The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 97: The Sea and Little Fishes (Like a Cannonball in the Wind)

Episode Date: November 7, 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, our recap of “The Sea and Little Fishes” Honey & vinegar! Tea & biscuits! Levers & hammers! 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:(Forgot to mention this: Bewilderbeasts' Halloween Discworld costumes)Mappa Disco- see second last para - r/TTSMYF Stardust (2007 film) - Wikipedia Stardust (Gaiman novel) - Wikipedia Guest right (& in real life) - Game of Thrones Wiki Gloucester Cheese Rolling 2022 Mostly quiet on the cheese hill front - Stroud News and Journal nice | Etymology, origin and meaning of nice by etymonline The Dog in the Manger - Wikipedia --Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

are you going to go and jump into the sea first thing Christmas morning? Absolutely not. Happy anniversary, Joanna. Well done for catching it. Fourth of November, remember, remember this time we did. It would be more of a proper anniversary if we were releasing this on the fourths, because I can't remember when we actually recorded that first episode. But we recorded it August 2019.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, no, July 2019. That's it. Because we did it and then we redid it and then it took a while. Yes. We were, yeah, we recorded in July planning to because we were going to always be a month ahead, which that went away. Oh, the folly of youth.

We tried doing a week ahead for Christmas last year and we failed at that. Oh, so annoying. Within a week. Well, we, you know, we're in an important current event. Current delivery system. Look, I'm wearing a blazer. I'm wearing a massive cardigan because if my flat is freezing. I have a blanket on my lap. Same. I've nearly finished my giant patchwork hexagon blanket.

I am knitting the last hexagon. So unlike granny. That bit in the story was very relatable. But yeah, no, happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Three years, which is a bit upsetting, honestly. Done. All right. We've kept, we've carried on with something for three years.

And I think that's impressive. I think we deserve a prize at this point. We're over halfway. We may as well finish, you know, because otherwise we were going to give up. It's going to take just as long to walk home. So we might as well continue on the journey. Oh, yes. And we have listeners that have been with us from the very beginning.

Highly. I mean, hi to listeners who also haven't been with us from the very beginning. You're just as welcome. Well, extra special hi to the ones who have been just for today. Because you've been, you've been putting up with us for three years. I know. What the hell, guys? Did you realize our first episode on the color of magic was only an hour and 10 minutes? I didn't realize that. That's nice.

We still sometimes get something that short. I completely forgot that my zoom name is still Joanna Brackett's miscreant and had to go on a slightly more professional zoom call the other day. So there's 30 odd people who have got very sensible first name, surname, pronouns in brackets, and there's me with miscreant. I think that covers everything, honestly. I've decided from now on, I'm defining my gender entirely by how many magpies I've seen in a specific day.

Does unfortunately. Sorrow, which I've had worse gender. Is sorrow as a gender, same as sorrow as a mood or more of a vibe? More of a vibe. Yeah, OK. You know, if you didn't know us, you'd think we were being one of those shitty boomer podcasts, making fun of gender instead of, like, coming out the other end of gender acceptance.

Lads, et cetera. See, now I'm going back to calling everyone lads, which I know isn't gender neutral. It just feels very gender neutral to me, specifically. Yeah. Let's force a segue like a chairwoman. You know, they say about her, she forces a segue like a chairwoman. A specific talking point and the soft open for once, which actually might work well for an anniversary

because I believe in one of the first episodes we censored ourselves from bitching about to practice Facebook groups. And it just it just came up again recently. And I don't remember in which context. And if I did, I wouldn't tell you just the phrase be more Terry. I hate it so much. It's so bad. It's so fucking cringe, guys. Yeah. Oh, be more Terry, go and write 40 million books.

Yeah, exactly. And it's always like, be more Terry, be more insipid, be more nice. Oh, this fits in well with today. So if you're nice, be be be be whatever I'm projecting onto this man. I never met today be more him. And again, I know hypocritical, but we're not doing it vaguely as a weapon in a Facebook group. I like how originally we weren't going to comment on Terry Pratchett Facebook groups.

And then at some point during the podcast, we have definitely outlined the full Terry Pratchett Facebook group drama and the fact that there's now eight splinter groups. We haven't gone into it in depth, I think. But yes, we definitely when the transphobia thing last blew off or maybe the time before we did have a and again, it's just in case you've joined us today and are under any misapprehensions. This is very much trans friendly podcast.

Yeah, what's the other thing? It's it's insipid and it's also like this weird parasocial relationship thing where everyone needs to, like you said, like project whatever they feel for at this point for this person who was very human and wrote lots of really wonderful books and obviously deserves all of our respect for that. Yeah, but putting them on this weird like profit pedestal. Yeah, like and treating them as something other than human.

Yeah. Right. Well, we've talked about some things. Do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make He Fret, a podcast in which we're usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in Cronlogical Order. I'm Joanna Hagen.

And I'm Francine Carroll. And it's short stories month because there weren't that many trilogies to do in our terrific trilogy season. And we're talking today about the sea and little fishes. A lovely Terry Pratchett which focus short story published in 1998. It is. It is. Ah, very exciting. I didn't note down anything to follow up on. Apart from Scottish Craig said on Reddit that my Scottish accent

wasn't bad enough to have me actually kicked out of Scotland. So paraphrasing slightly. Yes, paraphrasing slightly. The point is, I'm not currently banned from Scotland. That's fair. That's fair. Scottish Craig actually also put something interesting about the Matha Discworld, which I can't easily summarise having not prepared a summary, but I'll link to in the show notes.

Yes, there's some interesting stuff from full interview with Pratchett that I'd not read before. Yes. So with some fantastic 80s glasses. We do love a fantastic 80s glass, right? Let's follow up then. Francine, introduce us to the sea and little fishes. All right, I will.

You didn't tell me about the spoilers or the journey. Oh, the spoilers. God, I'm all over the place today. Note on spoilers, we are a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers very specifically for the short story, the sea and little fishes. But we'll be going through all the way today. Yes, we did say we might play into two, but it's too short.

It's too short. We're talking about all of it today. By the time this episode comes out, I will have probably said that on Twitter. Well done, May. We won't be spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series beyond The Last Hero, which we covered last month. This story comes before that in the canon, I suppose. Yes.

It was published before that, to be sure, to be sure. To be sure, to be sure. And we will, of course, avoid spoiling any details from The Shepherd's Crown, the final Discworld novel, until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Backing away hurriedly down the garden path of an angry witch. Good idea.

It is. So, yeah, this book, this book, this book was published in 2012. But the story we're talking about today was published, as you say, in 1998, which was the same year as Carpe Juggulum. And I think you can tell. Yes. Specifically, the book we're talking about is Blink of the Screen. Oh, yeah, I should probably say that.

Sorry, yeah. Which is a collected work of Pratchett's short fiction, both Discworld and Non-Discworld. It is, yeah. Oops, sorry. No, I was just about to say, because that's not where this was published originally. No, it was originally published in The Legends Anthology,

which I haven't got, but maybe I should get. But no, I don't have a blurb. We have a little intro from Torrey Pratchett's story. We have short stories, as I have said, cost me blood. I envy those people who can write one with ease or at least what looks like ease. I doubt if I've done more than 15 in my life. The Sea and Little Fishes, though, was one of the very rare story ideas that just popped up around two weeks later.

Bob Silver popped up to and asked if I could write a story for the Legends Anthology and paraphrasing the next bit. He said, if that hadn't happened, then this might have ended up in a novel in itself or as an extra thread in a different Witcher's novel. And indeed, a scene from Cafe Juggulum nearly ended up in this one. Yes, the scene where Granny goes to meditate in a cave for a little while in Cafe Juggulum to sulk about a wedding.

Chrisening. Chrisening. Chrisening. And, yeah, which if you've got the copy I've got, which has the appendices, it actually has that full scene in it, the scene that was cut from this story. Oh, interesting. I've got the Kindle one here, but I also have a hardback somewhere. So it's probably in that. Yes, it's an interesting read because so much of it is word for word in Cafe Juggulum. I grabbed my copy of it out to check.

It's around the sort of gnarly ground bit. Yes. Cool. I will see if I can dig that out. If not, I'll get you to illicitly photograph it for me. So the title, the title is based off a phrase, an ancient wise phrase that Pratchett totally made up, which is the big sea does not care which way the little fishes swim. And that, even though Pratchett explained that he'd made up the phrase,

still confuse people a bit until later on he explained that he meant that when he talks about Granny Weatherwax being the sea, because it's made, she's made a pride as Nanny says, and the other fishes are swimming, the other witches are the fishes. Yes, that's the slightly tenuous title link there. No one is actually going to the sea, dear listener. Yep, yep. Nobody goes to the sea.

And he finally used that phrase a little later in this area. So let's keep an eye on that. A little later than we got to. So fast that we can't, yeah. Later than the last hero. Later than the last hero. And that is what I have to say about that. Do you want to summarize the story, the story, the story in its entirety?

What kind of nonsense is this? Goodness, talking about one story and not a third of a story. I definitely don't think we could have split this into three. No, that would have been torturous. Anyway. In this short story, it starts with eponymous apples and Granny is definitely not jealous about Nanny's new edibility. The witch trials are fast approaching and Nanny receives a visit

from the organizing committee. Lettuce would rather Granny didn't compete, but pride will go far before anyone falls. Nanny joins the committee in speaking to Granny and niceness is up for debate as Granny's asked to take a step back, but she's got a planning look in her eye. The next day, Granny blesses a house and a cow. Nanny visits her still and the villagers are terrified of the new weatherwax attitude. Nanny visits Granny to find her pinkly dressed and planning to help out.

The trials begin and Granny has helped, stringing flags, baking almost cakes and cooking up some possible jam. The cursing begins and witches worry as thunder approaches. Granny's asked to exit and Nanny and Agnes carry her home. The witches are spooked, but Nanny might win until the trick doesn't treat. Granny might have won the trials on a technicality, but Lettuce is going to lose it. However, the trials get their proper ending with a fire and plentiful potatoes. Granny was right and she got her onions.

Hooray! I'm very happy for her. Yes, yes, everybody deserves their onions. Everybody does deserve their onions. So Helicopters and loingloths obviously plentiful in this book? Of course, especially compared to that desert, The Last Hero. Yeah, no Helicopters and loingloths in The Last Hero. We've got brooms abounding and they're thoroughly established in the Trisha

Mickey Freck Cannon as Helicopters. For loincloths, I'm going with allowing the audience's wild imagination to consider Nanny Og's underwear. Wow, okay, fine. That's good. I was going to say maybe one of the bits of bunting. Also, quite possibly, yes. But no, I think Nanny Og would appreciate this.

Yeah, I think we need a tribute to Nanny Og's knickers. Also, we keep track of death. I think death not turning up in this doesn't count as death not turning up in a disc world novel, obviously, because this is a short story. But again, if you read the little appendix, he's there. Oh, well, there you go. So he was originally in the story and got cut. Oh, sorry.

Characters, then. Characters. Quotes. Quotes. God, I literally have the plan in front of me. I'm so sorry. This is the opposite way round to usual. Yeah.

I must have had a goodly amount of caffeine today. So I think I've just stared at this computer. It's a blazer. It's because I've got like this cardigan blazer thing. I do like it. It's kind of amazing. But I think the collar is making me able to follow a plan. That's amazing.

That's how it works, right? I think I've just, I've stared at this computer screen so much this week that I have lost the ability to comprehend anything on the computer screen. That makes sense. Yeah. Anywho. Quotes. Would you like to go first?

Granny looked genuinely puzzled. What's wrong with him striving to come second, she said. Which I like, because that made me think. I was like, that's a good point, actually. Yeah. Like, I didn't think the witches had much of a point telling her not to compete because she was too good at it anyway. But just that angle of the why, why can't they just try to,

if they really think they can't beat me, why can't they just try and come second? Is that not? Yeah. That's a good thing. It was just unacknowledged by the others as well, which I thought was. Yeah. I think none of them have the argument. And yours?

The afternoon melted into the evening and the shadows in corners and understools and tables crept out and ran together. Very nice. Which we've just been recording all sorts of Halloween-y stuff, and that felt very much of the vibe. I like the ominous. If I had planned it more than a couple of days in advance, I would have used it as an excuse to plug the Patreon.

But in the days leading up to Halloween, we did some readings of various public domain ghost stories and poems, which are still obviously available on Patreon for those who still enjoy being terrified in November. Yeah. I said terrified is a strong word. I was going to say. Vaguely amused in a ghostly way. Some of the stuff loses its bite after 100 years, doesn't it?

Yeah. I hadn't actually read the original Monkey's Paw story before, and that is not very scary. No, but you can see how it could be, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But also, I think I mostly remember it from one of the Treehouse of Horror Simpsons episodes, which probably doesn't help.

No, but those are fantastic works of art. Yeah. All of them. Yeah. Characters. So now characters, if you like. I wrote out all of the Lanke names I spotted, because that's something else we keep track of on the very odd occasion.

And I thought I would give you the opportunity to pick your favourite from this little list. We've got Percy Hopcroft, Rummage Poor Chick, a Mr. Ham Picker, if his first name was mentioned, I didn't spot it. Clarity Shimey, Beryl Dismas, Letty Parkin, Rena Trump, Furego Johnson, Gamma Beavis, and Lettuce Irwig. I think I'm going to have to go with Beryl Dismas. Yeah.

There's something about the name Beryl that just brings me a lot of joy. I love a Beryl. That's good. I'm torn between Clarity Shimey and Rummage Poor Chick. It doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Beryl Dismas, but I just love Rummage as a first name. This got me writing my own steeper character names again in quiet moments.

That is not a bad hobby. I've got Emmeline Klott and Salient Waters, my two favourite at the moment. Perfect. I love Salient Waters. On Poor Chick's, because obviously we've got a William Poor Chick as well, and I knew we'd heard of Poor Chick's elsewhere, specifically in Cafe Juggulum.

That makes it. I've even got the quote. It's after the baby gets christened Esmereld and Note Spelling. Yes. No, you can't change it, said Nanny. Look at old Moocal Poor Chick over in Slyce for one. What happened to him then? His full name is James.

What the hell's that cow doing in here, Poor Chick? So Rummage did quite well. I really want to know what Rummage is short for. Oh, I don't. As for the rest of these, it's nice to see a bit more flesh on the bones of the witch characters. I think we're going to talk about that a bit later, aren't we? We are a little bit, but I am just delighted to be with Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax,

as I always am. Of course. I think Nanny Ogg's an interesting one, because obviously the story starts with her bringing Granny these apples and sort of showing off about it a bit. Do you like them apples, she said? Quite literally. Under her breath, I expect, because who would miss that opportunity?

I do also like the funny to think pretty seen thousands of people will be having a bite of Nanny Ogg. Thousands more, said Granny. They're such bitches. Is this consistent thing of Granny calling Nanny a slag, and Nanny just taking it as a compliment? Oh, yes. Yes, darling.

Oh, was it? Which is a broad where she was like, and I never used, I never had to use magic to be a slut or whatever it was. I don't think he said slut. It was an off-the-shoulder red dress that did it. Exactly. The off-shoulder red dress and Granny Weatherwax. Yes, off-the-shoulder, right onto the floor, as I recall.

Nanny's lack of enjoying winning really interested me. Yeah, intentionally wanting to come second. She does not want to be the first to which. She herself didn't like winning things. Winning was a habit that was hard to break and brought you a dangerous status that was hard to defend. Having, again, just to be that guy, even though I said I wouldn't constantly reference

a life and foot note, very reminiscent of Fracture, not liking to do awards and stuff. Yeah. Although it's more he didn't like losing. But I think there was a similar amount of he didn't like winning. I think there's a lot of Fracture in you don't want to win because then you have the position to defend. Yeah. I was like winning was the best selling author.

When JK Rowling just steamed the head, it was like, okay, well, that's fine. Like now I'm that once you got it's like not quite, but it's like when I go bowling with Jack and I know he's so much better than me that it doesn't matter. I can just try and beat my own targets and I don't have to be sad about the fact I'm new because of course I'm new thing. But I guess I feel like if I was trying to outwitch grinding weatherworks. Exactly. There's also why it would be great if we went bowling together with Jack because then Jack

can very much win and you can very much beat me. Ain't a very good at bowling. I don't remember. I know we used to go bowling. I'm so bad at bowling. Ah, even sober. Even sober. I can't bowl for shit.

I worked at that bowling alley. Oh, yeah. I had unlimited free games. I still can't bowl. What fun. Can you do darts? No. No.

You've seen me try and play darts. We were in Bristol. I don't remember that. Just not an aimer. Not an aimer. Which makes me quite good at tennis because I'm very good at hitting things slightly too hard for people. Good.

Yes. That works well. How about rounders? Are you a rounders fan? No. I don't like running. I used to like rounders. That's a perfect amount of running for me.

I used to really enjoy it, but now none of my joints work. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Good luck being 30. Anyway, back to the apples. Yes. Sorry. I thought you were done with apples, so I went off unattended.

No, it's all right. I was just going to jump onto apples. There's an interesting bit. It's interesting with Granny and Nanny because so often when we see them working together in, so Carpe Giaculum or the other witches books, Nanny is, I've talked a lot about her sort of being more powerful, but in the background and she is manipulating Granny into the places Granny needs to be. Yeah, yeah.

What's interesting is at the beginning here, at least there's some push and pull with Nanny as in she's sort of pushing Granny into being jealous despite the fact that being jealous doesn't necessarily give you the granny you're going to want by the end of the story. Yeah. But because the conflict of the committee and not wanting Granny to be in the trials hasn't been introduced yet, there's room, it's sort of very much in their natural habitat and there's room for Nanny to be pushing Granny into that jealousy because... Because if she can push her into jealousy, then that proves that Nanny's got something

to be jealous of or envious of. Exactly. Yeah. I'm constantly correcting myself for jealous and envious now since one person corrected me forever ago. It's like with harassment instead of harassment. Oh, was it meant to be harassment? In English, yeah, but it's quite old-fashioned, but I just, I was just told that if you're doing broadcasting, I used to have a very old-fashioned past.

And I should also stop saying cool when I'm heading up a panel discussion. I think I was going cool, cool, cool between. I blame community for that one. I'd now say excellent or super, which I think makes me sound like a twat, but it's apparently more professional. But I'm wearing a blazer, so it's all going to be fine. Absolutely. But yeah, Nanny points out that she is the more

naturally talented witch between her and Granny and not her. Yeah, that's an interesting one. Yeah, I'm naturally talented. We've got it in our blood and I've never had to sweat at it. Whereas Granny Weatherwax hasn't got a... They've got it in their blood. The Weatherwax is due. Well, very much so.

But I guess not enough of it. Yeah, or maybe not that flavor of witchcraft. They've got power in their blood, but Nanny knows how to be a witch. Yes, without accidentally wandering off to be an evil fairy godmother. Yes, or getting stuck in an owl. Happens to the best of us. We've all been there. We've had our fun listeners, but it's time to talk about getting stuck in owls.

Anyway, Nanny. And it plays into this relationship, this idea of coming second. Nanny doesn't need to win because she knows she is naturally a very talented witch. Knows where she's going at. Granny, because she has to really sweat it being a witch and puts what smaller amounts of power she has to work much harder. Almost deserves that win more.

Yeah, and she really does write being the best as well, doesn't she? If you think about Lords and Ladies, is it where she guts the bees? Yes, because no one's ever done it with bees. No one's done it with bees. I'm the fucking best at borrowing me. All right, well done, mate. But it's why I love this story so much because, you know, my long prevailing theory of Nanny being the more powerful, which is somewhat proved out here.

I will definitely grant this a point in your arguments, Faber. But I love playing, I love watching the relationship between Nanny and Granny and watching them be able to irk each other and tug at each other. Yeah, yeah, especially when the stakes are so low. It's like last week or whatever we were talking about, like the scales of danger. And in this one, like the biggest thing at stake is, well, maybe Granny's sanity, to be fair, but it's the trials. It's a fun local thing.

And that's really nice for a short story. You get to see their day to day. It's like an episode of a sitcom rather than an epic. Yeah, it's like a filler episode. Yeah. No, it brings me a lot of joy. And it's also nice to see Granny and Nanny playing at each other without any notion of a third because so much of the witches books.

And I love the whole power of three thing. I don't know if you've noticed on the podcast before that I sometimes like to talk about it. Yeah, once or twice, once or twice. Or three times. Sorry. But diving more into seeing how they work as a twosome. Yes, yeah. As opposed to just putting them in direct conflict with each other until Magra

or Agnes steps in to fix it. And you had a bit of it in masquerade, but I think it's more interesting here on this smaller scale almost. Yeah, because in masquerade, they are working together towards a goal that involves us out at least. Again, yeah, it's a teamwork thing. It's that they need to be doing this. So they're working together, even if they're bickering while they're doing it.

Whereas this one, it's like, certainly at the beginning, it's like, it's not we're just going to pick up about apples. That's fine. I'm going to rock your apples on the tables. Weird. Okay. So jumping forward to Granny Weather Works. No, wait, wait, Joanna.

Sorry. I made one note about Nanny and I put it in the plan. Oh, God, I'm so sorry. That is a very important note. She went to sleep in three flannelette night dresses. And a mountain. I just wonder as long as we appreciate how difficult that would be. And mountainous eye to down.

And that was my favorite thing I learned about Nanny Og this week. Now, let's go to Granny. Granny did not go to sleep. You can't make down and did not go to sleep with three flannelette night dresses on. And if she did, she wouldn't tell us about it. No, it's an indulgence. Do you think she wears flannelette petticoats? Yeah, absolutely.

Just in case. What does the witches nightcap look like? Do we think, Joanna? It looks like a witch's hat, but in a softer fabric. Yeah. Yeah, nice. Love it. Yes, Nanny.

Granny, I do like Nanny's line about Granny when the committee of asking, could you ask Granny not to participate with the knacks? Oh, they all know it's such a dick thing to ask her as well. Oh, believe me. God, I hate lettuce. Yeah. The character, not the salad. I'm perfectly fine with lettuce.

I'm not bad on the lettuce. The salad. It has its place. I do like the carrying on the sea thing, the whole thing you mentioned in the book summary. You might as well say the sea is full of water. Specifically for lettuce responding with, I dare say that was a valuable comment, but I'm not sure I understand it. Yes, that sounds good, doesn't it?

Yes. I say that quite a lot to Jack and things like. See, that sounds like it's something I should get. So please elaborate. What's interesting in this though is that Granny gets to kind of dive into being good versus being right in a smaller way, because there's no need in this short story for Granny to really grapple with her morality,

the way she has to in Carpe Juggevam specifically. And I think that's why, especially if you read the sort of thousand words or so that was cut from this and not quite lifted whole silence Carpe Juggevam, but all of it is in Carpe Juggevam in one form or another or almost all of it. That there's a lot of stuff from Carpe Juggevam. If you remember where she's talking about some of the darker stuff she said to deal with specifically, there was a guy and he had killed children and she showed them and he was hanged. But then people saw and she went to the funeral and people were sort of saying,

oh, but you know, he was sort of and started looking at her a bit funny because she is the one who had done justice as it were. Yeah. Yeah. And it's echoed in a low stakes way again here, isn't it? Because now he's like the guy up the tree and then it gets a little bit darker on the next paragraph. It's like the guy beat his life and then it still goes into that dark stuff, but it doesn't go into it as in depth because Granny doesn't need to wrestle with her morality here the way she needs to in something like Carpe Juggevam where the vampires are trying to force a comparison because it's low stakes. You get to go into how Granny feels about this when she's not under pressure almost. I know she is under pressure. I know there is a story in this.

There's not no antagonist, but let us earwig as an antagonist as opposed to a big family of vampires eating the king and queen. Yeah. There's levels, scales of danger. There was one other granny moment which is I know that she is somewhat working to a plan, but even so in the moment you forget it when you're reading it and all the stuff with the flags and the cakes and the jam made me so sad and feel so bad for her. I didn't feel bad for her until she was sitting on her own when no one was coming up to the lucky dip. Yeah. No, there was just this mental image of her going to the effort of making bunting and hanging it and making shit jam. I guess I hate bunting so much because of some of the connotations.

Oh no, I mean, I'll still rant about bunting later in the podcast, don't worry, but it doesn't mean I didn't feel sad for Granny in that moment. That's fair. No, for me it was the moment with Pusey in there. Oh yeah, no, that bit really. That got to me as well. That was cleverly done as well. Just the two sentence turnaround and then Nanny feeling like shame coming up from her boots however it's put. Yeah. That's very cool. Especially if you think about the fact that it was only as far back as Lords and Ladies, I think, where she had the stare off with the other witch that was interrupted by a crying Pusey and by Granny not trying to outstare the son because she was helping the child instead.

Yes, quite right. And then in Carpe Jugulam, which is happening more or less parallel with this, not exactly sure when, when there was all this, has Esby done something to the baby? Oh yeah. Yeah, not like cruel but like borrowing, which would be unethical, obviously. And yeah, no, of course she didn't. She's fine with children. She will tell them stories about things getting disemboweled, but that's what children like. Children do enjoy stories about disemboweling. I can attest to this. My nephew is way less squeamish when I was a kid. My nephew is so into horrible histories right now. Such a good series of kids. He couldn't wait to tell me about how that when they make mummies, they take the brains out through

a nose hook. Yeah, see, I loved that fact when I was a kid. Not a fan now, to be honest. No, but I still find absolute delight when my nephew told me about it, obviously. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Lettuce. When a little boy is telling you, you can feel the delight again, I think. I'm so beautifully amused by horror. But Lettuce, yeah. Lettuce. Speaking of horror, God, I hate her. I love her introduction and again going back to, so Nanny was trying to sort of play with building that jealousy with Granny and then Nanny gets her

own moment of not jealousy when she's thinking about Lettuce's cloak. The black velvet cloak, so fine. It looks as if a hole had been cut out of the world and Nanny didn't have one. And obviously she didn't want them and didn't aspire to it. So why should other people have it? Quite. Which is such a specific way to talk yourself into. No, I'm not jealous, obviously, but because I don't want that. But then I love it because there was a little subtle moment of maybe cementing friendship between Granny and Nanny when the committee came over and Granny was like a sort of shot board hat. And then Nanny could feel smug again.

And Granny's got this like partially made hat on a hat stand as well. Those things aren't easy. I did write down Joanna, can you make a hat? I have the knowledge I've never properly tried it. Some of the bits you need are things that like, I don't want to spend a bunch of money on and have to spend space. Closhes specifically. Is that a hat molding thing? But there's a particular type of hat called a cloche named after the hat shaping thing. There we go, fun hat fact. But I also, I do have some sympathy for letters specifically in the paragraph where it's talking

about people come in and start organizing things. The way Pratchett explains it is it's not the people who are the best at it because they're working too hard. And it's not the people who are the worst at it because they have to work so hard. So is those middle people? And I do kind of get that. I think you're relating to something you shouldn't be relating to, Joanna, because I think when you take over and organize things, it's because I know I'm better than everyone else. And that's why I take myself away from things.

I was trying to make you feel, I was trying to build you up a bit there and you just, you overshot with the, because you're better with everyone than everyone else. Thank you. Yep. That's what I do. Ah, beautiful. But you know what I mean. Oh yeah, absolutely. A lot of people do come in and just try and tinker with things that don't need to be tinkered with, yes. And let is an incredibly well written grating character. Oh yeah. And then just even the, even the stuff that's meant to be a bit more impressive is just,

I don't know whether it just sets my teeth on a just like a sensory thing, but being described as someone made of marshmallow with a heart and a core, I'm like, that's not how marshmallows are supposed to be. Oh, what's, what's, what's nanny in this sweet scenario do we think? If I don't think we need to put granny into a sweet. Mostly apples. But mostly apples. But like, like, all right, so I might have felt this on the podcast before,

so I won't do it at length. But there's a theory about different types of culture, which is very reductive, but quite useful in its way, which is that some cultures are peach cultures and some are coconut cultures. And so a peach culture is one that people will make friends with you on a superficial level very quickly. And so you might go around to somebody's house after just meeting them a couple of times, they'll give you their number, whatever they'll say, let's meet up for coffee and mean it. But then like the inner core, like becoming like the kind of emotional.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And like being invited to weddings, things like that, like that's years away, possibly. Mm hmm. But coconut culture, the opposite, it's quite difficult to get to know to people at first. And this came up in context of going to work in other countries a lot. Yeah. But then once you do, you're right away. As soon as you are friendly, you are part of the family pretty much.

Right. I feel like that nanny august of peach and granny is more of a coconut. Yeah, except I'm not sure how thick that shell is. I was trying to think of another food that works. You can say onion, but Shrek kind of just used that metaphor up for everyone else, not ruined it because they did it very well. But you know, now I feel like I'm always referencing Shrek when I use onion as a person metaphor, which comes up more often than you think.

Everybody loves cake. Let's. Sorry, fuck, I took us off track there, didn't I? You did. Let us. I think the moment where I was very ready to set fire to her, like at the witch trials, was when she said, as a friend. Yes.

And I liked that that was highlighted earlier. Like I've got to tell you as a friend. No. No, no. Have anyone tells me something as a friend? I don't want to hear it. I feel like we do this, but in a heavy over the top way. So, okay, Joanna, I love you very much, but you cannot have a parrot.

Francine, I love you very much, but you've got three coffees there. What? And it's three o'clock in the morning. You know, that kind of as a friend that works as a friend from someone who is absolutely not your friend. Yeah. I had it from middle school bullies quite a few times. Oh, yeah.

And they're telling you something about your hair or, yeah. No. But I think Lattice works so well as a character in general, because it's Pratchett's best way of doing villainy, which is the committees, the organisers, the paperwork villainy. Yeah, the bureaucratic. It's the auditors, it's Trimon, it's the bland everyday soul sucking office fake smile. And in this case, it's organised fun.

Which is the devil. Possibly the first villain we've had trying to do an organised fun. I've got, could you imagine the auditors organising a fun fair? Oh, no. I think we get cosmic horror quite quickly there, don't we? Yeah, we do. But she is, it's hard, isn't it? Because you can't tell her motivation because you never see it from her perspective,

obviously, probably deliberately. We have met her obviously in other places where you can see she's got a bit of spite behind her, maybe. But maybe it's just the spite that comes with living in a small town when you don't want to have been constantly overshadowed by people who are much more talented than you are. And nobody's really appreciative of your fantastic cloak. Exactly. And if you've got a cloak like that, you do want people to complement it.

You do, you do. But the thrill of some large hunting bird, I thought was the nice way to show her nastiness, she is not a nice person that is trilled. But her moment at the end of the story where she fucking loses it and slaps granny, and I love, I love a moment where a slap shuts things down. I know. And again, but it's not nastiness, is it, either? No.

Pure lost control of your emotion. And you'd like more for it, almost. There's a really good, there's a really good moment with a slap in hack season one, is the thing I've seen it in most recently, which hacks good TV show like that one. It's a bit of a dramatic trope, and I just love it when it happens. Well, we talked about it in the context of the witches before when Nanny slapped Magrat. Yes. And it was very much necessary.

Yes. Love a good slap. And especially, especially in this case, because it gives granny the opportunity to somehow shut it down, even though she was the one who was slapped. Yes. By not turning lettuce into a frog, basically. Yeah. Just get to look up calmly.

Oh, I see. Yeah, there's something about the other person losing it and getting to the point of slapping you that means you've won. Absolutely. Yeah. Which is granny's best way of winning. And also the best thing about projects, you know, committee organizer, bureaucratic villains is that they get a breaking point.

Yeah. And again, this is obviously a small story with a quick breaking point. But you see it with, again, like I said, with Trimon, it was great in thief of time where you get to see the auditors fucking lose it when they start taking human form. If we want to get all headology about it, probably not in the auditors sense. But for the rest of them, you can say that the kind of people who are perhaps more likely to snap are also the kind of people who are more likely to become the bureaucratic villains as they try and impose order on a world that they find too much to cope with as it is.

Excellent. Well done. Thank you. Good. Yeah. Anyway, I'll be taking my honorary degree. I'd like an honorary doctorate. Thank you very much.

I'm sure someone listening can sort that out for me. Absolutely. And then Agnes. I'm just delighted to see her. Yeah, me too. And just acknowledging she's around, being sensible. Yeah, it's very much because like I said, this story is sort of floating untied in the canon. There's no mag right here to show us.

I mean, we know it's... Like a cannonball in the wind. Oh, no. Unlike a cannonball in the wind. Like, yeah, never mind. Carry on. The point is, it doesn't really matter where this story specifically takes place in the canon as such, but it's nice to have Agnes in Lanka as just a bit of a pinpoint of this is where she lives,

because she comes home at the end of Masquerade. Like something in the sea, obviously, would be in the cold. Something in the sea, obviously, would be in the correct metaphor there, Francine, for God's sake. Yes, but we went with cannonball and we're sticking with not like a cannonball. Very well. Yes, Agnes. Well done, Agnes. You are being sensible and not engaging with Granny or Lettuce.

And doing some proper cursing with a voice that Nanny's given her a few tips on. I mean, she does engage a bit. She helps carry Granny home and gets very upset on her behalf, which is a nice character moment for her. Yeah. It's Agnes who gets slapped. Sorry, we were just talking about the slap thing. Yes, yes, yes.

All the listeners that were halfway through composing an angry email. I hope you continued listening. But feel free to send the angry email so we can feel smug. Do it, do it. Why did she slap Agnes? This was Carpe Juggulum and she was saying something quite nasty about Granny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, super.

Yes, very much so. That's right. That's right, because Magrat was otherwise engaged being hypnotised by vampires. As you do. Poor Magrat. Oh, yeah, speaking of the local royalty, Nanny's still. Oh, yes, yes, I see.

Moving to locations. Yeah. It's just, it's basically squeezing in an extra little bit I liked. Go on, go on. But it makes me smile that she's got the sort of hidden still in the forest that's such a secret that everybody knows about it. See, I think this is worth putting as a location because it's a metaphysical kind of. It's so secret that everybody knows, even the king, who doesn't tax it.

But I just love the idea of all of them wandering around because they know Nanny's at the still. They know where the still is. They want to speak to Nanny, but no one can acknowledge that they know where the still is. So they have to blunder. I wonder if Nanny's in this vague area. And they'll just shout about her very loudly in case she's been walking in the woods. Oh, Nanny.

And then go put out the fire for her. She pushed her way through and was greeted with looks of fame surprise that would have done credit to any amateur dramatic company. I do like that a lot. It pleases me greatly. Also like that she's got her little private place to go and be on her own. Yes, because her cottage is such a family place. She has sister-in-laws in and out cleaning and ironing.

Yeah. Not that you couldn't threaten everybody away, but it's nicer to have a different place for aloneness. Well, I think you need to have an alone place. You can't sort of do a this place is my alone place sometimes and other times daughter-in-laws are welcome provided they've done a hot meal and sons are welcome if they're going to dig up the garden for me. Little bits we liked.

What little bits did you like, Francine? The first one I like was the honey versus vinegar motif theme, whatever throughout. So obviously the phrase being you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and I believe there's been various studies on that and who gives a shit how they turned out. I think it doesn't matter either way. But I liked that we had nanny still and to the point where it was a honey drink. Whereas usually she makes stuff with apples and then obviously we had lots about granny making pickles or not making pickles this time.

Oh, no. And she can't bake or make jam or any sweet treats like that. And yeah, I just thought it was a nice honey, honey vinegar motif granny and nanny. That's a really nice carried through theme, isn't it? And I also I guess on a similar theme enjoyed the fact that granny's gardening is more aggressive than most and she has complicateds and her herbs need no machetting instead of pruning. And stern words and things. Something I noticed with that actually that I liked is granny has all these incredible herbs from foreign parts that need machetes and such like

nanny only grows herbs that you can stuff up a chicken. And again, the kind of difference in their power. Yes, because granny's potions, they're very aggressive potions as well, aren't they? I was like, yes, what was it? I was trying to remember. Nanny said, oh, yes, you need to make sure to wear roomy trousers. That was a mental image. I was like, oh, okay. That's a mental image for the ages, isn't it?

Yeah, as far as I think I have potions, although I'm sure if she were to give medicine, it would work very well. She would perhaps not go for the aggressive treatment. And I would imagine would possibly defer to magrat for some things. Absolutely. Well, it's the, I think it's from one of the earlier books with magrat where it talks about, you know, magrats from a line of research witches and finding out like an eye of witch-nute, etc. And granny was a better witch because she knew it didn't matter. Yes, but sometimes it probably does. Sometimes it probably does. She knows when it does. And also she likes having all this stuff.

So she can, because she has to work harder at witchcraft, whereas nanny doesn't bother with it because she can just make stuff work. Yeah, yeah. Or I know somebody who can fix it for you and it's not going to wound my ego to send you to magrat down the road. Exactly. And as someone who fudges everything when I'm cooking, I very much respect nanny's attitude. Yes. Hats, Joanna. I can't segue much as I would like to from fudge to hats. In Thief of Time, we had the various characters being defined by their desks. And here we get

a little moment of these three, which is sort of nanny's thinking about how they could be defined by their hats or how they wear their cloak and their pointy hat. So Gamma Beavis has a flat, her hat has a flat brim and a point you could clean your ear with and goes into a bit too educated, so overflowed out of her mouth. But she did her own shoe repairs and took snuff, so nanny thought she was all right. I like that. And then you have the sort of disarray of Old Mother Dismiss's clothes because of her detached retina in her second sight.

She gazed into last week to avoid looking you in the eye. Her footprints would turn up several days later. Old Mother Dismiss is a nice not-overdone running joke. She turned up in the first, in Weird Sisters, didn't she, in the first Covenant? She's there in Weird Sisters. I can do next Tuesday. Which still remains to this day, probably one of my favourite Pratchett jokes. Yes.

And yes, obviously, we've already talked about Lettuce's cloak, but it's very much a choice to be that kind of stylish witch who also has the very nice hat bought all the way from Ankh-Morpork. And with the pins. And again, she likes the fit. And that's when I fell for her a bit, actually. That's when she was like, put my nice pins. And granny sort of, well, yes, I've got a crescent brooch, but that's because it's perfectly useful shape for holding a cloak. Yes. And they're very nice Lettuce. And they're very nice.

I also can't read this sort of all the way from Ankh-Morpork thing without thinking of the all the way, all the way to Ipswich line from Stardust, the movie. Oh, fuck, I love that movie. I haven't watched that in so long. I love the book as well. I love the movie, which is nothing like the book. Very different vibes, but both great. All the way to Ipswich lives in my head ranked three, because obviously I'm quite often on a train going in that direction. I often have to drive to Ipswich now to make an effort to remember that film when I do. Oh, and then the tea and biscuits moment.

Yes. Speaking of trying to be polite to one's guests. You know, I love a bit of etiquette. Oh, yes, especially this suburban nonsense etiquette. Nanny is genuinely very worried that they've all turned up at Granny's that Nanny and the committee that Granny is not going to offer a cup of tea. Yeah, because it's kind of this suburban etiquette, isn't it? But at the same time, it's maybe the deeper magic. There's a big significance to coming over the threshold and eating or drinking, isn't there? So. Yeah, you sort of think into the fey logic of do not accept these and also the sort of

guest right stuff that George R. R. Martin plays with the bunch and. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. I think if you eat bread, then you shouldn't be bread and salt. Then killing them. Yeah. Yeah. Hence. And generally bad manners to murder anybody, but only if you fed them. I mean, it's bad manners, even if you haven't fed them, but. Right. Okay. No, no. Good. Yeah. And would you say there is any accuracy to the point that you would get out the nice China for your enemies? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Good.

Not even enemies, but like anyone like I don't get me wrong. If you come around and our other mate comes around and I do his coffee in my nice cafeteria and I get out the nice cups and put a biscuit inside the coffee. Is this a deadly insult? No, that's me doing something nice for my friends. If someone I don't like that much insisted on coming to my house, then the nice glasses are out and the nice plates are out and the nice and I will just fucking show off. That's fair. That is fair. Yes. And you could you can make us things in the nice cups while

also know we wouldn't have judged you at all for the tatty mugs. Exactly. Yeah. And I know, I mean, I feel like you would judge me if I didn't provide a biscuit with the coffee. I would not. I know, but I feel like I've set a precedent now. Honestly, I wouldn't notice. Oh, fine. I'm always surprised and delighted by the little biscuit.

Like, oh, a biscuit. It's like I've got certain family members I really don't get on with. And if for some reason I had to have them come to my flat, they would absolutely. No, they would get the nicest possible biscuits and the very nice LaCruzé, whatever I can find. Oh, you want to be careful though, because they might comment on the color of the LaCruzé.

Then what would you do? Murder. Then murder. Then what? There's no other option. Someone's commented on the color of my LaCruzé. Well, it's better. It's so heavy.

It's right there is the weapon. That's my favorite thing about my cafeteria. Oh, my gosh. It doubles as a blunt instrument. Midsummer Murders episode where the Feast of Evidence at the end is the blood splattered orange LaCruzé. And you're taken away in Hank are saying, but she said she didn't like the color.

What else was I to do? I love Midsummer Murders. What was the other? I love Midsummer Murders. I haven't watched that for so long. Oh, Leavers and Hammers. That was the other, you mentioned earlier, we've got all these little thing and thing.

Honey and vinegar, tea and biscuits, Leavers and Hammers, the six genders. Magpie genders. And sorrow, I guess. And sorrow. One sorrow, two for joy, three for hammers, four for honey. So yeah.

Sorry, Leavers and Hammers. Joanna, please tell us about this. The difference between the magic of wizards and the magic of witches. And it's nice to just have the wizards mentioned in a very non-wizardy witch book. Application of raw power at Hammers versus Leavers, and witches try and find the small point

where a little change makes a lot of results, such as dropping a snowflake to cause an avalanche. And I do like this because obviously, by this point in the Discworld, if we're thinking about this as kind of contemporary with carpet jugulum, the wizards have definitely evolved to not doing magic. As the safest option.

Yes, they cannot be trusted with the hammer. Yes. Well, when they do, it's giant fireballs everywhere. Whereas yes, so much of the witchcraft stuff is about having a bread knife in your boot. Absolutely. Yes, you do the everyday witching, which often doesn't have a lot to do with magic.

But they can be trusted to use magic when needs be. Because they will use the small amount and they will use it as a lever and find the biggest point. Yes. It's good. I love it. It's a fun little difference. Magic as a drug is something we talked about

at some length during Sorcery, I think, wasn't it? And that stretches nicely here as well, I think. The witches don't believe... Maybe Granny does slightly, but Nanny doesn't have the addictive personality with the magic. I think witches and wizards have the equal ability to get drunk on power,

but it's less likely to happen with witches because they have this lever technique as opposed to the hammer technique. Yeah, they learn about it differently. Yeah, where wizards need to not use magic, because the other option is they go at it with a hammer and very rapidly go all sorcery. Yes.

Which is a use to healthy small amounts. And you can't stop that with a slap. You have to go full brick in a sock. Yep, half brick in a sock. I apologize. Full brick in a sock is only for real emergencies, not just apocalypses. Yes.

Don't need a brick in a sock for Bell Shammeroth. Does that sound fake? That sounds kind of like an old folk song. Doesn't it? It has to see a little fishes' feel to it, doesn't it? Oh, you don't need a brick in a sock for Bell Shammeroth. Me old man said that a half brick will do... Right, fuck, let's...

Talking is what we do here. And we do it well. Tell me, Joanna. Yes, you can. Sorry, I'm still fucking wrong. Right, fuck, let's talking. Developing infrastructure and characters. It's quite an intelligent thing you've written.

Can you now follow that up with some sentences? Okay, yes, so this is great because it's a short story that builds in this new witch infrastructure to a certain extent. This idea of the witch trials that... We've seen witches gather in sort of covens before, but most of the time we've spent with witches has been Granny Nanny and either Magra or Agnes. And it's been about the relationship between the three of them.

And you could argue that maybe those relationships between other witch threesomes exist elsewhere among this big Coven hierarchy. Yeah, interesting to think that. You've got... Maybe that's Dismiss and Lettuce and Gamma. Yeah, oh, who's who? Obviously, you've got the crown.

Yeah, Dismiss is the crown. Gotta be Gamma, I guess. I go with Gamma's the mother because although Lettuce is married, she doesn't seem the type to have children. Oh, she might consider herself rather pure still. Yes, she has a purity in her witchcraft or something. She's a wanky maiden. Not what that came out wrong.

Anyway, this delves into... Very bironic. A wanky maiden. And other poems by Lord George Gordon Byron. You know he would have if he could have. Right, sorry. But yes, apart from the three little things that we're here, here we are seeing a larger dynamic at play.

Yes, and you have talked about the new witches, the younger ones coming in, which is quite interesting because you had... You know, Margaret had just inherited a cottage. She was quite a young witch. Agnes almost feels younger still. Like, Agnes feels a lot more teenage than Margaret ever did. Yeah, for sure, yeah.

And she has to really be talked into witching. That's Nanny and Granny have gone out to find a young witch because they need a new Margaret. Yes, yeah. We met Margaret after she'd done her first apprenticeship, didn't we? Yeah, because she'd inherited Goody Whimper, made she rest in pieces, coughed for cottage.

Yes, which you wouldn't do until you... Yes, yes, yes. So, yeah, the... The fact that there are more... Obviously, we met other young girls doing their black lace gloves with the fingers cut off, witching. But we don't know how many of them then went into actual witching. I'm being taken seriously by the older witches,

but they've been brought in here, even if they're just doing it to get boys. Yeah, fuck it. Which is fine, because that's what Nanny did it for. It's a gateway. Get a reason as any. Yeah. That's why I learned...

Fuck, I can't finish that sentence. If I learned astrophysics, it'd be for that reason. Yes, I don't need an astrophysics. To look attractive. Yes, sexy, sexy astrophysicists. Well, there is... All right, tell me, a girl couldn't chat you off in the club

by telling you facts about the social system. Oh, no, absolutely. But I also remember that time I dated someone purely because they had a degree in astrophysics. Was it astrophysics? Some kind of physics that was very impressive to me. That was the Pepper Army story. Oh, no, yes.

All right, yes. Yeah. Come on, leave it there. Sorry, listeners, I'm not telling that one live on the podcast. Yeah, interesting as well that there's kind of talk of, perhaps, the young witches aren't feeling as comfortable as they might because of this hostile work environment. Possibly, if some of those younger witches

were around at the time of the Staring Contest with... Diamandada, I think that was her name. Diamander. Diamandada. I'm not sure why I threw an extra syllable in there, but I like it. She would have, they should have thought of it. Yeah, absolutely.

Diamandada with three Ys. Yes. And an exit silent. No. But if they'd seen that, they would be... There's an extra level of intimidation. Humiliating a teenage girl. Yeah, and that's a very intimidating thing to go into,

hence the hostile work environment. And it describes this sort of loose assortment of chronic non-joiners, not a coven but a small war, and this awareness of position. And this idea of after a witch dies, all of them sort of thinking, I've moved up one.

Yes. I liked the kind of reference to cats knowing who's going to win the fight before they fight him. There's also that in that same bit with the comparison to cats, there's this sort of idea of at the witch trials, they're gathering in little groups and then going out and kind of sharing information.

Another little group, which is a thing perhaps it will use again in... We'll talk about it in January. And it gets even more developed there and I really love it as a visual image of this kind of gathering and the sharing information. No, that's great.

And one of the things that's great about it is the tension building. I can't help but think about things in terms of, say, sitcom, because I'm writing so much about it at the moment. We have just been in this very short story introduced to this new situation, not new situation,

the idea in the book is that it's been established for a while. It's new to us. Yeah, new as a reader, this idea of the witch trials and something of an organized hierarchy between the witches. And yet at witch trials, we can feel the tension building and understand the wrongness of everything that's going on,

despite having never seen what a not tense and wrong witch trials looks like is incredibly good writing. Yeah, yeah. There's not a lot of, there's not a huge flashback to what they usually look like. It's just, you get the vibe, he just has a couple of sentences of,

it's nice, it's chill. We have a bonfire, whatever. Everyone knows who won, even if we don't say it. Like, stop being weird. It's like, I am very much not one of those, oh, health and safety spoiled everything, people, because, shut up. Yeah, please.

But when I was growing up, there was a pub we used to go to a lot that had a huge outdoor space and they used to have a big guy forks party every year, including fireworks. And don't get me wrong, they were always very careful and safe and sensible about the bonfire and the fireworks. But it was never an official party,

there were never printed posters for it, there were never, there was no entry fee or anything, it was just, we'll go down the swan, there'll be the bonfire and the fireworks and the barman would have let everyone know which night he was doing it, it was a bit awkward where the fifth fell.

And then he hit a point where he had to start charging people because he had more paperwork he had to do around it and had to hire, like, marshals and things to make it safer. And this felt a lot like that. Yeah, yeah.

See, also the cheese rolling. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Which was almost cancelled for good because of health and safety concerns and I think it's needed to make it unofficial again now even though there are still paramedics and like...

I think it goes in cycles, it'll become more official again, almost get cancelled and then fall down to unofficial again. Yeah, I spent ages watching cheese rolling videos the other week because I was trying to see if, when Jack did it, his video would end up on the internet anywhere and I couldn't find it, but...

For listeners who don't know what cheese rolling is... What the fuck are you doing here? No, sorry, I'm not getting anything cheese rolling. Where does cheese rolling take place again, Francine? Is it Gloucester? I feel like it's Gloucester. Oh, shit.

It is an annual tradition in, I believe, a small village in Gloucester. Francine's just checking. It is Gloucester and it is in Cooper's Hill. Cooper's Hill. And the entire point of cheese rolling, which as I said, happens once a year, is that a large cheese is rolled down a hill and then you have to chase it.

And it is an incredibly steep hill. Yes. It's very hard to tell, I'm told, from the photographs and videos. Jack, my husband, went with two of his friends and they'd gone quite a long way to Gloucester. We don't live near Gloucester. And the other two, as they got to the top of the hill,

went, no. And backed out and Jack was the only one who did it. That's how steep it is. I don't think I would try it. They also, they obviously couldn't do it during the COVID lockdown and I believe they ceremonially rolled Oh, that's nice.

I'd have to check that because there's a chance I completely imagined it, but you never know. If you did, then I like that even more. What a thing to come out of your mind. Anyway, sorry. Back to the point I was making about this developing infrastructure thing. One of the things we love about the Discworld books

and come back to a lot is that it's not static history that things change and develop and new infrastructures develop. We've had it happen in Ancmoorpork which is, although it's sort of being treated as established fact, we are seeing it develop and grow and be formalized with funding

and a brand dip. Sure. Weird. But sure. So this is like a miniature saturated version of almost, you know, the what happens when thing happens, what if witches have this

slightly more hierarchy and organization amongst them and it starts getting commitified and organize it. I'm going to look at Nanny and Granny in New Lights because they're not in opposition. They're not in... They're not fighting a massive evil antagonist. Obviously, you have the antagonist in Lettuce,

but the antagonist is much more... She's fine. She will continue living alongside them afterwards. Yes. It's not a must vanquish foe. But it's also really great to see the short story playing with, like from the perspective of someone

who is trying to write short fiction and a lot more time on creative writing at the moment. It's great to see this as a little short story that creates a playground for ideas and seeing what goes where. And obviously, we've talked about the fact that, you know, there's a whole section

that almost ends up word for word in Carpe Jugulum. We mentioned that in Rob's book as well. We were talking about the pit and the idea of bits of writing that don't go anywhere else that would end up in the pit and be pulled out again. So I assume those thousand words went into the pit and then came out again pretty quickly. Yes, yeah, for sure.

But you start seeing other ideas, you know, this idea of changing nature of witches is, I don't think it's a spoiler to say we're going to see other witch books and maybe see that played with more. But it's fun to watch the initial playground of something take shape. Yeah.

It's really fascinating looking at the story from that perspective and looking at what it can do for Granny and Nanny's characters. How do Granny and Nanny work without an Agnes or a Magra or a vampire? The three important characters, of course, in their development. Yes, that's my point. It's a delightful short story.

It is. It is. Short stories are very difficult things, short stories. Yes, yes they are. As Pratchett said, as I read out at the beginning. Yeah, costume blood. Neil Gaiman's definitely the short story of the two of them. Neil Gaiman's short stories are amazing, fragile things.

It's one of my favourite short story collections of all time. Yes, it is fantastic. It's... That's probably one to... I don't know whether you could re-read it while you're still trying to write short fiction or whether that's to pick up the writing style. I started reading it recently because I was

reading along that little part of my bookshelf and then realised everything I wrote sounded really Neil Gaiman-y and put it down again. But you've just played through effectively a set of short stories I wrote as an interactive thing. And I think you can probably tell I've been reading Neil Gaiman a bit. Well, it didn't seem derivative.

Thank you. I enjoyed it very much. Speaking of delightful things. Oh, nice. Nice, isn't that a delightful word? No, it's the answer. No, it isn't. And in fact, in fact, it wasn't meant to be.

The etymology of nice is quite interesting. It was a negative word, very much so. It comes originally from the Latin Nescius ignorant, unaware, literally not knowing. And then over the centuries,

it moved very slowly to where it is now. It moved to timid, to fussy, or fastidious. Fastidious. And then to precise and then eventually to nice. And the precise bit is the nice and accurate properties of Agnes Nutter,

comma, which... And yes. But it's generally accepted to be a pretty insipid word. It's discouraged amongst writers and editors. It's vague. It's overused.

And obviously, it's been used a lot in this story on purpose because they're like nice is not their thing to aspire to unless you're lettuce earwig. For a little exercise, I thought you might appreciate I counted up the numbers of nice is in this book,

in this short story. In this story, there are 35 iterations. The word nice, and that's including nicely, I think. There are 45 pages or 44 and a half in my Kindle version of this. And so that works out

at 0.77 nice is per page. And for comparison's sake, I went to Cafe Juggulum, which in the whole book of 410 pages, that was a long book, wasn't it? Has 52 nice is and that is 0.13

nice is per page. And then to take a different time period, because I thought perhaps writing about nice cities might have infiltrated Pratt's brain while he was writing his own book that year. I went to Equal Writes which in 265 pages

has only 23 nice is. That works out at 0.09 nice is per page. Excellent. If I've done those calculations correctly and if I haven't, I'm going to edit this whole bit out. Thank you for doing maths for the podcast, Francie, and I'm aware it makes you uncomfortable.

But anyway, more interestingly, granny is not nice and that is an ongoing theme. In witches of broads, for this one of the almost like defining quotes about Granny Weatherwax, which is interesting

because it's them talking about Granny Weatherwax, is Magratz saying, I'm not saying she's not basically a nice person, Magratz again. Ha! I am. You'd have to go a long day's journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme, said Nani Og, and this is me saying it. She knows exactly what she is.

She was born to be good and she don't like it. And elsewhere you have and I'm not somewhere, somewhere in one of our episodes, we compared Granny Weatherwax to the witch in Into the Woods and the last

Midnight Song, particularly the I'm Not Good, I'm Not Bad, I'm Just Right. I'm Not Good, I'm Not Nice, I'm Just Right, Yes. And the kind of burden of being the burden of being right all the time. But not striving to be nice

and how weird it feels on Granny, like it it feels like she's put a weird face paint on or something and yeah, I think it would be shit to be described as nice. If I had

someone describing me and they could come up or they could come up with was, yeah, she's nice I would take that as an insult. Yeah, I feel like if someone asked you like, I don't know, like how a date was or something, say yeah, it was nice, that means you know, no, not even a little bit. Exactly.

I think the best kind of epitome of nice is insulting in this as well is like we bitched a little bit about bunting. And it's again, I think it's like me, I really, well, we both hate bunting. Yeah, yeah. I think we've done

on the podcast as well. When the committee is talking to Granny and Granny's like, oh, are you going to have the little lines of flags and let it says some bunting and don't forget the bonfire. So long as it's nice and safe. Nice and safe.

Nice and safe is bunting and um it feels very keep calm and carry on and putting a thin paste of positivity over anything

actually relevant. Yeah, absolutely. And I was just going to say to continue the kind of sea metaphor if you swim against the tide at all, then you're not being nice and you're spoiling it for everybody. Yes, yes, yes.

It's such a vague word that you just kind of project it onto well, that's not very nice. That's not push over, that's not that's not easy to deal with. Pratchett, even

it reminded me of Hogfather when there's a little display of all the nations of the world singing, wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice? Yes. Wouldn't it though? Um, the, the, the, I'm sorry

one of the best quotes I found about Granny in this story was the Granny wasn't exactly friendless but what she commanded mostly was respect. People learned to respect storm clouds too. They refreshed the ground, needed them but they weren't nice.

It's very good, it's very good and then of course it does conclude the story with a I was right though, wasn't I? Said Granny. It wasn't a question. Granny nodded. Right, she said that's nice. And that's it, it's also a nice example

of, let's see, I'm saying nice now. It's also a good example of how you can say nice in a positive, not weird way that's nice. Or of course, the nice. Yeah, that was, that was the tone I read it in when I saw your talking point was just the word nice.

It wasn't the, it wasn't the tone I wrote it in but then every time I saw it after that it was very much that. I'd also like to have an honorary mention of the word empowering which Granny also calls up as a, what's empowering about witchcraft anyway, said Granny.

It's a dark sort of a word. Yeah, and he dives into that a bit more with this idea of if you work hard and sacrifice a lot then what you end up is having worked hard and not having a lot. You get to keep working hard and denying yourself things.

Yeah, what it nudges towards is you know Granny is not an inspiration to the young witches not because they can't beat her but because she is the most powerful witch and she doesn't really have much else, you know, she is alone and very hardworking and has denied herself a lot of things.

And you saw it with the like disillusion of magrat during witches abroad especially as they, stars don't care what you think. Yeah. And yeah, they're kind of, so what if I keep working and doing all of this stuff

there's no like grand reward it's never going to become cool, it's like no. No, you just keep working, keep doing all this stuff. Similar kind of vibes to like nursing and things isn't it? It's like if you keep doing this you will be a good nurse. Yeah. That's not going to make the job an easy or glamorous job

ever. You will be a good nurse and if you are the kind of person to find satisfaction in that that's a good thing to be doing. Yeah. And I don't think Lettucea Wigg does find satisfaction in just the day-to-day work of being a witch. No, she wants

more that's why she's got her hat from Inkmoorpork and her husband who clearly went to the unseen university at some point but definitely doesn't do any magic anymore. Definitely. Which is one other thing that Pratchett's just kind of quietly rewritten a massive bit of like wizard mythology there and

I don't know it's not annoying as a cannon break if that makes sense. Yes, it does make sense. Yeah. The whole plot of sorcery is yes even though he'd given up wizarding he really shouldn't have had an eighth son of an eighth son or whatever. No, well maybe

and this is unwritten law that he's being very careful not to have children in which case Lettucea's maiden still works. Very true. But I don't think it matters whether it works or not. No, of course it doesn't know.

It's like what we were talking about in the Seath of Time, isn't it? It's like suspension of disbelief, who gives a fuck? This works better now. Yeah. You don't have to stick to what you decided 15 years ago. Lettucea being married to a wizard is funny. It works for the character so I don't really care

whether he was allowed to do it or not. Yeah. Especially now that wizards are bureaucratic not bureaucratic but like, you know. That wizards fight with paperwork more than dead men's shoes. I doubt there's a stuffed alligator. There probably is a stuffed alligator somewhere. Ridcully, wrestle to death.

But it faithfully upsets the versa. Oh, poor versa. Poor versa. Oh, sorry. That just totally reminded me. I don't think I go through this in anywhere but there's a fun little line that almost references slash repeats the joke from

Last Continent when Percy Hotcroft was the premier big grower. He's the Apple Guy. A keen man when it came to sexual antics among the horticulture with a camel hair brush. Oh, yes. Quite right. Ha. So, good.

Another little hotbed of science in Lanka. Absolutely. Where are they getting the camel hair from? I'd like to know. They just float in on Driftwood, I think. Well, how much camel can an unladen Driftwood? That's all right. That's enough questions.

What is the airspeed velocity? Lanka's very magic, Joanna, if you recall. Good. All right, there we go. It's an ominous place. If we went a year without a camel turning up on Driftwood or similar, it would be weird. All right, fine. Do you have an obscure reference for Neil

for me, Francine? I do. And it goes back to Nanny being a little snarky at granny. Yeah. Dog in a manger. Dog in the manger. And granny says, I don't need to be dog in the manger about it. Nanny goes, bitch in the manger.

And granny's like, you are. And obviously, bitch being a female dog. But Nanny knows well what she's doing, because she knows what granny meant. Anyway, I'd never heard that before. So, I looked it up and it derives from an old Greek fable

which has been transmitted in several different versions. Reading verbatim from Wikipedia here, very bad habit. But the metaphor is now used to speak of one who spitefully prevents others from having something for which one has no use. The short form of the fable

is there was a dog lying in a manger who did not eat the grain, but who nevertheless prevented the horse from being able to eat anything either. Which I like, because that's a really short version of a fable. That's a really good summary. Yep, I like that. And I kind of think as a writing exercise, it might be fun to look at eSops fables and short them

even more, because eSops fables are nice and short, to be fair. I was like, ooh, I wonder how much I could summarize it to be. Can I do a three-sentence fable? Ooh, challenge for listeners. Send us three-sentence fables. Yeah, why not? Right, I think that's everything we can say today about the sea and little

fishes and all the other bollocks we talked about. It is, because I'm hungry and I want to go and get fish and chips. Now we talked about fish, so... Ooh, I might get fish and chips. It's Friday, Friday fish. Yes, I've got a batch. Let's keep that one Christian tradition. I've also got to finish off my CV. That's slightly more important.

Friday CV and fish. CV and chips. Right, I think that's everything we can say about the sea and little fishes. It is, because we're clearly very hungry. Yeah, next week we're going to continue chatting short stories with two more stories

from a blink of the screen, because none of the others are really long enough to do a whole episode on. So we are going to talk about Troll Bridge, originally published in 1992, and a collegiate casting out of Devilish Devices, published in 2005.

Ooh, quite a time gap, though. Yes, well I think that's... Interesting to contrast the two. It will be, won't it? Gosh, we could talk about literary comparison like we're meant to. Fuck off, Quillby. In till work next week, dear listener, oh, and I should mention that the week after that

we will be talking about the unadulterated cat, slash the unadulterated Morris, the new version that was published yesterday. I've got my copy. Oh, did you know? I'm not going to get that, so I'm going to work from the old version and you can tell me what the new one's like. Cool.

Well, it's a movie time thing. I don't care for movie illustrations and photos and stuff. You know me. I haven't looked at it yet. I'm not sure how much that's even in there. I think it's the same book with a different cover. Anyway, until next week, dear listeners, you can find us on Instagram

at the True Shall Make You Fret on Twitter at Make You FretPod on Facebook at the True Shall Make You Don't interrupt my rhythm. This is a thing. Sorry. Look, it's the one time I can make like a relevant Twitter statement during the outro. Carry on. I'm sorry.

On Twitter at Make You FretPod until it all catches fire on Facebook at the True Shall Make You Fret join our subreddit community, r slash ttsmyf. Email us your fish, the True Shall Make You FretPod at gmail.com. And if you would like to support the podcast financially, True Shall Make You Fret, we can exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense.

It's quite a bad clock there now. Yeah. Lots of fun little Halloween stuff. There's a ridiculous recipe. Chocolate rabbit hole. Yeah. Lots of chocolate. Not very on-scene for Halloween. We had the scary story and we had the candy. I don't know if it's fine.

It's nice. Yum. Yeah. It was meant to go with the fiftime, which made a lot more sense. I know. And until next time, dear listeners, don't let us detain you. Don't let us detain you. Don't let us detain you.

Literally just spill coffee all over my copy of link of the screen. That's what he would have wanted.