The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 105: Night Watch Pt. 4 (Rhapsody on Barricades)

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 4 of our recap of “Night Watch”. The Lilac! An Eyepatch! A Song! Someone’s Ear! (Still Warm)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:The Menu (2022) - IMDb Hungarian Folk Tales - YoutubeMajor Metaphysical - r/TTSMYFs0nderv0gel's reddit comment - /r/TTSMYF The Rising of the Moon - YouTube Laurie Penny's rendition of 'All the Little Angels' - TwitterThe Insurgent Barricade - Reviews in HistoryNight Watch - Discworld Wiki (see Popular References > p233 for Hedgeline stuff) Hedgeline   Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

what's happened in the world. That's a bad start. I've stopped like really heavily engaging in the news as much as I was at one point because I realized it wasn't healthy. Yeah. The problem is now I keep doing things like heavily engaging in TikTok. And God, you know what? I fucking hate TikTok. What's it throwing at you? I keep getting videos about pick me girls. And I just, they're not even, they're so, these videos about pick me girls are so horribly bitchy. Yeah, it gets a bit meta. And it's just that you're not, it's all engaging like why a woman might feel the need to act like that. You're just contributing to the shit. And then there's two different mascara gates on TikTok,

right now. What? Oh, what? I've not heard. Well, I'll tell you what, I've done a good job of curating my fucking algorithm. I've got to say mine's all comedy sketches and painting, but carry on. At one point, mine was like 99% dogs. And I was so happy. And now somehow it's there. And I know it's my fault. Like I know I end up pausing on things and then making it worse. I know I'm contributing to the problem. You can get away because I did the same thing with a couple of subjects that I didn't want to keep seeing, but I couldn't help but raid what. If you click the share button and then the not interested one, it does work pretty well. Okay, cool. I will do that. But yeah, sorry, carry on mascara gate times two.

So one of them was someone posting a TikTok about women borrowing her mascara. And it was actually about sexual assault. And mascara was like a code word for it. But some person commented and was like, what the fuck? Someone commented something clearly thinking that it was about literally mascara and not sexual assault. And then everyone was like, oh, look at this person belittling rape. And it's like that person did not know what mascara meant because the weird TikTok thing of using like, SEGS and unalive has turned into obviously completely unrelated words that you might not fucking know mean something else. I've got to say, by the way, seems to be some kind of fucking hydra urban legend because I follow a bunch of people who

fuck shit, talk about sex, whatever, all the time. Yeah. And it's fine. It's not censored. I feel like it's just a bunch of people believing that it would harm the algorithm in some way. And it doesn't. And now it's, and I've seen the word on a live pop up on fucking Tumblr, which is incredibly annoying. I've also seen it heavily criticized on Tumblr though. Oh, really? Okay. Anyway, sorry. So, so did that play out in any way? Or the person who was being called out for belittling sexual assault because this person literally didn't know what mascara meant in this context has apologized? Sure. Yeah. The other, the other mascara gate, because I do follow people doing like makeup tutorials and stuff because yeah,

yeah, no, I've got makeup stuff as well. Yeah. I like the pretty sparklies. That's like painting subgenre for me. That's what I do instead of painting, which shove sparkly powder on face. And yeah, there was a beauty influencer who was demoing a mascara, but was wearing false eyelashes at one point in the video. Okay. And lots of people were coming down on her and Sounds like the Maybelline drama from Instagram five years ago. It is the same drama. It is literally the same fucking drama. But it's so bad that somehow Jeffrey Starr has decided this is his time to return to the fucking internet.

I was about to say, didn't he get thoroughly cancelled for dot dot dot? Can't remember. Racism, Lord of Racism. Have we got anything like vaguely related to Terry Pratchett's talk about apart from the podcast itself? Oh, it's January, isn't it? There's not like a lot of news news coming out. Telly is good recently. Last of us is on TV. That's very good. Yeah, you're saying last week because it's still holding up. Two episodes in now. The third episode will be up by the time this comes out, which I'm really excited about because Nick Hoffman's in it.

It takes very little to sell me on something. Nick Hoffman will do it. That 90s show came out on Netflix. I watched all of that in like two days. How is it? They kind of did like all the cameos in the first episode, which is not good for like a reboot sequel thing. It's somehow- Cameos from like the old crew. From like the original cast, yeah. I looked them up because I wanted, because I'm obviously talking about that 70s show in my book. In fact, it was this was that 90s show coming out as good timing because I was talking about

that 70s show in the chapter I just wrote because I was kind of holding it up against Freaks and Geeks because Freaks and Geeks came out with the second season of that 70s show was the same year and Freaks and Geeks set in 1980. But yeah, somehow that 90s show is like attempting to capture nostalgia for the 90s and also nostalgia for that 70s show, which was out in the 90s. And I don't think it's really doing either or that well, but it's like just as a cute like teen sitcom. It's fun to watch. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. And Deborah Jo Wrapp, who plays Kitty, is just just fills me with joy. I love her.

No. I'm still enjoying that Jack is watching Colombo. It's mainly in the background for me as I'm doing other things, but Colombo is fucking great. Have you watched Colombo? I don't think I've ever actually watched Colombo. All right. So it's charming. First of all, that the character Colombo and the man who plays in Peter Folk, charming. Absolutely charming. Slight crush, but in a whimsical way, you know, a whimsy crush, if you will. I will. Thank you. But what I like most of all, well, I like two things most of all, first of all,

the structure of the show is very different from most detective shows. So you see the crime to start with and you see who does it. You know who the who the criminal is from the start and it's a murder that he's a homicide detective. Yeah. And the episode is Colombo working out who did it and how to get all the evidence on them. Oh, nice. And I looked up and instead of a who done it, it's called a how catch him or something like that. Which is nice. Yeah, I like that. And the second thing I like is that almost all of the people he's pissing off and like his thing is he pretends to be a bit bumbling and incompetent and and then just gets them with a one more thing. Yeah.

Almost all of them are upper class wankers and there's a definite overtone of class warfare to it. That brings me joy. Yeah. I just remembered there was something else good. I watched I was going to tell you about Oh, the menu film it's on Disney Plus in the UK. I heard lots of people talking about it and it seemed entertaining and I was right. It's very entertaining. What is it? It's kind of like a thriller that's also quite funny taking the piss out of like Uber fine dining. Basically no more. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it's like Ray Fiennes as the head chef and it's got Anya Taylor Joy in it who's in Queens

Gambit who I could just stare at for hours. And oh, yeah, Nicholas Holt playing like one of those really fucking irritating wanky foodies. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like makes you want to rip off your own skin kind of guys. Highly amusing film. But it's a thriller you say. It is something of it. I think you call it a thriller. I'm bad at saying what genres things are. Well, that's good. It's a media writer.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm so glad. And a media podcaster. Yeah. This book. In fairness, we have done a podcast on like the hardest to pin down genre. This is a comic fantasy that goes deep into government corruption. Is it fantasy though? It's settled a fantasy world. There's not much fantastical about it.

Time travel. Aside from the time travel that traditionally goes into sci-fi. All right. There's a comedy sci-fi set in a fantasy world about corrupt governments and a bit of torture around the years. Perfect. Here it's still warm. Cool. Thanks, Niste. Oh, I noted that to talk about about three different times that bit amuses me far more than it should.

I know. Now run away or I'll gut you. All right. If we're going to start quite in the book, we should probably make a podcast. There's a bit of a lackluster opening and I feel like it's because we just want to talk about the fucking book. So, shoot. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to make a podcast? Yeah. Let's just make a podcast.

Hello and welcome to the Trisha Miki Frat, a podcast in which we are reading a Recapping, every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, won a stym in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is the fourth and final part of our discussion of Night Watch. We made it, lads. We did. We watched it all through the night. Good. Yeah, that worked. Sure.

We'll go with that. Note on spoilers before we crack on. We are a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book Night Watch. But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us.

Clambering nobly over a barricade, waving the flag of Ancomore Fork, and being filled with a dozen arrows. It'll be okay. Follow up. We've got things to follow up on, don't we, Francine? We do. We have. We are. So, first of all, in our subreddit, one of our wonderful listeners, user Tried Angles. I don't know why I said that.

Tried Angles, I say. To shreds, you say. Like a 50s radio host. Anyway, has written the song, which we glanced off of in our last episode, The Major Metaphysical, which I rather like. So I thought I'd have a go just to amuse Joanna more than anything else. Have you practiced this, or are you just... I just practiced it now while the kettle was on.

So we'll see. All right. I am the very model of a major metaphysical. I'm a sonifier, process anthropomorph, a gully cynical. I've met all the kings of mobile, kind, attended, fights historical from Omnia to Clatchistan, and own a chronological. I'm very well acquainted to in matters lancreatistical. I've dealt with organ weatherwax and knit on her sabbatical,

about the elvish unicorn I'm teeming with a lot of news. Lot of news. Lot of gossip. With many cheerful facts about the status of its silver shoes. I know no more of reaping than a farmer in a harvest time and curse that awful semnal and his workshop full of gears and twine. I'm short on that old process about which folk are so cynical. I am the very model of a major metaphysical.

Oh, brava. Oh, thanks. I had to change one word in that to make it scan, because I couldn't make gears span three syllables. But otherwise, we're good. Thank you very much. That is fried angles. That is art and I'm very grateful.

Do you have something more sane? We were talking about Hungarian folktales. Oh, so no. A while ago. And Patreons will have got some more context from that. So go check out our Puss in Boots rabbit hole if you want to find out more about Hungarian folktales. But if you want a different way of looking at them,

Flora emailed us a link to a YouTube channel that is all animated compilations of Hungarian folktales translated into English and it's amazing. There are hundreds of them. It's really, really beautiful artwork in the animation. So I'll link to that in the show notes. Go and have a look. I will also say that we had a comment from Sonda Vogel

on the subreddit that kind of talked about the conversation we had about cable street and talks about some historical context for that. I won't read out because it's quite long and also very grim. And I'll link to it though, because it's worth reading. Yes, very worth reading. And one last thing, Dennis on Twitter asked, if we thought there was much overlap between or inspiration

between Nightwatch and the TV series Life on Mars, which I'd not noticed the really obvious parallel before a policeman going back in time. So I did some research. I can't find any connection. Pratchett certainly said there was no connection that he was aware of on his part in the Alt Fam Pratchett group. So I had to look through it.

When did Life on Mars come out? Later, I think it was like 2006, 2007? By the way, I'd also never watched Life on Mars. Like I just never got around to it. So because I ended up on the Wikipedia page for it, obviously I read what happened at the end and what was the deal. And so then obviously I read what happened at the end of the sequel series and what was the deal.

And I'm not going to spoil it in case any of our listeners actually want to go watch Life on Mars, because clearly this isn't something so talked about that it's easy to get spoiled on. But yeah, that's fucking batshit. Yeah, no, they're fantastic series though. If you don't mind having had the spoiler joiner, I think you'd still like it, especially the sequel series actually.

It's lingered round as like something I will get around to watching. And I still will, I don't mind watching something, knowing what's going to happen at the end. I mean, this guy, Matthew Crayon, he's involved in Doctor Who. I wouldn't be at all surprised if these people were also Pratchett fans. Yeah, we can just assume at this point. Let's just assume, yeah. Anyone who knows, either way, please get in touch.

Yeah, if anyone's aware of any connection. Right, answers on a time-travelling place card. Yes, please send them to us last week, so I can talk about this more intelligently now. We'll know if it's worked, if you edit this conversation out in case of me having the answer. See fair. Before we go on to this section, Francine,

do you want to tell us what happened previously on Nightwatch? Yeah, previously on Nightwatch. Tension builds fast as barricades as riots flicker across Angkor Pork. Vime slash keel takes to the training yard and finally discovers the cause of Ned Coates' coldness. As the crew's new captain arrives, Vime's draws a line in the sand. He's meant to report to Rust,

but at first follows the cobblestone map back to the churning Garden of Tranquility. Back on the beat and caught between a barricade and a bloody bastard, Vime's moment of crisis is cut short by a flying anchor to his past and future and present. Yeah, something like that. After a not-quite mutiny,

he joins the revolutionaries and takes a team to scour the vifers' nest. An ending, but not THE ending, as were reminded by the thud of castes boots upon the table. Ooh, nice. Thanks. Like that. And Joanna, care to summarize this?

No. Okay. Can't get it going anyway. So this section begins on page 356 in the Corby paperback with, It was a beguiling theory that might have arisen in the minds of Wigglet and Wadi. That's all the best beguiling theories do.

I always send my beguiling theories to Wigglet and Wadi. In this section, a lot of shit happens. The metaphysical barricades have spread to enclose a quarter of the city, and armies gathered and Fred's been temporarily promoted. The voluntary soldiers sing on patrol, and Weim's is watching the weak spots as he anticipates attempts to break the siege. Mount Joyce Steadfast has enough to worry about

without a visit from Nobby and Kassa gets threatening before giving an ear to the young knobs. Steadfast reluctantly agrees to go on the attack. Siege engines approach the barricade, and Weim sends out for fresh ginger to sabotage Big Mary. The oxen get a surprise, and Weim's needs to wash his hands.

Night wears on, for rays and desertions are bound, and there's food aplenty, but chaos is soon to ensue. It's all gone political, and Mount Joyce sends a message to the party at the palace. Lady Mezzarol's moving people, and Lord Selichai takes the palace troops to deal with the Republic of Triculmine Road.

Miss Batty makes breakfast, and Sam's egg gets smashed, while a cake arrives for Lord Winder. The party gets louder, and death arrives dressed in black. Lord Winder is no more. Battle continues on the barricades, and Nancy Ball grapples with death,

but Snapcase is the new patrician, and a man arrives at the Republic, waving the white flag. There's amnesty about, apparently. Behind the scenes, Snapcase promotes Carcer to Captain, and chooses to promote Keele to Glory, despite the amnesty.

Lady Mezzarol sends young Havelok to warn Keele. The barricade's coming down, and there's a song in the air, but Weim sees the sweeper, and warns of incoming attack, as Nobby approaches, and Wiglet takes an arrow. There's men with crossbows in the street,

and not much room in the wool shop. They're running through back alleys, and getting ready to fight, with lilac plumes in their helmets. Reg makes a famous last, for now, stand on top of the barricades, as the melee begins. Both sides take a breather,

and Weim's knocks young Sam out of the action, as he reasons with coats. The sweeper intercedes, and Weim's gets a moment with Keele, before time comes alive for the final charge, and Weim grabs Carcer to take him back to the future. I'm sorry I had to put that in there. It's only half an hour later in the present,

and neither Carcer nor Weim's clothes are anywhere to be seen. Things are growing troubled at Scoon Avenue, and Sam sends for the Doctor. The new young Sam enters the world safely, and Weim's heads to small gods for a cigar. The egg on the gravestone smashed, and Carcer attacks.

Vettanari watches on, as Weim's finally gets the villain under arrest. Vettanari's known the truth all along, and he's been wearing the lilac for a reason. He gives Weim's back, treacle mine road, and Carcer goes to a fair trial, while Weim's goes home,

via the alley behind a garden. Cool. Well done. I did not breathe in the last minute. No, I noticed. All right, helicopter and loincloth watch. Sure. We got a Tifa. I'm calling it a Tifa. All right.

We have Weim's on Ridcully's broomstick, in desperate need of a loincloth. Yes, all right, yeah, sure. Yep, I do have concerns about splinters for that scene. Also, we've been, obviously, we keep track of death. I know we had him already in the last section, but we have death here. He comes for winder,

but he's not seen. Seen or present during the other losses of the heroes towards the end, which is something I think I might end up diving into. Oh, okay, yeah, I was about to speculate, but we'll speculate later. We shall speculate later. Do you have a quote?

Schedule speculation. Yes, I do, sorry. For a moment, Weim's wondered, looking out through a gap in the furniture. If there wasn't something in Fred's idea about moving the barricades on and on, like a sort of sieve, street by street, he could let through the decent people

and push the bastards, the rich bullies, the wheelers and dealers and people's fates, the leeches, the hangers on, the brown noses and courtiers and smarmy plump devils and expensive clothes. All those people who didn't know or care about the machine but stole its grease, pushed them into a smaller and smaller compass

and then leaves them in there. Maybe he could toss some food in every couple of days, or maybe you could leave them to do what they'd always done, which was live off other people. I spent a while since I picked out on a practice wonderful run-on sentences, and that is just a beautiful momentum of a thought process.

What a list. I love it when he does a list. Oh yes, gotta love a list. How about you? We're closer to the end, I think. There'll come a time when a law be clear, Sweeper had said, a perfect moment. The occupants of those graves had died for something.

In the sunset glow, in the rising of the moon, in the taste of the cigar, in the warmth that comes from sheer exhaustion, vines saw it. And I could then sit here and read out that entire page because it's really fucking good, but we'll get there. In the rising of the moon, by the way, is a reference. Oh, is it?

The rising of the moon is an Irish ballad, which talks about a battle between the United Irishmen against British forces during the Irish rebellion of 1798. But it's been covered by loads of people, so Fracture definitely wouldn't have known it, like Dublin and Shane McGowan. Oh, right, yeah.

So it's a well known one. We might even know the tune when we hear it. Okay, let's talk characters then. I thought we'd start with vines. Yes, a good place to start. Well, he's had a day, hasn't he? A few. It's quite interesting where he's suffering through these

like historical doubts, and obviously it comes into this huge moment for him. But he's looking at how young Sam is looking up to him, and he's sort of going this saying, well, I was young and I thought Keel was leading the revolution. I wonder if that's what he thought. And it's does vines have different priorities to Keel, or was Keel doing exactly what vines has ended up doing,

which was trying to keep streets safe, and it got out of hand. It was mentioned briefly that Keel died on the barricades in the original past. Yeah. So that's an interesting note, because I think earlier, one of the many parts we've already done on this,

I said, I wasn't sure how Keel died, but there we go, I remembered now. On the barricades. On the barricades. And then he has to go through this decision of having to be the hero. It says, I'm going to make the stupid decision because I don't want to look bad in front of myself.

Yeah. And there's also the he says at some point, there's no way I can make the other choices and not, and still be Sam Vimes. Yeah, absolutely. It kind of echoes what Sweeper had said earlier about there's no universe in which Sam Vimes killed his wife.

And it's like, and there's no universe in which Sam Vimes allowed people to die for the sake of his own life. It's that moment where he's trying to work out, you know, what he can keep doing, whether he'll still be able to go back if he keeps doing things. And he takes out the cigar case and he's looking at it like willing the words to disappear because that'll tell him whether he's like ruined the future or not.

And eventually he decides he's going up against history in a very Sam Vimes way. It's really hard to read. Yeah, it is. There are a couple of moments where I thought there were so Vimes. One of them being, he moved on in the center of a widening circle, he wasn't an enemy, he was a nemesis.

Oh. And yeah. And so I was like, do you know what, I know in Vibe what that means, but I'm not really sure what nemesis is. And it's a Greek mythological thing. She was a goddess, the daughter of... Nix? Yes, they personify retribution for the sin of hubris.

Oh, okay. And so this is Vimes as the personification of justice, rather than a personal vendetta. The other bit was the badge in the grass moment. Oh, when he's fighting Carcer at the end. Not just that, but he throws it in the grass obviously, and that's very symbolic and good. But what I found more symbolic and cool

was when he's talking to Vettanari afterwards, and Vettanari says, you've lost your badge, and Vimes goes, oh, I'll come find it in the morning. Because this is the Vimes who would not for a second let go of his badge. Yeah. Not for anything. And here he's like, ah, fuck it,

I've got other things to do right now. Yeah. He's... I thought that was a good one. Having spent the whole book talking about doing the job that's in front of you, and that's all he's been trying to do. As much as the people he was teaching needed to learn,

it was more than a job he needed to learn that sometimes it's a job that has to be put to one side. Yeah. Yeah. And also he's just, you know, just had a kid. Just had a kid. The moment where he says... You drop this fucker off and go home.

I'll teach... When he's like so exhausted on the edge of class, he says, I'll teach him to walk. I'm good at teaching people to walk, and then he passes out. It's like when we were talking about where's my cow? And it was just like, we can see him smile. And here we like see him described as smiling,

not like a fucking grim grin or whatever he usually does. He's beaming. Yeah. He's so happy about his young Sam. And I like that Sibyl says I'm calling him Sam, and there's no argument about it. Like that's clearly an ongoing thing they've had. Yeah.

Yeah. You don't argue with someone who's just gone through a difficult path. But he's just had all of his like young Sam teaching, and now he gets to go home to a different young Sam. It's very sweet. Yeah. I will also... It's just a little moment, but it was a bit I really quite liked.

It's after the white flags come through, and they're allowed to stand down. And he says, okay, I'll stand down. Steal them if you haven't gotten. And that's like a burned in my brain phrase, because we would... It's the same as light, and if you've got them, it's what we used to say in the kitchen.

It means go for a cigarette. What's a steal them if they haven't gotten me then? If you don't have a smoke, steal it off someone else. Oh, I see. Yeah. But it was we used to after a particularly busy service, like whoever's leading the service would stand up and say, right lads, light them if you've got them.

And then you'd all go into the bin shed, smoke a cigarette, and cry. Cute. Obviously, we weren't manning barricades or anything that intense, but it was just one of those things where a line resurrected a very specific memory in me. Yeah. Can I have a bridging speculation between vimes and car cert?

Can I do one more vimes moment before you do, which is right at the end when he's talking to veterinary in the cemetery, and veterinary starts talking about the statue, and vimes is how dare you response. And it's again, it's the repeat of the chorus. They did the job they didn't have to do, and they died doing it, and you can't give them anything. Yeah.

And God, that's just such a good like last moment of vimes anger. Yeah. It brings up for me the discussion about the portrayal of key workers, NHS workers, particularly during the pandemic as heroes, and the way that was used to then dismiss the circumstances, and the bad way, the poor way that we're treated, and the- The absolute hell those people were put through. Yeah.

It makes it sound like these are the kind of people who were built for this instead of normal people who had to make a horrible decision every day. Yeah. It's dehumanizing. Yeah. It puts people on this ridiculous pedestal that they've not asked to be on. Yeah. And it's, yeah, so high you can't hear them.

Shouting down saying, could you actually pay us a living wage, please? Actually, wouldn't mind a ladder. No, all right. Oh, yeah. Anyway, sorry, bridging statement. Get us over to Karsa. Oh, bridging speculation. Yes.

The bit where Karsa wants to take young Sam alive, the surface thing there is he just wants to be horrible to him, torture him, whatever. But my speculation would be he wanted to take him in under his wing and raise young vimes as some fucking awful proto-Karsa, which would be a much better revenge against old vimes, obviously, and also seems like the kind of twisted fuckery that Karsa would do and also would work because he's like anti-vimes. Yes. Oh, I like that.

That's good speculation. I mean, obviously, good thing that didn't happen, but good speculation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How about Karsa, though? He gets some really good, like, proper anti-vimes moments when he's convincing the, like, Manjaro Stemfast and the officers to get the siege ended out and attack. He's shouting at them. They're stealing the streets from me.

You take them back. They've put themselves beyond the law. You take the law to them. Yeah. And considering Vines' whole idea of protecting whatever law they can hold onto, Intrigal Mine Road in the Republic, that's such a good parallel to him. Yeah. They are typifying the two sides of the law, as Pratchett is kind of laying it out here,

one being the law of core justice, which says you take the side of the people, you take the side of the right, and the other being the law of this is what the person in charge is saying, and even if that entails hitting some poor sod with a grappling hook, that's what you're going to do. Yeah. There's another moment where the Karsa is inverted. Vines is literally spelled out. Karsa had, in his own way, some of Vines' qualities, only they were inverted.

The certain kind of man looks up to someone who's brave enough to be really bad, and it's talking about the men he's managed to collect around him when he's going for that kind of final showdown. Yeah. It's just being this force of charisma. Somebody's risen up the ranks. And Vines at one point kind of admits to himself that the reason what he does is okay is because it's him.

Yeah. And I think it has to acknowledge that it's cognitive dissonance. Oh, here it is. You'll find outside Vines and privately thought the answer is, it's me doing it. I'll grant that it's not a good answer because people like Karsa use it too, but that's what it boils down to. Of course, it's also to stop me knifing them and let's be frank, them knifing me. That's quite important too.

Generally, listeners, a good advisor on the true shall make you fret. Avoid knifing. Knifing, thumbs down. Thumbs down on the true shall make you fret. It's been a while since we've rated things. Cake, was that our big thumbs up? We'll talk about cake. We're going to talk about cake today.

Yeah, we'll talk about cake a little while. But also, before we move on from Karsa, the moment, obviously, we were talking about the fact this book has lots of endings and lots of denouements and what have you, we already know things are going to shit with Snapcase. We already know that he's talking about promoting Keele to glory. Going to shit with Snapcase sounds like it should be a saying, doesn't it? The real thud of, oh, but no, this is going to get really fucking nasty, is when he sends for his new captain of the guard and it's Karsa.

Like, that's just such a good quick, oh, shit's all fucked up, isn't it? But to bridge with Karsa into the next bit, and I know we already joked about this before we started the episode proper, but we were talking about Karsa being charismatic, and I still take so much joy in him giving Nobby an ear. No, he knows what a young boy wants. And what a young boy wants is someone's ear still warm. Yeah. Now run a long way or old gut, yeah.

Now, when Nobby is crying about not being a rebel, I suppose, do you think that's a real crying? No, I think he's putting it on. Yeah, okay. I feel like he's revealing the strut of crime beneath. But then later on, the bit where Bime says, and he thought it couldn't be Nobby Nobs, because that body had cried all the tears, the body could have cried a long time ago, set me off.

Yeah, no, that bit gave me a feeling. Yeah. All to jump slightly deeper into that, I ain't a rebel. He's saying, I ain't a rebel. I'm an Ankh-Morpork lad. I am. I'm proud of it. And that's the idea.

The people behind the barricade don't see themselves as rebels. They see themselves as holding onto a bit of Ankh-Morpork and not letting it become the way the rest of the city has. Yeah. It also gives him the chance to be the plucky little lamest cockney boy, doesn't it? What's the cockney boy in Paris? The, I'm an Ankh-Morpork lad. I am.

I'm not a rebel. What's the character in Les Mis? Gavrosh. Nice. Yeah, that sounds right. I always think that's wrong. Something that sounded vaguely like an anorak. Yeah.

But yes, Nobby's also got his own boots theory. His boots theory is that they're the best thing to roll on the battlefield. Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. And it's wrong as the more experienced trooper tells us. Mug's game, sir. Yes. Which this is a very footnote light book, but that is one of the footnotes is

Trooper Gavrosh has got much better ideas of how to make money during a battle situation. I saw you. But it does have quite a poignant line at the end of the footnote, which is that he'd seen too many battlefields up close to use the word glory without wincing. Yes, quite. Anyway, let's go on something less depressing. Fred's shoe. Fuck me.

All right, all right, all right. First thought his death is I almost said glorious there just because I guess the word is in my head, but there's the fucking determination and stamina shown in red shoes death, the nobleness, I guess, there. I feel like retrospectively, he was done dirty in his trivial joking about what a, you know, funny little busy body is in the fresh start crew, whatever. Yeah, absolute nobility of it there. It's incredibly affecting scene considering we know he's going to be all right for a given

value of all right. Obviously, he's a bit of a zombie. Because the only evidence we've had of his cause of death before is that it was homicide. Yes. Because in, no, feet of clay, no, fifth elephant. Maybe one of them. Fifth elephant when they're investigating a robbery, he introduced himself as red shoe homicide and they say, oh, you hear about the murder. I was like, no, that's how I died.

But also, yes, we hear about the murder, which remains one of my favorite jokes. Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, that scene, his death, but more affecting that what started off, I think the chain reaction of crying. So I guess it was the same scene as the Nobby Knob's one is when Reg is crying about nothing having changed and all of this was for naught. Whichever bit came first, that or the Lylek, or Dydikin's finding the Lylek was the bit that set me off crying and I was pretty much going for the rest of the book.

Well, you have the moment where he's kind of upset as they're taking down the barricades before that, where he's sort of holding the flag and looking very sad. And that is right after Dydikin's has said to everyone, stop talking, there's been fighting and you've got all your arms and legs, that's winning, the rest is just gravy. As you said, later on, he's so upset that nothing has changed and he actually does that you can take our lives, but you never take our freedom. Yes, and everybody thinks, what a stupid fucking line.

Which he does get, like I said, the nice ending. No one knew why some people became natural zombies substituting sheer stubborn will power for blind life force. But if anyone could, it is our red shoe, isn't it? I did have a moment of when Slant appeared in the office going, fucking Slant. It's the guy, it's that one, he's in the thing. Fucking Slant. Like obviously I knew he'd be around through all of this, but of course he's here. Of course he's here, of course he's advising.

He's like the anti-red in the zombie world, I reckon. Yeah. So he's the establishment incarnate. He's the other side to Redge's coin. Anyway, before I do weird metaphors, Sergeant Dickens. Yes, DiDickens. DiDickens, who's a reference? He is a reference. Oh, is he now?

I wouldn't have got this. This was an annotation on L Space Wiki, because DiDickens is a Clamadossian military man who doesn't swear because he belongs to a very strict religious sect. I would not have got this. So the annotation from L Space, the stern and unyielding Welsh sergeant who communicates his authority to the men, despite having such a strict religious background that he cannot swear at them, is straight out of the film Zulu. Oh, another referent is actor Windsor Davies,

who played an equally domineering Welsh sergeant major for so long on British TV. His performance in Eight and a Half Hot Mom sank deeply into the public consciousness. So deeply, in fact, that the question becomes, did Windsor Davies style his performance on a Welsh sergeant major, or do all Welsh NCOs consciously style themselves on a battery sergeant major, Williams? Oh, wow. Welsh sergeant majors, please write in with your answers. I'm assuming we have many Welsh sergeant majors who refuse to swear listening to this podcast. Last time I checked the metrics, it was about 50%, yeah.

Yeah, cool. Yes, listeners, we're collecting that much data on you, but only if you're Welsh and a sergeant major and don't swear, otherwise we're not interested. Good. But he's the one to introduce the song, he's the one to kind of introduce, like he's having like sort of a quiet influence on Vimes, even if I don't like think Vimes is fully aware of it, he's the one who tells them, you know, someone's passed away. So what you do is you have a whip round.

Yeah. And it's the small gods and everything. I said he's the one who introduces the song to them, he has the rest is just gravy moment. Yeah, the line that he says it makes me cry is not his fault actually, I've just found it as a, so what's wrong with the lilac flower, said Dickens, reaching up and pulling down a laden branch, makes a spanking plume, even if you can't eat it.

And now Vimes thought it ends. God, that's a moment. It's such a good payoff to the setup of the lilac we've had throughout the book, because it partly because it doesn't need to be there, like... Everyone wearing lilac to commemorate it could just be because the lilac was always around that time of year. Yeah, it could be more of a poppies and fly in the fields type thing. Exactly.

But then we get to have that last moment with them and Vimes knowing like this is it. Yeah, yeah. And makes me wonder when the... Because Keele dies on the barricades. Yeah. When did the lilac come into it originally, I wonder? Because there must have been...

Yeah, it's a similar in the streets battle, yeah. And obviously we'll never find out that's the point, this is now what happened. But at which I think is underlined nicely by that Nari, talking about exactly what happened. It's like, we just saw that. Yeah, ha. Also, before we move on from Dickens,

I greatly enjoy that in not swearing, he addresses them as sons of mothers. Yes. Because I didn't notice that that wasn't swearing the first time I read it. I think my brain just accepted it as a phrase, yeah. Just like nose warriors with boots and shoes, I'm going to make myself feel less stupid about that over the years. As a man who knows where he is with boots and shoes.

Right, lawn, Dr. Lawn. Dr. Lawn, covered in gold. Covered in gold now. And gets a sight for a nice big hospital. There is a moment, it's not really Dr. Lawn, but when they're talking after a friend wiggler, and I think I mean Nancy Ball, when he gets the grappling hook in his chest

and they're taking him to Dr. Lawn, and there's someone who says he's still breathing and finds his thought of people are so willing to see life in the corpse of a friend. That's such a tough moment. The fact that, the thing is, we've known these deaths are coming all throughout the book. We know there are, there are a lot of people

who are, there is a set of gravestones, but you can't help but hope that because Vimes is there and he's changed in that we won't have as many gravestones maybe when we go back. Yeah, it adds this fucking massive layer of, because we talked about at length, like that feeling you get when you read something in hope this time they won't die.

And it adds this complete extra layer to that. Absolutely. And then obviously Lawn's moment where he effectively gets confronted with Keele, who he, as far as he knows, definitely died right at the end of the book, as he's boasting a turkey. Yes. And it's interesting, he's a man who remembers his people,

I guess, because this is 30 years on, was it? Yeah. 20, whatever it is, yeah. And he only knew the man for two, three days and obviously very memorable two or three days, but to have somebody who you knew that long ago turn up unchanged and you yourself are an elderly man now, as I'm just saying, he's very sharp.

Also that person being naked on your doorstep. Yeah, which you think might distract you. You'd think. I guess that's how we met him in the first place though. Yeah, yeah, no, consistently. Maybe that helped. Yeah. There is a criticism I've read of this final section,

Sending for Lawn, and it was specifically from a feminist essay about Terry Pratchett. And I think standing alone looking at this thing, it's a fairly valid criticism, which is it's frustrating to see the midwife can't cope, so they have to get a man in because that has such a horrible parallel to things that happen in the history of medicine. Which often did not end well for the women.

Yes, getting the man in was not a sensible thing to do and disregarding the years of experience that midwives would often have. But obviously it does work so well at the end of this book as a final button for that character specifically. Yeah, and to be fair, there were also a lot of practices that traditional doctors and midwives refused to give up on, which also caused a lot of harm.

But basically, if doctors had just fucking gotten over themselves and worked with midwives earlier, that would have worked out a lot better. One of my, I must have, again, I don't know if I've said it here before, and I worry so much about repeating myself on this one. But one of the things I fucking hate reading about or watching is...

Like birth, trauma, death. Yeah, birth, trauma stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's very, yeah, the woman being out of control and almost always life in men's hands and these historical dramas and things. And just fucking hate it, very specific fear. This one, it's all right, because I know how it ends. Yeah.

And the first time I read it was long before I developed that specific fear. But yes, gestures broadly at Bridgeton and Downton Abbey for that one, because they both have horrific scenes of it. Anyway. Ned Coates. Yeah, well done, Dr. Lorne.

Yes, well done, Dr. Lorne. You did a good job. Happy for young Sam. He was fucking boiling them. He wanted to soften them. Ned Coates. Ned Coates. He came good in the end.

I mean, he never did anything wrong, really. As far as he was concerned. Because he was on the side of the rebellion of it, it makes sense that he's then effectively on Cass's side once Snapcase has taken over, because being on the side of the rebellion technically meant being on the side of Snapcase. Like that's what Lady Mesarol was doing.

Yeah, and then as soon as he sees one of them. It's as soon as he sees that he's a lot of shot to what she takes out with sword and cuts him down. Yeah, he's trying to defend young Sam against Casa from the beginning, saying, why are you trying to go for that one specifically? Yeah. And you've got fucking Ferret, obviously,

in the background of that scene as well. Very excited for everyone to get what's coming to them. Fucking Ferret. Ah, sorry, probably lost his head. He'd been unable to live beating something like Ferret to death was to the other two an embarrassing and demeaning waste of fist. Waste of fist.

Obviously, we don't stand for baiting people to death here on the true show. I'll make you Ferret. I'll make you an exception for some of these guys. Yeah, that's fair. But I do think one of the best coach moments is when he's finally standing up to Vymes. Oh, not standing up to Vymes,

but they're finally being completely honest with them, with each other just before the sweeper stops time. And Vymes is sort of confronting that about whose side you're really on. And eventually, Vymes explains, I'm from a holding time, and I travelled here. And that's really true. And Ned's response is, from how far back?

It's wonderful, isn't it? And at that point, you really see just Vymes kind of as this barbarian character, covering in blood two swords, fucking having just fought and killed many men in this mad Berserker rage. Yeah. Oh, not rage. There's cold fury.

Yeah. But the way that line still manages to be funny, even in the midst of a not horrific scene, that's not the right word. Yeah, dramatic, I guess. Grim, let's say grim, there are grim bits. Grim, emotional culmination. Yeah, very nice.

That would be an awful title for this episode. Let's do it. Grim, emotional culmination. I've got historical doubts or grim, emotional culmination so far. I should start paying more attention. Lord Winder. Lord Winder.

What a prick. It's again, it's a good testament to Pratchett that he can literally explain exactly how Winder dies fairly early in this section. Winder had been killed in a room full of people and no one saw a thing. Mm-hmm. And then his death is still kind of surprising.

Yeah. Yeah, because, well, A, because that's a very cool like sideways way of saying it and no one saw a thing. Yes. And B, because yeah, again, we don't know what's fucking, what? We don't know what's going to happen this time. We're sort of thinking like maybe poisoned dart, I guess.

Yeah, those trumpets, A. Those trumpets, oh yeah, you've got the trumpets and the hymn-seeing death around every corner. Yeah, and then he finally turns up. And then he finally turns up and it's, God, it's such a good scene. Just this figure in black walking towards him. And something I noticed as well,

like obviously it's veterinary. It doesn't say that it's veterinary. No. And he's wearing black for this one. Yes, he is visible. It's a proper assassination and he's been hired by the city. Yeah, which kind of jumping forward to veterinary briefly, but that's, we've seen veterinary is absolutely the most

competent person when it comes to running the city. But I was talking about the fact a couple episodes ago that it's almost like he stepped in and went, fuck sake, I'll do it. Someone has to fucking do it. There's a sense here that he actually cares about the city, which isn't something we see often with veterinary. But I think we're kind of allowed to see it

because it's his younger self. Yes. Yeah. And I think when we're talking later about the machinery of the city and how veterinary is somebody who understands how all the dirty stuff works, dirty, I mean, just like fucking the working bits. I feel like you can't gain that kind of understanding

without a bit of care. Absolutely, yeah. But he's often portrayed as so cold and emotionless. Yeah. But yes, there's a little avenging figure. What is this? Thin silvery sword that he left there and all. It's all very symbolic and I'm not sure exactly how,

but it definitely is. I don't know what this is symbolizing. And then the fact that he doesn't... I've been cymbal that. Yeah. He doesn't kill... A clashing cymbal. He doesn't kill Winder.

Winder dies a fright just because this figure is in front of him with a sword, effectively. Yeah. Yeah. Because so much paranoia is built up in him that an actual weapon, which means he's built up all these defenses, so he's not seen a weapon in front of him. Because he's had the guards stopping it and he's had Spymold,

who I didn't put in the character list, but Spymold, what a fucking name. I know, I looked it up. No, not a thing. I was like, Spymold, a type of poison, that would be cool. But I love him. He's a reiteration of one of the poison tasters we had in Interesting Times, I guess.

Yeah, I imagine so. I like the extra detail that he has a toad farm. There's no need to put these details in, but I love that they're there. I mean, if you were a food taster, would you not have a toad farm? I may have one now, having been given the idea, and I have no intention of eating any of them.

You cannot keep a toad farm. You have a small dog. It would upset her. Okay, fine. Okay, that is true. She is perplexed by toads. She met a toad once. I picked it up, and it weeded on me.

Do you know they do that? They weed in self-defense, and then you drop them, and it works. I'll tell you that. And that's why I don't pick up toads. We've gone off topic. I'm going to desperately... I was saving it.

What? The toad, wee? No, the toad. The toad, you freck. I was saving that. I thought you meant you were like saving the toad anecdote because you wanted to tell her later in the episode. God, right. No, quickly, before we move on from Wynder.

Obviously, death comes for Wynder, as I mentioned. As he comes for us all. As he comes. And Wynder says, not even time to finish my cake, and death says no. There is no more time, even for cake. For you, the cake is over. You have reached the end of cake.

My brain immediately went to the cake as a lie. Oh, the video game. Yes. So I did check, because obviously, I'm pretty sure Terry Pratchett must have played Portal at some point, and I did wonder if that was kind of a veiled Portal reference. But no, because Portal didn't come out until 2007. Yeah, I was going to say that was a much later game,

because I've played a bit of it. Not much later. And it definitely was not a 2000 game. The book was 2001, wasn't it? Yeah. Much later in games graphics terms. Yeah. Yeah, Portal was 2007.

But PD made a point on twist of the other day, I forgot to mention on the podcast, when Vimes makes a thing about wrist knives being an idiot's weapon. PD was like, is that a reference to Assassin's Creed and the stupid wrist knives? Can't be, because Assassin's Creed came out much later. Was Terry Pratchett a time-travelling gamer who went forward in time, played games, and then came back and made references to them in his books?

And now, with the not quite Portal reference, I've decided that confirms the theory, and Terry Pratchett used to travel forward in time to play video games. Better. He wrote the book, then travelled in time, and made the games put in reference to his books. Yep. Okay, that's a much better way.

No, no, I like the time-travelling gamer, actually. No, that's a cooler title. All right, you win, PD. Now, we found a second piece of corroborating evidence, because that is definitely evidence. Yes. Anyway, God, we're talking about the book Nightwatch, aren't we? Oh, I'm sure.

Then Toad's. Snapcase, snapcase, horrific. What a twat. What a twat. And we knew you was going to be a twat. Sorry, that didn't work. Never mind, don't mind me. Don't mind me, Joanna.

I'm going nowhere today, or in life. Fuck me, can we get existential in the break, please? When did I ever save it for the break? I'd be stupid. Yeah, right. Where's the existential crisis board? Oh, it's out of reach. Of course, it's out of reach.

What's the point in going on? God, right, snapcase. You have to edit this episode. I have no intention of doing so. The description of him, I was thinking exactly the same thing said snapcase, his little eyes gleaming. That's all you need to know about the guy. Little eyes gleaming.

And just for that second, there's that kind of dissenting thing. So the little eyes gleaming, you know, is horrible. Like he's a horrible man thing. For the same time, he's thinking, I'm going to promote Vimes, Keel. To glory. So for a second, you're like, oh, he's going to promote him. And then two lines later, obviously. And also, he says something about, you know, the particulars could have been useful to us

suitably reeducated. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that when I said something about snapcase, at least was the better choice. I'd forgotten that line. Yeah. And it's this horrible moment because Lady M and Dr. Follett, who've kind of engineered him into the protrictionship of watching and going and watching the wheels coming off and going, oh, we got him this far

and now we're not in control and it's not good. Yeah. And you know, Dr. Follett met a sticky hand not long afterwards. He's like, do we know any assassins that we might want to promote? Yeah, absolutely. There's also moments where he's talking about the fact like what kind of, what ruler could tolerate the existence of such a man. He did all of that in just a few days, snapcase and Vimes.

And things we know exactly what kind of ruler can tolerate such a man. Yes. But Vessenari didn't just tolerate Vimes. Vessenari made Vimes. Made him and then deployed him. Yeah. If you think about who Vimes was at the beginning of guards, guards, even towards the end of guards, guards, and that wasn't all engineered by Vessenari,

obviously. No. But if you think about who becomes by the end of men at arms, that's Vessenari. Absolutely. And it kind of, again, with my wild speculation, kind of shows what he could have become in the hands of an actual evil genius rather than an evil presenting genius such as Vennari. Yeah. I mean, let's, I put Vessenari later in the list,

but let's talk about Vessenari now because we keep doing it anyway. Yeah, sorry. He's hard not to talk about. What a guy. What a guy. Ah, fuck. He's, it's, I love the dispassionate way in which he talks about a very emotional time. Absolutely.

He says, and I must say, held it in my mouth. Been a kind of disgusted, not disgusted, but kind of slightly disapproving of his younger self, planting a flower between his teeth to, to fight. It's such a good moment as well. Because this is after Vimes has yelled at him about suggesting a statue. And he, and Vines then realizes that Vessenari knew that Vessenari's worked it out. Yes. That Vimes is, was, keel, vice versa.

Yeah. Because he says, sergeant. Yes. Yeah. That was a good moment. And then, but then he brings up the fact that he, he wears the lilac every year. And the, and I pointed out right at the beginning of the book, you know, that we know Vessenari wears it as well.

It's not just Watchmen. But the book is so good, you can kind of almost forget by the same bit. Oh yeah. Hang on. Why was Vessenari wearing it? Especially once you've had the explanation of the plumes. Yeah. Because in your head it's like, okay, you know, I've seen Vessenari in that timeline now,

now he fits. Yeah. But yeah. And then you get the plumes and it's like, oh hang on, where is Vessenari? And then you remember that, of course, Vessenari was on his way there to warn Vimes slash keel. Because Lady M had sent him. And yeah, he explains that he was trying to save the guy's life for the second time. Yes.

And yeah, I have to say, held it in my mouth. I'd like to think that I made some difference. I certainly killed four men, although I take no particular pride in that. Yes. I loved how he pointed out that after Cas had vanished, I saw him disappear, but after he vanished, his men just fell to pieces, whatever. But in contrast, and I'm not sure if he says in contrast, but it obviously means it as in contrast, when keel was seen to have fallen, his men went fucking mental and just took the other side to pieces.

And I love that because after we've just seen the kind of Cas being anti-vimes and bosses and managing to get all these men around them in such short order and become the leader of these little troops, this really shows the difference in the kind of loyalty they commanded. And one of them is based on fear and one's based on respect, I guess. Yeah. And a cool eyepatch. And a cool eyepatch.

It helps. It was at Vesinari says, the men with the lilacs. If I ever die for someone, I hope they're wearing an eyepatch. I'm going to be able to get through my stupid fucking straight face, though this is never going to go out. This will never air. The men with the lilac fought like tigers, not skillfully, but when they saw their leader was down, they took the other side to pieces.

That's it. But like tigers, tigers, like another tiger. We got a tiger back. Oh, we love our tigers. So yeah, that's actually good end for Vesinari. Oh, not end for Vesinari, but it's a good end for Vesinari within this book. Yes. Yes.

Agreed. Right. Lord's Salakai and Venturi. Indeed. So I think we've met Salakais and Venturi's before, especially in charge of things. Yeah. I love, by the way, the through line of the aristocratic names in the Discworld series, just as a continuity thing.

Because it's like when you read about, you know, round world history and you're like, that fucker again, 200 years later. But the actual names, these are two rival families, the Salakais and the Venturi's. Salakai is the Latin term for the shark family. Oh. And Venturi tubes are used in jet engines. Okay. So the sharks and the jets, which are the-

Oh, fuck. All right, fine. So please imagine them clicking at each other ominously. Sorry, it's from West Side Story for listeners who don't watch as many musicals as we do. A musical I have strong trauma about. Yeah. Yeah. Terrible.

Right. Would you like to do the polite conversation? Absolutely, I would. Do you want to start? Venturi. Salakai. This is a party. Indeed.

I see you are standing upright. Indeed. So are you, I see. Indeed, indeed. On that subject, I noticed many others are doing the same thing. Which is not to say that the horizontal position does not have its merits when it comes to, for example, sleeping. Quite so.

Obviously, that would not be done here. Oh, indeed, indeed. Very good. That brings me a lot of joy. It's funny as fuck. Obviously, she has like a cool moment through this. But I added her to your list because I know when she's, Madame pointed a threatening trembling finger.

Do it now or receive an aunt's curse. An aunt's curse, thought I. That sounds fucking familiar. That's a thing, right? That is a thing. It is. Yeah, it's from Woodhouse. I went for a little looksy and it's from, well, at least once from Right Ho, Jeeves.

When Aunt Dahlia telegrams Bertie and says, come at once, Travers. Perplexed, explain, Bertie. To this, I received an answer during the afternoon sleep. What nurse is there to be perplexed about ass? Come at once, Travers. Three cigarettes and a couple of turns about the room and I had my response ready. How do you mean, come at once, regards, Bertie? I append the comeback.

I mean, come at once, you maddening halfwit. What did you think I meant? Come at once or expect an aunt's curse. First post tomorrow. Love, Travers. I've read that book so many times that I guess an aunt's curse is lodged firmly in my head. Okay, and yeah, before we move on location-wise, I want to talk a bit briefly about the glorious republic of Tricolmine Road and the city in general.

Okay. And we have covered a lot of this as we've been talking as well. The city in general as brackets at the end of one street is quite a thing. Well, you know, there is this city that we spend a bit of time in. I love the realization that Tricolmine Road has not got any important civic architecture. It just happens to have like the slaughterhouse district, the butter market, the cheese market, tobacco and candle makers and fruit and veg and grain and flower stores. That's got, you'll be unsurprised to know, an interesting parallel to quite a few historical

events actually where during insurrections and urban warfare, the toffs send their manpower to protect civic architecture and the government buildings and all of that. And it's like, hmm, did you not know? I know there's all sorts of writing and whatnot in the streets, but I do like to think at the Antmoor pork opera house, they've not fucking noticed because they're just really deep in rehearsals. They think it's the rehearsal next door or something. They're doing lame as soon.

We talked about moving the barricades like a sip, but it also goes into this idea of all of this food that comes into the city every day. A hundred cows died, flour, 80 tons, potatoes and everything. And Vime's like having to now stop and think about this because it's going to stop working. And this idea of, we've talked about before because it's been a thing through the books, the city is a process, a machine, acres of it, forests are part of it, it's consumed, and it gives back and it lands on this. That's what civilization meant in the city.

And it gives you this view of it as almost like this heavy object in space time. Yeah, it's walking all around the world around it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just the gravitational pull of that many people. The bit I loved about that little realization was when he was like, is anyone else thinking about it? Not probably. Is anyone important thinking about it?

It seemed a bit, not to make it Brexit-y, but it seemed a bit Brexit-y in the way that I feel like a lot of people in charge of wanting Brexit to happen didn't think about the stuff like the Port admin and just the day-to-day, what the fuck, we've got a massive queue of lorries now at Dover and all of that stuff. And they were just like, I don't know, fucking food just happens, doesn't it? Yeah. And yeah. In my lovely, heavily subsidized fucking MPs restaurant.

Sorry, that's a rant that we don't need in the podcast. The point is that veterinary is the one who knows how to keep the machine working. Yes. What we're saying is introduce a benevolent dictator. No, we're not saying that. Resolution. No, no, not public. Carry on.

Let's not incite anything. We're not inciting anything, but I think we'd make cute benevolent dictators. Like, I think that could be a good look for us. We know that Venari did it for style. Good. Is that all of our places and people? Yeah, let's go on to things. Yeah, vegetable, animal, mineral, metaphysical.

Coffee? Probably. Little bits we liked. Oh, what do we like? Lots of it. Near the very beginning of the section when the army has formed behind the barricades. Yes. And you knew where you were with strictly speaking weapons.

It's the not so strictly speaking meat cleavers, tighter poles and the meat hooks, because this is the area of small traders and butchers and longshoremen. Yep. And then there were the men who'd come back from the wars with their sword or the helbert. Got weapons. God bless you, sir. No, thems mementos. Thems mementos.

It's a theme that Pratchett's gone into before that saying something. Yeah, he's talked about it several times. Yeah, saying something's not a weapon's fine until you're facing down a scythe. In fact, I think we talked about it chronologically in Pratchett's outfit. I think it was in the carpet people. I like this as an idea because it's not hugely dived in too deeply here, but it fits in with the theme of it, the power here being the weapons in the hands of people who work the menial jobs,

because they happen to be the ones who end up holding the big nasty things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was one of them holding like a flint thing knife, which I had to look up and that I didn't like that. Oh, yeah, they're shiny. Yeah. And alongside that, using the grannies as weapons who are sitting on top of the megaphone saying,

hey, you're out there, Ron. Climb up one more time. You're for the back of my hand. And that moment, our Rita sends her love once you tarry home. Grandpa's feeling a lot better with the new ointment. Now stop being a silly boy. Yeah. But that's like pages after Nancy Balls dies.

Like that's a couple of pages after Nancy Balls dies. The fact that you can have such a laugh out loud moment in there is a testament to fucking Pratchett, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Fucking love the granny's thing, though. And it's like, you can imagine so much that it would work. Like that's just something you can't really fight against, isn't it?

Not once you know grandpa's doing well with his new ointment. Well, you want to disappoint Grandma when she's so happy about the ointment? For goodness sake. Come on. The next little bit is actually quite big. The song that has run through the whole book, and we finally get the kind of full version of it here. All the little angels rise up, rise up.

All the little angels rise up high. Yeah. And the moment, young Sam says that's a nice song, and he's hearing it for the first time. Yeah. And Vines is remembering it's a sentimental song and says, as I recall, they used to sing it after battles. I've seen old men cry when they sing it.

That's why it sounds cheerful. They're remembering who they were not singing it with. Thought Vines, you'll learn. I know you will. Which, what a fucking moment. Yeah. I found quite a long annotation about the song itself, as in what it might have been based on.

Yeah, I found a few as well. But the main annotation I found over and over again was Pratchett saying not to bother googling it. Yeah, exactly. That's my trailing off there. So the theory is that it comes from a German folk song, Augustine, something. Yes. Yeah.

I don't know if anybody is there for put this to that tune. They have. There's lots of good versions on YouTube, actually. I remember May 25th, a couple years ago, Laurie Penny did quite a nice version. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah.

I'll link to that in the show notes. Yeah, let's link that one. Yeah. I won't torture the listeners with a sung version now, but maybe in May. Yeah. I had an idea for that, but I'll talk about that with you off the pod. But yeah, it's a beautiful. Off the pod.

Off pod, as they say. And they don't say that, they shouldn't. But then they start singing it when everything's fine and the barricades are coming down. And obviously Reg is quite sad, but it's described as the song began, whether it was a requiem or a victory chant, he didn't know. But Dickens started it and the rest joined in, each man singing as though he was all by himself and unaware of the rest. Yeah.

So it could be one man's requiem and others victory chant. Five people died. Yeah. At that point, no. Nancy Ball's the only one who's died. Oh, no. Yeah, five men. We lost five men in all.

Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. But one named character. Not like you to forget the non-named characters. When would I forget an MPC? And all these things happened from Dickens actually was another good

teaching Sam thing, which actually tied in with another bit that I highlighted that was just before the fight when young Sam goes, are we going to actually fight them? Like really fight. And Old Vimes is like, yeah. And you think the first time that would have happened, even if you trained as a watchman and bopped a few people over the head with your truncheon. Can you imagine? Of course you can't.

I can't either. The fear. No, absolutely. In having to go into, and this is old style fighting as well, of stabbing somebody face to face, which is an incredibly difficult thing to do. One of my favorite podcasts, Hardcore History, Dan Carlin goes into this quite a lot about the kind of trauma that that brings on a person having to kill somebody up close. Yeah.

And also if you think about how much it goes against everything young Sam's been learning for this entire book, that you don't go into the fight, you do everything you can to disarm and get away from the sharp object, you don't use the sharp object. Yeah, de-escalate, de-escalate. Making sure you don't have your swords on show, because that's not going to help when the mob comes. Yeah. And now he has to go completely against it.

Yeah, this is a little bit like. Sorry, that was my fault. I took his back. No, that's cool. We can't really avoid that in this section of the book. Let's turn it up to a thing we foreshadowed for many a month. Ah, yeah. Okay, so the party.

Only someone lying on the huge beams that span to the hall high above would spot any pattern. And even then they'd have to know the code. If they'd had been in a position to put a red spot on the heads of those people who were not friends of the patrician, a white spot on those euros cronies and a pink spot on the perennial waiverers, they'd have seen something like a dance taking place. And this is the party and Lady M's moving them around. But this is the scene I had in mind when I've talked about all these other scenes we've had

in other books where you see a party or something from above and you see how the people move with each other. And it's so perfect here. This is always really stuck with me as she moves so that she engineers the white spots to be surrounded by reds and then the pinks start coming together but supervised by a red. Yeah. Yeah. And you can just see it, can't you?

You can see it with the narration over the top. And like Good Omen style reading the narration word for word, but beautiful cinematics with it. It's incredible. Especially if you can imagine the kind of music they had in Good Omen's as well. Such you can see. I kind of want to do like a shitty animation just to get it out of my head. But yes, this is why I've kind of brought it up when ideas like this have come up in other books because it has always been a favourite of mine.

But I think this is the best moment of it. Perspective shifts are really good because it starts as being like from Lord Salakai and Lord Venturi's perspectives and Lord Salakai goes off and it goes from Lord Venturi's perspective as he's being witty until the dot scene, which is the closest we get to like an omniscient third person perspective. The drone camera goes up. And it stays omniscient until Winder dies. Ah.

And Lady N screams. Very cool. You can just see it. You can see it perfectly. Very clearly transmitted from practice heads to art, I think. Yes. Practice heads. He had many.

Hydra. Little known fact. One of my favorite about Terry Branch, it was a Hydra. That's why he had all those monitors. Yeah. Girl. Love it. And hate it.

I'm afraid he shed. Right, sorry. I'm going to keep grabbing us wildly off topic. So Assassin's Guild rules. Oh yeah. So last week I was briefly about how it was interesting that Venturi could not be an assassin because he wasn't playing for these rules that were necessary for assassins to exist. And here they are spelled out.

So an assassin had to look like one, black clothes, hood, boots and all, if they could wear any disguise. And what could anyone do but spend all day sitting in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed up the door and goes on to say they can't kill anybody who can't defend themselves, even though if that's just financially and they have to be given a chance. But there was just no helping some people. They didn't realize when the machine had stopped bringing it back to the machine, little through line there, little through line of the machine.

When the world was right for change. When it was time, in fact, to spend more time with their family, in case they ended up spending it with their ancestors. Of course, the Guild didn't infume their rulers on their own behalf. There was a rule about that too. They were simply there when needed. And then it goes on to a little bonus King of the Bean. And you told me about the King of the Bean.

I can't remember if it was on the podcast or in the Patreon only thing. It was related to Hogfather. It was. So in very brief, because it's described here in wonderful detail, a special dish served with one hard bean in. You ever found the bean was King? While it's good, then the druids kill you with knives. And of course, that was before people were civilized.

These days, no one had to eat beans. But that whole bit, I thought, was very unnecessary, almost, but very cool. And also, of course, it is a wonderful parallel of the savagery of the past. And it's exactly what's playing out here. Yeah, it's the savagery of the past. Until things get their shit together. Yeah. Snapcase just found a bean.

That's all it was. And I guess he won't last for very long because there's people with the knives that are mainly used for missile. So just realized that they palmed the bean into the wrong pot, so to speak. As such, yes. Anyway. But before Snapcase can come to power, Winder's got to go.

And he's paranoid about how that's going to happen. He is, and quite right, too, as it happens. But he's paranoid about the wrong thing. And it was just very brief, actual small little thing I liked. When he's getting his guards to stab the cake on the various layers. And it's so protracted and cringy. And it just says, the audience watched on with frozen smiles. And just in that moment, you can think about how fucking awkward it would be to be in that party.

It's like a, okay, all right, this is normal and good. Fine. Because you can imagine his reactions to things as well are very enraged toddler. The way he's described. He's so shrunken with his own paranoia. And he's so unpleasant, especially when he talks to Lady M. There's just adds that extra level of grossness when he talks about people from Genua. Yeah, and yeah, just very, very visceral, secondhand embarrassment.

Very well portrayed, I would say. But also the stopping the Trumpeters for poisoned arts and making them whistle instead. Finally, I had, sorry, we've accidentally split these exactly in two again. And finally, I had just the leaks and the lilacs. When Dickens is going on about his battle that it was some time in history. Yeah. That everyone put carrots in their helmets. And they had nutritious snack on the battlefield.

Very good. Yes. Is probably a reference to St. David's legend, where he fought the Saxons and war. Leaks, that's a little plume, little leaky plume. Hence where the leak is. If you distinguish themselves to the battlefield, yes. And the leak is the national plant. Vegetable.

Vegetable. Of Wales. Of Wales, Scotland, fuck. This all, I know, I know. I'm sorry. There's natural flower of Wales as the daffodil, I believe. And then the leak is the vegetable. Do we have a national vegetable?

I don't know. I don't suppose we deserve one. We don't deserve one. Well, I'm not sure if the Scots might have the turnips because they're the neeps, aren't they? Oh yeah, good point. Reminds me of our wedding night. We had turnips then, too. Blackadder?

Yes. Murray Mungleys. Cool. Do you want to talk about barricades? Made of leaks. Literally only a bit because we've got lots of things to talk about that I just thought. We can't leave it completely unexplored. I just think barricades are a really interesting part of history.

In very brief, apparently it evolved from earlier practices of putting massive heavy chains across the street that had a kind of a similar thing of not being able to let troops through in urban warfare and blocking off certain parts of the city strategically. And then at one point people went, all right, let's weigh them down a bit with maybe some earth and rubble and cobblestones for a very part of it. Yeah. A cobblestone, so a flying cobblestone, ballistic cobblestone was a part of it. And then eventually barrels, hence barricade.

Ah, okay. Yeah, I think we thought about that for a second. We probably have got that side note. Ballistic cobblestone, my new drag name. Ballistic cobblestone is a fantastic new drag name. And possibly a better episode name than whatever fucking grunting I've said before. Oh, no. But they had their heyday, heyday in the French Revolution's multiple.

18th, 19th century is when they were most effective. And it's not entirely clear why they reached their peak efficacy at that time, but it's a little more clear or certainly there's some very convincing speculation as to why they then became less effective. As warfare or as the response to this kind of insurrection evolved, the troops that were dealing with it, A had different tactics. So artillery removes you from the situation somewhat. And B came from farther away a lot of the time.

And so the people dealing with the barricades weren't from the areas they were dealing with. And here in this book, I think it's really well demonstrated how easily it can go wrong if you send people from the area to attack it and their grannies on the barricade. And that probably fucking happened. Yeah, absolutely. At least once. And I think that's really interesting that urban warfare just completely changed as soon as rulers realized that they should maybe stop sending in locals.

Also, I looked it up during the coffee break, as I promised. And you'll be thrilled to know, yes, Big Mary was kind of a thing. So the Chinese, obviously, because they were very good at siege weaponry very early, had things called hook carts. Similarly, hook things on, pull it down, 50 to 100 men could come and pull it down. Or, as early as the Three Kingdoms period, from 220 to 280 AD, they had oxen. Here's an extract from Chen Lin. The hook carts joined the fray and the nine oxen turned and heave,

bellowing like thunder and furiously smashed the towers and overturned the parapets. Then the flying ladders, movable overlitz, cloud pavilions and the buildings in the void, the buildings in the void. I've rolled forward into the breaches so that the attackers can swarm into the city. Incredible. That's a cool set of words. Flying ladders, movable overlitz, cloud pavilions and buildings in the void. New drag name.

Anyway, all that could be avoided with a bit of fresh ginger. Top tip. Top tip. One thing, actually, I forgot to mention, and this will start leading us into the next section, as the Big Mary thing is happening, it does mention that there are a crush of people stuck between the barricade and the siege engine. So this decision to take the siege engine out of action isn't just stopping them from pulling down the barricade,

it is helping the people who are stuck there, because this has driven more of the crowds in the city towards the barricade. Yes. This is still about protection, this is still about human life, not just the life behind the barricades, but the NPCs stuck in front of them. Yeah, we should stop calling people NPCs. Yeah, no, we should. That's a bit incel.

Okay, but I mean specifically in this context, the unnamed characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bit of mob. Yeah. No, our crowd is probably a better word than NPCs. Yeah, that is my very brief rhapsody on barricades, because I could obviously go on fucking forever about the various front revolutions and insurrection in general, and maybe I will in the rabbit hole.

But for now. But for now, let's not, because it does brisk as going into lame is. As much as we love going into massive historical detail on this podcast, we are specifically talking about the book Nightwatch, which is considered the best discworld book by vast, vast numbers of people. I do feel like there's a lot of people who are in a similar boat to me of objectively, this is the best, but it's not my favorite. Yeah, yeah.

I do think that this does mark something of a shift in discworld. And without spoiling future books, I think this is the one that really, we've had other books that go into really deep and heavy topics. We've had other books that go into dark stuff, but I think this is the one where it really accepts, hey, this can be so much bigger than some wizards running around doing stupid shit. Yeah. Like so much bigger.

Yeah, I'd say where he's possibly dipped a toe in these topics before, he's just fully fucking plunge pooled us into this time. Absolutely. It's also like Vimes is even more central here. Like in the other watchbooks, carrots always been almost as much for main character, at least like a big B plot. Like the fifth elephant is as much about carrot as it is about Vimes. Yeah.

And about the crime itself, whereas this is all Vimes almost all start to finish. Yes. Everyone else is really incidental in the end, which is a big shift in the watchbooks. But I think part of the reason this is considered like the best discworld book, it's only able to do that because it's this incredible combination of everything that has come before. We've had almost 30 books to get to this point,

and you couldn't start with a book this good. Does that make sense? Yes. It's like trying to build a ninth floor of a building without the previous eight. And one of the things I think he does amazingly well is this interspersion of tension, especially in the moments when the party is going on, and especially in the moments around Winder's death. You have, we've had that conversation about Vimes wanting a boiled egg.

Mrs. Bassie delivers him breakfast. He throws the egg in the air. It's shot. Yoke and shell rains down on him. At that point, the action goes back to the party. Yeah. That is such a must-for-way to manipulate the tension of these two huge things rising up,

the attack that's coming on the barricades, because we've seen Salakai leave with the palace troops, and the attack that's coming on Winder that we know is going to happen at this party on this night. Yes. Yeah. Here's the tension. Yeah, here's the culmination,

and we're just going to take you back to the Vilduff again. Exactly. It's incredible. Yeah. There's so much payoff. There's these discussions about who the enemy is after the barricade fight where we lose. Nancy Ball is over.

But before they've come to attack again, because they want to promote Kiel to glory, the white flag has come, the snap case is for patrician, and Vimes, he wouldn't be Vimes if he just let things lie. He called out, so would you like to change ends? Would you also like to have a go at defending the barricade

and we can try attacking it? Yeah. Oh, no. But then he says, you know, we've got the doctor here, we can help with your wounded, and Young Sam is trying to make sense of this and comes back to,

but Nancy Ball's dead. Yeah. And Young Sam says, well, they were the enemy. And Vimes is the one who points out, you know, it's always worth thinking about who your enemy really is. It's about more than just the guy

who's trying to stick his sword into you. It pays to be less tightly focused, who was telling that person to stick a sword in you. Yeah. The fact that it keeps managing to bring moments that genuinely do make you laugh out loud in what is like such an upsetting ending, the moment in the wool shop.

Oh, for fuck's sake, yeah. Where she's trying to finish serving Mrs. Soops on, who wants however much of two-play wool. Yep. And isn't she a good little revolutionary herself? Isn't she nice and helpful? And Vimes, you know, going to the effort of making sure they buy something.

He wants a mushroom for darning socks. Nice little cool whack as well. And there's so many good payoffs in this. Obviously, you have the payoffs of stuff that's been built up within this book. You have the lilac. You have the payoff of veterinary wearing the lilac and what he was doing.

The fact that it jumps forward to the future before we've seen the resolution of everyone's story in the past, we didn't know what was happening with veterinary until we find out in the future. Yeah, right at the end, yeah. We don't know what happens to young Sam between now and the beginning of Guard's Guards.

We assume, we've got to assume it's not all pleasant. No. Well, yeah, no, definitely not, yeah. And then he has this final realise, oh, there's also a really nice callback moment when Vimes goes back. He felt later on there should have been more to it. Rushing blue tunnels or flashes

or the sun should have shot round and round the sky. Even pages tearing off a calendar and fluttering away would have been something. Yes. And I can't remember what it was called back to, but I know we've had a moment where time passes and Pratchett talks about sun moving, pages fluttering off a calendar.

It's really early. I think it's like mort or something. Yeah. Yes. I remember going, ha, fun trope. Yes, and fun payoff. And then that final duality moment as he's in the cemetery with Karsa and he realise,

and he's battling the beast. You know, he lets the beast come out to take Karsa down, but then he's ficing off the urge to give the hangman the day off the next day and take care of it himself. And his realisation that young Sam is watching across the years, but how that goes hand in hand

with the fact that there's a new young Sam. Yeah. And that it's not just about when it breaks down, we all breaks down, and he's got to hold on to the lessons he taught his younger self, but that it can't break down now because there's someone else it's got to not be broken for.

Yeah. Did that make sense as a sentence? I think so. Good. I think so, yeah. That machine, yeah, that you were alluding to there, that machine analogy is expanded on through this whole book, and as you said, through the whole bloody series,

but this book especially, and he talks about the city as a machine, but then he talks about himself, and he doesn't say it explicitly, but as a key part of that machine, he says you can bend this part so much that it meets itself like a horseshoe, but you can't break it or the whole thing breaks.

And it's like, he is the key part, it is him. There aren't many people who it matters that much if that they break, but if he commander his grace, Samuel Vimes, breaks and murders, as he is still technically a suspect without due process, then the machine breaks down. Absolutely.

And this was the point I was making about veterinary kind of making vimes. Like I said, it's the actions of veterinary and guards, guards and men arms that form vimes into his grace, so Samuel the Duke commander. Ooh, oh yeah, you can see it. Because he needed that to make the machine work.

He needed a vime, so he made one and then threw it in the machine as like a... He custom made a part. Extra greasy cog. Yours was better. Gross. I should have kept interrupting. I should have stopped.

You said a much better thing. And I didn't know where I was going. Oh, I love you. Extra greasy cog. I thought, by the way, when we're talking about kind of combinations and callbacks, when I was hearing the description about Vimes fighting in the melee,

again the circle widening and him wearing these two swords in this... Just this nemesis way. It kind of seemed to me like a serious version, like a genre switch of the Kohen battles when he's describing the kind of immense damage that these old men can do. But it's like the serious version of this.

What happens if this happened in real life? And like in real life, I mean, in another character arc that's taken just like a little bit less fantastically. I'm bringing this back around to the point we were making about this being like a tonal shift in the Discworld books. Like we're not so far on from The Last Hero,

but this is less fantastical. Yeah. Like we've practically talked to 90 years, you know, I wish I'm bothered with all the stuff about the turtle and the elephants because that's not really the point. And that's really such a big part of it here. This is so beyond the turtle and the elephants

into something that feels so tangible and so real. Beyond the turtle and the elephants. Their lives. A greasy cog. Oh, no, we're ruining our moments. God, we're having good moments here. I do care about this. And something that feels so much closer to life

by just doing that shift of it's into a fantasy setting, but not so far away from our own life and not so far away from human history that it gets to interrogate it. I saw a really interesting conversation about Toe Pratchett on Twitter the other day, not linked to our podcast or just someone tweeting about, you know, oh, it was one of those very like,

oh, why the fuck would you bother with Harry Potter when this is right there and it does all this cool stuff and interrogates biases. And I saw someone comment saying like, that one thing that I can sometimes struggle with is that Pratchett is clearly quite idealist and obviously there's happy endings, which makes sense.

Of course, you want a book to have a happier, at least bittersweet ending, but it can be like such a good historical parallel until you hit that need for a happy ending because obviously the historical parallels didn't have happy endings and things didn't get better and there isn't a magical veterinary to appear

and make the machine work properly. But you get to see it here with the happy ending and I think Nightwatch is one of the best ones for, yes, it has a happy ending because it jumps forward into the future. It jumps forward into the time of magical veterinary and his grace or Sammy or the Duke commander, whatever. Yeah, and we've already seen snatches of the sad ending.

Yeah, but there is a bittersweet ending there. It acknowledges that things aren't fixed overnight because that's what happens after Vimes leaves the past. And I think it's made all the better for the fact that it does have a happy ending, but it doesn't. You know what I mean? Yes, what you were saying about the tension thing as well, I think ties into that because in parallel with that,

you've got this kind of buildup of emotion that is quenched slightly at the last minute, but not on earth and everyone lives happily ever after way. Through the last part of this book, there's a real bitter sense of the futility of it all. The kind of World War I feeling of, did we all just die because you pricks for bickering and now we're just going to carry on as if you weren't.

And the fact that the attack starts as Winder is dying. All of this bloodshed happens after it should have been too late for this to be happening. Absolutely. The call to ceasefire doesn't come until far too late. It's awful and you see everybody just fucking realising it. And you see Reg crying and you see young vines going, but they were the enemy.

And you just realise how often, always, this is the case. But there's fucking wars fought for the aristocracy or because of the aristocracy or whatever. And then it takes you to the future and you don't get a resolution for that. And that is good because there shouldn't be a resolution for that because it isn't from real life and it would be dishonest and beyond Pratchett

or beneath Pratchett, I think. And builds up to this just kind of awful feeling and then you get flung into the present, the future, whatever. And then you've just got a completely, you've got a different job in front of you now. Yeah, you forget all of that for a minute. The new job is baby born safe. Right, that's in front of me.

And then finally, finally at the end, you get this slight relief or huge relief actually because Sam gets to enjoy the joy that is in front of him and he beams as the sun comes out and he falls asleep, happy, talking about how he'll teach him how to walk, as he said. And then a little later, you get the moment of him coming to the... Your quote, actually, that the occupants of this grave

had died for something and by saw it. And it's abstract and you can't explain it properly. You get the feeling in the same way the vimes does but you wouldn't be able to explain it to somebody you haven't just read this book, I think. It's almost zen, this thing of finding joy in the presence and in what is in front of us and while acknowledging the kind of fucking horrors of the world.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's the best book because it not just touches on but it embodies all these themes that mean the most to all of us and which frustrate us. And then it gives us just this bit of self at the end. It's that let's say promise of there will be one perfect moment. Yeah.

Such a fucking good book, though. Such a fucking good book, Francine. I know this. Fuck. I feel like I need a bigger conclusion. Anyway, it's my grand overarching theory of this book. I thought mine was all right. No, it was perfect.

I just wanted to have the last word. Yeah. No, all I've got is greasy cogs now. Francine, have you got... No, no, no. Sorry. I was just being a dick. If you've got something, please do.

I think I've said most of it already. My grand overarching theory of this book and why it's so beloved is, as I said, it's a combination of everything that's come before. It is so willing to interrogate, not in a ginger-beer trick way, how easy it is for human beings to be atrocious and good, and because I think it makes you care about people that you would never see again in a way that other books don't. I said I briefly wanted to interrogate death turning up,

and something I've noticed as we've been talking about these books for so long is that death very rarely turns up for the good guys that we see. Obviously, in a sense, he's there for everyone, but when you see him interacting with a good character, and I know it's obviously not all black and white, it tends to be death walking alongside him, say with vines or with rinse wind. The only really memorable scene I can think of

where death interacts with a good character that's passed away is when Cuddy dies. Yes, and that's early. That's very early, and it's a beautiful moment, but partly it would be really weird for the pacing of the book if death turned up when Nancy Bull died, and when Wiglet died, and when Snouty died, and when Dickens died, but partly because I don't think, I think because we know

who the Grim Reaper is within the books, we know they're going to a good place, if that makes sense. Yeah, and I feel like it's almost respectful, it sounds odd to say, but it's respectful to give them that moment privately. Yeah, right, I could talk about this book for many more hours, but eventually we both have to sleep. So, Francine, do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me? I do, I have two, sorry.

It's all right, I don't know what to speak. Speaking of, nobody needs to sleep really, do they? Do you want the bonus one from last week first, or the one from this one first? Let's have the bonus one first, yeah, yeah. So, from last week, and I missed it and I'm annoyed, so I'm putting it in now, especially because last week it turned out wasn't a proper one.

Last week, Vines is thinking to himself about the domestic dispute that turns into the notorious hedge murder, and apparently, around this time, violence between neighbours, domestic disputes that turn into violence, was like a growing problem in Britain. It says here, in 2003, the National Support Network for Feuding Neighbours headline, the campaign for the control of problem hedges,

wallspecies in residential areas, the UK had 4,000 paid up members, and 100,000 Britons were locked in hedge wars with neighbours at any one time. At the time, Pratchett was writing this novel, there had been one hedge-related murder, and there have been subsequent ones. Oh, my God. This sounds unrealistic to me, but it's kind of too good to check.

I probably will check it. I didn't have time, but... I've seen next door. I don't think it's unrealistic. But just the hedge-line thing, that sounds like a prank they've just put in this website, right? Maybe I'll Google it live. Hold on.

Oh, oh, it's a thing. Is it real? We are the support and lobby group who successfully campaigned for control of hedge nuisance in the UK. Okay, brah. This is a rabbit hole for another day. Okay, but I know I just did one about hedge nuisance, drag name. Hedge nuisance, ballistic cobblestone, the pair you never saw coming.

You've got to watch your hedge nuisances, or you might get a ballistic cobblestone, if you know what I mean. I don't know what you mean. You need that. I'm sorry. I'm pretending to seem worldly. Anyway, an obscure reference for Neil for this week. Thank goodness, yes, and it's slightly less nonsensical.

It takes 1,000 steps to get to the top of the mountain, but one little hop will take you all the way back to the bottom. Sweeper said, okay, well, I suppose it makes sense. Vimes began. That isn't how it works at all, let's say. Wailed cue. This, Harkins 2, are saying, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.

Mm-hmm. And that is from the Dao De Jing, which is a fundamental Taoist text by Lao Tzu. Mm-hmm. So, we get a nice little obscure reference. A delight. A nice light at the end, and slightly more relevant to this section than the hedge.

Slightly. Subjective, not in spirit. Perfect. I greatly enjoyed both of those obscure references, Francine. So much so. You will salt in your microphone in a domestic dispute for the ages. I was hoping we could just ignore the fact that I accidentally punched my microphone, but thank you.

Oh, it was a nice domestic dispute. Right. We have not said anywhere near all we could say about the book Night Watch, so we might end up talking about it again in May. We don't know. Yes. But for now, dear listener, that's it. And we're going to have a week off,

because I think we've earned it, and be back in your ears in February. Yay. Before we start talking about another book in February, we have a very special episode coming to you. Very recently, the lovely writer C.K. McDonald joined us on the podcast. So we had a lovely talk about Queer's books, and of course, about all things Terry Pratchett.

So you'll be able to catch that around the 6th of February, the first week. Cleverly timed. Cleverly. Very cleverly. Cleverly timed to coincide with the release of C.K. McDonald's new book, Love Will Terrorist Apart, part three of the Strange Time series. It's a very cool series. It's very good.

We highly recommend them. We enjoy them. Those conversations will be spoiler free, both for Queer's books and any Terry Pratchett past night which, so don't feel like you have to do a bunch of homework before you listen. We were all very careful. We were all immensely careful. It was marvellously amusing at some points as we chose our words.

Like, yes, and I do believe there is a thing. There is definitely a thing that happens, and it made me feel some sort of a way. At one point, I had an emotion. Anyway, yeah, then... No, it was better than that because Queer's, luckily, is much more articulate than we are. And we're podcasters.

For the rest of February, we're going to do two weeks on the first Science of Discworld book. I'm very excited to finally talk about Science of Discworld. So those episodes should be coming to you on the 13th and 20th of February. Until next stick. Very romantic. Oh my god, I'm going to see Whiddle. Sorry, I just remembered.

I'm going to see Whiddle on Valentine's Day. I'm very excited. No, that's romantic. That's romantic. I might wear a accordion. No. Anyway, until February, dear listeners. I'll meet you at six o'clock in the restaurant.

I'll be the one in a red hat and an accordion. But I'm not going to tell you which restaurant. You'll hear me. Until February. I'm never getting out of this episode. It's a time loop. So section one of our... So part one of the night watch.

Right. So there's a sky of vimes, right? Until February, dear listeners. You can follow us on Instagram at the true show make you fret on Twitter at make you fret pod on Facebook at the true show make you fret. You can join our subreddit community r slash t t s m y f. Email us your thoughts, queries, castle snacks,

albatrosses and accordions. Apparently the true show make you fret pod at gmail.com. Accordion to your preference. If you would like to support the podcast financially, please go to patreon.com forward slash the true show make you fret. Where you can exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. Patreons, there will be a new rabbit hole with you possibly

before the end of the month, but we can't be trusted. That's true. And until next time, dear listener, the world turned towards morning. Well, we got the God I've broken myself and you, I think. Sorry.