The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 142: I Shall Wear Midnight Pt. 1 (The Big Naked Giant in the Room)

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

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 1 of our recap of “I Shall Wear Midnight”. Hares! Flowers! Sticky things! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Announcing: Designing Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Dracula DailyTerry Pratchett: Shaking Hands With Death - YouTubeTerry Pratchett: Choosing to Die (TV Movie 2011) - IMDb  Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake - Wikipedia Cerne Abbas Giant: Has the mystery of the chalk hill figure been solved? - BBC News Bulford Kiwi - Wikipedia Master of the Revels - WikipediaMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Don't we like subjects? Sometimes we like subjects a little bit too much. There's a new book coming out that we're very excited about. Yes, that is. Tell us more about that. A Designing Terry Pratchett's Discworld, written and illustrated by Paul Kidby, is coming out in November 2024. That really is exciting. I'm hoping there'll be some like events around it that we can go to. That would be cool. London.

In that London, that town. Although I suppose more like, I don't know, because Wincanton is not really a, is it a hub anymore? I saw that was still for sale. The old Terry Pratchett Emporium building. I still really want to buy it. It seems like not that much money for like, what is it 300,000 something like that I mean obviously that is a great deal of money but surely there is a rich nerd somewhere I don't understand Yeah, if a rich nerd wants to like buy us a podcasting house I'm just saying Yeah we will keep podcasting indefinitely

Yeah you could be like our uber uber patron. By us a nice little podcasting house in the country. Sounds like the start of a horror movie, a horror novel. We should write this. All right, our next project after we finish the podcast is a horror novel about two podcasters who make a string of bad decisions, but it goes way worse than it did for us. who make a string of bad decisions, but it goes way worse than it did for us. I love that you're implying that we're a bad decision, Francine. No, we just make bad decisions.

And it's gone quite well. Yeah, no, it has actually. Yes. All right. Well, I'm going to do that. I'll start working on the scripts because I've got tons of writing I really should be doing. Perfect. Most important media news, obviously obviously that's happening at the moment is that as of yesterday, Jonathan Harker has tried Paprika for the first time. Daily

Dracula's back, baby. Yeah, but are you doing it? Yeah, I kind of zoned out of it last year. So I'm going to try and read this year. There's someone I know who's never read Dracula before, so I've sent them the link and they're going to try and read along and experience Dracula for the very first time reading it like this, which I feel like is a very fun way to do it. See, I'm tripped up every time by the gaps. As soon as we hit like a longish gap where I don't get an email, I stop reading them.

So I need to slap myself into it. I'm working very hard at keeping myself in book zero at the moment, which helps because I'm like regularly hard at keeping myself in box zero at the moment, which helps because I'm like regularly checking my emails. I'm working very hard to try and get down to inbox zero from, you know, a long way up. But Google Gmail's made it really difficult. They don't. They like, they've killed some of their easy bulk deleting things. Oh, yeah. So it's like, oh, we've deleted 50 of them. Now you're going to have to wait a few minutes to see how many others have been deleted.

Like, no, the satisfaction is clicking select all on Etsy or whatever, and seeing 500 emails go. So it's gotten rid of my little dopamine it for doing it and it's making it much harder to want to do it. So mine is, well, fall off, keeping my emails read and I'll just read the important ones and leave everything else unread. And then it gets to 100 or so. I open, I list it, so it was all the unread ones and on the Apple Mail app, sort of, Swiftmark has read, Swiftmark has read. It's a very satisfying way to spend a few minutes.

That's nice. Yeah, that seems closer to Merlin Mann's original inbox zero stuff, doesn't it? Now I'm just- Maybe I should go re-listen to that to make myself... Well, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't care enough. There we go. There it is. Well, I'm glad we got there. As you're not going to try and get to Inbox Zero right now, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, okay. Let's make a podcast instead. Hello and welcome to The True Shall Make You Threat, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one as time in chronological

order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part one of our discussion of I Shall Wear Midnight. Yes! Back with Tiffany. I can't believe it. Tiffany, she's all grown up. She's all grown up. She's all grown up, she's having a day.

Well, yeah. Having a bit of a day. No spoilers before we crack on, we are a spoiler light podcast, heavy spoilers for the book I Shall Wear Midnight, 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. Rollin' murderously up a steep hill. Perfect. That does feel like a very good metaphor for how we've got through this podcast. Doesn't it? Rollin' murderously up a steep hill. Follow up quickly, couple of little bits. Sondra on Discord pointed out we were talking

about characters described as more real in Nation and said Mort and Susan and Binky. Binky being the most horse of any horse. The most, the horsiest horse. Which is a very good example. Yes. A really beautiful email from Peter, including some really interesting points about the book that I will talk about a little bit in later sections, but some other stuff about how this book helped him through a rough time. Obviously, I'm not going to read that out. But Peter shared some

wonderful things about his father and in the spirit of a man's not dead while his names and deeds are still spoken, I would like all of our listeners to know about Bill, who was kicked out of the Scouts during the 1957 World Scout Jamboree in Birmingham for offering a cigarette to Princess Alexandra of Kent. He would have been 12 or 13 at the time. So thank you very much, Peter, for telling us about Bill, who sounds like a wonderful dad. Is that ever a cooler thing to do? Just being polite.

Yeah, I don't think you should be kicked out of the scouts for that. Okay, let's talk about the book I Shall Wear Midnight. Part one is going to cover chapters one through five. Francine, introduce us to this book. Yeah. So I Shall Wear Midnight. It is the 38th Discworld novel. It is the fourth Tiffany Aking story and it was published in September 2010. It won the Andre Norton Award, which is for young adult books presented along with the Nebula Awards. I think they're now officially the same body, but at the time I think it was just like alongside. Because the book touches on the topic, I mean, it's worth mentioning that Pratchett was actively

pushing the conversation on assisted dying at this time. February 2010 was his incredible Dimbledy lecture, which was read in the end by Tony Robinson. I'll link to that. He also filmed the multi-award winning Terry Pratchett choosing to die documentary in 2010. And I'll link to something about that as well. Or you can read about it in Terry Proctor, Life with Footnotes. You can watch the documentary. I'm not sure it's still on iPlayer, but it might be on YouTube now.

Okay, yeah, yeah, cool. I think it's on iPlayer. I'd have to look. Yeah, yeah, it was a couple years ago. We lost track, wasn't it? But we shall see. I'm really excited to be talking about this book because this is with When I Got into Discworld. This was the first new Discworld book that I got when it came out. Oh cool, cool, cool. Nice. 2010, 2010, where were we in life in 2010? I would have been 18. Oh. It would have been 18. We were in the first years of our friendship.

We were very early in our friendship, yeah. I remember very specifically, I worked with someone who was a very, very grumpy man that was very into Terry Bratchett. And I just got into it. So I was really excited. There was a new book coming out and I was going to get the new book and read the new book. And he was like, oh, Tiffany Akin's kids book. I'm not getting that one. He'd never read any of the Tiffany Akin's book. But I think at the time I actually hadn't read any of the other Tiffany Akin's books. So I was like, okay, but you just got a book. It's exciting, but it'll be a kid's book. And then I got into what happens in this book. I was

like, oh, fuck. All right. So yeah, I'm excited about this. So in part one, which as I said, covers chapters one through five. In chapter one, Tiffany experiences noise at the scouring fair as the trouserless giant gets a good cleanup. Becky Pardin and Nancy Upright offer a posy and ask after Tiffany's passionate parts. The cheese rolling commences and Horace menaces. The Fiegls pass on a message from the Kelder and Roland stops by with Laetitia. The sun leaves and Tiffany flies home alone. In chapter two, after an hour's sleep, a waking nightmare begins and Tiffany drags a drunken Mr Petty out of bed as the rough music plays. The mob is good enough to wait

outside while Tiffany's in the barn with Amber, and she tells her dad she's taking Amber somewhere safe. At the mound, Jeannie places the soothing on Amber, and after a plate of mutton, Tiffany sleeps while the Kelder mulls over her concerns. In chapter four, Tiffany wakes, Amber's soothed and chuckling, and a watching hare bursts into flames. Back at the petty barn, there's nettle stings and a hanging man. Tiffany buries Amber's baby near Mrs Snappily and her cat and takes Amber to her home and tells her father the truth instead of stories. She goes to visit the ailing baron, taking his pain and having a stern word with his nurse. She tells him the truth, takes payment and listens as he remembers a hair in the smoke of burning stubbles. He passes peacefully amidst a happy memory.

In chapter five, guards arrive and cry. Spruce accuses and Tiffany offers to go to the city and find Roland. First though, she has to prepare the baron and visit the kelder. Amber's understanding and she's happier among the Fiegls. Tiffany visits Mrs. Petty and sets the Fiegls to clean in the kitchen, leaving Petty terrified and Tiffany introspective. Wentworth's been fighting, rumours abound, and Tiffany goes to bed and doesn't cry." LW – It's a real section of building dread, isn't it? MG – It's very, very well written building dread as well. It's really subtle and in lots of small little places. Important things, obviously, helicopter and loincloth watch.

LW – Yes, of course. MG – I'm aware that having a broomstick as a helicopter is a repeat, but this is specifically a broomstick on a string. It's different. Toted along like a balloon very much in the spirit of things. For loin cloth, I'm not even pretending. The itchy jacket that smells of wee. Nice, perfect. Yep. Whereas not worn near the loins, but as it smells of wee, I think we can... Yeah, we've definitely had more tenuous loins cloths than this. The tenuous loins cloths band name. Also, this was another one that I was going to use as an obscure reference and then realised that Praktica had explained the problem with the Tiffany O'Hare books. Educating these damn children. How dare we? So yes, the tweed jacket smells of weeb because it was used as a dye fixant.

Mordant. Mordant. Thank you. That's the word. I don't know if you remember that because there's a prominent British politician called Penny Mordant that's spelled with a U but I find it funny. Oh yeah, she wore that one outfit and carried a sword at the coronation. She looked pretty good at the coronation, she is however, a Tory. Yeah, no, she's awful but it was a good outfit. Yes.

Oh my god, it's the Met Gala this weekend. Or on Monday. Death is here as well, picking up the Baron on, which I shall remember till the day I... Which is good. How appropriate. Well done, Death. Excellent comedic timing, that man. Remember till the day I... Which I'll appropriate. Well done, death. Excellent comedic timing, that man.

So quotes. Quotes, quotes, quotes. Do you have a favorite quote? I do have a favorite quote. Mine's very short. She had to give him that breath for the sake of a handful of nettles. Oh, that whole moment, that line. This is when she's letting Robb anybody cut the rope from Mr. Petty's throat because one of the deciding factors was that he had tried to put a bouquet around the dead baby.

It was nettle. Mine is from the baron remembering before he passes away. Suddenly there was no sound at all and I saw this hare. Oh, she was a big one. Did you know that country people used to think all hares were female? And she just stood there looking at me with bits of burning grass falling around us and the flames behind her. And she was looking directly at me and I will swear that when she had caught my eye she flicked herself into the air and jumped straight into the fire and of course I cried like anything because she was so fine. My father picked me up and said he'd tell me a little secret and he taught me the hair song so I would know the truth of it and stop crying.' That whole section is beautiful, it's gorgeously written and it's also slightly different from Pratchett's usual prose. It's got this different kind of storyteller-ish cadence.

Yes, yes, it definitely takes us out and into a slightly parallel universe, doesn't it? Yeah. I wasn't sure I was to mention this at the barren, but actually this kind of makes sense to do it. But in Pratchett's Dimbleby lecture, he said something about when his father died, and that had been quite recent. He said, his father suddenly said, I can feel the sun of India on my face. And his face did light up rather magically, brighter and happier than I'd seen it at any time in the previous year. If there had been any justice or even narrative sensibility in the universe, he would have died there and then shading his eyes from the son of

Karachi. And he didn't it took a little while longer to die. And you know, quite unpleasant. But I wonder if you know, that was on his mind when he wrote something like this, this is very much sunlight on the face and it's always strangely comforting reading about a peaceful but inhabiting. Yeah. Inhabiting the memories as they pass away. Yeah. Oh, wow. I'm feeling morbid today. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Um, let's go on to character. Let's start with Tiffany. Yay. Oh, she Oh, she's so well written as this teenager just suddenly more aware of herself in all these annoying ways. God, 15 was that. Yeah, and this forced to be like separate and different and have grown up in such a different way. She's grown a lot from the Windsor myth. She's not living with an older witch she's not studying she is now in charge of

her own steadying. Yeah. All the villages along the chalk not just her own but the ones as far away as Hamon Rai. Which by the way, when I was reading the Demildoby lecture, he in the next paragraph or two mentioned what's it called singing on Rai on why sorry. Hay on Y. Hay on Y, which is where I scraped his jag when he was driving and like on a sign that he was ill. And I was like, oh, that's weird. I just read Ham on Rye. Oh yeah. Hay on Y being one of my favourite places in the whole entire world. Small Welsh town full of second, like over 20 or so. That's where they have the Hay Literary Festival every year. Oh, we've got to go.

Yeah, and full of bookshops. I think it's June. If anyone from the Hay Festival is listening and want us to appear and talk about Terry Pratchett, you know, just give us a shout. Yeah, just make the magic circle. We will appear and talk about Terry. Yeah, just summon us. We'll appear in a puff of smoke. I will at least. Just give us enough notice so that we can, if need be, drive there. If the magic circle's not working. If you don't have the 5cc of mouse blood and the matchstick. Yeah. Last time I was in Hayalmire, stopped we were driving from North Wales down to Cardiff. We stopped to stretch legs and then explore the town a bit because I said there's over 20 secondhand bookshops so it's my heaven. I remember one of the things I spent money on was a set of L. Ron Hubbard's early sci-fi books. CHARLEYY Okay. way. He was just weirdly fascinated by Scientology. So he wanted to read Elrond Hubbard's fiction books that he wrote before he founded a cult.

Superb. I think you might have one or two of them here. They're quite, quite bad, but like not noticeably worse than most pop sci fi is the time. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, Tiffany Aking, not Elrond Hubbard. Yes, this book starts looking at the loneliness of being a witch, which is kind of, it's not totally a new theme for Pratchett. He's talked a lot about witches having to stand aside and stand on the edges. But a lot of the witches we've had before, so like the Granny Weatherwax, those the witches books, there are, there is the trio of them. Yes. We do get to kind of look back at young granny weather wacks having to make these kinds of decisions to stand apart. And we talked about before Tiffany being, you know, granny 2.0 almost.

I think it's thinking about it as like a witch life cycle as well. You get this because they have the younger like the teen girl coven that aren't really present in this book. And then you go off and you get your own steadings. And then you turn into a pupae. Yeah. Then you become a butterfly and find two other butterflies and you sit around and harangue each other. On a gingerbread cottage. We revisit all these themes like the cackling. Yes. There's a really great line. she has these horrible thoughts about should she save

Mr Petty. That was the thing about thoughts. They thought themselves and then dropped into your head in the hope that you would think so too. You had to slap them down, they would take a witch over if she let them and it would all break down and nothing would be left but the cackling. She's talking about how witches take each other out for an ice fork in the woods or something like that to keep the cackling at bay. Yeah, we had this in Wintersmith as well as a polite way of shouting, I'm saying, gone

mad, have you? Yes. How's the sanity? Still more or less present, glad to hear it. However, let's go for a little walk just to make sure. But because she's far apart from the witches as well as the society, she hasn't had. And the studying she has hasn't had witches before because they had granny aching. So they're getting used to this idea of having their witch. And Tiffany's lifetime, they have persecuted somebody for being a witch. Yes, and they have this intense discrust that came about from when Roland was missing and

fucked off to Fairyland. Something else I really love in this is, we'll get to Roland in a second, but before we get to Roland, we're going to talk about a positive male role model in this book. Tiffany's dad, I love Tiffany's relationship with her dad. And we had the beginnings of this in Wintersmith, but that's heartbreaking scene where a father takes his hat off to her. Yeah, yeah. And when he tries to run into the fucking fire. Yeah. And so we started getting it here of him sort of sitting down and saying, okay, so this has happened. And that's how you're dealing with it just so I can know and I can make sure everyone knows. And he says, oh,

I wish it wasn't you doing this. You're not 16 yet and you're running around and you shouldn't have to be doing all of that. Yeah, there's disconnect between him not wanting to like spell out infidelity. And at the same time, Tiffany has been through all of this stuff for years now. Yeah. Yeah. And I like the little details that are dropped in just things like, you know, how fucking tall he is and how, you know, easily he can stop this out of the other. Her mum like, he's only ever had to punch somebody once or twice and they don't really. He's very much his mother's son, it sounds like. it sounds like. Yeah, and there's the nice little details as well, like the relationship between her parents of her mother would say no one's

too poor to wash a window and he'd change it to no one's too poor to wash a widow and she'd smack him. And there's another little detail as well of Tiffany's mother is a grandmother now. So Tiffany's older sisters who went off and got married have got their own children. Of course, yeah. So Roland, oh, sorry. Yes. No, no, it was a bridging one actually. And the fact that they are worried that she's

not marrying and she's not marriage material. Yes. And there's another disconnect really, isn't there? Because it makes sense that at 15 in this village, in this place, you'd start thinking about that. But at the same time, they don't want to talk to her like an adult, but you should be getting married though. Or at least keeping an eye out for a husband. But we don't and you know, you've just helped a girl who's been beaten so bad, she's miscarried, but we won't talk about infidelity in front of you. I think as part of it is because the rites of passage Tiffany has gone through to grow up are

very different to the rites of passage that her older sisters have gone through to grow up. So they would probably speak to the sisters more like adults because they've gone through this familiar rites of passage of marriage and babies. And fingers crossed the marriage comes before the babies, but there's a lot of making your own entertainment. Whereas Tiffany has gone through a lot that has forced her to grow up, but because she doesn't have those recognisable external things that her parents are familiar with, they can't help but treat her like a child still. And a lot of it was done physically outside of this area. A lot of her growing up happened in the mountains and in random fucking third universes.

Yeah, in an ice castle. Who amongst us hasn't gone through a teenage rite Yeah, in an ice castle. Who amongst among us hasn't gone through a teenage rite of passage in an ice castle. What do I always say? Never follow a fae to the second location. The party does not get more fun. Don't go to an afters in Fairyland. Right, Roland who should never have gone to the afters in Fairyland. Fucking Roland. And now he's gone and got engaged to someone who wasn't Tiffany and I bet she paints watercolours. Oh, Tiffany's doing so well.

She is. The sympathetic comments and the oh but we thought you mind and her teeth gritted, it's fine. Is this the girl who would have been painting watercolours in the last book? No, different one. Okay, right, right. There is a different name. So painting watercolours in the last book. No, different one. Okay, right, right. There is a different name. So much watercolour around. Bloody watercolours. So you get like really early on Rob, suddenly looking like a man

on a thankless errand frantically said the words he'd been told by his wife to say. The Kelder says there's plenty more fish in the sea miss. In my best Scottish accent. Tell the Kelder thank you. Fine. Tiffany's coping very well, coping much better than we would have done at 15, I would say. Oh, I would have been a screaming bitch. But perhaps on a level of what we could manage these days. Oh, yeah. In public. Yeah, I like she takes the private moment to pretend to herself she doesn't remember a name

and it's something silly and it's either a salad or a sneeze. But then she even cuts off her own thoughts. She's like, no, a little bit nastiness, it's fine. She's really very self policing, little vimes moment. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing we talked about with the risk of cackling, she has to be self policing. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, Roland's also in the process of getting engaged to some girl you've been watercolours. Sorry. Has turned into a pompous arsehole. Yes. At least he's doing a very good job of pretending to be one if he's not. Yeah, looks in on the cheese rolling in. Very well done young lady.

Very good. Very good. Now, how long have you been rolling? Several seconds. As the Prince Charles, I know he's king now, but whatever, Prince Charles hands clasped behind the back rocking gently back and forward. Chinless. Not a strain is it? But yes, the baron having been a more naturally charismatic representative of the feudal system. Of the feudal system, yeah. Roland's not quite picked this up yet.

The, after he says young lady, for a moment Tiffany thought she could taste her teeth. That was a great line, yes. And then much more wrong, wasn't the petties? Yes. Yeah. And then much more important isn't the petties? Yes. It was an interesting one that they are so well fleshed out with so few detail. I mean, they aren't given some details. But you know, this is a couple short chapters and a couple paragraphs on the petties. And you learn about them after the event. Yeah.

And it's really well done. The initial introduction, you know, Tiffany, the nightmare began. She's dragging this drunk guy down the stairs. She's not giving him a chance to realise that he could try and hit her back or anything. That's the sound of the rough music. They're playing it for you and they have sticks and stones, everything they can pick up. Your wife's being comforted by some of the women and everybody knows that you've done it, everybody knows. Then, yeah, the details of the petty household. The married young, the fact that he struggled, he had this upbringing of being based in himself.

Then the front garden full of nettles, I thought was really good. Yeah, and it could have been vegetables, it could have been flowers, it could have been fruit. But it was nettles. Yeah. And you know, if you spend time in villages and things, you've seen these houses. And quite often they are abandoned, but sometimes they're not, you know, quite a lot of the time, it's because somebody like Tiffany isn't there to help someone. But yeah, you can very clearly see the dilapidated house and the front garden full of nettles and the dirty windows. And Tiffany struggles a lot in this section with perspective and with empathy. She doesn't

like accepting the fact that Mrs. Petty would potentially take her husband back in or go back to him. And as her father has to point out, you know, a husband is better than none for some people. But then she tries to take Amber back. She tries because she feels like she has to, I think it's more about her own reputation. But yeah, that's also what I mean about struggling with perspective with having empathy. She's furious at the at the dirty house. How hard was it to slosh a bucket of water over a floor and swoosh it out the door? And so she Tiffany's in and she gets the fegals to clean and makes it worse.

Yeah, she picks something to do something about. Yes, because she feels very helpless in that situation. And she thinks about it to herself afterwards, you know, I was bruised, combosty and self righteous. I'm the witch I blundered in, blundered about scared the wits out of her me a slip of the girl with a pointy hat like she thinks of herself as that. Yeah. And then the Kelda obviously has some very blunt words to say about Mrs. Petty. She might be simple, but so is a doe or another animal. And that'll still protect their young.

I mean, actually we've had in the Tiffany Aching books themselves a lovely example of the sheep fixing the sheepdog after it tried to get its lamb. And yeah, then we have Amber herself who after she gets the soothing becomes this completely different and wonderfully odd person. She becomes a drill sergeant with the chickens. Yeah, there's that, definitely sounds like she's this hidden talent that has just been really smothered by awful things happening to her. And as soon as the soothing takes that layer away, she can immediately blossom.

And she gets this power of understanding. She can speak to the chicken, she tries to speak toad, she can speak the mother of fecal tongues. And it's interesting to see how young she is painted. And I know some of that's because she's got the soothing since she was a child likely and all of that. But when we've seen Tiffany from age eight, nine upwards, and now we get to see a 15 year old obviously who sees a 13 year old. And thanks to them is so much. And she corrects herself with it as well. You know, she says to her father, I will call her a woman after what she's been

through. Yes, which is an interesting one. Yeah, I think it's... I'm not sure I would. No, and I think it's something Tiffany wrestles with as well. Yeah, well, definitely. I mean, she's, that's her whole deal, isn't it? And internally, like, she's so much of a child in some ways, but she's having to do

these incredibly grown up things. Yeah. And so yeah, then the Fiegls, who've taken up snail farming, livestock herding, not farming. Yep, sorry. Which is, you know, something to do with all the extra space they've got now. They've moved into a chalk pit. They've moved into a chalk pit. Yes, extended out from the moved into a chalk pit. They've moved into a chalk pit. Extended into a chalk pit. Yes, extended out from the mound into a chalk pit. They've got a lovely entrance and exit system. We've got quite a lot of chalk pits now, around our way, because this used to be a... there's chalk everywhere and people used to mine it. And I love it because I can very clearly see the kind of place they've moved into in my mind's eye. Very nice.

Yeah, we don't have any chalk pits next to old burial mounds, unfortunately. Not that we know of, but now I've looked at a lot of them on very old maps and as of yet, nobody's noted anything cool like that next to it. Which is a shame. Rob anybody, the ultimate wife guy? Such a wife guy. Got nervous talking about his wife. Loved her to distraction and the thought of her even frowning in his direction turned his knees to jelly. Love it. That's very sweet. I'm glad he turned out to be a good husband material.

And Jeannie Arkelder. I really prefer her relationship to Tiffany in this book without all the weird underlying stuff from Wintersmith, the kind of competitive thing. Now it very much feels like a relationship between peers. Yeah, yeah. Jeannie is very much settled in now in her role as Keldr because she was still almost newcomer, wasn't she? In Wintersmith. Yeah, she had just moved into the band, I think, in Wintersmith. That's right. Yeah, she's settled and she's had loads of babies already. And she's very much in her role as Kelda, not as new Kelda. And Tiffany's gone off and done her own thing and has been

followed around by Robb anybody and not once tried to marry him. Yes. And I like seeing this, this relationship between equals because she's kind of the only equal Tiffany's got. Because the other witches will always think of her as a young witch and also they're not around and her witch peers, Anagramma and everyone are all off doing their own thing. from Ginny is when Tiffany explains that Granny taught her to move pain and Ginny says, I hope you never have occasion to regret the day she did you that kindness. Yes. What is she referring to exactly that we think? I think some of it is Tiffany having to carry pain and having to choose when to take pain away and when not to. The moment where she puts the pain she took away from Amber into Mr. Petty is a very...

I like that. Incredibly powerful. Yeah. But then obviously she's having to hold onto it during the scary scene in the baron's room. Yeah. And the entire time she's got it there, eventually she has to run. And the lie you tell yourself is that you don't feel the other people's pain you're holding. Yeah, it is interesting how this came out of like, quite important, but brief fit in which of the broad and he really explored this idea and gone, you know, into the balance of it again and being in the seesaw and I really like it. So the Baron, F5.

F5 in the chat. For Baron. This is kind of the first time we really meet the Baron. He's mostly been this sort of distant, bedridden figure. Yes, and in flashbacks, a kind of, you know, big, loud, eventually sensible enough to listen to Granny A-King, but boisterous figure. Kind of like the old king in Weird Sisters. Yes, very much so.

Yeah. That was Brian Blessed in the first season of Blackadder. Yes, that kind of thing. And he's dealing with the pain by being a man of the old school, who is treating the pain like a bully where you ignore it and stand up to it. Yes. And visibly not screaming. Yes. And I like that he asked Tiffany to have the relationship with Roland that he had with

granny aching. He's lying there on his deathbed, he's reminiscing about granny aching. And he says, a man of power and responsibility needs somebody to tell him when he's being a bloody fool. Granny A. King filled that house with commendable enthusiasm and then he effectively says, my son's a little tit, can you tell him that occasionally? I think he doesn't realise how much he's asking of Tiffany to not only do that, but to take money from him as well. I mean, obviously he didn't realise he was immediately going to die without being able to explain to people. But he's put like a bigger burden than I think he realized on her by A, asking her

to be the advisor and B, rewarding her for something she'd successfully hidden. Yeah. And I think he respects her for giving him the truth. Yeah. And I think he respects her a lot more for not pushing to make the truth known. Because to him, it's almost a sign of respect that she sort of went, well, the Baron will probably figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, anybody who needs to know will kind of know.

But I think he's possibly got that lack of self-awareness that someone that boisterous and used to be in charge would have, which is like, oh yeah, Granny A-King needed to give me a little nudge every now and then, that's all she'll need to do for Roland. Not, you have to be in this position of challenging to someone who could, you know, take away your father's entire livelihood if he wanted to. But very interesting again, that it sounds like they had a little, if not flirtation, then one way crush. Yeah, I feel like he had a bit of a thing for granny aching.

Definitely. He said he was a bit upset when she married grandfather aching. And yeah, and then he dies happy, which we talked about. Miss Bruce, Pratchett is so good at writing immediately unlikable characters. Yes. Oh yeah, from the very moment. I've been praying for them all morning. Fucking well done. I'm sure that was very kind of you. If somebody had just said that, like a random person had said that, fine, you can say it and really remove the sarcasm from your voice. When it's a nurse, she's like, okay, and? You done anything that you just prayed? Great. That'll do. What have you even prayed to?

Yeah. Yeah, I know. All my girls. Yeah, I feel like she's very monotheistic, isn't it? Yeah, modern Omniism. Yeah. She's probably heard one of those pastors with silly names singing something encouraging. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favourite exchanges in the book, though, comes courtesy of Miss Bruce, which is I'm going to fetch the guards you blackened midnight hag, the nurse screamed heading for the door. It's only 1130 Tiffany shouted after. Is that Shakespeare? I don't know actually I think so. Is it Macbeth? Probably Macbeth.

Probably. I'm going to do a little bit. It is very very familiar wording to the point where it's definitely something. Yes it's Macbeth. Yeah there you go. Hot potato office drawers cl clock to make amends. Sorry. I know we're not in a play, but any excuse. I think Tiffany sums up the problem with Miss Bruce really well though. She says she's sick of your lovely white coat.

Roland was very impressed with your lovely white coat, but I'm not because you never do anything that will get it dirty. There's an interesting comment there I think to Miss Arwege. Yes. They talk about most witches wear black, but it's not really black. It's sort of faded and patched and Mrs. Eyring wore black that you could lose yourself in, black as midnight. Yes, which you can only do by not fucking up your clothes. lose yourself in Black has been night. Yes. And I can only do by not fucking up your clothes. Yeah, and by not getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing. So yeah, I think there's a little bit, there's a similar vibes there.

Yeah, definitely. It's much worse. Much worse. This one's got a zeal behind her. Oh, religious zeal. We're not fans. Preston, I'm going to mention briefly, because he's only in here very briefly. But I love him and spoilers, he's a big part of the rest of the book. I just like someone who's introduced as immediately competent and helpful. Yes. Okay, I will do something useful. Good for you, Preston. We like you immediately. Yep. Big fans. You are the opposite of Miss Bruce. Miss Bruce is the opposite of Buckland. Petulia isn't actually here, but I

just really want to honor what a lovely time she's having. Also grown from winter Smith, she's an in-demand pig witch, soon to be married to a nice young man who's about to inherit his father's pig farm. I am mostly mentioning this because you know I love it when Pride Check writes a list. Can we get a good one here? Yeah, go on. Maybe we got some smellnesses perhaps. Julia's romantic ambitions may have been helped by the mysterious way the young man's pigs were forever getting sick and require treatment for the scours, the blind heaves, brass neck, floating teeth, scribbling eyeball, grunge, the smarts, the twisting screws, swiveling and gone knees. Terrible misfortune, as more than half of

those ailments are never found in pigs and one of them is a disease known only in freshwater fish. I wonder if Petelia borrowed Granny Aking's diseases of the sheep for a couple of them. Quite possibly. At some point, we're gonna have to list all of the made up diseases from this world. What's the word for like a book of diseases? Compendium? Oh, gosh, I don't know. There's probably a proper word for it. There is a proper word and I've forgotten what it is. The sort of thing an apothecary would have lying around. Yeah, apothecaryists, apothecists, apothecists?

Apothecaryists, apothecists, apothecists? No. What? Yes. Answers on a grimoire. Yes, answers on a grimoire. Thank you. It's not a grimoire. And lastly, just as character wise, because I knew where I was put this in, the old woman over in slice, this brings something full circle, which is the woman who passed away and there were cats and one of the cats had kittens.

were cats and none of the cats had kittens. We talked about it in Wintersmith, but the kitten that Tiffany gives to Granny is one of these kittens that I think that was properly confirmed in Tiffany A. King's Guide to Being a Witch. Definitely eating some people. Yeah. Some of a person. Yeah. Maybe it was still nursing. Not being funny, I don't think that kitten needed to be in the situation where it had to be a person to have No, no, just tried it.

No, just gave it a go. You. You. So yes, as come full circle, we've got useful origin story. Petunia is, Petunia is pig boring, by the way, which is a lovely way to kill a pig. Actually, another nice, like a peaceful way to die. But I like it as an example of some of the witching innovations that this generation of witchers are bringing in. Because I think we mentioned briefly in the last one, didn't we? That, you know, they're doing things a little bit differently in some cases than the old guard. They're being a lot more collaborative for a start. But so you've got Petunia, Petulia,

Petulia and her pig boring. And you've also got Tiffany showing off stuff like her hand washing and like freezing the marble and just using these techniques. She's learned in really practical ways. So it's not just showing off what I can do this cool thing is and how do I apply this? So it's actually helpful. Yeah, exactly. I think it's cool. It is very cool. I like our innovative millennial witches. Yes. And they are millennials. They are millennials because this book came out in 2010.

They're about our age. And then locations we are on the chalk. There's a big naked giant and we'll talk about him in a minute. Yay. Love the big naked. Don't worry. In case you're worried, we are going to talk about the big naked giant. We are going to talk about the big naked giant in the room. Little bits we liked. Yes, we like them. Starting with mine, because it's literally on page one, sticky noise. Something quite close sounded like a cow giving birth. It turned out to be an old herdy-gurdy organ hand cranked by a raggedy man in a battered top

hat. She sidled away as politely as she could but as noise went it was sticky. You got the feeling that if you let it, it would try and follow you home. Oh no. Which is a beautiful idea. See, I didn't clock what page it was and I thought it was going to be nanny ogs telling Tiffany something. A lot of what nanny og told you tended to be sticky. Not sticks in your mind. It was an excellent moment. I was trying to think about what other noises I think of as sticky. I got stuck on the idea of someone like performing in public. So I remembered the,

do you remember the musical saw guy that used to busk in our town? Oh, yeah. So I thought it's for a second, I thought it meant like a musical version of the the musical Saw guy that used to busk in our show. Oh, yeah. For a second I thought you meant like a musical version of the movie Saw. I was like, no. Okay, but I would watch the hell out of that. Someone please write a Saw musical. I will go see it. I will be in the front row opening night. Bagpipes, I mean, fairly sticky noise. Oh, bagpipes are very sticky. In a different way. I think they just resonate through the whole town, don't they, when we get the parades. Nothing wrong with a bagpipe it's just interesting acoustics and the layout of the streets.

Aggressive acoustics. Aggressive acoustics. Yeah. Yeah. Listeners tell us your stickiest noises. Thank you. Answers on a post, isn't it? Yes. You like cheese rolling? I do like cheese rolling. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, so they are cheese rolling, which obviously in England, there is a cheese rolling thing every year in summer. Devonshire?

Yeah, could be. Gloucestershire, something like that. Gloucestershire. Yeah, but that's on a very, very steep hill. My husband did the cheese rolling once before we were together, but when we were friends earlier in our friendship, I think. And I remember him telling me about it and he quite badly hurt himself, but didn't break anything. Yes, it was a Coopers Hill cheese rolling is held on the Springbank holiday

at Coopers Hill near Gloucester. Gloucester, there you go. Lovely. So it'll be taking place on May 27, if anyone's near Gloucester and wants to go and watch the cheese rolling. I don't think I can go because I think Jack would try and do it again. And he is not 21 anymore. And I remember him. I knew him at that point as well. And I remember him being very bruised. I remember him, I knew him at that point as well. And I remember him being very bruised. He was. Yeah. Yeah. But he was saying that like, the hill that is just you can't tell from the videos in the pictures how steep it is. He went with three friends, two of them chickened out as soon as they saw the hill from a distance. And the third chickened out at the top of the hill, just like, no, not gonna dab them up. Not a chance. Yep. Not a chance. Because in this one, you

are chasing one cheese, I think, aren't you? Yeah, there's one wheel of cheese, double cluster appropriately. Yes, of course. And everyone chases it down the hill and the winner catches the cheese, I guess. Yeah, something like that. I think the idea is to catch the cheese, but it's way too fast. Yeah, whoever gets to the bottom first gets the cheese. Yes, yes, that's right. But the local rugby team, I don't know if they still do this, would catch them at the bottom basically, they're in this big line, which kind of minimised injuries a

bit, but then you'd have paramedics on hand. Yeah. I just pulled up the Wikipedia page to check where it was. So I love that two possible origins being proposed might have evolved from a requirement for maintaining grazing rights of the common, which makes sense. Second, there may be pagan origins. Pagan origins. Which feels very religious significance. Well, that came up for me recently. That Roman thing everyone's on about again. The Roman dodecahedron.

Yeah. Okay, so with that, like, obviously fresh in my mind, I was reading the article about how they found the beast on Britain, or something. And I looked at it, and they were like, oh, yeah, it could be like a cult or religious significance, something to do with rights. That just looks like part of a typing system or something, right? That's what my mind would go, I'm not saying definitely, obviously, I'm not saying it is, but like, that's what my mind might go to, that just looks like a bit of a system that was made out of tougher materials and the rest of it's something the cat you know, Yeah, there's someone who made like a 3d printed version of one of the Roman dodecahedrons and used it as a knitting tool to make fingers for gloves. And I think that's been widely discredited as what they would have actually been used for. Because at least it's thinking outside the box. It is thinking outside the box. And I think it's worth looking at people who are involved in crafting stuff who can say like, yeah, I mean, that could be used for that. That's

what I use it for. Yeah. But I largely brought up cheese rolling as well because I really liked the sentence, cheese runners shouted at it, tried to grab it and flailed it with sticks, but the piratical cheese scythed onwards. The piratical cheese scythed onwards. Get old Horace. Love it. I like that Horace is still present. Yeah, eating the odd mouth, having a nice time out at the fair.

Yeah. Speaking of village names, I mentioned Hamon Rye earlier. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And there's a couple of other ones that just delight me in this. Tiffany outlined Speaking of village names, I mentioned Hamon Rye earlier. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And there's a couple of other ones that just delight me in this. Tiffany outlines her day to the Kelder and she went to Bucklewithmany and of course, Witsend. Yes. Oh, I bet he was pleased when that one came out. Very much so. Snail herding. Snail herding. Just love that the the eagles are doing that now. And that they're feeding them on garlic to make them taste like garlic instead of snails, which is indeed how you prepare snails.

Yep. You make them taste like garlic. Because otherwise they taste like snails. Have you had escargot? I have. It's quite nice. Yeah, I didn't mind it. Pea Porridge, the fancy restaurant in our town, used to do a really nice starter that was like escargot with bone marrow. Yeah, I had that. Yeah. And the parsley and pancetta salad.

Yeah, that was yeah, I think that might be the one time I had escargot actually. Obviously, before I was vegetarian, pescatarian, whatever. Yeah, I was gonna say if you're like vegetarian, pescatarian, like, where do snails fall in that? Because, I mean, they're not fish, but... No, they're definitely not fish. I think I probably wouldn't eat snails because I don't need to. Morally speaking, I've wondered about that before. Talks about insect protein being the sustainable future and all that stuff. At the end of the day, I'm pescatarian not because I think fish should be eaten, but because I'm too lazy to do

vegetarianism properly. I don't think there's any point in introducing further sources into my diet. vegetarianism properly. So I don't think there's any point in introducing further sources into my diet. But garlic, I introduced this subject slightly because I wanted to ask you if you could think of anything other than custard that garlic definitely doesn't go with, your professional chef opinion. So yeah, I feel like there's a way of incorporating garlic into like a savory custard type thing. Yeah, I see. taking it a step further. Garlic and chocolate, because I've occasionally like not I use a wooden chopping board, I've occasionally not scrubbed it off well enough after

chopping garlic, and then I've cut up some chocolate on it. And yeah, I wouldn't recommend garlicky chocolate. Okay, cool. That's not a good combo. Yeah, the problem is if someone tells me like these two things absolutely don't go together, my first response is to try and figure out a way to make it work. Yeah, I can see that. And you don't know what it is. Anna is a fantastic contrarian, but it does turn out and you know, food. So yeah, we

encourage it. Yeah, people get fed. People get fed. Exactly. Okay, so the answer is no garlic goes with everything apart from chocolate, probably. Yeah, I mean, I probably maybe wouldn't do a garlic and strawberry combo. But the moment I say it, I now start thinking about how I could try and do a garlic and strawberry combo. Spring onion and strawberry might be quite possibly you're gonna alley mid up. Anyway, I'm very sorry. I've taken this off onto a food tongue. You brought up food. You did this. I know. That's why I apologised.

I've got duck eggs. A friend of a friend has ducks and they've laid eggs and I've got some. I'm going to make a bano sauce with duck egg yolks tonight. I'm very excited. Oh, I bet that'll be nice. What are you going to do with the whites? I'll keep them in the freezer until next time. I feel an overwhelming urge to make a chocolate mousse or a meringue. You have to tell me then if overwhelming urge to make a chocolate mousse or a meringue. You have to tell me then if duck egg whites make a different texture. Yeah, because I have an ongoing egg white box because I use up solo egg yolks a lot more than I use solo egg whites.

Ongoing egg white box. So that just lives in the freezer and comes out when I need to make a meringue or something. Of course. But yeah, I'm going to have to keep the duck egg whites in a separate box so I can experiment with them at a later date. Oh, cool. I've got a half pack of corn sausages and some oven chips, I think, in the freezer. I've got some lasagna that's definitely been in there for over six months and should probably

not be eaten. Oh, it's fine. Freezers, freezer. Stuff still can go off in the freezer. Just takes a lot longer. Oh, no. Well, I've definitely eaten some questionable things. Same. Anyway.

Sorry. We've tangented. Let's get back around. Let's talk about flowers. Flowers. Oh yes. I just thought that was, you know, a lovely bit. Sorry, that sounds silly, doesn't it? But the, what is it, in the Hazelwoods were the old ladies. Mrs. Snappley and her cat. And her cat had lived before all of the very unpleasantness. And the flowers that Patrick describes, I think at least some of these are Discworld only, which some meadow sweetened foxglove and old man's trousers and Jack jump into bed and ladies bonnets and three times Charlie and

sage and southern wood and pink yarrow and ladies bedstraw and cow slips and primroses and two types of orchid and catnip on the cat grave, of course. And then you get the, by this point, expected revelation that Tiffany had procured the seeds herself and had sowed them in possibly the most beautiful display of boffo we've seen so far, almost aesthetically. There's a really good line about that actually. Tiffany, it was a mystery and maybe a judgement, although whose judgement it was on whom, for what and why was best not thought about, let alone discussed. Nevertheless, wonderful flowers growing over the remains of a possible witch. How could that happen?

Yeah, it is Tiffany showing the kind of the real understanding of like, just make people just make people think about it just for a minute. Don't let them completely forget what they did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can't throw it at them because they will fight back. If you attack somebody with what they've done, they will become defensive. But if you make them think about it like this indirectly, and interesting as well that people know that she buried the cat. It is implied that people know that because why would catnip be growing on the place where the aching girl buried the cat? Yeah. that? Because why would catnip be growing on the place where the aching girl buried the cat? Yeah.

They've always had her out as a slightly old one, which will be interesting to note for later. Oh, and Love in a Hurry is where she dug the, I said that in too, too nice a voice because it's where she dug the little grave. But Love in a Hurry, which I googled, I think is Love in a Mist is what it's called here, which I just thought was I think is Love in a Mist is what it's called here, which I just thought was a really nice name for a flower. And it's a lovely little blue one. Do you know what I love this time of year, which is late April, early May, because there's so many blue flowers around. I absolutely love them. Yeah, the blue bells are everywhere and the little forget me nots. Yeah, yeah. That was my absolute favourite.

I've been getting back out on regular walks and looking at all the lovely little flowers growing everywhere is delighting me. Finally get the payoff for months and months of rain, which is just all the greed and the well flowers. Yeah. So to go on to the big stuff actually, going from the flowers into rural things. Rural things. Rural, sorry.

Something I think Pratchett does very well is when we talk about rural traditions, rural folklore, and these very pastoral scenes, the chalk and the fair and everything, it tends to get often presented in books, in photos and literature, in this very glossy idealistic light. There's this very good old days feel to a lot of depictions of this sort of thing. It's, you know, it's a cousin to those stupid who remembers proper bin men stuff. Yeah. And Pratchett is very good at undercutting that rural idyll with his the shit side of it.

Yeah. And it kind of goes through all of this. And so we have this running theme coming back, especially with Tiffany dealing with the perceptions of her as a witch. And she's trying to change people's minds about what a witch is. So they start forgetting the old stories and remember the story of Tiffany helping set a broken bone. book. I think she's, yeah. Yeah. And everyone knows what everyone knows is this theme that Pratchett goes to over and over again, this small mindedness and what it takes to change small minds. There's a granny quote from I think Carpe Jugulum, poison goes where poison's welcome. And yeah, so you have this big theme in the book, the witch is having to be a part, especially Tiffany,

and she's being mistrusted as a result. So you get the dark side of all these traditions. So the scouring fair is this beautiful idea. And if you live around the Chalk, you are bound to meet everyone you knew at the fair. It was quite often when you met the person you were likely to marry. Sidebar here, obviously, we're talking about the giant and Tiffany. Would have loved to have seen Nanny's face when she saw the giant and later realized of course nanny would have seen the giant because the witches would fly over this way and nanny would fly back to have a second look and we as the ladies we know nanny's done more than see the giant because of course that's where she went to find the king in Lords and Ladies.

Oh yeah! Wait is it? Yeah. Is that where the bear is? A chalk giant. Yes that's right yes. Yeah. I assume it is it? Yeah. Or a chalk giant. Yes, that's right. Yes, yes. No, of course you're right. I assume it is the same one. Would you add some more context for the chalk giant, didn't you? Oh, yeah, not much really.

It's just that the, I'm pointing over my shoulder like it's local, but the chalk giant that it's clearly based on, the, oh, bloody hell. The Cern Avis giant. The Cern Avis giant, that's right. And also, so that was in the news this year, of course, because some new research had been done that showed that it was, I think showed, if not conclusively, the near as that it was first created in Saxon times, which is obviously more modern than a lot of people guessing, but older than a lot of people were guessing, but older than a lot of other people were guessing. And there's some credible theorizing about that it possibly could

have been a depiction of Hercules, because it could have been a master point for King Alfred's armies was the idea. So originally, and I think this was known already, there was a cloak or something hanging off of his arm. Hercules was often shown with a club and a cloak. The arm is kind of out in this very specific position. There are other aspects of it that are also out in a very specific position. Yeah, speaking of, I learned that apparently, I don't know how much of this is confirmed and how much isn't because everyone talks quite confidently in their own articles. But

apparently it was a smaller member that was joined up with a naval or something like that at some point. He was modified. It's just a colossal historical dick joke. Yeah. So he was modified. I'm sure he's very happy about it. Yeah, a colossal historical dick joke. We just say, of course, the scouring festivals, that's still very much a tradition in the UK. Chalk figures like this one, like the horse in the Uffington White Horse, there are still festivals.

In fact, some of our listeners go and take part in these festivals where people go and dig it up and keep the chalk looking new and keep the figure visible. And the Uffington White Horse, of course, is one of those very few, like very pleasing things that really is as fucking old as you want it to be. Like that's prehistory. I love that. By the way, yeah, so while I was reading about this, I learned about the Balford Kiwi, which is a giant chalk kiwi on Beacon Hill in Wiltshire, Salisbury Plain. And this was carved by soldiers from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force when they were waiting to go home after the end of World War One. And even now, the RAF flies over the site and drops 10, like 10 tons of chalk every

year or a few years to help renew it. And it's this like international relations. Oh, I love that. Yeah, the Vulture Kiwi. Yeah, I linked to it. It's fun. Sorry. That really is a talent. I just still have the tab open. So. That's fine. Anyway, so go into the thematic stuff. So you have this going around, it's a wonderful thing in this tradition. It's where you potentially met the person you were likely to marry. And then we get this horrible underside of it of Tiffany gets the posy and immediately gets the question about passionate parts and this sort of reminder that the fair's-

Okay, let's just- Which is why I couldn't resist putting it in the summary. And there's this reminder that the fair isn't quite for her and we have this scene of her flying home alone. And she's thinking about- The forget- Yeah, the forget me lots. And she's thinking about these little rituals, the stuff that nannies taught her, the sticky things that nanny have taught her, all the customs that were now dead except in folk memory which nanny Og said is deep and dark and breathing, it never fades, little rituals,

people getting married by jumping over the fire together. Which, A, some good foreshadowing happening in this actually. Oh yeah. But also I think there's this underside to when things become tradition but you forget the origins of tradition and you get this repetitive tradition for tradition's sake, it can often turn into Chinese whispers and it can get very dark. Yeah. And I think the book's not unaware of that.

Yes. And that is echoed very much in the rough music. Very much so. Which, yeah, do you want to give it the context of the book and then because it does what you were just saying actually really ties in with what I was reading about it? Yes, although a quick sidebar as well, then the omens, everything to do with the hair, the hair in the stubbles and the burning of the stubbles, which is again, it's not a tradition, it's done for a very practical reason. But also the hair that burst into fire and Tiffany said, well, that's an omen. I'm happening right now. Which just turned into a weird theory about hairs

that I will get to. But yeah, so we have the rough music spring out, which in the book is described as no one knows where it starts. People look around, they catch one another's eye and give each other a little nod. And people see that. Other people catch their eye and very slowly the music starts and someone picks up a spoon and bangs it on a plate and someone else bangs a jug on the table and boots start to stamp on the floor louder and louder. It's the sound of anger, the sound of people who've had enough. This is the rough music that is coming from Mr. Petty near the beginning of the book. Yeah. Pratchett also loves, these people don't have weapons, but what they do have. Yeah, returning to this theme. Yeah. All the way back to the carpet people.

So yeah, so you were looking into some of the stuff on the rough music. Yeah. So ever since I read this book, like, obviously, the idea of the rough music sticks with you and, you know, people have run about it for decades and centuries. The Victorians obviously were very into recording all this kind of stuff. And rough music was a big thing in Britain, and it was called rough music in Britain, but it was a big thing in mainland Europe as well. And there were various names for it. I think it was Charivari, possibly, in France, where it was more usual to have this kind of cacophony outside of somebody's house when you disagreed with their

marriage. So quite often, it would be a much younger man, a much younger woman shacking up with an older man, like a widow, a widower, that kind of thing. So it was very puritanical a lot of the time. It's kind of it's a it's a mob expression of anger of disapproval of Yeah, it is. Yeah. And I think a lot of the more modern articles on it are quite circumspective and kind of point out that it's easy to romanticize this as you know, you were going after the wife beaters and things like this. And it was, you know, spontaneous mob justice. A lot of the time, it was very planned. Yeah, not

like a necessarily a committee or what sometimes in some places there were kind of informal committees about this stuff. You know, you go to the pub and you would talk about it and you would all kind of put in for the kitty for the beer and the women would lend their kitchen implements. And it's quite interesting reading about how, as in the petty cases, it's not, it wasn't always that it was just this one transgression that set it off. And so quite often you'd'd have this going on for cases of adultery and things, but at the same time, there were lots of cases of adultery where it wasn't done. That's usually because these people weren't hated for other reasons.

So, you'd have- Yeah, sometimes there's an excuse. It said in the book of the things that cause the rough music, one of them is two people who forgot that they were married to other people. Yes, no, yeah, no. But what I mean is that it wouldn't just be that. It would be that they were all so disliked for this, that and the other reason, which is in the case of the petties, you know, they're disliked for, you know, there's been a build up of obviously, Mr. Petty has been built beating us as petty. They are outsiders, they're literally only outskirts of the village and they obviously don't keep up their home in the way that everybody

expects them to. And so they would be a lot more susceptible to stuff like rough music. There's a lot of cool, not cool, but like details of the kind of forms that the rough music took in different parts of the country. And it's quite, what's the word? It's easy to kind of fall into the, you know, this is the same thing and it's been going on here, that and the other, but it's so different in different parts of the country that it's almost hard to kind of put it into one phenomenon. And quite often it was just awful, like fire modern sensibilities. It really was just, yeah. As is pointed out later justified, mob justice is never justified. Mr. Pessy might deserve to have the shit kicked out of him, yes, but it shouldn't be decided by a group of blokes down the pub. Emma Watson No, no. Yeah. Just to tie in with what you were saying about the origins of stuff being a bit hazy sometimes. One of the articles, I think it's from the Folklore Society, I'll link to it if I can, but it might be paywalled, about this, I thought it was a really interesting bit. It's saying, between myth on one hand

and function on the other, there is the intermediacy of rehearsed and transmitted rites. Those who enact these rites may have long forgotten their mythic origins, yet the rites themselves powerfully evoke mythic meanings, even if only fragmentarily and half consciously understood." So he was kind of talking about kind of the dangers of falling into the, oh, yes, all of these folkloric customs were good and, you know, this was pre-industrial revolution and it was more wholesome and down to earth. But at the same time, not falling into the, oh, these are all isolated incidents one after the other, there's no kind of connection to our history. And it's like, it's in between. It is half understood. It is neither one nor tether. And it has been going on an awfully long time. Yeah. And to think about it in the context of it being a bigger part of mob justice and

in a pragety context. And this idea of rural life, the reason something like this can happen is because we are in this pastoral ideal and therefore there is not a vines around, there is not an official system of justice. So the justice is done by the mob. Yeah, or by the Baron. Or by the Baron. The Baron is only taking so much of an interest and isn't particularly hands on. The Baron doesn't know who the petties are. There is some kind of law of the land though, isn't there? Because we talked about it when the Baron's dog was going to be put down.

Yeah, there's some kind of law of the land, but there's no enforcement. Yeah. There's no system. Yeah. So you have two aspects of Tiffany dealing with the rough music. One of them, a very important one, is that she wants to stop the music from coming to Petty. She wants him to get out the back way and run away.

Not because she wants to save his life, but because she doesn't want her fellow villagers to become murderers. She thinks of it as murder. If the mob came for Mr Petty and killed him, she would consider that murder. She is kind of our moral arbiter in this situation. When she had looked into the barn and seen that murder had been done, she knew that without her it would be done again. And she says it directly to Mr Pessy, I couldn't care less for you, but I don't want to see good people get turned into bad people by doing a murder. And again, something going back to Carpe Jugulum, I think again, when Granny finds herself in a similar position where she was the one who had to say, yes, he should be killed,

but then she found herself being on the other end of these glances of, well, was he really that bad after he had been killed? Yes. Yeah. And she was already established and... Hmm. Tiffany's dealing this as much younger, not very established and still trying to... In a much less wish-friendly place. Yeah. In a much less wish-friendly place. Sorry, I forgot how to speak for a second there. And even her dad acknowledges it. He says it's like poison in a village. And what he means is if this starts, if this mob justice starts out. And as the book talks about, as

you talked about, if it can happen for a good reason, it can happen for a bad one. This is why we have these sort of conversations in the watchbooks a lot of not letting the mob take control. The people of the city are fine, but the city, you can't leave them in charge, they'll do things like sacrifice an innocent woman to a dragon. Yes. Yeah, we have very much again the, are people good, are people bad question that we come up with. I've seen African chemicals, we're talking about it a lot as well. And the answer is generally, let's not leave them to find out.

Yeah, people individually are good, but you put them in a crowd and they very quickly turn away, you don't want them to. And yeah, so we get this contextualised with the old woman, because we're introduced to the rough music in the book as, okay, I mean, there's got a good reason though, like it's coming for a guy who deserves it. And so yeah, then we have the rough music had come for the old woman and her cat. And people had dragged her out into the snow and pulled down the cottage and burned her books because they had pictures of stars in them. So we have this idea of what can happen if you let an idea like this take hold. And of course, it runs as a theme through the book. I think you need this beautiful green fields and cozy village life aspect of it to make this work and you need this stuff to stop it from falling

in love with its own setting. Obviously these books do love their own setting. It's the chalk, it's branch, it's stomping ground. Yeah. There's a reason do love their own setting. It's the chalk, it's Pranchett's stomping ground. Yeah. The reason folk horror is so effective. Yeah, because it's imaginable. It's close by. I think one of the more terrifying episodes is the Magnus archives with the, the maypole one. Yes.

Yeah. The maypoles are always a bit creepy. Yeah. All right. Well, let's set about that. I'm furious ever since Manny O'Cole told me about that. But no, absolutely. I fucking love folk horror. Love all that stuff. And like American Gothic, we've talked about before. That's similar. Yeah, yeah. Rural horror, I think is very effective in that way. And it doesn't need to be over the top, it can be this creeping sense of dread, like we were saying. And I think one of the like most powerful aspects of something like folk horror of rural horror is knowing what people can be and understanding the dark sides of what people can be, especially when put in a somewhat isolated setting. And you know, this is villages full of people who the furthest they might go in their life is four miles away.

Not to be patronising people who lived in villages, I grew up in a village. But if you never travel more than four miles in your life, if you never travel further than that in your life, you become a very insular, unaware person. Yeah. And of course, this was the norm. Yeah. I'm saying that with slight hesitation. I don't I don't know what the average distance traveled would have been. And whenever. But yeah, interesting to think about. Actually, I'm gonna have to come back to that. That is interesting on what it was. But yeah, to come back to that because that is interesting. I wonder what it was. But yeah, the noise aspect as well, just the noise as a thing, I thought was quite interesting because the whole book starts out with not just the sticky noise, but the noise of the fair and how cacophonous it is and how

bothering it is to Tiffany. And then you obviously get the rough music as well. And when I was reading about the rough music, I was reading about the, there is a fair which always used to start with what was pretty much rough music and this just cacophonous shouting and clanging of pans and everything like that to bring in the fair every year. And it's just interesting how many traditions have this underneath just this chance to shout and bang and be a little bit feral. Yeah, exactly. It's almost Lord of Miserable, but it's not. It's just a, all right, go nuts for a bit. I think it's something we try and find space for in modern lives, even if it's like going to a gig and jumping around. Like, even now if I get the opportunity to be in a little bit of a mosh pit

where I can get out to the side every five minutes, because when he's hurt, there's something about being completely out of control and in a sea of people and everyone's shouting and screaming. Yeah, yeah. Pack Monday Fair is what it's called. So, Sherbourne in Dorset and it's Teddy Rose Band announcing the fair with rough music, made up of the youth of the town with their tin cans, horns and whistles. It was happening since at least like the 1400s, 1490s. And then it was just suppressed in the 1960s. But the tradition re-emerged and this is why I meant to ask you about it. Apparently, this is mentioned in a dictionary of English folklore, which I think I got you as a present, and I don't have a copy of. I do have that.

Can you have a look at that for me at some point and that can be a follow up? We'll follow up on that next week because I do have that, which is partly written by Jack Van Simpson, who is a folklore of Discworld. I think I see how I got here now, You know when you've just got a tab. I do wonder actually, for our non-UK listeners, this was a thing during the lockdowns where it was clap for the NHS and it was Tory bollocks of let's all at eight o'clock on a Thursday, open our front doors and stand on our doorstep and applaud and it was supposed to be support for doctors and nurses. And it was very weird. And I don't think doctors and nurses wanted it. They wanted to be paid properly and given like decent safety equipment.

But everyone- We're going to do practical two sides of the coin. I'm sure it was very reassuring. Some of the people doing it have a nice normal people and- Well, that's what I mean. I think there was an opportunity to communally make noise and connect in that way together. I can I could understand what the appeal was for people doing it. Not that I ever did. Because I'm not that sort of person. Also, I lived in a first floor flat, so I wasn't gonna like go downstairs to the front door to clap. No, no. I'd have to wear headphones if I was gonna wear like bang pans and then I'd

just look weird. I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, I just I wonder that as a communal expression of something. Yeah, yeah, just banging stuff. We talked about tanging as well. I know that's not quite the same bit of banging pots and pans together trying to get swarms of bees to... Oh, yeah. It's all connected. If there are bees, it's connected. And most importantly, of course, Tiffany and her frying pan. Tiffany and her frying pan, which brings us full circle. So stop us there before we tangent

again. Francine, have you got an obscure reference for Neil for me? Yeah, which is kind of nicely related actually. So in the book, we're talking about the master of the rebels who wants the cheese rolling to commence, not to start. So I just had a look and saw a Google of Master of the Revels and it was quite an important office within the English Royal household. The Revels office, so the Master of the rebels was at first responsible for organizing royal celebrations. And this was in the 1600s, no the 1300s ended in the 1600s by which time it was censorship instead. So that was really interesting evolution of the role. So it started by organizing celebrations and evolved into censoring stage plays and any published

materials about theatre and then eventually ended up with enough power to imprison people. And then, yeah, and I don't know if it's because it got too big for its boots or what, but eventually I think incorporated into the Lord Chamberlain office. Although I think the Master of the Revels then continued for quite some time afterwards, oh yeah, into the 1700s. And just not as fun as this cheese master dude. I was really hoping to, what I wanted was to read about the hat. That's fair. The hat with the lace on it. But yeah, ended up instead learning about, you know, you've told me before about this weird like stage of censorship of

plays. Yeah, there was a lot of weird theatrical censorship, like Shakespeare's time, it was happening. And it was, you know, Britain would start leaning towards more towards the puritanical. Yeah. I'm guessing this kind of evolved into what we've now got. What's it called? The the organization which gives movies and TV shows. BBSC in the UK. It's the British Board of Film classification.

That's right. There was a licensing fee charged by the Office of Rebels, seven shillings per play at one point, I'm sure that changed 1500s. Nowadays, I know that you have to pay a certain amount like per minute, I think. Yeah, I can't remember how BBFC classifications work and it's also different for theatrical release and DVD release, streaming release, blah, blah, blah. And then of course, there's a whole sidebar of the Hays Code, which is more of an American thing, but we could definitely go into here. We're not going to go into the Hays Code. If you're interested, though, you're wrong about. It has a very good episode about it. Niamh – Mary Whitehall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Master of the Rebels. Sam – If I ever like, well, I mean, I've organised events in the past. I love organising an event. I'm quite good at organising events. In future, if I organise any event, I want to be called Master of the Rebels for said event and given a special hat.

Niamh – Okay. Just to be clear, it was distinct from the Lord of Misrule. I can be both. I'm just saying they're distinct offices and I think that might be for a reason. I can't be bothered to find out. Actually, to be fair, yeah, I really like organizing events. The Lord of Misrule would not suit me. I like to have every detail nailed down. All right.

I'll try that then. You can be Lord of Misrule. Thank you. I'm not sure how good I'll be at it, but I'll try my best. Maybe just by neglecting things, I can be the Lord of Misrule. I don't like causing conflict, but I can definitely accidentally cause conflict by refusing to carry out duties properly. Yeah.

Your Lord of Misrule is accidentally leaving Diet Coke cans around and then going to get another Diet Coke. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's very tame these days. Right. We've wandered off again.

Okay. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Truth Shall Make You Fret. We will be back next week with part two, which goes from chapter six through to the end of chapter nine, inclusive. I thought you'd gotten over it at the beginning. I was thinking she didn't say inclusive. Yeah, no, I know. That was a playing that was a, I'm playing the long game here. Until next time dear listener, you can join our Discord, link down below. You can follow us on Instagram at the TrueShare Makey Fret on Twitter and Blue Sky at MakeyFretPod. On Facebook at the TrueShare Makey Fret, join us on Reddit r slash ttsmyf.

Email us your thoughts, queries, counsel, snacks and sticky noises. The TrueShare Makey Fret pod at gmail.com. Don't email us anything too sticky please. And if you want to support us financially, you can go to patreon.com forward slash thetrueshallmakeefret and exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. There's all sorts. And until next time, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Oh, I forgot to say the thing I was going to come back to about the hair. Oh, say it now. I'll add it in.

Oh, so, and this is a ridiculous theory with, I've done no research, no basis, but hairs are very popular, like folkloric creatures. There's a lot of times of folklore about hairs. They're really interesting. They're cool. They're very pretty. I can think entirely about the folklore of hairs to my right. So I was theorizing about why there's so much folklore about them. And obviously part of it is just that they're very rarely seen because they're so fast, as the book says. But the other part of my theory is because we don't see them very often, but we see bunnies a lot. I think most people are very familiar with the size of a rabbit and depending on where you live, you might see them on a very regular

basis. I have a lovely walk that takes me through bunnies if I'm doing the walk early enough or late enough because they're crepuscular. I remember the word. Crepuscular, yes. And then you look at a hare and you might immediately go, rabbit. And then you go, oh, fucked up rabbit. Oh no. I wonder if there's so much folklore about hairs because there's like some kind of uncanny valley situation going on where it looks almost like a rabbit but not quite enough so you've decided there must be something really weird going on.

Yeah and they act like you know oddly enough to make that as well. Yeah.