The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Hogswatch 2020: A Hint of Extravaganza

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

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 bonus extra special super duper gee golly whiz extravaganza… all right, that might be over-egging it, but we chat about Rhianna Pratchett’s Crystal of Storms (spoiler-light discussion), and wander off on some festive tangents.ʜᴏ. ʜᴏ. ʜᴏ.Check out the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/VwptB8CXzc8Book talk starts at around 10:00 and ends at 35:15.Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi ---Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.comSounds: Bells - se2001, Freesound.org

I know it's a bit weird, it's a bit weird just me talking into this isn't it? I think I am, I am recording, but I don't like it if I just talk to the listeners without anyone in between, so I probably, probably shouldn't, oh fuck me I'm tired, ugh. Ooh. Glingle. Glingle, glingle. Ah! Hello. Hello Francine. Is that you again Hogfather?

It is! Good grief, I got even creepier than last year. I had so much fun visiting your lovely podcast last year, I've come back to answer some letters. Oh goodness me, did you manage to get the sack of mail that Joe sent by Albatross then? Some of it, the Albatross, they quite a lot if I'm perfectly honest. Yeah, we really didn't need to find a more reliable form of postage, but you know, pandemic. Albatross is like, oh I do. Anyway though.

Anyway, yeah. Isn't it a lovely, happy Hogswatch for all the lovely little boys and girls? Oh I do hope so, yeah. All the lovely little boys and girls I assume are having very festive times and not waiting on their co-host to top up their mulled wine again. Is Joanna later again shocking? No, she was here and then she muttered something about a vat of mulled wine and I'm just hoping she comes back semi-conscious. Shameful. Well, can't wait for her all day, I'm a very busy Hogfather.

Well of course, you've got all sorts to do. What can I do for you? Well, I'd like to answer a few letters from some lovely people. Alright. First of all, from Stacey. Stacey would like a trebuchet and a morning star. Oh very good. As you've been very good this year Stacey, you shall have a trebuchet and a morning star.

Please don't try and use both at once. For personal reasons, we won't be using the phrase good girl on this podcast. Cheers Hogfather. Oh Hogfather, you so woke. Marcella appears to have written a letter on behalf of someone called Hex. Hex would like a teddy bear, electricity and something called Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi.

Fo-Farm. I spy a... No, I've got nothing to do with that. I'm sorry, I don't think I like that. Improv, not my strong point. And last of all Francine, I hear you'd like another sword. Oh yes, please. I've had such fun with the other sword, but unfortunately I did get it stuck in an enemy, so...

It happens to all of us. Well Francine, you shall have another sword. Oh, thank you. I'll hang up my stocking in the usual place, and this time I will put some, like, better lining in there. So it doesn't drop into this wall because it's kind of dangerous. Yes, no, I'm sorry about your mental piece Francine. Now it's in mental pieces. I'll make finger guns from the Hogs watch.

With that, I'm afraid I shall have to go because I'm a very busy Hogfather. I understand, that's fair. It was lovely to see you all until... Now I lose all my friends. Told you, I'm very sorry I missed her. It's incredibly strange that we've never been seen in the same room together. Oh it is, I'm sure next year you'll manage. Next year we shall.

Goodbye! Be careful with that spreadsheet. Very careful with that spreadsheet. Bye. Sorry. Oh, Glingle Glingle. Such festive Hogs watch joy. I'll tell you what.

I'm getting a bit bloody light to be drinking so much. Sorry! Oh hello, what a lovely bow Joanna. Thank you, you gave it to me. Sorry, there was, like, a really weird noise outside. There were, like, pigs on the balcony or something. Are you sure that wasn't just your letterbox again? Well, no because it was a pig.

Oh I guess it doesn't usually snort, just the clattering isn't it? Yeah, so I don't know what that was but they've gone now. It's Suffolk, this kind of thing kind of happens. How can you do? We get the van driving past our house every now and then. Lingers, doesn't it? It does linger. Did I miss anything?

No, no. Now I've just been chuntering about your massive vat of mulled wine. It's not a vat. It's fine, I'll edit it all up. Excellent, thank you. Do you want to make a podcast then? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the True Shell Miki Fract,

a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every bit from Terry Fratchett's Discworld series, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is our very special Bumper Hogswatch festive bonus bonanza. Oh, I say. An extravaganza, would you say, Joanna?

I think there might be a hint of extravaganza about the proceedings. I'm only on my first glass of mulled wine, I just can't speak today. So we are not recapping any of the Discworld books today. We are going to talk a little bit about Rihanna Fratchett's new Tugirina Vecher book, Crystal of Storms. Technically for children, but for children of all ages. Yes. As with Lego, age 5 to 99 plus.

Exactly, say. But how are you? Yeah, I'm all right. Slightly more dazed than usual on account of it being evening instead of morning-ish. Yeah, I think morning-ish is the best way to describe it before recording time. Yeah, no, not too bad. But busy, a bit stressed.

But, you know, it'll all be over soon. Then we can get on with being depressed about January. Yeah, that'd be fun. I'm looking forward to that. How about you? All right. Things like this are finally making me start to feel festive. I haven't felt very festive.

No, it's difficult. I feel like I'm feeling festive later and later in the year, each year. Yeah, this is a particularly strange year. Yeah, you've made it look very pretty. I like the treat. There are so many fairy lights up. I would lift it up and show you, but the webcam is really precariously balanced. And I will 100% drop it in my cleavage.

And this isn't that kind of podcast slash YouTube channel. Well, you say that, but we all saw the video you posted on Twitter recently. I mean, there was a quill. OK. To clarify, we are talking about the video of me eating sausage in bed, and that doesn't make it better. No, it doesn't. I think definitely leaving that unsaid was much better for everybody,

but never mind. Moving on. The best bit about having all these lights up is that they're all very precariously hung with those sticky hooks that can fall off the wall at any moment. And also, I haven't checked how much electricity I've got left, so everything could fall off the wall ago dark at any second. Oh, I like that. Yeah, a bit of suspense to the proceeding.

Yeah, it's like Russian real-life podcasting. So it was fairy lights. To clarify to our listeners who are listening in the traditional manner, we are also recording the video of this episode for our YouTube channel. Unless everything goes terribly wrong, it should be on YouTube about the same time as it's on the... The normal places.

Yes, the RSS feed, in which case, if you want to, do switch across. Yes, and you can watch us on Christmas Eve. That'll be a lovely treat. Oh, yeah. That's right. It's coming out Christmas Eve. Oh, it's lovely. Oh, it's not being recorded on Christmas Eve,

because obviously not. No, it's the 16th. I feel like specifying the date is kind of necessary these days in case something really bad happens between now and then, and we sound insensible. Yeah, yeah. So we are recording eight days before this comes out. Before the killer bees invaded the UK.

Yeah. Yeah, which I'm assuming will happen on the 23rd. I haven't checked the almanac. Yeah, I know my weather app only goes a few days. I haven't paid for the premium. But yeah. Cool. So killer bees on the 23rd.

Mist, mist, bees. Yeah, podcast on the 24th. Yeah. So good. Super. Excellent. So, crystal of storms. So as we have said, and I can do this,

I can do handy visual aids because this is going on YouTube. Crazy amounts of post-its that I'm literally not going to reference. Mine have, mine are just right at the back for the instructions and the stuff. Yeah. The adventure sheet I did start using before I ran out of space and then use my notebook. Yeah, I'm not going to show the listeners the amounts of pieces

of paper that got a bit silly, especially the inventory list. Or the cork board with all the string. So to clarify for listeners, although we're talking about this as it has come out so recently, and I know some of you might be waiting to try it and even maybe waiting to hear what we think of it before you try it. We will not be spoiling any big plot stuff that happens in it. No, although if you're one of those people who like really,

really, really, really hate spoilers, then perhaps avoid this episode till you've read it because I know some people hate any kind of knowing anything about something before they go into it. So this is like a spoiler, light, but not zero. Yes. We will pop some time codes in the show notes though. So if you still want to listen to the bits of the episode that aren't about the book, you can.

Smart. Chapters we will have. We'll have chapters. If we want to go all American life about it. I was thinking like let's be theatrical about it on the basis that I've really missed theatre. Yes. Well.

Sorry. Nothing cheering to say about that. One day. One day. Yeah. Yeah, it has been over nine months since I last went to the theatre. Anyway. Okay.

So yeah, the book. The book. So this is part of the fighting fantasy. It's a series. Which I hadn't heard of till I got this book. But apparently is very well known. Very well known. It's been going since 1982.

But it's not. So I don't know about you, but I was expecting choose your adventure kind of like. Like the goosebumps choose your intervention. We used to do when we were younger. Yeah. No, that yeah. That is my experience with it.

And I just kind of assume they were all like that. Yeah. Which by the way, very weird tangent. Not very festive. Do you ever remember having the goosebumps mix media experience? Help. Okay. So like I have not found anyone else who remembers this existing,

including my sister who I like I shared this with, but it was definitely a thing we had. And it was like a goosebumps choose your intervention book set in like a haunted house. Sure. But there was also like a CD that played a bunch of creepy noises that came with it. And I think it might have actually been a CD rom.

And there was like a whole interactive computer that you could do. But it also have that, but that does sound familiar enough that I might have seen an ad for it or something. Yeah. Because basically I was way too young to have experienced this and my sister used to put the creepy noises on on the CD player to freak me out because they gave me nightmares.

So she doesn't remember now. Yeah. No, she doesn't remember. But I know very few people who like have also experienced this. And so I'm starting to wonder if I dreamed it. Yeah. I know they did all your stuff because I used to have goosebumps cassettes.

Yeah. So I don't think it's completely ridiculous to think that I didn't make this up in my head. No, no. But listeners, if you've got any awareness of this weird haunted thing from my past, please give me a shout. The, the, the choose your own adventure. I particularly remember as someone with all the shrunken

heads and the dungal and the quicksand, which is why. Terrified. I'm surprised. I don't run into quicksand when I'm out walking the dog. And we all thought quicksand was just going to be more of a thing. Yeah. I'm kind of not.

The real danger than life. Class immobility and bees. Bees aren't dangerous. They're very important for the environment. Yes. No, quite right. Wasps. I don't like wasps.

They might also be important and good for the environment, but they can go and die. Yeah. I'm trying not to swear too much on this one, by the way, because I don't think YouTube likes it. Oh, I know. I know the last episode we did, but yeah. Yeah.

I'm, I'm making no promises. But yeah. But this like, I didn't think this is how I'd get flagged for adult content, but there we go. But yeah. So I was expecting. Sorry.

Right. Stop talking about the sausage video. Okay. What were you expecting? I was expecting like a thing where you'd sort of have lots of different outcomes at the end and you'd sort of almost find multiple different stories in there, but it's not as much more like RPG.

Sure. I haven't played a lot of tabletop RPGs. I know you've played a bit of D&D and such like. Yeah. It was like a kind of solo simplified D&D thing. Yeah. So it made me want to roll some stats at the beginning. Yeah.

It made me want to actually try D&D, which I wanted sort of two for a while, but you know, pandemic and all that. Sorry listeners, watchers, whatever viewers. I just noticed I'm on a bit of a bloody skew here. I like it. Makes you look extinguished.

Fuck it. I'm just trying to crop the video. Look, everything about me is permanently a skew. So we're going with it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think possibly because I had such a different idea of

what it would be. I didn't take to it as much as I would have done, but. See, I really enjoyed it. It took me longer to get through than I thought because I looked at the size of the book and went, well, obviously, I won't have to go through that. Yeah. And I won't have to go through every page because

there'll sort of be different stories. There'll be on different pages depending on the story I end up following. Yeah. And obviously that wasn't the case, which meant I did end up going through the book. So it took me a lot longer than I thought. Yeah.

Also, I took a million notes on the plot before realizing that I wanted to do a low spoiler episode. Yeah. And there's just, there's so many stopping points and like decision points compared to. There's a lot of stopping points and decision points and

flipping back and forth, which I didn't really mind. Like I said, I really enjoyed it, but then I like RPGs. I play a lot of video game RPGs. I've been wanting to get into the tabletop thing more. And also,

I like taking things apart and seeing how they work. Yeah. I think probably that extra layer made it more interesting for you because I like, you know, I don't hate the concept, but kind of one, I play RPG games, like video games,

but I like ones with a bit more freedom. And I like tabletop games, but the fun thing about tabletop games is other people. Yeah. And that's me saying that. And you're not the most social creature. No. See, for me,

it was like, it was interesting. Like I've already talked a bit about, I've got some interesting game writing and starting to learn how that works and the idea of branching narratives. You can really, neither of us have done any of the fighting fantasy books. So we don't have a big thing to compare it to, but like,

I would say from this, you can really tell the work that Rhianna Pratchett has done as a games writer. Yeah. I would like to go back through now and now I'm not trying to like full disclosure here, right? Way listeners, I did not get through to the end because I thought I could do it this afternoon

and I got very bored. But like I should say, I do realize it's for children. Yeah. It's a children's book. I'm sure it's exactly the right amount of engaging for like 10 year olds or whatever it's meant for. Again, I find that quite engaging, but I am very childlike.

And like I wanted to know what happened, which was the other thing I was going to talk about. Like obviously you found the process a bit tedious. I quite enjoyed it. The combat slowed it down a lot. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.

There's some interesting combat mechanics in there. I like how it works. Yeah. It did slow it down. So one of the things that I did get through to the end, but full disclosure, I cheated. I managed to survive all of the fights, mostly because I have exactly the same habit.

It turns out doing something like this as I do when playing actual RPGs, which is hoarding all of my potions because what if I need it more later? Yeah. So that meant I had those potions and stuff that helped me. The inventory system and the way you can do things like that, I found really like the mechanics again. I really enjoyed. That was fun.

I liked that because that gave that little aspect of freedom. Yeah. Like how I could, like straight away, if you haven't read this guys, don't try and fill everything in in the sheet in the back. Use a notebook. Your writing will never be small enough to fit in a little paperback book size adventure sheet.

Yeah. I think I ended up getting through like four pages of a five. Maybe one of those pages was just the, because I was writing the fights as I went through. Yeah. That would have really put me off as a kid as well, because I wouldn't have like, I would have thought I was doing it wrong somehow.

And I had terrible handwriting and like, I did get a bit stressed out with like the writing things down aspects of it, just because I was, I was trying to write notes at the time before realizing I didn't need to be too extensive with note taking and be. Yeah. I felt a bit like I might be doing something wrong because I've not done something like this before.

Okay. Also, is it just me? I'll write the beginning where it tells you which page to find the rules on. That's wrong. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Cause that delayed me by a full 10 minutes at the start of the process.

So that took me a minute as well. I figured it out. I also every like the, so I think because I did write all of this down, there were 23 fights I went through in total. And like I said, the combat mechanics were probably the thing that slowed it down the most for me.

Partly. What I did was instead of rolling a dice every time I got, I got a little website up on my phone. It's a roll dice. I really wish I thought of that. I thought of building a random dice generator with JavaScript to do it with. He didn't think anyone else had thought of that ever. No, I'm sure there are those websites,

but I need to practice coding. And that's one of the like early JavaScript exercises. So I thought, Oh, sure. Yeah. Did you do that? No, no, I didn't. I have,

I own a die. Like I probably have more than that in house, but the rest are all like in board games and things. I have one that just sits around. So I was just, I was just rolling it twice for each time I was meant to roll to die at the same time. She's rolling it twice. Going to find out who lives and who dies.

I really wish I was good enough at improv to follow up on that. Yeah, I know it's cool. But yeah, I know that all the rising things down definitely stressed me out a little bit, but I think that's because I don't think that would be the case if it was a normal person doing it. If you're doing it for enjoyment, like a normal human person, you'll be fine. If you're not like a pile of neuroses in a trench coat pretending to be a human. Hey, I've got a lovely woolen overcoat now. I've got a really lovely wool coat.

That's even more neuroses in there. And people don't think you're a flasher, which is one of my neuroses. You know, I'm very rarely worried that people think I'm a flasher, which is saying a lot because I accidentally flashed people all the time. Yeah, okay. Sorry. Okay, moving on from my wardrobe malfunctions. Sure.

I really like the world building, though, like the initial set up. Yeah, it's nice. It's very brief and simple and evocative straight away. It creates a really complex world with like, I love fantasy world building in general. Yeah. This creates a really complex world with an economic system, different species. Different cultures, different lands that have different priorities. All in with a couple pages at the beginning to introduce you to what the world is and what your backstory is.

Yeah. And then it builds it really beautifully through the book considering. Yeah. And quite apart from that, like, I just like it. I like the concept of it. It reminded me a bit of the edge chronicles. I like that kind of. Yeah.

So I don't think it's too spoiler-ish. The actual concept of the world that you're in for this. Opening your book on camera. Oh, I forgot to mention there's also a lovely dedication to mom and dad who showed me magic every day, which are heartwarming. So you are. Well, sorry. You're in a land called Pangaria. Okay.

Sorry. In the book. It's obviously it's all second person. So people have these. There's five islands surrounding a central island. The central island is called the Nimbus and then the five islands all have different focuses like some of farming. One's like a trade area. One place they farm clouds.

That's Altus, which is the one I chose because you can choose one of three islands to be your home world. And I chose Altus, the cloud farming one. Okay. And you work for the Skywatch. Who are the guardians of peace within this whole land? So, yeah, there was a slightly weird feeling that I'm basically playing. Or Skycopter bastards. Yeah, I felt a bit weird like playing a cop for the whole game.

That Especially such an ineffective one. Yeah, I mean, well you do a bit. You didn't get to the end. Let's see. No spoilers, but like you are relevant to the plot in this. Yeah. Or one is relevant to the plot in this.

Yeah. Pronouns are particularly tricky. One is highly relevant. And yeah, basically the story and none of this is a spoiler. This is all literally in the like opening intro. You've all of you sky cops have gone to a big meeting on the Central Island, but you get quickly sent back to grab something. So you're not there.

And the whole Central Island kind of crashes down into the ground. Calamity. Calamity. And so your mission throughout the book is to find out what the fuck is going on. You have to tell me what the fuck was going on after we finished recording. I will do. I did it like two days ago and I'm not entirely sure I can remember that is not a criticism of the book that is a criticism of my retention skills.

Yeah. Sure. Even when you're writing everything down, huh? Yeah. Yeah. No. Gone. Which is really handy for talking about it and why I suggested that we kept spoilers

out of it because then I don't have to remember anything. Oh, very clever. Very good. Yeah. Peak behind the curtain for the listeners there. This is how I cover my incompetence. With style and a bow tied up a little bow. So obviously you didn't get all the way through it.

Like what I was saying, full disclosure that I did cheat. So I got through all the fights. I did and I still didn't. Like by the time I was getting really bored by the end of the afternoon, I was like, I'm just going to assume I won all these fights and I still didn't get through. So I said I won all the fights I did. I did when I was getting into the like end of it because the day was moving faster than I wanted it to.

And I still really needed to eat dinner. Time is strange. Time is very strange. So I did skip a couple of fights, but I did do the main. It has like a main boss fight. So it had a very game like structure. Okay. There were a couple of other times where I got the your adventure is over.

And because I literally did not the second one happened like when I was very late in the game. So I did not have time to start again and get to the end of the book. And I really wanted to get to the end before we talked about it. Yeah. So I backtracked a few pages because also if I was playing a video game, that's what I would have done. Like I would have had a point about it.

So I treated a couple of places like save points, one of which involved me getting eaten by mermaids, which honestly, it was me being gay and stupid that got me murdered by mermaids. So really it was very in character. Good. Good. So I got killed at one point. And then I did start again, which possibly was my mistake because I was the reasonable way along.

And if I hadn't had a second time, I ran, I rolled much better stats. Yeah. So the first time you saw deny I rolled the worst stats possible and it makes a lot of difference. A lot. Yeah. I was really lucky through every easy fight. I was really lucky on my opening stats and lucky with a weapon I picked up early on.

Yeah. And that probably made the main difference of why I managed to get through as much of it as I did before I started having any trouble. The big boss fight, though, was quite cool because it was, to explain some of the mechanics, you have skill and stamina and so, and luck. But that's not as relevant to the mechanics of fighting. It can be. Okay.

It can be. But without going into the complex detail, because if anyone is actually going to do this, they will. They'll read the rules and learn. Fine. But so you'll have a creature that has, so skill is like a set level. Like say it's skill is 10 and then stamina is also 10 and you have your own skill level, which, for example, is seven and your stamina is at 10.

And stamina is almost like a health bar. It goes up and down. You can have potions that restore it. So to go through a fight, you roll to die for the monster attacking you. You add that to its skill level and that's its attack strength. And then you do the same for yourself. And if yours is higher, you damage it. If it's higher, it damages you.

And so if you damage it, its stamina goes down. So you're wiping down itself with the final game. Yeah. I know. But for the final boss fight, there were like three or four different break points where stamina gets to a certain level and it would take you to a... I feel like this is spoilering. Well, no, I'm just saying that there is a final boss fight and this is the mechanics of it.

I'm not explaining how it's relevant to the plot. Okay. Yeah. It's the plot I'm avoiding spoiling. I apologize if people want to avoid spoilers for the mechanics, but... Just that you're the one sometimes who like tells me off the spoiler and when I mention a character might appear again one day in 10 books time. Spoilers.

Sorry, fuck. There are characters in future discol books. I'm very sorry. It's not just a nameless void with some dialogue. We already had that in Rufemann. Technically, our entire intro to this episode, you know, might be considered a spoiler for some. Yeah, that's true.

Wow. So anyway, so the mechanics of the boss fight, like there are these break points in its stamina levels where it takes you to another page and something happens where you then have to test your skill or your luck in a different way. And then the fight continues on. And it felt very much like a final boss battle in the computer game where like you take it down to a certain amount of health and then you get a little cut screen. Yeah.

So I enjoyed that. Like it all felt very video gamey. I would have enjoyed it more had I just sat down and done the book for fun as opposed to like doing it under a time crunch and making sure I had enough to talk about. I think I sort of spoiled it for myself slightly there. Yeah. Yeah. But like so I would buy another one of these and give it a go another time when I could

just sit and do it for fun. Yeah. Because it is still like a one day thing. I expect this will be successful and I expect Rhianna Pratt will bring out another. That's my guess. I would be very surprised if she didn't. Yeah. I mean, we know obviously the franchise is successful because it's been going for nearly

40 years. Yeah. I've interested to know how it works behind the scenes, whether the franchise gives a lot of help in constructing the books or it works and. Well, I assume like the books can all be done individually, but kind of are technically the same universe. So there can be bits of overlap. Yeah.

No. Yeah. But I mean like not all of the writers are going to be like Rhianna Pratt and have a load of games experience writing. So I wonder like if they've got someone there to support making your idea into this or. Yeah. There's probably a certain amount of best practices and things as well. But I'm tempted to get a couple more of these and just because I have a week off coming

up, but I would quite enjoy that. Did you make any decisions that like you've regretted or did you get to any points where you were frustrated? You couldn't do things to serve my. No, I think I was quite good with the decisions. I got, I got a bit because playing as an adult again when it's meant for kids, you get like a vague idea of the moral line they want you to take and say you get rewarded for it. Yeah.

I think what I was trying to finish quickly and did silly things then I died, but. Yeah. There was one point quite early on mild spoiler, but I was put in a position where I couldn't help a dog and it upset me quite a lot. Yeah. No, I wouldn't like that out of discipline. It really frustrated me because it involved just having an item I didn't have and it forces you to just walk away and obviously unlike a video game, you can't go back to the hinterlands

later and fight the bear then. Yeah. Which we would have done playing video games. I know you're like me. Right. Okay. I'm just going to spend a quick six hours trotting back and dealing with that untied thread. Yeah.

Absolutely. And this is why my first play through of Dragon Age Inquisition was 85 hours long. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking shards. How many times did you die? Ish. I mean, not in the fights, I know, but like how many times do you reckon you had to flick

back? Only twice. And like I said, one of those involved me being dumb and gay and getting eaten by mermaids. And the other one. To clarify listeners who don't know us very well, Joanna's not using gay as a derogative. It's just like. I'm attracted to women. I mean, there's just in the strictly non-heterosexual sense.

Gay, brackets, informative. Oh, fucking heteros. Anyway. It's fair. It's fair. How many times do I get eaten by mermaids? I mean, how many do I in real life? I don't know.

I don't know. You don't tell me everything about your life. Literally. When have I not overshadowed with you? Yeah. All right. Is there much more you've got to say about that? Oh, no.

Just the other time I didn't die. I got a, um, you, if you can't do X, Y or Z, then your adventure is over. Fuck. My adventure is over. Then I realized that I'd literally just, and I started trying to like go back a few pages and figure out where I could fix it. And then I realized I'd literally forgot the money section on the inventory sheet. And actually I had enough money to get out where I was.

Oh, that's nice. Yeah. But it took me like half an hour to realize that. Once again, I am quite pretty and not very intelligent. Oh, no, I'm quite pretty, quite intelligent. I'm not very bright. Sure. I, I, it's just lack of sleep.

If by some weird miracle you ended up with a solid eight hours for a week in a row, I would be terrified of you. Oh yeah. No, I would definitely rule the world if that was the case. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm really just hoping you're too tired to make any gifts of me from this episode. I was just about to say, no, that's going to happen. Sorry. I'm not really sure what kind of video we're going to end up with because we're shooting straight from Zoom rather than separate feeds.

And I feel like Zoom sometimes flicks between who's speaking on the video, it records, or like, whether I've got two separate streams or what. So. absolutely we've we've not really tried to play with the same video before happy. No, we fucked about with iPhones recording last time, which was definitely better video quality, but also just a pain to sync up with the audio. Also, my way of recording myself with an iPhone involve balancing a

stool on my footstool and then leaning my phone up against a mug with a copper bangle to steady it. Yeah, whereas now you've got a stool on your footstool with a laptop on top of it, which seems fine. And a webcam precariously balanced on the laptop. That's better. Yeah, no, I didn't really have much to say about the book. I was never planning on doing a big in depth analysis. But the main takeaway from it was I really enjoyed it. I really like the mechanics of it. And now I want

to take it apart and see how it works. Yes. Yeah, no, I think I will find that more interesting. Yeah, it was difficult to resist the temptation to do that. From the start, like I really was reading it was like, Oh, I kind of want to try and make one of these. Yeah, come on. I'm not saying that I will never try and figure out how to make one because like, literally trying to kind of study game making for you to do because you want to do video game writing and you can already do writing

writing. But I also had the idea after what was the Netflix one? She's your own adventure black mirror with a B and a snatch. Nice ink. Yeah, I kind of started looking at it with that by just trying to write out the different branching narratives of Bandersnatch and it got caught boards and string very quickly. Yeah. And I mean, I want a giant court board. I want a giant court board just for like a serial killer wall. Should have

asked. No, there was no one here for me to ask for things wrong. Wait, it didn't. No, it's fine. No. So Christmas. Christmas. Yeah. Yeah, so back on round. Well, this is coming out to our listeners. Hopefully on Christmas Eve. Cross fingers. Fingers crossed, depending on the killer bees on the 23rd that we believe might be scheduled. Yep. Well, even so, I think we can probably squeeze out a podcast. Yeah, as we've already recorded it and hopefully edited it by then.

Fingers crossed. It's going to be like, it's like it's out of my control. I don't know. It's going to be such a weird one this year. Like, you can say that straight out of the gate. No one is having the Christmas Day and tended on having a hog swatch or solstice or however you celebrate the turning of the seasons in winter. If indeed you do. If indeed you do at all. How do you how are you doing it? What are you doing? Yeah, so I'm you and I have got very different ones and very

different feelings about them, I think. So I I say normally, but even outside of the pandemic, I am not having the Christmas I expected this year. Yes. And have gone through lots of life changes that mean I'm still figuring out new traditions for myself. But like, so if I if there wasn't a pandemic, the way I'd celebrate it, I'd have like, at least six people, including me for lunch. And then my door would be open from the afternoon for literally anyone to pop round and have a drink and a bite to

eat and hug and I'd normally end up with, you know, or in previous years and hopefully even now end up with a if there wasn't a pandemic, end up with a house full of people. Yeah. And it would be very chaotic and loud and glasses and get knocked off tables and then probably be someone's kids knocking about and yeah, it would all be very silly. And then I'd have a mountain of glasses to wash up. And I love that. And so for me, it's a bit weird. So we're allowed to mix a certain number of

bubbles or we're allowed to have a certain amount of households together over Christmas. For me is three friends coming over a married couple and another friend. And they are people who I love dearly and I love I'm getting spend the day with them. And especially in the married couples case, they're American, it's probably their last Christmas in England. So I'm really glad I'm spending it with them. But yeah, it's going to be an odd one. Because it's just gonna be the four of us just

the entire day. I've still got enough food and drink to feed the 5000 just in case because you never know. Joanna texted me her menu earlier listeners. And this was after I've been stressing about a fairly simple affair. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I mean, I'm just throwing together, you know, 10 roast hogs and a finely dressed peacock and fricassee pancetta on top of a bed of how to cut your crest or something. I don't know.

Yes, could your dress is definitely a chapter. Okay, my actual menu for Christmas Day is on arrival on arrival. There will be pigs and blankets. The horse d'oeuvres. Order of love. Sorry, pigs on blankets. Pigs and blankets. Not on blankets. That would be weird.

Yes, that would be weird. Pigs and blankets, devils on horseback plus some breadsticks. Speaking of weird food we couldn't think of last week. Devils on horseback. Which for the uninitiated is prunes wrapped in bacon which sounds disgusting, but I love them so much. You don't even like dried fruit. I'm amazed you like those. Mum used to make them every Christmas and it was always a

thing. We'd pass around a plate of them while we were doing champagne and it was, yes, there'll be champagne, there'll be those, there'll be some other nibbles and dips and some homemade sardine crackers. And then for mains we've got a slow roasted leg of mutton, pomanna, braised red cabbage, sprouts with pancetta. Pomanna is amazing. So it is very, very finely sliced potato,

layered normally with butter and seasoning and then baked. But in my case instead of just butter it'll be a mix of butter and chicken fat infused with garlic and thyme. Gosh, no veggies coming then. No, no, I don't have any vegetarians this year. And then yeah, and sprouts with pancetta and roasted carrots and then a blackberry and chocolate ganache tart for dessert.

What was that? Featuring blackberries foraged for me by a friend in the summer that I've been keeping in the freezer for something special. So aesthetic. Tell Tumblr about it. They'll fucking love it. Cottagecore.

I would be so good at cottagecore if it wasn't for the fact that I also really like lipstick and patty coats. Even though they don't actually go outdoors I think. They just put on tweeted lipstick. Oh, okay, fine. I'm cottagecore. You can tell because if you actually dress to go outside you don't look like that.

You've come on dog walks with me, you know. I will still wear lipstick on a dog walk. Yes, yeah, but not like perfectly pressed. I don't know any perfectly pressed. Whatever. I don't know. Yeah, so that's my Christmas day menu. But yeah, so it's going to be weird and it's going to be

different and it's not the Christmas I would like to be having, but I'm still looking forward to it. I get to see people. Yeah. What about you? So I was saying, you know, we're quite different in that I don't get to host a million people and I would love to, but you're a bit opposite.

Yeah, and I've got a couple of family members coming who I love. Again, I love very much. I'm glad to be saying, but I hate hosting. When I do not, I don't mind hosting if I've got the fucking room. Like when I'm in Jersey, my family's house. That makes me sound like I've come from family, but I don't

know. It's just a bigger house. Yeah. And like there's a dining table and a kitchen you can move in and stuff, but here I've got a coffee table. Like I don't have a table to sit down at and I've got to cook for people with. I think every one of us has different dietary requirements

and. Oh yeah, you've got like your pescatarian and you've got a gluten free vegan pescatarian. Yeah, except I think he's meat now, but still not gluten or dairy. Yeah. It's fine because what I'm going to do is just make it as simple as possible.

You can go over the top complicated with that, but I'm just going to roast some salmon and lamb and vegetables. Yeah. And they can eat it and like it. Yeah. I think this is the weird thing. Like people put so much pressure on themselves on Christmas, but it's about like sitting down and eating something that

tastes good together. It doesn't have to be a ridiculous over complicated roast in and that means you have to get up at 6am and can't sit down until four in the afternoon. I think what I. Where I've gone wrong in the past because the last few years I've been very stressed on Christmas and part of it's because I stopped drinking a few years ago.

This will be Christmas number four with no drinking. I was going to say next year is your fifth anniversary. So yeah, yeah, yeah. This will be Christmas number four. Five years in March. Yeah. And so that. You know, took the fucking job to be honest.

Yeah. Yeah. Back in the day. And. I've just been trying to recreate something that I literally don't have the space. Or the time or the personality to recreate. And so the idea of making new traditions is a good idea.

Traditions that I can actually recreate without getting in a snitch about it, you know. This is kind of a weird thing for me because I have odd little Christmas traditions, but I only have many childhood ones because my childhood Christmases were not always spent in the same place. Like sometimes we'd visit family around the country or sometimes in another country.

We got to go to Vermont for Christmas one year. That was fucking ridiculous. Everyone. Everything was covered in snow. It was beautiful. That was the most like Christmasy Christmas. I think I've ever had. That was beautiful.

But yeah. So I don't have Christmas and frolic with the moose. Yes. Well, I mean, that's warning. You're not frolic with moose. They are dangerous. No, no. They're all the geese.

No. Leave the geese alone. Yes. Noble beasts. But yeah. So I don't have like a weird childhood nostalgia thing I'm trying to recreate. I only really started forming important Christmas traditions

for myself over the last few years. And then like I said, my life caught fire and now I don't have those. Yeah. I'm not even sure it's a childhood nostalgia. I'm after just the, I know just the sense of it I used to have that I don't anymore. Like one of the best Christmases I've ever had was when I lived

and we had a Nerf gun fight in the morning. Oh God. And we all had creme eggs. And then like I bug it off for a bit to do family stuff, but we all ended up back at my, in fact, I think I didn't even do family stuff. I think I just went to the pub and brought food down there. Yeah.

And then we all ended up back at my place, like watching bad movies in this weird cuddle pile. It was great. It was great. I liked that. Um, the idea, the thing it has in common with childhood ones is not in charge of anything. So.

Yeah. Uh, it started to become stressful when I started taking charge of it, but one of my biggest sources of stress was generally to do with feeling like I had to do everything. And strangely now I'm admittedly having a very weird Christmas where I'm only feeding four people, including myself and not expecting dirty in the evening. It's more the fact that now I just, I am taking responsibility

for everything. And I'm much better at saying to the people who are coming to me like, I have abandoned responsibility for X, Y and Z and would like you to take it. Yeah. And that's largely in the form of asking them to bring a drink really. Uh huh.

Yeah. But one of the traditions I haven't been able to do this year specifically because of COVID that I've missed the most is decorating my local pub. Oh yeah. Because that, uh, so our local is a really, really tiny little pub, uh, run exclusively by Grumpy Barman who hate Christmas. Uh, but every year we would sort of invade on a Sunday with

the grumpiest barman working and put stuff up everywhere. And it got, we bought more and more tasks and we're keeping it there. And last year I think was the best one because the sort of dear friend who'd spearheaded it over the last few years when looked at it and went, it's not enough. Back in a minute. Went off to the decoration shop just up the road and came back

wearing all of the tinsel he could physically wrap around his body. And, uh, by the time we were finished, it looked awful. It looked like a sugar pump fairy had thrown up on the place. Amazing. And, uh, sadly that friend is no longer with us. So even if we could have decorated this year, it would have been a bit bittersweet, but it's a strange thing to not go and do

because it was such a, none of us are going to be here on Christmas day. Uh, no one wants us to be doing this apart from us, but at the same time we've all taken over the pub, we're all perched on benches and barstools and tables and quite by the end of it falling off them. Yeah. And it makes people smile.

Yeah. No, it was. Yeah, it was fun. Oh, well. Oh, well. One year. We'll get to do it again. Yeah, maybe next year.

Fucking vaccine. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of, uh, what's its and new traditions, we have a couple of nice letters, lessons from listeners. Dispatches from the round world. Dispatches from the round world. Well, these are technically addressed to the hogfather, but

the hogfather said, uh, we could read them on the base. It was uncomfortable with his beard on or something. I don't know. Uh, but I want to read this, this first one, uh, because it's to do with Christmas traditions. And this is from dungeon master slash Carl from our little subreddit community. And he writes, dear hogfather, this year, my friend moved

350 miles from one end of the country to the other, ending up in my part of Newcastle because he fancied a change. COVID is messed with the bedding in process along with the traveling back down south to see our family's process. So over Christmas, he'll be spending his time with me and my family, bravely accepting uncle status to four rowdy children and a nine month old baby. It should be a wonderful, comforting time.

Uh, and Carl follows with all I like for Christmas is for everyone to know that there's always someone to listen, even if that someone you resort to is a stranger on the internet. We've had a bloody tough year and it's been isolating for a lot. One thing the year has done, however, is really bolstered a lot of community spirit and showed, and showing of care

for a lot of people, strangers included. Our local co-op was doing runs down to our house with painkillers for my partner after she gave birth during the first wave of, I need all the toilet paper and Paracetamol. We were hit with an April and it won my heart. Anyone who wants a chim wager event, I'll listen. We can discuss, discuss Discworld or DND or Spider-Man or whether the milk goes in before or after the tea.

I don't mind. As long as I'm entertaining you and keeping you company, then it won't be wasted time. And he's a dungeon master on Reddit and optional underscore Carl on Twitter. Blind IO bless us everyone and to all a good night. And I thought there was a really lovely letter from Carl because I think this is.

Thank you, Carl. I don't mean that in a patronizing child. Child's presenter voice. That's just how my voice goes. It's like when I try and do a thumbs up, it's always sarcastic. Yeah. So sarcastic. I mean it.

Thank you, Carl. No, I don't mean sarcastic. And for people who are or have thought about having a look at our subreddit, Carl has also very nicely asked the community to give me some feedback on the first few chapters of the novel he's working on and that's up in there, which I'm really looking forward to reading. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

Awesome. But I think that's the lovely thing is that yeah, we're all having to change our traditions and make new ones and spend it all in such an odd way. Yeah. But everyone's also very willing to try and reach out to each other and find ways to make it better. Yeah.

I'm doing horrible syrupy optimism. So. Sorry, I'm trying to join in, but you know. Also, I hate everything. Like, don't get me wrong. When my meds are just kicking in, I can join in with this, but. I'm still very much with all of you on the world is terrible and I hate everything, but I'm trying to look for bright spots in

a ridiculous fucking year. Yeah. I'm not even there. I'm not. The world is terrible. I hate everything. I'm just like going to get through this last bit of the year. Just get through the last bit of the year.

We'll be. We'll be around. We'll be all right. We'll be all right. What bees? I do think honestly, the thing I'm finding hardest about all of it is that I'm just remembering, uh, I went through some old photos the other day and there's one from New Years Eve,

2016. And I have got very sparkly shoes on and I'm ready to dance on the grave of 2016. It's not going to get worse. I think so. For historical purposes, that was the year we lost like a whole whole bunch of famous people and Brexit and Trump. Yeah. And we thought that was, you know, and then the last three years happened. And, you know, that was a good time was had by all.

So I've said before, haven't I? 2016 was a weirdly good year for me, considering everything was horrible. But like, yeah, I was sober and Jack proposed. And yeah, personally, I had a very nice year. But everyone's like, fucking, 2016 is the worst thing ever. I was like, Yeah, no, it's terrible. Yeah, I don't think I had a particularly good or bad year 2016, to be honest. And then, and it was the same for the next couple of years, like 2017, I just remember being weird. 2018, you was it 2018? You got married? Yes. Yes. Yeah. We should know when you that was lovely. Love you getting married.

Great time. The priest was hilarious. Wasn't he though? He had shorts on under his cassock. That's what I look for in a priest. Yeah. But in the same thing we did for Halloween, we should probably dig out some old embarrassing Christmas and New Year's photos of us to put in the show notes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We've got some. We've got some crackers, mate. We've been spending New Year's together since a long time ago. And now I'm sad.

I'd say it's probably been about a decade. We've been spending New Year's together. Yeah. It's been a decade since Australia, and I'm sure we spent a couple together before that. Yeah. Which is the other weird thing for me is that like all of the discourse. No, it's not. But a lot of people talking so much about Christmas and what they're going to do and how they're going to alleviate loneliness or work around COVID or for me, it's not Christmas. You know, I still get to see people. I still get to be overdramatic and extra by making a ridiculous meal while wearing probably pals on a pesky. Because Christmas is the one day I truly can embrace femininity. I'm a feminist butt. I'm a feminist butt.

I'm a really good at pals on a pesky coat, so. Yeah. I will also be wearing a dress. I feel I need to clarify. Oh, all right, fine. Sorry, only fan subscribers. Francine, we're not getting a TikTok. We're not getting an OnlyFans. That is not how we monetize the podcast. But yeah, for me, it's not Christmas. It's Boxing Day because that I would normally spend with some kind of family. And obviously, I wouldn't be doing that. I'll be, I mean, I'm really looking forward to my Boxing Day plans because they involve sitting around at home in my pyjamas, shoveling pate into my face with

reckless abandon. Beautiful. Do a video call if you want. Yeah, no, it would be up for something like that. And the other one is New Year's. Like a New Year's Day. New Year's Day is always a big social thing for me because we have some friend traditions. Yeah. Yeah. See, it would have been a weird one for me this year anyway, because my other half used to manage a pub and doesn't now left earlier this year, earlier this year, just before it all kicked off. So like things like I wouldn't have had to be at that pub all night and like, but yeah, I guess I'll stay home. Yeah, I'm assuming I'll do the same. I might wear a floor link.

I might wear a floor link. I might wear a sequined gown and drink champagne anyway. Like nothing to do with New Year's. Just, you can stand. Oh, you can stand on the balcony in the sequined gown and glitter in the street lights. Yeah, but not like in a paying for sex way. Yes, I can overlook the glittering lights of the spar across the road. I mean, the orange lights, not the red lights. Yeah. Sorry, I'll try and make sure. You can do what you want, but monetizing the podcast apparently isn't going in that direction. So whatever. So prostitution is the next option. Yeah, sure.

Sex work, Joanna. Sex work. Sex work. It's not my go-to career goal, but I'm not against it. Anyway. Anyway. God, I am so sorry. I'm not even slightly. I don't know. I just haven't apologized for a while. I feel like I should. I'm pretty good about this recently, actually. Occasionally it just comes back. Am I just becoming worse or are you getting better? As in am I being so awful you don't feel the need to apologize to me constantly? I feel it's like a sliding scale. Like we're kind of doing this. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to. I'm not going to say which one of us is which hand. All right. Do we have any more letters? We do. We have another lovely letter.

And this is from PD who goes by various different epithets on various different social media. I'm sorry if people like Google went down for a while. So also sorry if other people have sent us emails. We're not reading out, but we may not have got them. Yeah. Google's really, I even had a problem today trying to get the docked wife and print out, but I sent our email address, the test email from my personal one, which went through and then like an hour later got a couldn't send your message email. So yeah. So the internet's weird. Anyway, PD rate again to the hogfather, but we've been invited to read it out. He did include a note to the recipient of please read the following in a voice suitable for a portrayal of Pratchety and hogswatch infant

number one, which you can absolutely believe I'm going to commit to for at least a sentence. Please go. Go. Yeah. Dear hogfather, I hope you are well. This Christmas, I would like please to be immortal, but with the caveat of being healthy and permanently intact. All right, that's as long as I'm going to do the voice for it. I hate it. I've been actively shielding since March and it's become a complete in buggerence. I don't wish any of the species who live on the disk ill, but I am fed up with them extending this pandemic like a wizard at a publicly funded banquet. I'm spending hogswatches quietly with my partners. I have been most of the last year, only seeing my father as a distance for a couple of hours. I want to be able to go to the disk in

the year of the beleaguered badger and I want to be able to travel, especially to see Lanka, clutch and the forest of scund. I would also very much like to attend a music with rocks in festival as they've all been canceled thus far. I normally wouldn't read something like this out on the podcast, but it's Christmas, so I'm going to be self-indulgent. Can you also please see that the lovely ladies at the true shaman keyfret get their hogswatch wishes as they have greatly improved my isolation by being funny, intelligent and informative broadcasters and giving me an excuse to reread some of my favorite books? I don't think that's Sophie. I think that's just objective broadcasting news, isn't it? No, no. It's been fantastic to hear Satteri discussed by people who love his work as

much as I. I will leave out some apples for Gounder, Ruta, Tusker and Snouter and also an apple drink. Well, mostly apples for you. I've also made you a picture which I shall send with this letter. I have, of course, made quite sure to include the traditional castle snacks and albatrosses of which people speak so highly. Happy hogswatch from PD Dolling, age 42 and a half. I've seen the picture, you haven't yet. It is a work of art and it's not my phone background. That's sweet. Text it. Hang on. I'll send it to you. Because we're recording a podcast right now. Sure. That made me smile. Like I said, normally I'm not going to sit and read out compliments, people send us on the podcast apart from that one time someone called us glorious hosts.

We get so many, of course. It would take forever. Okay, we don't get a whole bunch. I'm getting enough. Our listeners are nice. Oh, no. Our listeners are great. That was what I was getting to. Yes. We do get lots of compliments and we are greatly appreciative of them. One of the things that has been really nice, especially this year of all years, also the only full year we've been podcasting because we started November last year, is hearing so many people say that this helped them feel a bit less alone, especially in all of the lockdown and isolation nonsense, that it brightened people's days in some way. We've been saying from the start that we've been

listening to conversational podcasts the whole time. Yeah. But it's really nice to know that I might have contributed to someone else the way some of the podcast I listened to have contributed to me. And also like the podcast has been an incredibly positive thing for me this year. It has been outside of the pandemic a completely ridiculous year for me. Yeah. And this has been one of the big constant things, apart from that month we took off when literally everything was on fire. Yeah, well. Now, it's been good. I think without it would have probably gone too long without speaking to other people. I'm not saying I wouldn't have still hit the level of sanity I'm at now, but I might have got down there quicker. Yeah.

Oh, cheers then, Joanna. Cheers. Thank you listeners. Good podcasting. Well done. Good podcasting. Thank you for existing because it would be really pointless doing this without you. Be sure I exist? No. Francine, we were so close to the end. I don't want to get this down and wipe it again. We nearly got there a whole episode without an existential crisis. I really wanted to put a one on that board. Well, was it was an existential crisis or an existential wobble, an existential blip? Can you be asked to get the board down? I mean, we're still not at the end of the episode, but we'll call if you're willing to get the board out, we'll call that a wobble and we can see if we can push through to the

end without it getting more existential. Okay, well, we can think about adding a one to it. Possibly. But yes, all I want to say really is thank you listeners so much for being here. We probably wouldn't bother doing this if it wasn't for you because we would just be, no, we totally still would. We'd just be screaming about our favourite books into the void. But it's nice to know that sometimes the void is screaming back. That's an excellent point to get back at. Okay, do you reckon we can push through to the end without getting more existential? Smiling face now, so maybe.

Is there anything else you wanted to say and have in front of you? Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm really hungry. There's a Chinese waiting for me one more. Oh, okay. Shall I get into the outro before we have another crisis then? Yeah, yeah, probably for the best. Okay. You know how existential crisis I get when there's a chow mein waiting for me? Chow mein. Rice, vegetable, chow mein, vegetable, spring rolls. I've already done that. The best way to reheat spring rolls, please?

Oven, splash of water. Cheers. Same way as a baguette type thing then. Yeah. I couldn't get a whole thing without having a cooking tip. Oh, God, no. I have got a special treat for us at the end of this, which may make no sense without context for our first-time readers who won't know what I'm talking about till next Christmas. But it's not spoilery. Just hang in there and you'll understand it next year.

Just giving you the heads up. You'll understand when you're older. Not technically wrong. But thank you so much for listening to The True Shall Make You Fresh. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe and tell other people about us, because we like it when people know about us. Yes, it's very exciting. It is good fun.

When the little line goes up on the little thing, on the 66th tab, we occasionally look at it. We get to see a graph and we're really into that. So it's doing the thing. So we will be back with you next year in the year of the beleaguered badger. We are having a little discworld break in January and we will be talking about one of Terry Pratchett's very first novels, The Dark Side of the Sun. Yes.

And this is entirely an aid of next Hogswatch, because he wants to make sure that we time it. Yeah. Okay, no. All of the pauses in the second half of next year are in the aid of Hogswatch. All the pauses in the first half of the year are, so we hit soul music on my birthday. So you can watch the Blues Brothers.

This is my birthday present. Yes. Hopefully also... So far out of your way to make me watch a fucking movie. I know I'm just making you hate it more. Hopefully by January we'll also have a handy little calendar up on the website so you can see what book is going to be happening on what month and what else we might be talking about.

And we maintain the right to change that at any time because we got distracted by shiny things. Mm-hmm. Because that will totally happen. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Until next year, dear listener.

Until next year. Until next year. Oh my God, yeah, yeah, you're right. This is our last recording of the year. Wow. It's been early in the month. Yeah, we were like extra organized, remember? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, man. Good. I mean, good. I've got so much to do, but... Yeah, just a... We'll still FaceTime. Okay. Um, what was I saying?

Yes. So in the meantime, until next year, you can follow us on Instagram at TheTreeShareMakeKeyFrat, on Twitter at MakeKeyFratPod, on Facebook at TheTreeShareMakeKeyFrat. You can follow our subreddit, r slash t t s m y f. You can email us TheTreeShareMakeKeyFratPod at gmail.com. We made it through an episode.

Unless anything goes horribly wrong with the rest of the soundtrack. We got through an episode without an existential crisis. Yeah. Yeah. Only internal ones. And in the meantime, dear listener, I would like to leave you with a very special Hogswatch poem. "'Twas the night before Hogswatch went all through the house.

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in the hopes that the hogfather would soon be there. The listeners were nestled or snug in their beds with visions of beaten monsters in their heads, and Francine and her kerchief and I in my cap had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap. When out on the windowsill there rose such a row,

I jumped out of bed asking, what fresh hell now? Away to the window I flew in a hurry, thought I heard a dark voice say I could murder a curry. The moon shining-ish through the drizzle outside gave the lustre of tea time to the cold winter night, and in that grey darkness what my bleary eyes saw was a rough wooden sleigh pulled by four hulkling bores, with a pillow stuffed driver and grumpy old elf.

I knew this must be the hogfather himself, with stamping and belching his courses they came, and one by one he harangued them by name. Right, come on, router, get on with it, gouger, try harder, tusker, and speed up now, snouter. To the top of the porch, to the top of the roof, if time worked, we'd be late, so get on the hoof." As good events before the year 2020 fly

when they meet with obstacles that make us all cry, so up to the leaking rooftop the pigs flew, with sausages, bacon, and the hogfather too. And then with the snorting I heard at the door the stamping and champing of the hogfather's bores, as I drew in my head I heard such a din, grumbling about no bloody chimney the hogfather burst in. He was dressed all in red like blood on the snow

and assisted by raven and a rat made of bone, a bundle of bones he had slung on his back, and he looked like a butcher just opening his sack. With supernova eyes and a ho ho ho almost jolly, he gave me notes from DPD and said they were sorry. His strangely thin face was obscured by a beard and in any other year I might have found this weird, but fuck it's 2020 and everything's strange.

And as a visit from the hogfather's no cause to complain, the bores have barely destroyed my gardening labours, though I'm quite worried about noise complaints from the neighbours. He said very little but got straight on the job, filling stockings with sausages then gave me a nod. And just as soon as the hogfather arrived he returned to his pigs with yet another mince pie. He leapt in his sleigh to the bores gave a grunt

and away they all flew fast as an old solstice hunt. But I heard him call out as he flew out of sight, merry hog's watch to all and to all a good night. Good night Joanna. Good night Francine. you you you

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