The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Bonus Glorious 25th Special - A Wild Tangent Appeared

Episode Date: May 25, 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, on the Glorious 25th, we answer listener questions and discuss two essays from “A Slip Of The Keyboard”. Joanna feels personally attacked by “Thought Progress” and Francine talks worldbuilding with “Notes From A Successful Fantasy Author”.  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:If you like Terry Pratchett, try… (author recommendations) - TTSMYFEpisode guide & schedule - TTSMYFMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

I am almost functioning. I am not functioning. Hello and welcome to The Two Shall Make You Fret, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one at a time, in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is a special bonus episode for the 25th of May. Which is the date when this episode will be released, but not the date today, because we are organised.

And recording ahead of time, we're coming to you from the past. From deep in the past, before the bees. I'm not saying I'll jinx it beyond repair. Yeah, let's not do that. Recording this a week before it comes out, so I'm going to avoid mentioning current events, because the entire world could catch fire between them and now. Also, I have checked the BBC several days. I literally don't know what the current events are. Oh, I don't want to know.

No. Never tell me. Never explain physics. Physics, news, cricket. What was the other thing? Physics again. Yes to marine biology. Yes to cake. No to eugenics. No to eugenics or physics. Got it.

So the reason I bring you a bonus episode today is because the 25th of May is a bit of an important date in the Discworld fandom due to a certain book called Night Watch that we have not covered yet. So with that comes the warning that we are a spoiler light podcast. No heavy spoilers today. We're not going to tell you why the 25th of May is important in Night Watch, just that it is, so you get bonus content. Spoilers in that, we're going to cover a couple of the essays in Slip of the Keyboard, but they're not really spoilers so much as.

That's what this episode is about. Yeah. Yeah. It's ruining the plot of the rest of the book. It being a collection of, as we say, essays. Yes. And obviously we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld and of all the Shepherd's crown until we get there.

So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Through a barely structured show plan. I wrote one. I know, actually. You know, that was very unfair of me. I just couldn't, I always try and think of these like little reposts to the journey on the spot. And I just realized we didn't have a journey for me to riff off on. Sorry.

That's fine. Through too many double espressos and into a podcast. Yes, we've both had quite a lot of coffee today. So, yeah, as we said, we've each picked an essay from a slip of the keyboard to discuss. We've both picked them from sort of on writing thoughts and scribbles section. Yes. So we can save on the sections for future episodes when we desperately need content. Yes.

We've also got. That's one thing you can say about Terry Pratchett. He did not create enough content. Only 40 odd novels a day. Two a year. God. That laziness, shocking, appalling. So, yes, we've each reached an essay to discuss.

We've got some fun listener questions to answer. General reflection on the journey. Oh, see, I could have said something about that, couldn't I? Yeah. The journey has passed over a year of podcasting. It's a year and a half. No. Yeah.

No, that's. I didn't say it. Carol. I mean, you went at this episode. You could take that out, but I'm going to insist you can come now. Yeah, I'm going to say this is a minimal episode. A minimal editing episode. Well, yeah, you'll know it is a bonus.

Yes. As it's bonus, we're just going to talk nonsense until I remember to do an outro. I wonder off at some point and Joe realises I'm gone. All my laptop battery runs out. One of the two. So. Shall we start with the essay I've chosen? Yes, which is out the start.

This is a very good place to begin. Let's start at the very beginning. I'm not going to sing it. It's a kind of music podcast. Oh, that's a shame. No, that's never. No. God, I hate the sound of music.

Oh, that makes me sad. I was forced to watch it on a lot of dull afternoons as a child. Oh, right. So it was a Christmas one for me. So Mary Poppins and Sound of Music. Julie Adams is a very festive presence in my. Mary Poppins is a Christmas one for me, which is why I still love Mary Poppins.

None of this is relevant. Right. Thought progress. Thought progress is the first essay in a slip of the keyboard. And I want to talk about it because it reminds me of fraud scene and I in that while tangents happen. A wild tangent appeared. Oh, you made the reference.

I wasn't going to. Sorry. So to summarize, a thought pro thought progress is a day in the life of Terry Pratchett. And it's very clear from the essay that he was working on small gods at the time. He starts with really hoping that a lot of letters come in that he can reply to. He wants busy work and wants to procrastinate, which I'm not going to say anything about either of us learning archaic shorthand while trying to transcribe podcast episodes.

Right. Bit harsh to bring up one of my tangents, Mrs. Sewing Room. I've made eight or nine dresses. Okay. Yeah. No, fair enough. Also, I did accidentally start learning physical shorthand instead of whatever I was meant to do.

I only started the podcast transcriptions. I was meant to be doing something else entirely, which I've forgotten about. I handpinned 20 meters of tool. God, you did. It's a lovely dress, though. And I still need to wear that out of the house. Yeah. I'm waiting for a nice sunny day.

Yeah. You really can't go out in this kind of weather. Yep. You look like a wilted flower. I think that's quite a good look for me. So he's trying to research the next disc world plot. Yeah. And this is all pre-internet.

It's worth noting, isn't it, before we get into it? This is 1989. It was published, so. Yes. So I think there's some internet, but not a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Got a vague idea that a talking tortoise is a central part of the action.

Don't know why. Tortoise is just surfaced from racial unconsciousness. Nice to note that, at the time, he did keep tortoises. And that may be where some of the information came from. Yes. And as he finds a book on tortoises in his spare room, gets distracted thinking about the fact that he really needs to finish building some bookshelves. Footnote in the tortoise book reminds him about the tortoise being dropped on the head of a famous Greek philosopher.

What's the bugger's name? What's the bugger's name? Finding out it was Askelos occupies 20 minutes. Playwright, not philosopher. Oh, there's a grey area back then, won't it? Yeah. Gets distracted, looks up Zeno because that's who he thought it was. And he's the one that said that logically you couldn't catch tortoise.

We won't go back into axioms. I'm not going to try. There's an excellent bit of trying to figure out how to pronounce Askelos. How do you pronounce Askelos anyway? Pronunciation, dictionary and box in loft. Step ladder and garage. Car needs to wash. Lunch.

Solid morning's work, really. Back in front of the screen. Stare at the screen. Oh, fuck, it's so familiar. Do you know what's so frustrating? It's so familiar. And yet he wrote Desk Wilde. Yeah, there's a brilliant press on with some serious disc backing up.

With the word processor, there's endless opportunities for fiddling, creative writing of macros, meticulous recessing of real-time clock and so forth. Oh, good honest work. Fucking meticulous macros, literally me. I chose this essay because I felt so personally attached. Oh, my God, it's 30-odd years later and I'm using the same procrastination techniques as my favourite author.

And again, really worth noting, not writing Discworld at the same time. Yes, neither of us are writing an entire fucking fantastic series of fantasy novels. Start wondering whether or not it was the eagle dropping the tortoise's fault. Yes. Which involves Hatch 22, which really makes me giggle. Stare at the screen. Wonder if Eagle has anything else a desperate tortoise could hang on to. Look up Biology of Birds and Explete in Encyclopedia in Box on Stairs.

Gosh, supper. And then eventually at the end of the essay, midnight, stare at screen. Vaguely aware right-handers hit keys to open new files. Start breathing very slowly. Write 1,943 words. Bed. For a day there, I thought we weren't going to make it. But yeah, I just, I feel so personally attacked by that.

Yeah, and also it's just a fantastically written bit of procrastination, isn't it? It's such a good bit of writing that was probably written when procrastinating writing a novel. And I'm sure it's not just because it's the first one in this book, but it is by far the most, the one that springs to mind when I think of this book. I've read it so many times now that for various reasons, largely to do with this podcast, but largely just because, like, oh, I need inspiration. And I've got a few books I go to for that.

And this is one of them. Absolutely. But it just, it reminds me so much, especially the early days of the podcast, when I just started trying to freely, thoroughly plan episodes, rather than sort of winging it by going through my posters. And the amount of stupid tangents I went on that never made it into the podcast. It's a kind of mix of fun and mounting horror, isn't it? Because you're really enjoying going down this rabbit hole.

It's really interesting tangent, but you just see the day melting away. Like, God, if only I were a lady of leisure and could just spend all day in this pile of books achieving nothing. And you can feel the voice in the back of your head going, do God, would you stop it? Yeah, yeah. Stop it. Yeah.

Anyway, we've both got great attention spans. Yeah. Well, it's either non-existent or far too focused on whatever's directly in front of me, which sometimes, sometimes is writing. Not as often, unfortunately, as Pratchett's was. So I need to work on that a little. I will so often fail to start projects at all, because I know I need to do a bit of research

or learn how to do a particular thing. And I don't quite do that thing that that means I can start the projects. Like, I've had this idea for a board game floating around in my head for ages. And so I've been reading a tiny bit about game design and board game design. And because I don't know how to make a board game already, it's just. Just stop before you can do the bits you can do. And then even though. It's just a pile of unintelligible scrolls in a notebook.

And I very often, when I find myself bored and none of my current projects entertain me enough, I go back to my piles of notebooks with unintelligible scrolls. Or I go through the notes on my phone where I keep lots of weird ideas. And it's like, fine, OK, I will do this for an hour and see what I end up with. Which is a nice little kind of follow period, I feel as well. If you don't act on an idea straight away, it becomes very unappealing. But then if you forget about it for, I'm going to say six months, probably, is the follow period six months or longer.

And then you come back across. You're like, that was a really good idea. I have to say, actually, there was an idea I had a month or two ago that I shoved in my notes app and forgot about. And I came back to last week, I think. Came back to last week, I think. And now I've sketched out the outline of a half hour on Long About a Mermaid running a support group.

I can't wait to hear that one. Yeah, I'll get around to writing it. Are you going to perform it? Is it written for you or for her? Could be me. Could be someone else. I haven't really thought further than writing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was like going to write the thing first. Anyway, this takes us neatly on. Shall we answer some questions from listeners? Yeah, thank you, listeners, for sending us questions. First up, a couple of questions from Melissa, who actually relevant, as I was just talking about small gods, host the Bewilderbees Podge, which had a great episode on tortoises and the head of uskullus, the playwright.

It's definitely worth a listen if you are a fan of random tendons, because she actually goes into detail about all these cool animal related things. Yes, it's good fun. First question from Melissa, of all the books you've covered so far, which one benefited the most from deep exploration on the pod? Do you want to go first? Yeah, I mean, I've got a couple. Guards, guards, because of when we were covering it,

I think benefited from the exploration, because it was sort of as Black Lives Matter was, once again, massively in the conversation. And it enabled me to have a much broader perspective on policing and going about policing as we were covering it than I may have done even a few months before. Yeah. And really, you loved covering which is a broad A,

because it was just so nice to sit and enjoy how fun that book is. But also because I'd been feeling very disconnected from what I enjoyed about writing and kind of deep diving into why stories are so important. It was really great for me. Oh, that's cool. Similarly, my answer was small gods, because although it didn't send me down as many references,

rabbit holes that some of them have, spotting the kind of parallels and themes and the structure that makes that book such a good standalone book was useful for me as a writing slash editing exercise, as well as a reading slash recapping exercise. The big intense central thesis of Orbis that led to my favorite clip of you, I think we've taken from any episode, Wake Up Gepel. I get a little flayly when I'm intense, admittedly,

but that means I care. It was excellent flailing. Honorable mention as well to Reefman for being able to have a really interesting conversation about grief. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely one of our more intense and good sections, I would say. Yep, which I think we managed to get line-hearted by the end of it. Oh, God, I don't remember.

Listeners, did we depress you? Hunters on tear-stained postcards. Next question from Melissa. Which book have you pivoted on, good or bad, as a result of the show? I would say the one I've changed my opinion on most is Moving Pictures. Yeah, because I wasn't looking forward to doing it, particularly because in my head, it is just a bunch of references I'm not going to get. But going through it, especially with you, I think, was well worth doing,

because you are so passionate about cinema and acting and scriptwriting and everything, and you can kind of make me excited along with you, as well as explain all the bits I don't get. Which is quite important. Yeah, having a reason to actually look for the... It's not like you have to look for the good in it, but you know what I mean? For the bits I'm interested in, in a subject I'm on the surface,

not very interested in, was definitely good. Yeah, that's good. I think it was Pyramids for me, just because it was one I'd never been particularly enthusiastic about before. I wouldn't necessarily skip it on a reread, but it would never be one I was fussed about. I always thought it was a bit disconnected. And going back into it this time, I really had fun like looking at all the references to H&E,

playing with the ideas of belief, going to a Feeb and meeting all the philosophers and the paradoxes and Xeno. I think because I had a reason to look into everything that was being referenced a bit more, kind of the opposite of me saying, you know, small gods, because it was interesting to talk about the themes. Because I was going through it as a recap and I was looking at everything, it made it a lot more fun. Yeah, especially as you were thinking about it in its place in the series.

And so I remember you saying a few times, and we get to come back here. Yeah. And we get to revisit this. And then when we did small gods and finding the parallels between small gods and pyramids, that was really fun. Last question from Melissa. What was the best inside joke or reference you missed in previous readings that you get now? I can't.

I couldn't think of one. Really? I know there's a lot. I couldn't think of one that stood out. Honestly, it's just the overall joy of finding like a million per book at going through L space and everything. So I couldn't pick one that stood out. How about you?

I think it may just be because it's the most recent one, but the broken drum, you can't beat it. And that finally being explained to me. Partly because I'm annoyed I never got that before. Yeah. See, I'm not going to pick any of the ones that made that slip past me for years and years in a, oh no, kind of way. But yeah, I don't know.

I got, honestly, I honestly, I can't think of one that stands out. I'm sorry. That's fine. I have a feeling that soul music is going to have a couple. I think soul music is going to be fun. I'm really looking forward to talking about it with you. Oh, wait. No, do you know what?

I can think of one and that I didn't realize January in which the broad was kind of also Disney fired as well as New Orleans. Oh yeah. That's a good point. That hadn't really caught me quite as much before we went into it. And yeah, it was definitely a new way of like imagining it as I was reading it. Yeah.

There we go. Next up, a question from the guys at Radio Maupork. Hi guys. Fellow Patrick podcast of all the rabbit holes you've dived into in the course of research for the podcast, which has been the most rewarding. So yeah, this was another difficult one. But I did write down a couple. I think for me, I remember being very happy with my little monologue on the Illuminati

and the really interesting research that got me to that. Ditto with the witches of Pendleton kind of stuff. Oh yeah. And yeah, the general persecution of witches over the centuries. I'm not sure how much detail I ever went into on the pod. Oh, I'm saying the pod non-arromantly. That's upsetting. But yeah, something I will admit to now is I remember very little of what I've said and edited

over the last year. So just bear that in mind. But I think like mainly the overarching thing, I've just really enjoyed going into this from an analytical perspective and being able to look up like the different tropes and the devices that Pratchett's using. And like look at TV tropes and look at all the horror tropes and like the film noir stuff. And yeah, that's been quite fun. That has been.

How about you? I think for me, like to go for a one really specific rabbit hole, again pyramids and going into the ancient Greek philosophy and the axioms, mostly because I had briefly studied it. But when I was a teenager and I don't think I really tried understanding it, I just learned how to regurgitate it for an essay. So actually going into it with the perspective of not just how can I make myself understand this, how can I make myself understand this enough that I can try and explain it. I did not do a very good job.

I thought you did a pretty good job. I understood it at the time, certainly. I'm not sure I could tell you now. Can't catch a tortoise because of relative distances. That's the one. Yep. Thank you, Zeno. No, the cave.

I don't know. I told you Plato's cave is like shadow puppets, but also reality. Yeah, exactly. That's a sentence that makes sense to me. Due to form of it, it's my favorite. But yeah, like you said, in a broader sense, it's been interesting actually looking at it from an analytical point of view. It's been interesting trying to not slam a screamingly feminist perspective on everything

because I know I can. I definitely do that sometimes and it's been nice to come on that for it. It's like, OK, so yes, there's a feminist technique, but there's also all of these other takes. Yeah, I think we were definitely skewing more towards that at the beginning. And there is always a feminist perspective to look at through these things, but it's not always going to add much to what we said last time. And yes, it's been more fun going, yes, we acknowledge this, but here's something that's. Yeah, here's something else that's interesting.

And it's been fun. You know, this is my favorite book series, obviously, but it's been fun allowing ourselves to be a bit critical about it as well. Yes, we did eventually stop apologizing every time we said something. Speak for yourself. I'm so very sorry. Apologies strongly implied. To go with ready a more post question from Courtney S on Twitter.

What's the least rewarding rabbit hole you've been down? And so yeah, connected to what you were saying about the knowing something well enough to explain it. For me, it was several scientific things, to be honest, but the one that I remember most is, again, which is the broad, the kind of mirror physics and the interferobotry. When I was trying to work out like how an octagon of mirrors would work and how something could be magnified through a mirror and everything. And it's one of those things that's like, I could sense the edge of something very interesting,

but the kind of enormity of the knowledge I don't have was just far too big. And it was very frustrating because I just could not summarize what I was reading in any kind of sensible way because I just didn't understand it well enough. Yeah, that's makes sense. And I hate being bad at things. Same, same, this is why I give up on everything I'm not immediately good at. This is a hard one because quite often if I start finding a rabbit hole not rewarding, or I don't think it's going to make good content for the podcast, then I'll stop.

I'll stop researching. And I've got a very short memory and a short attention span. So I don't remember a lot of the rabbit holes that I didn't. You miss 90 per cent of the rabbit holes. You don't research. Oh, yeah. Check for this moon if you miss, you'll end up in a rabbit hole. Instructions unclear.

Inspirational. Instructions unclear. I'm in Wonderland. Oh, tea. Very merry and birthday. To me. Do you have an answer? Then I'm really just going to...

Yeah, I know one of the... I can carry on down this for a while, but... Not in Alice in Wonderland. This is not a rewarding matter rabbit hole. I'll tell you that right away. God, sorry. One thing I started looking at and I had some notes on, but I couldn't get it to the point where it was keys.

What I was talking about was sort of that when we were doing small gods, I was thinking of the history of atheism and unbelief. And it was interesting, but it was so difficult picking through the opinions on the internet to get into the actual history of it that I just couldn't find a way to talk about it cohesively and make it actually work with instructions of what was happening in small gods. Yes.

Yeah. What kind of thing do you think you were hoping to find? I think I was trying to find when actual atheist writings kind of started appearing as opposed to believing in something different. And I just never quite managed to land on it. And I would get distracted by sort of the rabbit holes of Reddit, atheism and internet. Yeah.

And there's always going to be something a lot easier to follow when it's a yes belief, not a no belief. There's always going to be more accessible research. Yeah. And I eventually went on to a tangent of looking at the church of Satanism and things, which is basically an atheist organization. It actually does some quite good charity stuff. Yeah.

It's a really interesting organization actually, yeah. But it just didn't tie back into the episode and end up feeling quite unrewarding because I couldn't make it. It was interesting to me and I could not make it interesting for the podcast. Yeah. See, that's one of the ones you could do as a bonus one day. Yeah, possibly. And I might do that when we go down the rabbit hole.

What the fuck was that? Sorry. It wasn't even an interesting weird laugh. I'm sorry. It's fine. Your intentions. The next question is from the Pratchett podcast. Hi, guys.

Hi, guys. Fellow Discord podcast. Who are your favourite other authors you recommend to Pratchett fans? I've got a few here. Do you want to go fast? I've got a couple. I mean, there's the really obvious ones. There's Neil Gaiman and Douglas Adams and Ben Aranovic and his Rivers of London books

come up a lot around Discord fans. They're very good and there's lots of clever Discord references in them. And then beyond those, for sci-fi, Becky Chambers, who wrote a really lovely book called A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's very clever. It's very sweet. It's very funny. It's very character driven.

I really enjoy it. It sort of feels like if Firefly wasn't made by a dickhead like Joss Whedon. It's quite a good show. It's very Joss Whedon-y. Also, someone told me it ends on a cliffhanger and never picks back up. Well, then they did a movie to wrap it all up. Oh, OK, OK. Which I don't talk about because I don't like the ending.

For fantasy, it's not parody or comedy, but Robin Hobb, amazing fantasy author. And there are funny moments and they're really good. I love them. Trudy Canavan is another fantasy author I really like. It's not just about women, but it's all very female driven. And she has a way of creating really, really interesting magic systems and then working to those rules. Yes.

Yes, she manages to stick to intricate rules, which is without being boring reference bookie. She explores those rules and makes you see why they work and why they don't. And it's a good story thing. And for kind of overlap between real world and fantasy, which is a genre I like. Erica Johansson's Queen of the Tearing series, which is very fun and kind of goes into sci-fi dystopia a bit, as well as being a good fantasy series. And Kate Elliott's Spirit Walker series is another kind of alternative version of history

with a bit of fantasy to it that I really enjoy. Cool. I'm ready to read those. I think you've really enjoyed the Kate Elliott ones. I need to read them. Yeah. The Spirit Walker. What about you?

So I've written, I've managed to get a different list to you. This is awesome. Excellent. Yes, I tried to go for the ones that weren't, yes, the obvious ones. You reeled off very quickly at the start there. For sci-fi, I'm going to say Ray Bradbury. I know I've recommended this on the podcast before, but not enough people that I talk to have read Ray Bradbury.

And that upsets me. It's extremely imaginative, whimsical sci-fi in so much as I wouldn't, I would hesitate to call it pure sci-fi. But when you remember when it was written, which was the 50s and 60s, if very much is, he's probably best known for Fahrenheit. I've forgotten the number. Fahrenheit 051.

Thank you. I started saying it, it's like running into a wall. And the Martian Chronicles as well. Yes, the Martian Chronicles is the one I was going to say. Start with that. That's a lot of short stories that all tie together based on Mars, which was, as yet, pretty much an unknown, and I think people still somewhat believed in canals and such on there.

Anyway, it's just beautiful. It's beautifully written, and it's beautifully descriptive. And the hints of this kind of, oh, well done description that you get with Pratchett, I see in there a lot. Also, John Wyndham sci-fi, as we mentioned last week, trouble with Lake, and he's just classic sci-fi to me. He's an ideas man. He's an ideas man.

He executed them very well. And then, moving away from sci-fi, we've got P.G. Woodhouse. Absolutely best for a Pratchett fan, I would say. A lot of the beautiful turns of phrase there, just from being so well put, as well as the obvious jokes. It's just very, very funny, Jason Worcester, especially. Just very funny. It's an absolute safety read.

They're very comforting. Claire North is another one. I'd say Claire North is very good at, what if this? So, here's the real world, but what if? What happens when think happens? What happens when think happens? I would say start with the first 15 lives of Harry August. Oh, I need to read that one.

I've had that on my to-read list for a while. Nonfiction, I've put down Bill Bryson, just because he's very good at rabbit holes, tendons, nonfiction, and also very funny, very funny nonfiction writer. And finally, if you haven't read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, you really must, I know we slag off Tolkien a bit, but to understand the parts of fantasy that are being made fun of, Tolkien was the originator of a lot of the stuff that became Troop.

Yeah, and I do think it's... Well, I mean, obviously you can enjoy practice without it, I'm sure, but in order to really get some of the bits, especially the first few books, I'd say, Lord of the Rings is, you know, it is the fantasy book. It is the high fantasy book. It looks big and dense and heavy, but honestly, it is incredibly beautiful writing.

There's a reason that as much as we rag on Tolkien, I love that book. I've got, annoyingly, I don't have my copy to hand, because I started rereading when I was going to rewatch all the films, and now I just pick up and read a chapter every now and then. But the copy I've got is an old one that's belonged to a family member, I'm not sure who, and there's a really beautiful inscription in the front where he's copied out one of the passages about Lothalorian. And underneath he said, darling, one day we'll walk in our own Lothalorian.

I'm not sure, I don't know if it was, it was either my great aunt or my grandmother's, so it would have been either my great-uncle or my grandfather putting it in there. But either way, it's a very sweet inscription. It's lovely. It makes me happy every time. And it's lovely. And if the Lord of the Rings works a bit much for you,

then the Hobbit won't give you quite the background, but is one of my absolute favourite books, and very, very easy to get through. Yes, like 300 pages. It is a real page turner. And then our last few questions come from Courtney G, emailing all the way from across the pond. Thank you, Courtney.

That albatross had to fly very far. Courtney would like to know what watershed means. Oh, you looked this up, didn't you? Yeah, so a watershed is a broadcasting term, and it's a dividing time in a schedule between family-friendly programming and adult orientated. UK only thing, then? No, the idea of there is a set time,

and then program becomes more adult orientated is fairly worldwide, but I don't think it's referred to as a watershed everywhere. The actual phrase comes from a geological watershed divides two drainage basins. And so it's a divider. OK. So if we say not till after the watershed,

not till post-watershed, we're joking that something is a bit adult orientated, it isn't normally. So it's shed like shedding skin, rather than shed like garden structure. Yes, actually, why did that? That's an interesting word itself, isn't it, shed? OK, not time for this right now,

if I'm writing that down. Sorry. Look up the etymology of shed. Next question from Courtney. Can you do a tutorial video on how to make tea properly? And she's going to try making her in scones. Yes, at some point. That was a closed question.

No, at some point. The basics thing you need to know is why we're horrified by Americans microwaving tea bags is because in England, it is normal to have an electric kettle that boils water, which is less of a common thing in the US. The correct way to make a basic cup of tea with a tea bag is to boil some water, pour it on the tea bag,

let it steep for a couple of minutes, take it out and then add milk and sugar as you like. Boil the kettle and then leave it for about a minute before pouring is apparently ideal, however, who's got the time? I really want to explain to people that as much as... I love a nice cup of tea in a teapot, and we're not doing that all of the time.

No, I very rarely drink tea. I always these days drink coffee, but my other half likes what is known as a builder's tea in the UK, which is as, yeah, except no sugar anymore, but basically as orange as possible, which is attained by long steeping and squeezing of the tea bag. And specifically English breakfast tea, as opposed to say El Grey or Lapsang Sushong.

Although he does like a Russian caravan. Oh, Russian caravan is really nice. That's a nice smoky tea. I could talk about tea for a lot longer and about how to make scones a lot longer, because they're not quite American biscuits. They are similar, but they're not the same. I've never made scones,

so that'll be a very much you thing. Scones are crumbly, whereas American biscuits are more flaky and layered. Except if you say that on Reddit, everyone from different states will start arguing about what's meant to be like and what biscuits meant to be like. Yeah, no, I try not to comment on food subreddits ever, because everyone argues and I just don't fucking care. Food drama is amazing.

The amount of fucking caravan are arguments that exist on Reddit is too many. Too many. It's pastirates and bacon lads, shut up. Calm down. Oh, and last question from, well, last couple of questions from Courtney G. What's the deal with Milton Keynes? Milton Keynes is a constructed city

and is funny because it was designed to be some kind of utopian modernist ideal and is, in fact, very ugly and difficult to navigate. Yeah, so in the UK, most towns and cities are very fucking old. Yeah, very sweary when you're coming down off caffeine. Yeah, apparently, sorry. That's all right. I mean, I'm not judging. Listeners, please only listen to this episode after the watch. To use our hometown as an example,

it's existed since the ninth century, possibly earlier, or at least a version of it. We just had a thousandth anniversary of it being a proper township, didn't we? Yeah, it's obviously been under different names and boundaries of change, but effectively, there's been a town here for over a thousand years. That is the case for most towns and cities in the UK. Everything is just really fucking old. Milton Keynes is weird because it wasn't, it was built.

There are a few of those. Well, in Golden City is another one, isn't it? Yeah. I felt like Leamington Spa. I could be imagining that. And it's just, it's a bit of a joke. It's not that bad, but it's just, it's so average. As British people, we enjoy failures. Yeah. It was meant to be a gleaming utopia.

There's a lot of concrete. There was a lot of underground walkways, was part of it, wasn't it? Yeah. Which I'm not sure if he's like now been improved or gotten rid of, but obviously. But it's not even... Lots of issues there, isn't it? Yeah. It's not even lots of concrete, like a cool, brutalist way.

Like, brutalist architecture is great. You can look at that in the north of England. But Milton Keynes is just... It's very average and dull. And as Brits, we like mocking that. Yeah. It was, was it built post-war, I'm guessing, as a all-I-have-thing-got-n-october situation? I'd have to look it up to, and I probably could have googled this before the episode,

but I was lazy. I'm pretty sure I already googled Watershed. What more do you want from me? I'm going to say it was like 50s or 60s. But the last question from Courtney G. Ah, thank you. To relieve housing congestion in London. All right, so you might guess would have been 50s

to replace some of the houses that got knocked over. Last question from Courtney. Where should people go when they visit the UK? And obviously, this is coming specifically from a Pratchett fan who was thought about coming to Europe to go to, specifically, Wynn Canton, to visit the Discworld Emporium, which we've never done, and we really ought to go on a trip together at some point.

Yeah, we're going to. We are going to. We might bring mics and see if we can do something. I don't know. I'm not going to plan. I'm basically threatening. Watch out, Wynn Canton. Yeah, coming with my friends.

However, I wouldn't plan an entire trip, especially if, say, you're coming from the States, where I'm going to Wynn Canton, because beyond the Discworld Emporium and some street signs, I've never been. There could be loads to do, but I get the impression it's quite small. It's not this town.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you come all this way, you want to see some other stuff while you're here? Yeah, it's southwest of the UK. So from there, you can go a bit further southwest, go to Cornwall and Devon and get into arguments about Creme or Jam on scones. They're also very beautiful places.

You can go slightly, just slightly north from there. You've got Bath and Bristol and just over the river. You've got Cardiff and their own lovely Bath and Bristol, especially a great bath is a beautiful historical city. Bristol is somewhere that will always feel slightly surreal to me after a strange holiday front scene, and I took once.

Did it happen? Did it happen? It was a strange holiday. It was a lot of cheese. There were very large watermelons. There was a pub with a Skittles Alley. We were actually... It was an Iranian chap

who kept giving a strange off-brand crisps. Yes, and I tried a very weird rum and coke-flavoured energy drink that was for some reason branded after Mike Tyson. Hmm. We're not sure this... The actual reason we were in Bristol was to go to Bath for a Neil Gaiman book signing.

Ocean at the end of the loan, yeah. Yeah. Which was very good, and Bath is very interesting. It's a beautiful city. I was there again a couple of years ago and actually did the whole wandering around the Roman Baths and stuff.

Oh, nice. Yeah. It's gorgeous. There's loads of history. And also, if you're in the UK and you're planning on traveling around a bit, obviously, you go to London. Yeah.

London's nice. It's all right. You want to see some of the bits that kind of inspired Pratchett as well. I know Shropshire. Yes. Shropshire, parts of Shropshire. You got the Downs.

You got East Anglia. He lived around here for quite a long time. Pratchett pilgrimage sites, I suppose, would include Woolpit because of the... That's where the... ...the printing and the model-making stuff. Yeah, that's where Clairecraft used to be based.

Not far from us. There's not much to see there now. Yeah. Sorry, Woolpit. I used to work there. How are any? I... Yeah, I never really end up in Woolpit.

Although my trains sometimes go through it. Also, not Pratchett-related, but just go for the sheer prettiness of it, go up to Yorkshire and go wander around the North York Moors. It's gorgeous. If you go over to the Northwest, actually, you can go to Pendle

and climb Pendle Hill, which I think I did. And think about the witches. Yep. I definitely climbed a hill in Pendle. Oh, sorry. I'm not... Well, no, we were there,

and we were trying to climb Pendle Hill, and we climbed a hill, but the signage wasn't clear, and I'm not sure if it was Pendle Hill or just a more limped... I was just saying, yes. Yeah, yeah, cool. Oh, and Whitby.

Whitby's friend. I'm afraid he didn't. You go to Whitby, and you can pretend you're in Dracula and wander around the cliffs. The weather will always be shite. I know, it's like if we're going all the way from South to North, obviously, Scotland.

Well, yes. Edinburgh, beautiful, and the island, the island's up there. Islands sky. A lot of very cool historical stuff. You've got the highlands in there, yeah. Do you know what? I'm just going to keep saying places,

because I'm so fucking sick of being in this one town. I know, I really want to travel a little bit. Oh, we're so... We're like championing at the bit right now because lockdown's nearly over. We can go to museums, Joe. Go to Cambridge and go to museums. We can wander around maybe a little market,

and I'll try on a hat. We can buy pastries. We can walk past a bookshop and go, oh, should we go into that bookshop? And yes, you will reply, and we will go into the bookshop and look at books in person. Oh, what a happy little day.

Final recommendation, if you're going to visit the UK. No, you're going mad. If you're going to visit the UK, no matter what time of year, in fact, it's better if it's not the summer and it's like October or something. Go to a seaside town.

UK seaside towns are always so fucking surreal, but especially out of season. It's dark, it's gray, there are these creepy, empty penny arcades you go in and you put pennies in and win nothing. Brighton is the seaside town, if you want like a high-class seaside town experience. However, I do a little bit of research

and find one of the dilapidated ones. It sounds a bit mean, so it's like, hey, go see all the weird, failed towns. It's fun, they're all really weird. I mean, go in the summer to an actual busy seaside town and that's quite fun in itself. Great Yarmouth is a really nice one. There's a big pleasure beach

with a little roller coaster and rides and stuff. We did my hem party. Yes, that was really good fun. But the really sort of quiet dilapidated seaside towns and the less busy ones. Wolberswick and Thorpness, which are sort of both. Thorpness is weird. That's definitely not dilapidated, but it's...

They're the weird like upper middle class seaside towns which have a surreal level of their own. Oh, the house and the clouds and Thorpness, you can run that out and that's that. Okay, I'm just going through my personal holidays now, so maybe we'll... And of course, I can't believe Francine's not pointing this out, but if you're in the UK,

you could always pop over to Jersey, which is a beautiful island. Well, it's not in the UK, that's why I didn't say it. I know, but it's not far away. You can ensure, Jersey, the largest of the general islands, just off the coast of France, pretty much. I assume that France won't have cut off its power by the time you get here.

Oh, yeah, there might be a war, we don't know. Are we at war with France right now? I don't believe so, but as I say, I haven't checked the BBC. I feel like someone would have told me. I spoke to Mum this morning, she'd have said. I was wearing a berry earlier and no one threw at me. I was wearing a berry earlier and no one threw anything at me, so I'm sure we're not actually at war with France.

Oh, now I want a baguette and a necklace made of onions. This might be our least relatable part of the podcast, so we should stop drawing out so much, but please enjoy your very extended holiday now, Courtney. Vacation, I'm sorry. I do feel, do you know what, people say like, oh, Americans call it vacations, because some people like to be really snobby

about American English, which, by the way, is a thumbs down in the Truth Shall Make You Freight Handbook. American English is just as valid as English English. Dialects. If you want me to go into linguistics around, I will, but not today, because we've got other things to talk about. But anyway, point being, I think having a distinction between holiday and vacation is actually quite useful.

Yes. And I like the phrase high days and holidays, and it makes more sense if you're not talking about a vacation. Yep. Anyway, Joe, what do you actually want to rant about? Like I don't know, like we haven't been swapping screenshots for the last couple of days. There's been a big implosion

among the Terry Bradshaw Facebook communities, and this is not the first time this has happened. An implosion slash explosion, which is the best type of plosion. Yes. A dual plosion. There's been all sorts of plosions happening. Plothora of plosions.

To sum it up, in short, there was one very big disc world group that spun off from another very big disc world group that imploded. 2016. In 2016, and this group has had plenty of drama throughout the years, I definitely got kicked out of it at one point for calling out someone for posting a sexist joke. Another one of our friends got kicked out

for calling out someone for being Islamophobic. Yes. I didn't get kicked out because I'm a people pleaser as long as it means I get to stay and watch drama. Yes. There's lots of different spin-off groups. I'm sorry, a lot of our listeners are in a lot of these groups if they're the sort of listeners who are in Facebook groups. Yes.

And there are lots of decent people in these groups. Oh, yes. I used to have a lot of time for interacting in these groups. Before either they got worse or I got less patient. I'm not sure which it is. But I think A, I lost a bit of patience. I'm not on Facebook all that often. The only Terry Bradshaw Facebook group I really interact with

is the main Terry Pratchett one run by Rachel and Jason who run Discworld Monthly. Incredibly well-moderated. It is incredibly well-moderated and it is about Terry Pratchett and very strictly no round-world politics and things. Yes, which is always a bit of a war because some people say, oh, keep politics out. Discworld, which is actually a bollocks thing to say.

Definitely understandable if you're trying to mod a group. I understand having that rule within a Facebook group. However, I have also seen someone on Facebook argue that Terry Pratchett's books were not political and I'm not sure they read the books. Famously, A Political Standbimes and... Granny Weatherwax was very chill. Anyway, I would say Rince Wind is the closest you can get

to an A Political protagonist, isn't he? Yeah, quite possibly. And that he's very A Political in that he wants as far away from it as possible. Yes. It's not quite anarchy, but... I just want it to be over there. I want to be over there and I would quite like a potato.

If you've got one. Thanks. If you've got one for a potato. See, it's a potato. Sorry, I've been watching Blackadder. Anyway, one of the screenshots we were sharing a few times was during these arguments. A certain phrase.

A certain phrase. Be more Terry. Be more Terry. That tone of voice probably wasn't how they intended it, but it's how I'm always going to read it. Why don't you just be more Terry? If you don't like it, scroll on. Be more Terry.

What is that voice? I've never used that voice ever. It's frustrating to see when these big blow-ups happen, especially on things like Facebook groups, because it seems to always be used as a shorthand for, don't argue with me. That's not very nice. Be more Terry.

Be nice. And I don't like it. I really don't like it. I feel a little bit weird saying be more Terry at all, because I think it puts someone who was very, very human, an excellent human who wrote fantastic books. I feel like it puts him on a pedestal.

Yeah, which we would never do, of course. We try hard not to do, as we said earlier. Yeah, it's hard, because as I think, as I think we've talked about one bonus episode, actually, the more I learn about Pratchett, honestly, the more admiration I have for him. But possibly on a more human level, because he's kind of on a technical...

Yeah. Oh, my God, he was good at this level, rather than a... The man was a God who I never disagree with. Yeah, it's perfectly fine to criticise and disagree. And, but specifically saying be more Terry, to me, be nice and don't argue with me, please. Yeah.

It's very anti-what I've picked up from the books, certainly. Yeah. And sort of, we're talking about a slip of the keyboard, and Neil Gaiman has that really excellent essay in it, about how Terry Pratchett was not a jolly old elf. He was a very angry man. We heard Neil read that at the memorial thing, and, oh, just need to know Gaiman...

Can I drop the fact we went there again? We knocked out, it's not like... Yeah, we happened to get lucky on the lottery. Hearing Neil Gaiman read anything aloud is fantastic. Hearing him read that aloud was... Oh, it is. He's very good, isn't he? God, he's got a fantastic voice. Anyway, wildly on topic.

Wow, not wildly, not for us. No, for us, that's still quite on topic. The quote from that essay that I... That anger is about Terry's underlying sense of what is fair and what is not. And I think that's what's quite easy to misinterpret, isn't it? If you believe so fervently that this is fair, and you believe that this man is always right, then he must agree with you, because you're right.

Yeah. It's a bit verbacy again, isn't it? We keep coming back to this circular logic. And people sort of... Am I finding parallels in the real world to the books now? I've got to remember that I do not live in fiction. Oh, it's really clever what they did there, didn't you? For this?

Oh, he's not under the dining table again. Sorry. Oh, is that high priest for this under the dining table? Or are you just pleased to see me? I'm sorry, I don't know where I was going with that. Yeah, it's weird because people seem to put him on a pedestal and then project their own beliefs and opinions, rather than possibly being willing to have beliefs and opinions challenged,

which I very much agree with having beliefs and opinions challenged, because that's how people learn and grow and develop a lot more empathy. Yes, yeah. However, Facebook groups just are so rarely the place to have those beliefs challenged, to have those arguments or discussions, because I don't know what it is about them, but God, they're much worse than any old school forums. Maybe it's just the critical mass of people,

having that many people as a member of the old school forums, just I don't think would have happened, would it? No, I mean, how many people were there in that group? A lot, right? 40,000 at the point of implosion, I believe. I don't know how many members you could have in the old Google groups, but not the old Google groups. I mean, band.net, whatever.

Now it's not a Google archive. Aime, I was on a lot of the AOL forums at the time, and they were possible by comparison. And they're all digital cities. And you know, I've got respect for people who attempt to modern admin these huge Facebook groups, because it's incredibly credible. It's a huge amount of work.

There's a reason we don't have a Facebook group for the podcast. As a generalization, I don't have a respect for some of them, particularly. Yeah, they're up. It was one of those, it is without pointing fingers and naming names, but it was one of those specific admins who refused to be criticized, and that's what has eventually led to this group being closed out. For like the third or fourth time. So let's see whether that's permanent or not.

But the point being, I think, I liked, do you know what, having just said, imagining what Terry Brackett would say about this stuff is kind of stupid, I'm going to say I'm fairly confident in saying he had a thought the whole thing was very stupid. Yes. That's been projecting my own thoughts very much under that. So the lesson to really take away from the truth,

shall make you fret is, guys, be more Terry, be very curious. And by that we mean be very curious about everything, procrastinate a lot and point at things and go, isn't that a bit fucking silly? That could help. Yeah. And maybe just sort of calm the fuck down a little bit. Thanks. And I'm saying that to myself as well.

I really need to calm down. I've had six shots of espresso today. And on that note, Francine, did you read an essay from a slip of the keyboard? I did. Yeah, I did. I did do that. Would you like to talk? Would you like to talk about it?

Yeah, briefly. So I picked, I don't know what edition people have, but in the hardback, it's page 83. And I suppose it doesn't matter because once we've got actual chapters and it is keeping, oh, sorry, notes from a successful fan seal. So keep it real from the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2007. Partially picked because the Writers and Artists Yearbook is one of my favorite things to spend too much money on.

Whenever, whichever year I decide I'm rich, which is never accurate. What have I got there? 2019 was the live with it. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Writers and Artists Yearbook, by the way, my recommendation of the week, amongst all my other many recommendations of this week, because it is fantastic to buy in Waterstones

and sit in a Waterstones coffee shop going through and deciding what you're going to submit articles to. And very few of them will you ever do, but nonetheless. But it's nice to look at. Yes, which is why I didn't bother buying the 2021. I suppose I was never in a coffee shop. Anyway, anyway, it was written as a kind of very broad advice

to potential fantasy writers. And the kind of bullet points are that fantasy has already got a pantry of ingredients to use. It's his chosen metaphor there. And which makes sense. What I was saying about Lord of the Rings earlier, like it's very easy to pick out of the kind of bits and pieces that make an obviously fantasy fantasy book.

But there are a lot of other ways to write fantasy. And what matters is how you bake the cake. Every decent author should have their own recipe and the best find new things to add to the mix. That's what he says. But the more interesting bit, I think, is the difference between EFP or extruded fantasy product, which is the kind of trash, obviously.

This is fantasy fantasy that Pratchett was very much mocking in the first couple of Discworld books, and which we've mocked a couple times. And he says, do not write it and try not to read it. Read widely outside the genre. Read about the Old West or George in London or how Nelson's Navy was victual or history of alchemy or clockmaking or the male coach system.

Read with the mindset of a carpenter looking at trees. And that is one of my favorite things. And I think it's very true. If you want to be a good writer, and I should say, actually, that I am an editor more than a writer. I do write, and that's part of my job, but I think I am a more talented editor than I am writer. I am competent, not good, I would say at writing.

But I love the idea of reading around a subject, and it's something I've always done, and something I've done especially for this podcast. And basically, the more you know, the more you can write. And that doesn't always mean directly one to one. That doesn't mean read all the fantasy you can to write fantasy. Because quite often, all you need to write a fantasy is to take the world and go, but what is this?

Yes. The essay ended with the line, it only takes a tweak to make the whole world new. That's such a good line. Which I rather liked. Oh, and also, he did mention, avoid these vows, waxing a Roth, et cetera. Try to be ruthless as you edit and cut down your adjectives.

And that's the editor side of me, very much agreeing there. Writing as you wrote as a teenager writing fan fiction will not fly as you get older and try and write for publication. You can say so, but don't use it as a replacement for actually knowing what you want to say, I would say. Yeah, that all sounded a little more angry than I meant it to. But it is definitely an essay. I'm guessing reading all of these aloud is not a good idea copyright-wise.

But I'm going to say, track it down, read it. And while you're at it, reading Ray Bradbury's again, Zen in the Art of Writing. And oh, what's this? Chop's and Murray's. Sorry, I've got a whole shell for these. Oh, Dre is English. And Mark Forsyth, the elements of eloquence are the other two I always recommend.

But I've got a whole list of them actually, which I might put in the show notes or a link to in the show notes. Yes, I'll also throw in it's not a book on writing, but Neil Gaiman's a view from the Cheap Seats, which is a bit like a slip of the keyboard. It's a collection of his nonfiction writing and essays. And there's some very good essays on writing in there. Yes, yeah.

I must say I'm much prefered a slip of the keyboard. Well, yes. Not just because I am a bigger fan of Sherry Bratton, just possibly just because I found more of the content interesting. But a view from the Cheap Seats, I think had a lot of, as I was talking about earlier, a lot of the media I'm not as interested in as a broad sense. And perhaps I should not read it again, that I've tried to take more of an interest.

It has a very lovely piece and actually called The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's why I bought the book in the first place. Yes. Also, not in that book, but a Neil Gaiman poem called Building a Chair, which is very much on the same vein as Thought Progress, the essay I read. It's about procrastinating. Oh, it's good, isn't it? See, I mean, it's obviously been done far better than I ever could,

but I quite fancy writing one of those as a little challenge to myself. I'm quite tempted now, but I'm probably going to put it off and do something else. God, I'm hilarious. So, it's the 25th of May, or it will be when this episode comes out. I saw the lilac blooming today as I walked into town. I've spotted lilac blooming. It's been lovely. So, we've come quite far in the last year. I thought we'd, God, that sounds all very serious.

Well, no, but we've, you know, we've recorded an episode for the 25th of May last year, and I thought it'd be nice to kind of reflect on. So, at the time, we were on Weird Sisters, when we talked about the Weird Sisters animated series, but we were also halfway through a lockdown. Yes, first of three. I think at that point, we were still weirdly optimistic that when that lockdown ended, it would all be done with.

And now we're coming to the end of an almost six-month lockdown that's taken up most of 2021. It's been very tedious. It has been incredibly tedious. But the podcast has come really far, and I'm really proud of it. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to, I wish I'd listened. I forgot we did a 25th one last year, actually. In this way, I've not come very far until my memory is fully appalling.

I wish I'd listened back to it. It was the Weird Sisters animated, was it, that we put out on the 25th? I've got our schedule, which has all the past episodes we've done, as well, up in front of me. So, yes, 25th of May, we did Weird Sisters. The following months, we talked about pyramids. Ah, yes, yes, yes. God, has that been a year?

Jesus Christ. It's been a year. Well, I mean, the thing about how far my actual life has come, I was living somewhere else that time last year. Yeah, yeah. But the last episode I recorded in my old flat, before I moved, was our interview with Mark Burroughs, the magic of Terry Bratchett.

Oh, is that then? That was the very last episode I recorded. Now, see, we've done a, now we've got like nearly an extra year of experience. I'd like to try again with Mark Burroughs' interviews. Mark, come back on the pod, so we can sound intelligent. I had actually been to view this very flat, that same day, about half an hour before that interview.

Yeah, you were pretty knackered, weren't you? So, yeah, it's been fun. We've learned a lot. We've finally got the hang of video-ish, kind of. We've got a Patreon now, I'm proud of our Patreon. Yeah, I wish I had more sensible stuff to say about how far we've come, but I believe that we are much better at talking off the cuff, which is a terrible thing to say when I'm failing to do so.

I thought about taking some notes. All I wanted to do was just sort of say I'm proud of us, and thank you very much for the people who've been listening to us, the people who've come in late and listened to all the back episodes and caught up with us. Yeah, yeah, that's flattering. Oh, especially those of you that heard our early episodes within the pandemic,

but we were talking about how it would all be fine by the end of 2020. Well, but this podcast has genuinely been a really, really positive part of the pandemic. It has, yeah, it absolutely has. And I feel like it's kept me reading, although having a lot of time at home has obviously been a bit of an obvious feature of the last year. I've not been very motivated to do all the things I would do

if I was voluntarily at home for a long period of time. And the fact that I have had to do a bit of reading at least a month or disappoint you horribly has made sure that my brain has not entirely dissolved. So thank you listeners for helping us both keep a few brain cells on the go. Oh, thank you, Johanna, actually, as well. Thank you. You made me do this in the first place

and I absolutely would not have kept going if it weren't for you. And also same. I mean, you didn't make me do this, it was my idea, but I would not have been as motivated to keep going if it wasn't for disappointing you and our listeners. Cheers. Cheers. Here's to us.

And here's to more than another year because we've got quite a few more books to get through. Oh, God, haven't we? How many have we got left? Lots. Okay, cool. I don't know. Lots several.

At least several. Many, many lots. Some. I don't know, because there's lots of non-disabled books at once. Yeah, that's it, yeah. That's not fair to ask me to count in your head. Speaking of, do you have some kind of schedule in front of you to share? I can.

I can tell listeners what's going to happen for the rest of the year. We put off releasing a schedule because we were hoping we planned to talk about the TV series to watch at some point, but we don't know when that's coming out in the UK. We kind of lost the will, I feel. Yeah, we will hopefully cover us at some point, but we want to make sure everyone, including those in the UK,

can watch it legally. It's not really the legality we're worried about so much as the effort, but yeah. That's it. Okay, so what we are going to do for the rest of the year? I mean, no, the legality, sorry. What's wrong with me? We do not plan on breaking any laws for the rest of the year, just in case anyone who would punish us for that is listening,

so that this podcast cannot be used in evidence against the report. I have never done a thing wrong in my life, and I will sue you if you say I... Money, please. Sorry, I thought we were going into parks and rec there. Anyway, sorry, I will stop just talking nonsense over you. Schedule. No, you won't. So next month, June, we are going to talk about soul music.

I'm very excited. I've got to order my copy. My copy? My copy? I've got to order my copy. I need to order a new copy because the one I've got doesn't match the height of the rest of the books on my shelf, so it'll make the post-its look weird. Also, I want to make sure we've got the same page numbers.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to make life a lot easier. So yeah, so next month, we're going to cover soul music. It's my birthday month. I'm really excited. This is one of my favorite books. I'm finally going to make Francine watch the Blues Brothers. Which we can watch together indoors. I misunderstood the lockdown thing is we can mingle indoors together from tomorrow.

Excellent. From Monday, really, yeah. Yeah, we can... We'll look at that at some point then. At the end of June, we're also going to do an episode on the animated adaptation of soul music. This time, I like to take my weeks off away from me. Sorry. We always talk about adaptations when they're off.

I know, I know, I wouldn't miss it, don't worry. That's a heads up for listeners because it can be a little difficult to get hold of a coffee, so... Copy. Copy. Good luck with that. I'm a bad influence in silly ways. Don't accidentally buy a German one on eBay. It does not have an English language option.

Oh, no. It's fine, I have got an actual proper copy of it. Luckily, a friend gave me one. So that's June, July, which is Francine's birthday month. It is, isn't it? I'm turning 30. You're turning 30 because you're a year older than me. And I've still got another year of my time.

Oh, man. That was a hell of a last year of my 20s, wasn't it? Oh, so much shindles. Okay, fine, I'm where I wanted to be. Everything's fine. So in July, for Francine's birthday, we will be talking about interesting... A month's long existential... Oh, right, sure.

We're going to be talking about interesting times. I see that's a pretty good one, yeah. Yeah, that's... I was going to say, this is one of your favourites, so this is quite nice. And we have been living in interesting times for a while now, so... Haven't we. Haven't we. August is officially our summer holidays, and we are officially taking a month off.

Unofficially, bits and pieces might pop out. See what we've still got time for, yeah. Yeah, keep an eye on the feed. And patrons can still expect our usual monthly nonsense. Are you clicking a pen? Oh, no, sorry, I've got plastic in my hand. I'm a terrible person. September, we're going to be talking about masquerade.

Yes. So brush up on your Phantom of the Opera references. Oh, God. Oh, we're shaking a mask. Yeah, yeah. Which means I also get to make Francine watch Phantom of the Opera. Note for... Version.

Ah. About to say that to listeners. Don't watch the movie version. It's terrible. If you can get a hold of the 25th anniversary version recorded at the Royal Abbey Hall, it's available on DVD. It's really good. The movie's not...

Some people like the movie. They're wrong. Then in October, we're going to... Marjo, be more Terry. Sorry. Just agree that everything's good. I'm trying to grow a beard, okay? I'm trying.

I'm going to get a false beard, and every time you tell me to be more Terry, I'm just going to put it on. It's a great way to talk about your ex-husband, all right? Anyway, sorry. October, Feet of Clay. Feet of Clay will be revisiting the City Watch. Sorry, my old spoiler, I suppose. We're looking forward to it.

It's a good book. November, we will be concluding the Proto-Pratchett season by talking about... It's the season if it's the entire year. Yes. Okay. It's a season in several parts. Exactly.

We will be concluding the Proto-Pratchett season by talking about The Carpet People, which was Terry Pratchett's very first novel, and November happens to be the 50th anniversary of it coming out. And we will be looking at the re-release rather than the very original, because that is the one that he preferred, and also it's much easier to get hold of.

Yes, so we'll be discussing the 90s re-release. And then December, I made it work. It was a lot of effort, but I made the schedule work. We will be covering The Hogfather, the one Christmas-ish one. I managed to drag everything out so we could cover The Hogfather at Christmas. Literally, she did.

If any of you saw what she was joking about this, the entire schedule of this, at that point, three years... Yep. Well, not two and a bit, I guess, yeah. At that point, two and a bit years will have been around that one date. So it better be a good issue. Better be a good episode, no pressure.

It's going to be great. So we will be doing three episodes on The Hogfather and then a fourth episode on the Sky TV adaptation. Which I'm not looking forward to. Yeah, that will be up. I think it's much better. It is. It's very good. That will be our bonus...

Not the book, but the colour match. Then the colour of magic adaptation, yeah. That will be our bonus festive Hogswatch extravaganza. I can't tell you what's happening next year, because I haven't decided what book I need to try and make happen in what place yet. Also, it just seems a little bit like... overly hubris-y hubristic.

Honestly, it's overly hubristic to assume the world is still going to exist a year from now. Yeah, but it's handy to have a schedule just in case. Yes. So that's what we're doing up to December. Thankfully, by December, we will be able to tell you what we are doing next year. Maybe. Maybe.

I can't even tell you what I'm doing tomorrow, to be honest. Anyway, I'm actually going to get this schedule up on the website along with the page numbers of the various sections we've done in various episodes. So Joanna did put that together for me some time ago, and I haven't had the time slash inclination, but I will do it soon. So, yes, if you're hoping to catch up on some more episodes...

Hey, well, I'll give myself a deadline. That will be up on the website by the time this episode comes out. Well done, Francine. Only way I can get things done by telling people it will be done by next time. I think that's everything we have to say in this random, unscripted bit of bonus nonsense. Yeah, I think it probably wants to be.

We could probably keep talking for a while, but I think it would gradually get less relevant until we wandered off for eating. Ooh, dinner. Yes. All right, we should end the episode. I was about to say the D-Web, but the dog is behind me, and she knows that word. Don't mention the dinner.

Okay, in that case... Yes. Thank you so much for listening to this bonus episode of The Truth Shall Make You Fresh. Very good of you. Very kind of you. If you would like to send us any of your thoughts on this or any other episode,

or if you'd just like to get in touch with us, you can follow us on Instagram at The Truth Shall Make You Fresh, on Twitter at Make You Fresh Pod, on Facebook at The Truth Shall Make You Fresh. You can join our subreddit community, r slash tt smyf. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, albatrosses, and snacks, The Truth Shall Make You Fresh pod at gmail.com. And of course, if you would like to support the podcast financially,

you can go to patreon.com forward slash The Truth Shall Make You Fresh. And exchange your hard or not so hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. You're getting very good at that little spiel. That's because I've got it written down in front of me. Ah, handy. And in the meantime, dear listeners... Don't let us detain you.

Pinch your nose and swallow. Made it worse. No, sorry. Don't follow my advice, I'm not a doctor. Jesus.