that gets repeated ad nauseam when one is talking about the value of the press. Speak truth to power, which I know is a... Speak truth to power, yeah. God, I hate that saying. I know. I'm so glad you hate it too. I know it's very well meant, and I know Amnesty International use it in a very specific way, and they're doing a lot of good work.

Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. I'm not going to criticise good people who are using it, but yeah, it is such a cliche. Yeah. George Topley, which was the chief reporter in Pratchett's first job, was apparently, according to Mark Bowries, the person from whom he learned how to use the truth, how to be right in a way that went beyond simply being correct, which doesn't summarise exactly, but hints it's the nebulous stuff we were talking about. Is it true? Is it your version of the truth? Is there a truth? Yes. Truth is beauty, beauty, truth, sir.

And we haven't even talked about our whole rant subject that we really can't get into. We do not have the time about how the whole, oh, facts over feelings crowd, who don't really understand what a fact is, what objectivism is, what subjectivism is, what emotions are, et cetera, et cetera. Actually, I think you've got most of the rant in there. It kind of only works. You already know what I'm on about, but yeah. Let's talk about Pratchett on journalism, because he was a journalist for a very long time. Well, I would actually know. I suppose he was a journalist for a bit,

and then he was a press officer, wasn't he? Yeah, and he was a sub-editor. He worked in the area for a very long time. Yeah, for sure. So very briefly going over his reporting career and leaning heavily on Mark Burrow's magic of Terry Pratchett here. So Pratchett worked at the Bucks Free Press. That was his first job in 1965. He got the job as a trainee reporter. He brought his own typewriter that he'd bought two years ago, otherwise he'd have had to pay one off in instalments. Apparently, that was the thing. I know. This may be a popful, may not be, but Pratchett said Arthur Church, who was the editor,

who mentored many journalists. Pratchett said, I think he actually said to me, I like the cut of your jib, which was probably the last time anyone ever said it. I've said that many a time. I fucking love that phrase. But he stayed at the Bucks Free for five years in various roles. He worked in a spare time there to earn the NCTJ qualifications, like professional journalist qualification in the UK. He claimed to have gotten the best grade in the country. One little detail from that passage that I can make a direct parallel to this book and pretend

we're still on track here. He found himself writing up flower shows, parish council decisions, a new rotary club chairman. Right near the end there, we've got Sakharissa wielding her pencil with care. Crossed out every adjective in a report of the Angmorpore Chloral Ranging Society, reducing its length by half. You can just imagine Pratchett's little memory going there. During that period, actually, side note, he met Peter Bander when he was asked to interview him, and that's Colin Smy's business partner. They're eventual first publishers. So he met his breaking to the authorial world through his first journalism job. Oh, in 1970, he left for the Western Daily Press, which was in Bristol,

and he was sacked in 1971. That was his last job as a reporter. But he then returned to the Bucks Free Press as a sub-editor, which he has said many a time was a very important thing to do if you're going to be a writer or a copy editor or anything, learning how to cut everything down by half. And I fully agree with him here and did even before I knew all of this, that Pratchett thought, I'm not just nicking my opinions off in my promise. It is so important. You are a very, very good sub-editor. Unfortunately, not of the spoken word, as you can tell. But no, you have a level of ruthlessness that I cannot manage. I'm not an amazing editor.

No, you're a creative, my darling. I write nonfiction and I edit nonfiction. I would probably be a horrendous fiction editor because I would upset every author. It's hard enough not to upset a columnist, which stridles the line somewhat between fiction and nonfiction and a fence columnist. So much a fence columnist. So much. Then he went on to be a press officer, et cetera, et cetera. I think we talked about the rest. His feelings on it, kind of his opinions on journalism, very interesting. There's lots of... We're going to skim again here. This may be one day a rabbit hole or a bonus episode, actually. This will be a fun one. But one of my sources, actually, before I begin, was the Bucks Free

Press in writing in 2006, I think. Possibly, maybe a bit later. And I'd like to point out at this point that they spelt his name wrong in a caption. Terry Fratchit with one T who worked for the Bucks Free Press. And they also put a space in Discworld in the main article, Discskip Tasteworld. So they clearly need to hire some subeditors back, side rant subeditors, some of the first editorial staff to go in the inevitable decline of the proper press. And it really fucking shows throughout the BBC. And like, oof. I thought Fratchit as ex-journalist is nicely grumpy. I thought he's clearly got very mixed feelings about the press. When interviewed by journalists, he was very critical of them. Mark Burry is one of his foot

notes here. They still are required part of most journalism qualifications. The use of shorthand has declined. When he became famous enough to be interviewed himself, Fratchit would often accuse journalists using some device to record their chat of cheating before asking them questions about legal and ethical practices in journalism in an attempt to catch them out. But yeah, he also talked a lot about the responsibility that came off as soon as he was the one reporting on the truth, deciding what the truth was. He said, it worried me that in the nature of journalism, you had to chop the world up into little lumps of 150 words. You could never tell the whole story. I was never very good at doorstep asking,

how do you feel, Mrs. Jones, when your son was knifed by the Hell's Angels? Because on the whole, you had a pretty good idea how they felt. But we had to ask the dumb questions often when neither you nor the person wanted to talk about it. But then he clearly values the experience that journalism brought him and thinks it'd be valuable for other people. And he said somewhere that Dennis makes you think fast, which he demonstrates with William DeWard here, I think, who's rattling off the top of his head an article, which is something I hugely admire. I've never been able to do. My old boss used to be able to do that with like a 2000 word article on legal matters, just being able to write, talk an article off the top of your head,

what a talent. But yeah, here's a message from 1992 on the forum about journalism and the effects that are off. Yes, Dave Gemmell and Neil Gaiman were both journalists. So was Bob Shaw. So was I. It's good training because any tendency to writer's block is burned out of you within a few weeks of starting work by unsympathetic news editors. You very quickly learn the direct link between writing and editing, between writing and eating, sorry. You pick up a style of sorts, you get to hang around in interesting places, you learn to take editing in your stride and tend to be reliable about deadlines, you end up with an ability to think at the keyboard and reduce the world to yourself and the work at hand, you have to do this to survive in a world of

ringing telephones and shouting sub editors. None of this makes you talented or good. But it does help you make the best of what you've got. That's a really good quote. I love that. Yeah, quite a lot of good authors were journalists and here's why, which is cool. Finally, a demonstration of how Pratchett felt about journalists certainly later on, but is also a fun tangent. Can you guess what I'm going to talk about? Quite possibly. It's the Rowling Feud. Oh, the Rowling Feud. The Rowling Feud, but in scare quotes. So I'm one day going to write this up for our hobby drama, like in depth, because there's so much. In brief, he wrote a letter to The Sunday Times. Why has it felt that the continued elevation of JK Rowling can only be achieved at the expense

of all the writers? And now here, he is criticising a critic or a writer who was talking about how good Rowling is and how fantasy was shipped before. Now we learn that prior to Harry Potter, the world of fantasy was plagued with knights and ladies more as dancing to green sleeves. He finishes his letter with the Rowling says that she didn't realise the first Potter book was fantasy until after it was published. I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl, male, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue. Very Pratchett. Now from there, even though the point of the letter was to criticise

the article, there was a little bit of a jab, I would say, at Rowling at the end of a little, come on, you know it was fantasy. Yeah, don't be silly. But then the BBC took that and ran with Pratchett takes swipe at Rowling. Pratchett said later on, it's like, well, most of my letters to the Sunday Times was chiding, there's Lev Grossman. But then the BBC website sexed it up to making an attack on JKR herself. When the grownups got it, they toned it back down again. But by then it was out there and spinning fast. And so yeah, and made it into this whole thing. And it went span multiple papers and articles and various forums, Harry Potter fans, slagging off Pratchett and vice versa, you know, 2005, six, seven internet drama. Yeah. Yeah. What do you

think? What do you think a good quote for that phenomenon might be, Joanna? I don't know. Oh, don't you? No, sorry. The lie can go around the world before the truth. Oh, of course. Sorry. That was the dumbest. I'll let it in. A lie can get around the world before the truth can get her boots on. Well done. Oh, I like how you called, you went her. Is it not her in the book? I could have sworn it was. I thought it was it. Yeah, quite possibly. I think because they were talking about a goddess of truth at one point and I always pictured her, you know, like nice, like knee high boots.

Yeah. Like the kind where they need like some lacing and that's why it takes so long for her to get the boots on while the lies are running around the world. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she's got laces, muffins, shit. This is relevant. I just want to hop backwards. Oh, okay. A point I forgot to make, but more journalism in general is that I literally just before we started recording, while I was making breakfast, listened to the latest episode of You're Dead to Me on Jules Dabigny. It was like a 17th century bisexual sword fighting opera singer. So you can imagine like how brand this was for me, possibly my favorite ever episode.

But the obviously the historian always gets like a minute to just uninterrupted talk, have a little rant. And one of the things on this episode is that they don't have a lot of contemporary sources of her life. And she was talking about the fact that part of the reason this woman became so well known and was written about so much like a hundred years later is the advent of newspapers and journalism. The press had existed for a while, but it was largely like religious pamphlets. And this was around the time newspapers became a thing, which meant gossip became a thing, because they needed something to talk about. And this is also as Paris society was coming in. And she was, I mean, she's more than just a space filler. She's a bisexual

for sword fighting opera singer. Of course, yeah. But you know, who at one point like set fire to a convent to sneak out a girlfriend. Well, I know what I'm listening to as I cook this evening. I'm going to link to this in the show notes. Wait, I know this woman. Yeah, I think there might be a noble blood thing about her as well. Yes, it's great. Someone's just written like a sort of fictional novel that's very heavily based on her. Oh, good. Someone showed. I want the movie. I want the movie of the bisexual sword fighting, bisexual sword fighting opera singer. I'm not writing a movie. I'm writing a book. All right, fine. Do that then. Do that. Done the movie. Done the game. Wait. Okay. What? Oh, shit. I'm writing video games, aren't I? That's what I have got, unity.

Francine, have you got an obscure reference for Neil? I have. And luckily for me, it does fit into this section, but really it fits into the first section. When William Duerd is hit by the press, which does not stop, he is left with a letter R on his forehead. Yes. In this section, it says he touched his forehead. The Bruce had long ago, had long ago faded, had long ago faded. You put your mark on me. Well, I'm wise to you. I found in the wiki L space, not the L space, annotations, this little annotation, in 17th to 18th century England and possibly elsewhere, a common punishment was to brand an offender with a letter denoting what the crime was. One who disseminated slander verbally or libel in print,

one deemed to be a habitual liar and rumamunger, could have the letter R burnt into their face, humiliating punishment they would carry for life. Apparently, this happened to publishers of broad cheats who printed things that annoyed influential people who could command such a sanction. Amazing. I know. And this took me some time to find, and so I haven't checked out any sources other than this yet, but I will do. And yeah, if nothing else, it ought to be true. That's good enough for us. On that note, I think we've said everything we could possibly say about the truth. That's not true. We could do like another hour, but we've got our things, shame. You've got to edit this episode. I do. Yeah. Fun. We are going on our summer holidays.

As is tradition, we'll be taking August mostly off. And so we're going to be back on the 5th of September to talk about Thief of Time. So until September, dear listeners, if you'd like to get in touch with us, you can. You can follow us on Instagram at the True Shall Make You Threat, on Twitter at Make You Threat Pod, on Facebook at the True Shall Make You Threat. Join our subreddit community, r slash ttsmyf. Send us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and runaway presses, the True Shall Make You Threat Pod at gmail.com. If you want to support us financially, go to patreon.com for the true shall make you threat and exchange your harder and pennies, sports and bonus nonsense. Patrons, we will still be appearing in August with our

usual rabbit hole and recipe nonsense. And this month's rabbit hole, July's rabbit hole, will be on the history of the printing press and newspapers. So if you want more of that nonsense, now's your chance. Join us. I'm wiggling my eyebrows. You can't see that. Listeners, that was a marvellous suggestion. It's intriguing. I'm intrigued by Francine's eyebrows. And until next time, dear listener, nothing has to be true forever, just for long enough to tell you the truth. But then it's a spoiler. I'm not going to tell all the listeners that's why we've done it.