The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Bonus: Down The Rabbit Hole (Compilation)

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, usually read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, a special bonus episode! Enjoy this compilation of clips from our patreon-only podcast: “Down The Rabbit Hole”. Check out our patron here, and remember that if you sign up you get access to all past bonus content, as well as monthly rabbit holes, extended video episodes of the main podcast and whatever nonsense we decide to throw at you!**Not literal, and so far no listeners have been harmed in the making of said nonsense. 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 Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of The Truth Shall Make You Fret. This episode is a compilation of clips from our patron-only spin-off show Down the Rabbit Hole. These are episodes in which we explore the tendons less travelled. I've picked a few highlights to keep you entertained and, possibly, pique your interest. For the full episodes, alongside other associated nonsense, you can sign up to our Patreon at Patreon.com slash The Truth Shall Make You Fret. It costs £3 per month to support us on the Albatross tier, for which you'll get these monthly rabbit hole episodes as well as longer video versions of our normal episodes. Castles and snacks patrons pay £5 per month and receive

all of the above plus sporadic extra content, which is basically whatever creative stuff Joanna and I can come up with. Having said all that, the main episodes of The Truth Shall Make You Fret will always be free, and all of you are hugely appreciated. The bonus content is just that, their bonus. While financial contributions are more than welcome as they offset our software subscriptions and a bit of the time we spend on this, we're in this for the joy of it. We like talking about our favourite author, and we're always thrilled and honestly still a bit surprised when we get a message reminding us that people are out there joining in with us from afar. We'll be back in your luggles with Masquerade in September. But first, let's make a podcast.

Hello and welcome to The Truth Shall Make You Fret down the rabbit hole, a bonus monthly Patreon only podcast where we deep dive into the tangents we didn't have time for. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. Today's topic is going to be landscape history, and it's a very special episode with a very special guest I have with me, friend of the pod and excellent human extraordinaire, Kate McKellan. Hello, good evening. So why did you decide you wanted to study landscape architecture? What is it about that interests you? Basically, I went to university to study history because I've always loved history. And on the open day, I was looking through the brochure. It was kind of like, yeah, Russian Revolution, I would definitely want to do that. I was looking through

and I started reading about the landscape history syllabus. And I was like, Oh my God. Oh my God, this is so interesting. This is everything that my basically when I was growing up, my dad always used to when we were out walking here, say, why do you think that's there? And what do you think? Why do you think that's like that? So I grew up with this thing of always observing a landscape and wondering, you know, why things were like they were. And that's basically what landscape history is. It's looking at man's impact on the landscape since prehistoric times, right through to some of it is to do with cityscapes and modern city design. So it runs the whole way through and there is nothing in the landscape that cannot be studied.

So is this I take it as the sort of big geometric, very square gardens for a lot of fashion, things like the sort of big ornamental mazes and things for fashion as well. Yeah, like anything else, there was fashion. And then later on, going back to Jane Austen Mansfield Park, one of the character mentions Repson, who was one of the next big things after Capability Brown, and he would work on making smaller parks look much bigger. So he began to open up the landscape again, so that rather than being closed, you would have maybe a fence and it would make your park look bigger because you just had a small fence. In fact, that might have been when the the ha ha and the ho ho started. I'm assuming we're never quite as deep as the

50 foot one in the Angkor Pork Palace Gardens. No, but I did read something incredibly interesting. There are a couple of silos in Australia in Victoria that had ha ha walls. So rather than the inmates having fences, which would upset locals. So the inside, the inmates would be able to see it, but from the outside, you would just be looking out over this district. So it wasn't for the benefit of the patients, it was for the benefit of those outside who would just think, Oh, look, they're kept in by a lovely low wall, and it's all beautiful. And, you know, without, you know, but if they looked over the wall, there would be a massive like a drop on the other side drop. Yeah.

So nuclear semiotics, semiotics means relating to signs or symbols is basically long term messaging that's designed to stop our descendants from irradiating themselves with our glowing trash. The questions are, what if we get it wrong? And there are leaks and things. And, you know, that's that's happened before. What if geology opens it up? So we're talking like, it would have to be big geological events, but earthquakes and yeah, exactly. A massive earthquakes, ice ages. We're talking, as I said, tens of thousands of years, couple of ice ages. You've seen what you've seen what glaciers can do, Joanna. We've all seen the glaciers race across Scotland over

winter. I do love mountains. Spot of glacier racing. Exactly. So yes, geologically racing across. And what if our descendants go prodding around? Which they probably will. Yeah, exactly. And even if none of those geological things happen, what if what if they go prodding around really determinedly with tools we don't know about yet? So the question becomes, how do we warn future generations to stay away from our radioactive waste? And we're talking far future generations, which is quite hard to conceive of 10,000 years as the given time frame for these both thought and practical experiments. So conventional messages are messages whose power to signify something relies on a previous agreement or understanding. So a custom. So giving thumbs up

within our custom means yes, or positive. In some other customs, it is quite rude. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. It's like a gesture kind of. Oh, right. Yeah. And same in some countries, it's incredibly rude to show someone the bottom of your feet. Whereas here, because we don't have that previous kind of agreement that it is rude, we just think it a bit old. Yeah. I very rarely flash my souls, but you know. Yeah, exactly. Natural messages are messages with a power to signify the same thing no matter the time or place. So my example would be punching someone in the face. I'm going to say without much context is going to show your displeasure with that person. Yeah. Your wish for them to be hurt at least. Thank you for that advice. Listeners,

please tell me if there is some culture where a punch to the face is warmly received, but I couldn't find one in my very cursory Google. So yeah, what we are looking for here is a way then to bring across some natural messages, which can then lead into the conventional messages. So we can build this agreement and understanding and put the rest of the message across accurately. So actual truths would be entrusted to experts like this different tier of society comprising atomic priests. So physicists, people with knowledge, radiation sickness, semi-eticians and linguists, anthropologists, psychologists all this lot, and making this weird fucking tier society. And there will be, yeah. What's your reaction

to that? That's a good point. Yeah. What do you reckon? Just looking at it completely logically, that makes a fucking ton of sense. But then you actually think about it as a human being interacting with other human beings. And it's like, oh, God, wait, is that what's happening in the Catholic Church is actually a front for something very complex and scientific to stop us all from getting eaten by? Oh, no, I didn't even think about that. Yeah. What if that's what churches are? Oh, fuck, I've lost the existential crisis chalkboard. Anyway, my point being, that in a couple hundred years, if we start off this nursery rhyme about stay the fuck away from radiation, there'll be two idiots on a podcast going, yeah, now see, I heard the origin of this

was about how those like those cool glowing green sites are actually bad for our health. And the other one will be, yeah, I think those people are just trying to keep themselves in a job. Let's have some more green glowy Pepsi, which could be a problem. Today, we are going from court gestures to clowns. In ancient Greece, you get the beginnings of Mime. And the name actually comes from a single mass dancer who would perform often called pantomimus. And that's where we get pantomime. Vesenari doesn't like this. Vesenari does not like this. I haven't gone too far into mine, but the performances weren't always silent. Bathalos of Alexandria is the person credited

with creating very specifically comic Mime performances. Although again, it wasn't always silent. The whole idea of Mime being silent is early Middle Ages with mumma's plays and mummarine. But this sort of went over to ancient Rome. It became an aspect of Roman theatre, and it was the most prominent kind of drama under the empire. It wasn't necessarily comedy, but comic theatre was also a huge thing. And in Roman comic theatre, you'd have these stock characters, one of which was the full, the rustic full specifically. And this is where we start to get the really early origins of gestures. In the early 12th century, we have a Roland Le Fatur, Roland the Fata. That's why we have the French. Yes. He was a famous

flatulentist, who Henry II gave 30 acres of land, provided that he would return to court every Christmas to leap, whistle and fart. And then as we get to the 13th century, Falls and Jester's starts again, this sort of star status. Tom LaFolle was a famous recorded one who performed at the wedding feast of Edward, the first daughter. And he was paid 50 shillings, which for context, a goose at the time was worth one and a half pence. So he was paid the equivalent of 400 geese. Was that a common metric used for salary? No, I just I couldn't find an inflation rate that told me what a medieval shilling is worth now. So I just went with the goose calculation. It's a lovely picture of a goose. I also just wanted to get some medieval bestiary

in here somewhere because I thought we were going to go down. It's a lovely day in the 13th century court and you are a horrible goose. So you have this guy Philip Astley's in 1768. He's an ex-cavalry officer who's really good at doing cool riding tricks. Okay. And these performances of men who could do cool stuff on horseback were quite popular. But he was really good at doing it in a circle and he was loaded. So he built this modern amphitheater to show off horse riding tricks. Cool. Cool. And then and then he started needing things to fill in between acts. So he starts bringing in clowns. He starts bringing in comic performers. He starts and not clowns in this traditional face paint because we don't have this yet, but these comic performers who would do

slapstick stuff. He starts bringing in acrobats and this is when we get the foundation of the traditional circus. Okay. He wasn't the first person to put this sort of thing on, but he was the first to kind of bring it all into this one cohesive show and landed on this format of performing in the round. And that's where we start getting these huge purpose built circular theaters. You will hopefully remember this name from my previous small presentation on clown eggs. I promise that's going to be the only mention of them. So we get this huge z-change with Joseph Grimoldi in 1800. Basically, he played the clown in Charles Dibdon's pantomime, Peter Wilkins, or Harlequin in the Flying World. So in this production, Dibdon introduced a new

costume design. Whereas before the clown was this very scruffy servant in this, he is wearing this huge garish colorful outfit and this became so trendy it started being used in these Harlequin egg performances across loads of different theaters. So later that same year at the Thys Royal in Drury Lane, one of the most famous places for theater in London. It's where the muffin man lives. It is where the muffin man lives. Well done. Grimoldi played the clown again in Harlequin Amlet or The Magic of Mona. And in this, the whole concept of these stock characters was slightly rewritten. So the Harlequin character was made less of a trickster and more of this very dreamy romantic. He exists in this play to pine over Columbine. And the Grimoldi's clown character,

because Grimoldi was such an amazing comic actor, became the agent of chaos and started this huge trend where in the Harlequin age, the clown became the anarchic fun character so that the Harlequin could moon over Columbine. And Grimoldi was really the one who combined all of this into the clown archetype and this is where it all comes together into this circus clown that we know today. This is sort of, this is where we get from the court jester to the circus clown. It really all came together with Joseph Grimoldi and so he, Joey is so used as slang for clown in his honor. The reason I mentioned Joseph Grimoldi back when we were talking about the eggs in the museum is because Joseph Grimoldi died in 1837. He was buried at St. James's Church in London and that's

why it became the traditional clown church and that's, it's no longer the traditional clown church. It burned down on something it's de-consecrated now so it moved to a bigger church which I can't remember the name of now but I did mention when I was talking about the eggs. Tell me the haunted clown church burnt down and is de-consecrated. Standing to the creepy, creepy column here. I'm trying to keep most of the creepy column out of it. No, I'm enjoying the mixture. So the big clown memorial service is still held every year in his honor but this all really brings us to the modern circus clown.

What are we talking about today, Francine? Bees! Bees! Bees! We get to yell bees in a positive way. Telling the bees is probably the most written about rituals surrounding bees and something that practice it brings up at some point. I'm not sure if he has already. From folklore of discworld, in fact, beekeepers are careful to tell their bees everything important that concerns the family and household. Births, marriages, death, the new set of curtains and such like. But that's not superstition, just the practical observation that if you don't tell them they will fly indoors to find out for themselves. Others say that the bees will simply fly away if they're not told important news. In some places the stories had to rhyme. Bees are dramatic, it seems.

I relate. Take the beekeeper or person doing it, knocks on each hive, telling each hive the news and then covers it with black cloth for the morning period. If the beekeeper is the one who's died, another member of the household should tell the bees. So this is from John Greenleaf Whittiers, who was a Quaker in America, 1858 poem, which I won't read in full because it makes me cry. I should have sent it to me, I would have done it. No, you'd have cried too. We'd have cried, it's very sad, I'll link it to you and you'll cry. Before them under the garden wall, forward and back, went drearily singing, the choregirls more, draping each hive with a shred of black. A beekeeper who'd passed away, his

beautiful children doing this in 1960s, Shropshire led to one of my favorite bee stories, it's from the Shrewsbury Chronicle. So it recorded a pretty extraordinary tale, I would say, in March 1961. E. F. Coote Lake related the story in folk life and tradition, so to say, the periodical, which is still going, I keep managing it, meaning to get a subscription to that. He stressed that these notes are compiled from current newspaper cuttings, the compiler cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained in the reports or for the opinions expressed therein. However, bees swarm in February on their master's grave. From the Shrewsbury Chronicle of March 3rd 1961 comes a strange story of the bee's behavior

after the master's death. Sam Rogers, who died suddenly six weeks after his retirement as middle's postman, a job he held for 41 years, was devoted to his bees. At his death, his children carried out the old traditional custom of walking around the 14 hives, telling the bees to stop them, as legend has it, flying away. On the day after his funeral, a memorial service was being held in the church when it was noticed that swarm after swarm of bees were coming from the direction of Sam Rogers home in Lower Road, middle, a mile and a half away as the crow flies. They settled in a great swarm all over the flowers on the grave to the astonishment of the congregation when they came out from the service. They thought it fantastic. The rector, the Rev J. C. Ealing,

told the Chronicle, it was a remarkable sight. The bees were clustered all over the grave. The only logical reason, I suppose, is that the flowers on the grave attracted them. But experts are puzzled by this behavior because at this time of year bees are still sluggish and rarely fly from the hives. The chairman of the Shropshire Bee Keepers Association, Mr. H. D. Polcock, said it was unusual for bees to fly such a distance at this time of year. He had never heard of anything like it before. It was very odd. Perhaps it was a result of the children telling the bees. By night, all the bees had all flown back to their hives in the cottage garden where Sam Rogers had looked after them for so many years. Mrs. Lillian Hayward of Church Stretton, Shropshire,

who contributed this information, had three letters from correspondents bearing out the newspaper items for us to see. So I like that a lot because it is a little folklorish tale that happened recently enough for us to look at, like, confirming documents. Yeah, that's a really cool story. Yeah, his children must have dined out on that forever. And hopefully his grandchildren as well. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the true Shemmicky Fract down the rabbit hole. We will be back with you properly in September to start from that masquerade. And in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you.

I enjoyed that. That was fun. Good. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Bye. Love you. Bye.