The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Bonus: 100th Episode Celebration (And So, The Journey)

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel,  have been reading and recapping every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series for 100 episodes!This week, we celebrate! VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/5opdW6HS7Jc 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:#Pratchat60 – Eyes Turnwise– Pratchat #Pratchat62 – There’s a Cow in There – Pratchat Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

Do you think because it's a bonus one, we've done it before and I didn't think about it till now, but we could release it as a video, you know, link in the store notes. Like on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hello and welcome to the true shall make you fret a podcast in which we have been reading and recapping the books by the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett for 100 episodes. The books by the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett by 100 episodes.

Yes. It's our Centenary. It's our official Centenary. We've existed for 100 years or it feels like it. Probably feels like it to the listeners too, but somehow you're all sitting here with us still. All right, all right guys. Ridiculous people. Hi.

I'm trying this casual atmosphere. I'm just going to make my candy kittens. We've done the episode for today, you see. Yes, we are recording this immediately after recording part two of Amazing Morris. So we suggest listening to that first for continuity purposes. I think this was a bad way around to do it because I do feel more chilled after an episode. Also, that meant I would have had a full drink before we started recording Amazing Morris and we know our rules. Yeah, it wasn't exactly a party themed episode either, was it?

I've got a glass of champagne. Let's talk about death. Actually, that's how most of my parties go. I don't throw a lot of parties. Well, as previously ascertained, I'm immortal. So we don't need to talk about it. What are we going to talk about instead, Joanna? We have got some lovely listener questions that we are going to answer for our 100th episode.

I'm going to keep saying that. Yes, 100. We did 100 proper episodes of the podcast outside of all the bonus. This isn't the 100th episode. Part two of Amazing Morris was the 100th episode. This is the celebrating, this is the 100th birthday party. It's one of the appendices. This is the 100th appendices.

We'll have to do a separate special bonus for our 100th bonus episode. And it wouldn't be a landmark episode without fucking around with suffixes. Apologies, listeners. I know we talked about doing a live stream for this, but it just life got in the way. November was a month. And yeah, no. We're doing this instead, where we're under a lot less pressure and Francine can help me being a complete twat.

She won't, but she could. It's nice to have the safety net. It's not kind of rude of him, isn't it? It's all right. Before we start recording, we've already discussed my nipples. Anyway, you do to yourself, dude. Oh, no, we're keeping that spoilers. It's not the last time nipples will be mentioned at this episode.

So getting right on. That's half my answers. So first we have Steve on Patreon asks, if you were told you were being shipped off to the Discworld tomorrow for a year, let's say, you're not being irrevocably wrenched from your loved ones, but you could choose your destination. Where would you go and what would you do for a living? Okay, I'll go first on this one. Then we'll switch going first, shall we?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I would say it's got to be Angkor Pork because it's got to be Angkor Pork that where else am I going to meet all of my, my favorites? Um, and you know, you can day trip out to the roundtops and freak out the witches from there. Um, and I guess I try and get a job at a newspaper because it does seem to be a

job that women are allowed to do in Angkor Pork, obviously. And, um, it's reasonably safe and I'm already half qualified, but that is a very boring answer. I realize that. So I've got a backup, which is I want to be a sound scaper for an Uberwoldian aristocratic family. Perfect. I love that.

How about you? I also went with two answers. I think I've mentioned on the podcast before that the most likely answer is if I ended up on the Discworld, that I would also be an Angkor Pork. And as I'm already quite a talented dressmaker, I'd probably end up working for the Guild of Seamstresses, um, because of my dressmaking skills. However, I'd like an alternative and as I'm only there for a year, I quite like the idea of setting up, doing a little writing retreat, setting up a

little cottage somewhere in Angkor and, uh, letting the landscape and surrounding nonsense inspire me. Get people like Lady Sibyl and her friends in kind of thing. Yeah. Like I'd hold retreats for other people and, uh, see if the Lady Sibyl and the Emma's want to swing by. Yeah, lovely. All right.

That's a very quiet, chilled out thing to do on Discworld. If I'm there for a year, I might as well make a nice holiday out of it rather than working. I'm not sure we ever decided, by the way, is it on Discworld or in Discworld, if we're saying like this, because this is a thing when you're talking about living on or in an island. So, you know, you're not from Jersey and I can never remember which way round it was because I haven't lived there for so long, but I'm pretty sure it's if you say

I live on Jersey, then you're not a native. I lived in Jersey. I feel like it's on Discworld, but in Angkor Pork. Okay. Next question. Duck on Patreon. Question for the 100th. I'm interested in the hot topic of is pizza a sandwich?

The short answer, no, but a calzone is. Slash also a pasty. The longer answer is just that I fucking love this kind of nonsense. It's the same as the fried chicken sandwich versus burger debate that, uh, tore apart for you read it for a few days. Yeah. It's just such a grilled cheese versus melt grilled cheese versus melt is a hot dog or sandwich.

It's such a low stakes thing to really care about. And I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but could a slice of pizza become a sandwich if you roll up the slice of pizza and eat it in a cylindrical fashion? Well, what you do is you take two slices of pizza and you put one on top of the other. So the fillings are in the middle and then it's a sandwich. I see.

Yeah. If you roll it up, it's more, it's a burrito. Is that everything rolled as a burrito or a spring roll? All right. Good, good. Okay. But a burrito is technically a subset of sandwich. So technically none of this is anything.

No, of course it isn't. No, well, I'm glad you had an answer because my answer was what? No, look, I just wanted to get Calzones in there. In honor of Ben Wyatt, a hero to us all. Forever in our hearts. Yeah. Anyway, um, if you can make a streaming limited series based on the last hero, what would be the themes and who would be your dream cast?

Okay. So I'm a fan casting. So I just went with themes, um, and others in the obvious ones that I'm, um, we've talked about before and you can talk about better than me. Um, I thought just the, the way that we treat, we society, uh, treat the elderly as if they have little to offer now that they've reached a certain age. Yeah, that's better than mine. My theme was loincloths.

Oh, right. Okay. So I thought you're going to say like heroism, narrative arcs. No. Oh, look, if you want to hear my intellectual thoughts on the last hero, we did like three hours of podcasting for this. I'm sticking with loincloths. Now I've only got a shoehorn helicopter into the episode.

Okay. Speaking of, I'm going to cast a helicopter. No, no, we're using them for filming. No, I'll get a better shoehorn in. So who's co-hand going to be? Well, okay. So A, I do, we have kind of bitched a little bit on the podcast before about how much we don't love fan casting, but that's largely to do with like online

space is hugely being taken up with it. And it is always the same answer as always. Mary and Margolis is nanny aug, which like I get Mary and Margolis would be a great nanny aug, but I don't need to hit see like 800 people say it. Yeah. And it's always one sets off an avalanche. It's like, keep it to a thread. Do you not know how forums work?

Nobody does exactly. No, no one does. These people clearly didn't grow up and bad forums in the 90s and it showed. They did. That's the thing. No, no, the worst offenders are definitely Gen X. And I know they know how to use forums. They built all the good ones.

I feel like there's a weird gap where like you were slightly too old to be really on forums when they were happening. And that makes you like the perfect Facebook demographic. Yeah, maybe, yeah. But sorry. So I'm going to break my rule on not fancasting things, but I'm going to cheat for Cohen because David Bradley already played him in Color of Magic. And that was perfect.

I wouldn't change that. Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure either of them are technically old enough, but I think they would be great, either Jillian Anderson or Olivia Coleman as Vena, the Ravenhead. Okay. Because I think they've got that. I've recently watched the crown and seen the two playing off each other, but I

think either of them could play that kind of mix of matrily and could fuck you up with a sword. I think Olivia Coleman would be if I'm picking between those. Yeah. Yeah, Jillian Anderson is more. I want to see Jillian Anderson wearing Vena the Ravenhead wears, to be honest. I'm a simple creature for the minstrel because he's got priors. He's done it pretty well already.

And he's not so famous that you necessarily pick him out of a crowd immediately. He's not too handsome, but he could play handsome. We're going with Joey Batey, who plays Jaskier in the Witcher series. He is the tosser coin to your witcher guy. Batey, you say? Yeah, Joey Batey, B-A-T-E-Y. Are you googling now?

Yeah, I've never watched the Witcher. I apologize to all the listeners who don't have tosser coin to your witcher stuck in your head, but we've seen him play a minstrel well. I think he can do it again. Okay. Yep, good. I only cast a couple of people for the Dean. This just occurred to me because I had this actor on the brain

because I weirdly ended up hanging out with his daughter last weekend, Rupert Vansetart, who was total name-dropping. He was the boar buying whiskey at the bar in four weddings of a funeral. He was Jon Royce in Game of Thrones. He was one of the Slitheen in Christopher Rackleston era, Doctor Who. Character actor. Very good, very funny British character actor. And it only occurred to me today when I was thinking about this question,

but he would be so perfect as the Dean and now I really want to see it. Like in anything, in any Discord adaptation ever. If we're doing like dream casting, we can have dead people as well, right? Yeah. So Paul Ritter, I would like as one of the, one of the horde, I don't know which. Paul Ritter. The dad in Friday night dinner. Oh, yeah.

And the other things. Again, not quite old enough, didn't get quite old enough, very unfortunately. Maybe he would have been a great horde member. About that, but yes, and I would like Bill Bailey as one of the henchmen of the evil. Yes, yeah. Well, I mean, the great thing about the horde is you can basically look at any brilliant older actor. So you could throw in, throw in Ian McKellen in there.

And then you've got a kind of pace. Well, I was thinking that, but how. You need to, you need them to be a bit rough and ready. And Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen to me are just too dignified. I think you could rough Ian McKellen up. I don't think you could rough Christopher Lee up. I don't think I could rough either of the maps. They look very tough.

I definitely could not have taken Christopher Lee in a fight. Yeah, no. No, no. I'm not convinced death did. He might be the Grim Reaper now. Yeah, no, I think he's a Grim Reaper. But I mean, appearance wise, maybe not Christopher Lee. Oh, Christopher Lee would make a good evil Harry Dredd.

That's true. You'd need to change the character a little bit so that he's the comedy is in the fact he's so dignified, but at the same time, laughable. Yeah. But that's fine. I think you can tweak a character to suit an actor and something like this. But you could throw Patrick Stewart in there. I had one more and it's a wild card one that also, I think, only works

if you've watched House of the Dragon. But having seen that, I think Paddy Considine could actually do a really good Leonard of Querm. OK, I think he could having seen him play King Viserys, I think he could do a kind of like just looks wise, no, but I think he could do the kind of wild eyed wonder that the character needs. OK, yeah, no. Next question, Joanna.

This is from Ben from Pratchett, who is our, which is our, our, our, our Forex counterparts. Forex counterpart. Thank you. I was about to say counterweight continent. That's all right. Right. Yes.

Ben says, I'd like to know how you think of Pratchett differently now compared to when you started. And I would like to say, actually, before I forget, Ben and Liz also had a very good landmark episode recently, an anniversary one, was it? Was it? Yeah, I think so. Number one, I think it was their 60th. Yeah, and we asked them questions and lots of other people asked them

questions and it's very good to go listen to that. But yeah, well, Lincoln, the show notes, how do you think of Pratchett differently now compared to when you started? There's two different answers. As a person, a lot more intimidating than I think I pictured this, but a lot of that is to do with Robsburg. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean, like, I think he might have thought I was an idiot, but thinking

of him as a writer, I have a huge newfound respect for him as a craftsman. Like, I've always loved these books. Obviously, that's why we started doing a podcast about them. That was the thing. You know, maybe some of these books. No, we talked about books we loved. We still talk about books we love. But yeah, I don't think I ever appreciated the eye for detail, the ability

to construct a joke, because I didn't always used to think about that stuff. And this podcast has forced me to. And yeah, it's giving me an incredible newfound respect for him. Like, no one could craft a narrative, could craft a single joke, could sprinkle sherbet lemons without it being heavy handed. What about you? I think I have more appreciation for it's kind of two things, but the scope of his knowledge that he must have had in the first place to know which rabbit

holes to go down and how much research he must have put into so many seemingly throwaway jokes and lines that just a really niche audience would have appreciated some of them, or lots of people would have appreciated other things, but like maybe wouldn't just see how much fact checking it took. Like, I don't think he liked to give too much of a peek behind that curtain, even though he referenced it a few times, like he talked about blind research once or twice, like in the first essay in a slip of the keyboard, he mentions like, must go upstairs and research tortoises and philosophers.

But yeah, I think he gives this impression of being almost omniscient. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just this is doing this process has just given me and Neil Gaiman at the same time, almost in a very different way, but just how much thought they put into fucking everything and how much fun it must have been researching some of it and how much discipline it must have taken not to just fall down that rabbit hole and instead to find the information you need, maybe a little bit extra for a treat and put it in the book and fuck.

Yeah, no. And similarly, as a person, I didn't know a lot about him outside of what I'd seen in the documentaries. And it's not not just like the books we've read about him, but the the interviews I've watched with him, the fact that I've reread slip of the keyboard so many times while we've been doing this, the comments on old fan Pratchett. Yeah, I just feel like I've got a more rounded idea of what he was. Yeah, absolutely. What he was, who he was, all of that.

And we talked about that a very long time ago, how yeah, the more we learn about him, the more we admire him and that's not stopped. No, absolutely not. Yeah. Just that excited willingness to learn, I think, is such a good thing about him. The curiosity just, yeah. And then what? But why? But what if we did this?

These bits of like an exercise in that curiosity. It's a I think he spoke from experience when he talked a few times about like ideas sleeting through. Yeah, the universe and hitting you in the head and distracting you. He was a good man for inspiration past schools, wasn't he? Yeah. We got a second question from Ben, which is, what's your favourite weird thing you've learned for the podcast?

Yeah, that was my thought. I wrote down my first thoughts as well as my actual answers. So I've gone, oh, Jesus, I don't know, but. Because it could genuinely change week to week. So right now I'm really excited about the Piper of Hamelin, which I won't spoil it in case listeners are listening to this one before the main episode, but what? But then it might be Nucleus MAO6.

It might be the old belief that oxen carcass is spontaneously generated bees. It might be like I genuinely I'd have to go back and listen through every episode and like rank them in a spread. No, I don't have time for that. So I'm going to say I'm going to say Nucleus MAO6 just because I had so much fun with that, but it's become a bit of a meme since then. And I, you know, I don't want to be the kind of person that says I fell

down that obscure rabbit hole before it was cool. But I did. I now really want to do like a bracket of weird shit we've learned for the podcast where listeners have to vote for what's eventually like the one true fact. All right, well, we might do that. Yeah. OK. Like maybe just an obscure reference for Neil Brackett.

Yeah, we still haven't done the the nerd chart. Oh, yeah, that's on the list. So how about you? I ball nipples. Sure. Well, no, OK, no, I was doing a similar thing. You weren't even lying about the nipples. Four shadowing lads.

No, I am. I had a similar thing to you where my brain went. Oh, what? That it's the thing we talked about where like someone asked you your favorite song and you've never heard music before in your life. But there's so many of them like you. It's the presency bias that I'm so excited to learn more about the Pied Piper history.

But also the podcast has given me the excuse to do all the weird deep diving with the rabbit holes and things. They're like genuinely the episode I did on so many fucking weird books. The most recent one being the Brewers, Rokes, Villains and Eccentrics, which does just listeners get it. Yeah, no, I showed it showing me and I immediately ordered myself a coffee, which doesn't usually happen that quickly, which is really annoying. I shouldn't have told you it existed because then I could have got it for you

for Christmas and had to find a different weird vintage book for you for Christmas. Oh, I like how we do the same thing. But just all sorts of nonsense going down the fairy tale rabbit hole and learning about the ATU index for the first time. And also I kind of share with you the deep and abiding love of nuclear semiotics because just it's really cool. Yeah, because I think my favorite thing I've learned from you, actually, was the fairy tale stuff.

Yeah. And I think my favorite thing I've learned from you was the nuclear semiotics. Yeah, rabbit holes. Rabbit holes. Well, not just like rabbit holes in the Patreon thing, but how the podcast is like a push towards learning new stuff because we're trying to find all the references Pratchett made and go down the rabbit holes he might have gone down. I do worry sometimes that I go away from the spirit of the spirit of the podcast because we always knew this was going to happen.

But I just go off on one about whatever I've learned hasn't really got a lot to do with what we're talking about. But that's where I'm here to shoehorn in a fucking dreadful segue. Yes, I think I think we are quite I was about say we're quite well balanced. That's not true at all. We balance each other out in that way. It's six o'clock on a Saturday evening and I'm wearing two tiaras and a feather boa while podcasting. Yeah, I'm balanced.

It's very important that everybody sees Joanna's outfit today. Yeah, I'm going to know I'm going to be very normal. Did you see I'm wearing the jumper you got me the other way? Yes, I did notice that. So Charlie on Twitter asks, what is something about this process that has surprised you, something that is not at all how you expected it would be? This is a weird one.

I mean, God, no, no, no, not a weird one, as in it was tough to think about because this is genuinely changed me a little bit as a person in a good way and not in like a deep emotional way. But like, I'm a better writer now, a better speaker. I think I'm funnier. Like the challenge of just can I write something? Can I say something that will make

Francine snort her coffee every week is always a fun one. And stuff like like I would not be doing the book I'm doing if it wasn't for the podcast, because literally the podcast is the reason the proposal got in front of a publisher. But I would never thought I was capable of writing facts and expressing myself in that many words. If it wasn't for having the podcast to teach me how to do that. I thought about it when we started as like, oh, podcast, it'd be easy.

I listen to loads of podcasts. That sounds like a thing I can just do. And no, it turns out not. I had to learn and grow a lot of your idea. I also genuinely thought like this would be a fun side thing. And I wouldn't care so much about it, but I really do. How about you? It takes up a lot more time than I thought it would.

Yeah, sorry. No, no, no, that's due to how we've decided to do it. It wouldn't need to perhaps if we'd just decided to go straight discussion, whatever, but both of us have decided to add more and more time to the research. And that means sometimes we're running a bit late and get a bit stressed, whatever. But also means the whole thing is just a lot more fun and I think more enjoyable for other people as well. I truly didn't ever expect we'd have enough of an audience to launch a Patreon.

I think I said that to you right at the start. I said, like, keep your expectations low, Joi, because like there's a lot of podcasts, there's a lot of media podcasts, there's already a few Pratchett podcasts. I didn't see a seven really breaking a couple hundred listeners a week. But something else that surprised me, actually, and it probably shouldn't have done. But how nice the other Pratchett podcasts have been, like how supportive it's not competitive. It's a really lovely supportive group. Yeah, yeah, there's no rivalry, luckily, because it turns out people

who like Pratchett are willing to just listen to infinite amounts of nonsense about it. So and we appreciate that. Thank you guys. We do. We do. I didn't know, despite some previous experience, that there were quite so many things that go wrong with audio, but yep, as evidenced earlier today, when mine broke again. And finally, neither of us expected it to be remote. No, no, we'd be sitting in the same room. I think it's been a bit of a challenge to learn how to.

So you were saying about, like, becoming funnier. It's been harder to do that on a webcam. I think we still do cross talk more than we would have done. It's a very different. It's a different vibe. It's maybe not a very different vibe anymore, because we're so used to it now. But yeah, well, our whole context for doing this before we started, you know, obviously, we've been friends for like God, over a decade, which is scary. But our whole context for our friendship was having conversations in a room together,

sitting down and having coffee. Kind of part of the reason we thought we could do the podcast is we sit down, have coffee and talk about Pratchett for hours anyway. We're not recording it. And yeah, the difference in doing it remotely and like setting a new context for how we have conversations with each other has been a big thing. Yeah. Yeah. And now because we're videoing it as well for like the Patreon feed,

I think that's after another layer of. I don't know. I think we're more casual with it now, perhaps. But I think certainly the first few times we were perhaps a little bit more aware of how we were holding ourselves. And yeah, like at one point I had good posture and tried to not let you see all the chins. Now they're just flapping in glorious abandon. Sorry, next question from Charlie.

Have you changed your minds about any books, plots or characters after rereading in depth for the podcast? Yeah, I would say that doing the moving pictures one, I think I talked about this at the end of it, but it changed my mind on the whole topic almost. So I'm not very interested in movies as there's a whole. And I think as I think I also said before, it was kind of having your enthusiasm. On the topic as I was learning about it as we were reading it,

which helped me appreciate kind of the Hollywood magic a bit more. Yeah. And also not just that, not just those episodes, but the episodes leading up to it where you explained to me like various cinema techniques and like told me how you saw it in a more visual way. And yeah, no, it was interesting. And yeah, moving pictures probably still not one of my favourites, but I like it a lot more than I did. Oh, that's cool.

How are you? I'm glad. I think rinse wins are really obvious one. Like I was always a bit met on the rinse with books for a start. And I think I said like right back in colour and magic, like go on, convince me. Why do I like rinse wins? But I love them now. One part of it again is is your enthusiasm for the character

has made me feel a lot more fondly for him and for the books he's in. We do tend to double down as well. If we think that was like. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a chance the other might disagree. So now I'm perhaps more of a rinse when Sam that I was at the start. Yeah, like he's now a hill you will die on. Other things like just a thinking about nanny

York's role in the witches trio a lot more. That definitely came out through the podcast. I did not have some overarching theory about Nanny as the one true powerful witch before this and that was very much became a hill I would die on. And small gods is the other one. Oh, yeah, I was I was never a big fan of small gods before. And I think because I never really tried to dive into what the book was doing. I was very much looking at it as a surface story.

And so I was kind of met on X. It's like it's one that lifts out of the discord canon. Yeah, like it's fun to have the context for the Omnions, but also their apparently of like Jehovah's Witnesses. So you don't really need the context of small gods. Yeah. But talking about it with you and I know you really love the book and be like proper diving into everything it's doing that made me deep.

And I think the episodes on small gods are still some of the best we've ever done. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. And nothing will ever make me like cry laugh quite as much as you on your sofa with your arms flailing shouting, wake up, people. If I have time, I might try and edit some flashbacks into this. Do you like some little harp noises? And we'll do some cool things. You see?

The eagle girl is the bad is the God, but also bulbous. It's just right there in the beginning. Open your eyes, sheeple. Go, go, go, people, people. It doesn't work. Open your eyes, people. I'll tell you what, one I've got a second answer, which is I didn't see kind of the repeated but improved themes and character tropes and things that Pratchett

did. So I think you pointed out a lot of those to me where he's doing this story again, but better or he's doing this character again, but different. And because he had all of these books to play with and when he liked an idea, he just kept doing it until he perfected it. I've done Discworld rereads before this podcast where I reread all of the books in order, but I don't think I'd ever notice like, oh, this book is kind of that book again. This book is kind of that book again before then. And that's like the benefit of doing this kind of weirdly close reading of it

all, where you're looking for things to call back to, especially. Joanna, what are you cooking for Christmas? Christmas is a weird one this year because I don't have some of the people I normally would. I worked out actually that the last few years of Christmases have all been like first without or last with Christmases, which was all a bit weird. But I'm still cooking. I've got less people than usual, and I'm going to cook the same amount of food because I am a sick person that cannot be stopped.

So there'll be a slow roasted leg of mutton with a red wine sauce and some dough from our potatoes and some kind of delicious vegetables that I haven't ordered yet. Probably sprout some pancetta because I am a traditionalist at heart on that one very specific thing. I will make some lovely nibbles. There'll be the puff pastry pinwheels that my mum used to make for every event and now I make for every event. They're very good. I've eaten them many times. Yeah. There'll be some Parmesan shortbread because they go really nicely with

champagne. And I like having a nibble that goes very nicely with champagne. Do you have a recipe for those? I need to bring something to a work potluck. Yes. And you can make them vegan vegetarian really easily. OK, cool. What else am I cooking? Oh, I'm going to do a black forest yule log this year. I did a black forest cake for Christmas a few years ago and it was very impressive. But I like the idea of doing a yule log because it's a lot easier to fix it if it starts looking really waf. You just shove more ganache on it.

So it'll be a kind of lots of layers of chocolate covered in ganache. So it looks like a tree and then I'll do some little piped trees. The problem is that now if I think black forest, I think gray dwarfs and someone else who plays Valhain with me will be at the thing. So I might see if I can figure out a way to do like a gray dwarf eye decoration. Very nerdy. Love it. Yes. As a dumb little joke, but I also really want to make some honeycomb. I haven't made any for ages, so I'm kind of figuring out how I can throw

honeycomb into that. Put it on top, I guess. I'm thinking I'm going to make some honeycomb blitz it and then put it through the whipped cream. And I think that's going to be really good. I will show pictures. And that goes into a forest theme, if you ask me, yeah. Yeah, I think that goes into a Valhain theme. It didn't plan on a Valhain theme dessert, but I feel like it's a... Yeah, but like honey and berries.

Basically, you're making a cake a bear would enjoy. Yeah, no. I'm not sure if bears can eat chocolate. A cartoon bear. Yeah. Smarter than the average. Of course. We have a question prepared for each other, Francine. Do you want to go first?

No. Because you answered it. Oh, did I? When you were talking about like the difference in your writing and reading and things. And so I'm trying to think of a way to slightly tweak it. OK, OK. Should I ask you mine? Yeah, I'll ask. And then I'll see if I can play off of that. The other. OK, so we are at Amazing Morris at the moment

with everything we've done. Is there one book where you'd really just love to go back and talk about that book again, either because you've noticed new things or because you just really want to keep talking about it or because you've changed your mind since we've talked about it? I would like to revisit Hogfather, maybe. I know that's a year ago and it's possibly just because I'm feeling festive. But I think a lot of the Christmas and even though we did a rabbit hole

afterwards, yeah, a lot of the like Christmas and Yuletide New Year lore with a roar. I would I'm not sure we had time to do justice because the book was so good on its own. Yeah. So a lot of the surrounding ones, a lot of the blind research and the. Just mythology and all of this, all of the good stuff I'd like to revisit. Yeah, that one. How about you?

I would really love to go back and talk about Guards, Guards again, but like with the full context of we can do spoilers now and where we've got to with the watch arc. I love to revisit the early watch books and talk about them with everything we know about like where the Fifth Elephant ends up and if that changes how we feel about it. Well, as we reach the ends of arcs, there's no reason we can't do little bonus addendums, addenda, addenda, but then you have to give away that's the end

of an arc, don't you? Yeah, we've tried not to do that. I feel like we'll think about that another day. Listeners, be prepared for some bonus addendums. No, I've thought of one. Do you think like realistically, because I know we're kind of planning on doing this, we can do a live episode like on stage and shit? I genuinely.

So Craig actually mentioned that in an email he sent us. This is almost like an admin question, to be honest. I genuinely think we could. I know I'm a lot more confident doing live stuff than you. But I also, and I don't mean this in a dickish way, like we've had episodes where I'm in a shit mood and you've carried me through it. And we've had episodes where like you've had a shit concentration and I've carried you through it.

You've got to push me through it. Yeah. Chibi be together along. Yeah, so I think if one of us is more confident live than the other, then that's fine because we know we can carry each other through an episode. And I am good at prepping for these kind of live things because I've done a lot of panels on that. Exactly. Always get very scared.

And I mean, don't get me wrong, I get horrible stage fright and would be super nervous. But I think if there's an audience that I would be super comfortable doing a live episode in front of, it's the audience we've got for the podcast. That's true. Yeah. Like as a thing I could do that I think would be good and fun, I think absolutely. Whether we could figure out all of the up and around it, getting a venue, handling the costs, figuring out how to record it

and then getting people to come and see it. Because obviously we have got a lot of really lovely listeners, but they are scattered around and we'd have to find somewhere they could all gather. They are. The Spotify rap thing was cool, isn't it? Yeah. Have you tweeted any screenshots of that? No, I didn't. Sorry, because I was busy tweeting about our last episode. That's it. Yeah. Well, I'll pick out a few because I think you've got share story bits,

so I'll pick out a few and we'll have a look at those because it's cool. Like Norway is in our top five countries of people listening on Spotify, obviously. There are lots of people listening on other platforms, but that's cool. I wonder if Apple is something similar for podpastas. Yeah, I'll have to look into that. But hi, Norway, if you're listening. Hi, Norway. Hi, all of Norway. I'm sorry we don't talk about Norway enough. Yeah, let's talk about Norway as well. We talk about Germany quite a lot.

We do. I don't want to try and learn any Norwegian because I've seen the language written down and I'm not sure I can do it. Yeah, a lot of the Nordic and Scandinavian languages are difficult. I struggled with Swedish, even a few words. Although still delighted that Slutsbert is the word for sale. Oh, that's all over shop windows. Yes, the word that is. You'll see Slutsbert's all over their shop windows.

I have another one, sorry. Oh, yeah? I'm thinking of questions now as we go along. Have you, do you think drastically or otherwise changed your idea of what you want the podcast to be since we started? I always wanted it to be a fun conversation around Terry Bratchett. Like I always wanted to talk about them with you and I hoped we'd get something of an audience. But again, on the expectations, neither

have expected to get the audience that we've had. So it's changed a bit about what I want it to be because now I know it means something to people. So I want to make I care a lot more about it being good than I think I did at the beginning. I'm still not used to getting nice letters. Yeah, no, we have. I've said it before, but we have genuinely had emails

that have like made me cry at least and I don't cry easily. And if there's any we've had and haven't replied to, it's not because we haven't read and appreciated them. If we've read them gone, oh, my God. OK, I'll reply to that later when I'm feeling more stable and then didn't because we're who we are. Yeah, we are very much those people. And also, it's just really hard.

Like I don't know how to thank someone for saying something that nice sometimes because it feels very trite to be like, you know, people have said quite meaningful things to us. And I don't know how to say thanks for liking us that much without also saying like, but I don't deserve it. Honestly, I'm horrible. Here's like an eight page list of reasons. I'm a dickhead, which you've got better at.

Actually, that's one way you've developed through the podcast is you apologise far less in the early episodes. It's lots of me telling you off for saying sorry all the time. I still apologise a lot, but that is the Catholic guilt. You can't entirely beat it out of me. And you say it kind of sarcastically now. So that's I think I'm aware of it enough to make sure the apologies are sarcastic.

Sorry, my tears are slipping. Do you know, I'm going into interview mode now, but I'm doing one more. There you go. And I kind of know the answer to this because I spend lots of time with the outside of this as well. Do you think you've changed a lot as a person since we started? I genuinely think I have. I think I'm more empathetic and I think I'm also

more willing to take a different point of view and better at defending my own points of view. Yeah, yeah, you don't usually just give up immediately now. Yeah, I for listeners who obviously haven't known me a decade the way Francine has, I have got an overwhelming fear of conflict and will very rapidly back out of arguments. And the podcast has definitely made me a lot better at defending an idea. So, yeah, I think it's genuinely made me a very convoluted intervention.

You just we've made it. God knows how many hours into this and here's the ban. I didn't make a banner. We've done a hundred episodes of a podcast just to make me apologise less and be more confrontational. I need to work out exactly how many hours we've done. I'm going to do our own little stats thing because this spot if I wrap Sony for the year.

Oh, I might make our own little horrible stats graphic. All right, we're getting a bit self-indulgent now. Let's move on. I know this is my fault. I kept asking you questions. You say self-indulgent. We're about to go into some bigger topics. But so Stephen on Twitter asked us, now you're well past halfway through. Are you excited or hesitant about reaching the shepherd's crown

and finishing the journey? And I want to address the first half of that question more than the second because we'll go into the journey a bit more in a moment. Yes. So you. Me. Yes. OK.

Your thoughts. Excited more than apprehensive, I think, or hesitant. Sorry. Yes. No, excited and apprehensive rather than hesitant. So I'm not hesitant. I don't want to draw it out. Also, it's a bit of apprehension about some of the later books are going to be harder to talk about.

But yeah, I'm similar in that mix of apprehension. I'm really excited to get to the shepherd's crown specifically because it's going to be a very different type of conversation. Sorry, it's going to be a different type of conversation. I think it's a good book. I like the story of the book without obviously spoiling anything because we're saving any and all discussion of the final discworld novel, the shepherd's crown until we get there.

So you do list and can come on the journey with us. Three rambling questions for at least 20 minutes. I know we always say we're going to be 15, 20 minutes with these bonuses. Where are we up to? Fifty five minutes. Yeah. Well done us. We did take a break.

Shocked by that. I didn't have that window open. I thought we've been going 25. Fuck. All right. We did go for a break. That was OK. Yeah, we got better still.

But also one of the ideas I have when starting this podcast, I wanted to keep it spoiler free so people who are new to the discworld could like maybe listen as they read the books for the first time. But the reason we kept out the spoilers for the shepherd's crown is I know there are a lot of people who have read every discworld novel except the shepherd's crown. They can't bring themselves to read their last book. So if this podcast helps people and we joke about the journey metaphor,

but if people can get across what looks like a gaping abyss and turns out to be a really easy little bridge you could handstand over to get to that last book. You drew a metaphor from the other books. Yeah, yeah, I saw. I like that one. So just in that sense, I'm very excited to get there. Yeah.

And so the journey. And so the journey, well, to do this, I kind of want to go into our next question, which was an email from Craig. I won't read out the whole email, but Craig said, so Terry's work is finite. Sadly, do you intend to do more when you've completed discworld? And he said, you know, the long air sequence,

diaries, calendars, anthologies, another author. Craig also asked if we'd broadcast live. I think we've responded to that now. Oh, do you know what? Maybe that's where that came from in my head. Sorry, this earlier. Do you ever think I wish we'd never started this? No, but I'm pretty sure Francine does

when she's editing on a Sunday. I think very occasionally, but I think that about literally any obligation, especially when there's tech problems, yes. But Craig got into a more serious note that, you know, he's been listening to this podcast for a long time. It's been going through some tough times in recent history. We've all put a lot of hours into it,

not just you and me, but the listeners. And Craig said, what will we do? What's the cold turkey plan? Craig did say we should have a whip round and buy a castle or an albatross somewhere to go and mourn the passing of something significant. Can we go and mourn the passing of something significant at an albatross?

Because I'm very into that idea. If we could get an albatross on a castle. But yeah, finishing the journey that's something you and I have joked about. In fact, it came up when we were on Pratchat the other day. I did. And I think we've kind of landed on. I don't think this this podcast will end with The Shepherd's Crown.

No, it's the short answer. That's not the plan. No, no. This part of the podcast, this chapter of the story, this leg of the journey. The podcast will never be the same after The Shepherd's Crown. I think we can both agree to that. Like that's it. We won't still be doing a long running recap of the Discworld books.

There is not another fifth like 40 odd long series of books by our favourite author. That is just not something that exists. There is other Pratchat to talk about. We know we both want to talk about the longer. I feel like there'll be a holiday. Yeah, no, we'll need a time. Yeah.

But there will be other Pratchat to talk about. Like we're not going to be able to cover everything. I don't know if we've said in the podcast before, but we're going to kind of spread things out a bit next year. Just because otherwise we'd go into the following year with like two books left and I just feel like that's such a weird way to start a year. I don't want to do that. Yeah, no.

So instead, we're only going to cover the next six Discworld books next year, but we're going to be covering more other things. And as we're getting closer to the end, there's a lot of the supplementary material we can do without it being spoilery. Yeah, like we've not touched on the science of Discworld at all. And I would like to talk about those at some point. We've talked about we want to do the Long Earth series, but I feel like it would be better to do those all in one hit

because it's a more continual series than the Discworld. Yes. And we've also talked about like other authors we'd maybe like to discuss in the future. So I think the shortest answer is obviously the podcast won't be the same after the Shepherd's Crown. The longer answer is you and I will keep podcasting about books as much as time and jobs allow us to.

Yes. Yes. Whether that is continuing under the same name, but with different focus or whether we just fucking all off and start again, which is always fun, but difficult. I feel like we'll probably continue under the same name. All right, fine. Because I really like the name. That was that was the first thing I came up with for the podcast.

I was about to ask, do you think you came up with that name? I feel like I did. No, no, because I I was like, no, let's call it the true show. Make you frat because it's from the book, but I said that. I still feel like I always love that as my favourite line. Yeah, I knew you thought that, but I think that as well. I'm not fine. And we can literally no way to prove either way, but.

Right, if we get the CCTV footage from that coffee shop on that day, which I'm sure they have with sound focused on our table. Um, but I did want to say, like, I glossed over a lot of the very nice things Craig said about us and talking about listeners sending email, sending us emails that make us cry. PD also sent us a really beautiful email that I'm not going to read out because I feel like reading out compliments is is more cringe than I can do. It is.

We've already like reached our cringe quota by mentioning the fact we get them, frankly. So yeah, like literally, I can't believe you like us. What the fuck? No, I'm not judging you for liking us. Um, we I really love what we've done. You really love what we've done. Like I never expected there to be like a community around the podcast. Yeah.

Like it's genuinely a delight to us and we want to keep something going and keep this community such a wanky word, but like this rabble together. This ragtag band of misfits, Joanna. Oh, God, I'm sorry. Uh, do you have anything to add? No, I think I said it earlier with the with the I'm still not used to it. And it's really cool that you guys all communicate with us. And I do appreciate it very much.

We love that not only we have been doing this for so long, but that you've been on the journey with us. You ragtag bunch of misfits on a. I've angry, mass obsessed camel running through a desert, crashing into a turtle that's somehow going faster. Someone just made a small God's joke on the Twitter. Now I can't move the metaphor on something else. Sure. Yeah.

There we go. Do you have Twitter open? I mean, I have my phone next to me. In fact, one person just tweeted currently listening to you guys talk about moving pictures in 2020, but I'll get there eventually. So hi from the past for the listeners who are like 60 odd episodes behind and going to get to this sometime in the next two years. Hello, future listeners. Hello, future links.

Do you ever think about the fact that one day somebody might listen to us when we're dead? Not me, obviously, because I'm going to live forever, but theoretically. I have never thought about that before, but now it's haunting me. So thank you. Do you ever think about the fact that we have so many hours of content of us just chatting shit? We quite easy to make a convincing AI of us

as at the pace that technology is moving. I feel like if that AI could handle some social engagements for me, I'd be all right. OK. Yeah. OK. I trained a neural net to respond to our emails it doesn't. Right. As always, we've got to the end of an episode by going completely off the rails. Much like a helicopter does not go on rails. Just so we don't have an unfinished argument,

I'll concede that you came up with the title. I appreciate it. But now I feel like I need to concede that you came up with the title. That doesn't work because it's then still unresolved. Oh, OK. Right. Yeah, it's fine because I did the logo. So it doesn't matter. Oh, no, you absolutely did the logo.

That's something I wish I could redo. And I'm thinking about redoing because I did actually get much better at digital art since I did that. No, I love our logo. You can't change it. All right, fine. Yeah. I hate when podcasts change their logos. It's a very specific thing for me. All right.

I might change the animation at the start of our videos then. Oh, yeah, that you can do because that's slightly mis-timed and it's bothered me for over a year and I just can't have been bothered. But we'll get there. All right. Thank you for listening to our admin listeners. This has been a random bonus nonsense of the true Shemmicky threat. If you didn't get the vibe from the episode,

but we are big fans of yours and thank you for coming with us for a hundred episodes, you ragtag bunch of misfits. Yeah, I'm tweeting as Joanna is talking as a reply to your tweet so that it's like double interaction. Oh, God, engagement. I'm not going to do a whole until next time because you can hear that on our proper episodes. I will once again say thank you for listening

and for the hundredth and a bit time. Don't let us detain you. Sorry, yeah, that did go on much longer than I thought it would. Yeah, you're good. You're good. What a delight.