The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 147: Snuff Pt.3 (Death in a Deckchair!)

Episode Date: June 16, 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 3 of our recap of “Snuff”. Storms! Sand! Sailing! 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:The panic of eating slightly later than usual. - Parents Of Tiktok Victoria Wood -  Swim the Channel - YouTubeThe story behind the Oblivion mod Terry Pratchett worked on - Eurogamer.netJames Gordon Bennett Jr. - WikipediaSnuff *Warning Spoilers* | The Forums of Sir Terry Pratchett OBE Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

My whole next manuscript in iambic pentameter. I came across lots of gorgeous websites selling like beautiful hand dyed yarns that I really want. Oh no Joanna. I can't, I can't. It's worth the money. Like I would absolutely happily play something, pay like 60 odd quid for a few skeins of something that beautiful but. You're gonna move soon. You can't buy, I'm saying now, you can't buy more wool or fabric until you've moved. Unless it's for a specific project.

No speculative wool. That's what I always say. I'm staying away from a speculative wool because I do need to move house. Speculative yarn is a better way of putting it actually because then it could double up as a genre of fiction. Excellent. Yes, what happens when things happen. Yeah, sorry, yes, to be technical on the podcast. And it's a genre of fiction. Excellent. Yes. What happens when things happens? Yeah. Sorry. Yes. To be technical on the podcast. Yeah.

Yeah. Use proper literary terms, Francie. You've got professionals. We'll have to put together a glossary at some point. You've got the fegal glossary and the truth will make you fret. Glossary. One day I'll learn how to say the podcast title and then we'll be unstoppable. There's a reason I do the intro and I still cock it up most times.

Every week I send Joanna a screenshot of what our transcription software thinks we say instead of the podcast name. I think Trisha makey crash or something was the last one. It's always good fun. It's a delight. It's a weekly delight and what we need more in our lives I think is weekly delights. Well, I tell you what I fancy an angel delight. Oh God, I haven't had an angel delight in a delight. It's a weekly delight. And what we need more in our lives, I think, is weekly delights. Well, I tell you what, I fancy an Angel Delight. Oh, God, I haven't heard that in America in a while. American listeners, Angel Delight, I think is what you would call pudding.

Yes. It's instant pudding mix. But it's a specific brand. What's your best favourite of Angel Delight? Strawberry. Butterscotch. Yeah, fair. Also a good contender. I've been watching this TikTok channel of two older, I think, yeah, retirees. It's filmed by their son, but they are just the most English parents you've ever seen. You can watch it here too. I love that, yeah. With the sound mixes. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'll link it in the show notes. It's so fucking funny.

Wait, do you mean the ones where there's always like a zoom in on their Charles and Diana wedding mug? Yes, yes, yes. They are absolutely wonderful. We've all known people like them. And yes, again, not to hop on on the, oh, non-Brit's won't get this. But I would love to know if non-British people find it as funny because it is just very much the stereotype of the British middle-class parent. So I'm going to link that and I would love to hear back from our listeners across the various ponds. Sarah- It brings me very much joy.

Sarah- If we're calling the Atlantic the pond, what's the channel? The trickle? Sarah- The stream? No. Don't cross the streams, Joachim. I think we just call it the channel, to be honest. Oh, that seems fair. Yeah. Occasionally, I like to palette cleanse through the giant pile of teen dramas I'm working my way through for the book by like, I'll just go and watch odd sketches from all British things and things I like. And you've just reminded me of one of the greatest things of all time, which is Victoria Wood as seen on TV, the swimming the channel bit.

Oh, I don't recall that one. It's a weird kind of depressing documentary piss take. It's sort of not funny in a way that's incredibly funny. I will find it and link it in the show notes. Okay, awesome. And of course, whenever spirits are low, one easy way to cheer them up is the At the Chippy song. At the Chippy or Just Do It. Or Just Do It. Just Do It.

So, so bloody many. I'm facing a conundrum because I bought a half leg of lamb to barbecue this weekend. It refuses to just not rain for long enough. And if I have got to barbecue solo, I don't have an umbrella holder. There was a very tempting hour or so of sunshine there, wasn't there? Yeah, and I looked at that, got the curls by the time we get out there, soggy babagnoos all around. Yes, umbrella holder, that's the thing to get in your new place. Yeah, no, by umbrella holder I was referring to a man, but I should probably get like a proper one

you can put an umbrella in, like a person. But not a person. No, I'm just going to hire a butler whose job is to just follow me around with an umbrella whenever I need to be outside, put the bins out, butler. Obviously with a pocketful of cheese wire. The butler will also be a cheesemonger. Yes, because you value efficiency in your household stuff. Exactly. And weaponry. Right, speaking of efficient weaponry, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast very efficiently and with minimal weaponry probably, let's be honest. I don't think we can be trusted to wield a cutlass without hitting the microphone.

Hello and welcome to The True Show Make You Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one as Simon Connolge-Claude. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part three of our discussion of SNUF. The thrilling finale. The thrilling finale. We've got chases, we've got weather. It is thrilling. It's a thrill all the way down. Note on spoilers. We are a spoiler-like podcast, obviously heavy spoilers

for the book SNUF, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And of course, 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. Carreening down the river, followed closely by a dam slam. Excellent. Follow-up, thank you for bird apps. Yes, I think Tamsin suggested Merlin, the bird app. And as another one of our listeners says, yes, it's very much like playing Pokemon Go. It's very exciting and collecting things. And so I'm going to go for some more walks next week, maybe when the rain stops one day.

But it turns out, I'm pretty sure that what went tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, pew, pew, pew was a song thrush. A delight. A delight. I'm very pleased. A little bit of follow up. We were talking about Sam Vimes' Itty Socks and the fact that we now reached a nice bit of domestic bliss with Sybil and we love seeing it. We love to see it. Something from near the end of a life with footnotes, Rob Wilkins is talking

about how Terry kind of evolved stories as he wrote them. And apparently Snuff began with the scene of Vine having to put on these ridiculous, like itchy socks and having to have shoes which are a size and a half bigger than his feet in order to accommodate her but not saying anything about her because he loves her. And so the quote is, that was the scene that Terry began with, a simple domestic moment in the life of a besotted husband. And that was the departure point for the next scene, which in turn would provide the departure point for the scene after that, and so on until a novel appeared. Amazing. Yeah, just a nice little bit of follow up from socks.

Excellent. Right, let's dive in because we've got a lot to talk about today. Francine, do you want to tell us what happened previously on SNUF? Absolutely. Previously on SNUF. Stinky and his goblin cohorts demand justice for a murder. Vimes is determined to provide it. He visits their tunnels, seeing clearly in the darkness, and gathers information both underground and over. A goblin widower tells Vimes about the murder victim, Feeny tells him about mass slaughter and kidnap in the recent past, Felicity Beadle tells him about crimes even further in the past, and importantly, about the goblins of the present and their talents and their worth. Meanwhile,

Ankh-Morpork watch members go on their own fact-finding missions to try and cure Fred of a terminal case of empathy. Oh, God. Touch of the empathy, old chap. It's terrible, terrible. You can't be having the empathy as bad as the chrisms. In this section, then, which goes from page 324 in the Kooyi paperback right to the end of the book, beginning with We Mad Arthur was impressed. Apologies, a lot of events happened. I did try and slim this down. There were many events.

There were lots of events. But at the end of the day, I think we can all be understanding in the fact that they can't be easily bullet pointed. In this section, We Mad Arthur crawl steps to ho on the land, finds a rectangle, chains up guards and frees goblins from the sheds of a tobacco plantation. Back in the shires, Flutter sings a song of goblins taken to sea with Stratford. The boat needs chasing and unfortunately that means horses. Stinky assists but the water in the river is rising and the storms coming in from all sides and the wonderful fanny isn't stopping. There's only so many sounds in the English language. Vimes jumps across the barges and a complicated chicken interlude sees Vimes and Feeny on the

fanny and Goblins freed, but there's a dam slam dropping the river. A man who claims to be a common water rat is tied up with a crossbow aimed at Mrs. Silito and her daughter and dam slamettes rock the boat and bugger up the pirates. Vimes makes it to Silito in the wheelhouse, Stratford attacks, a branch interrupts, he's sent flying and Vimes plays the pilot's eyes in the dark. The goblins are on the boat, Stratford gets tied up, the dam slams coming and it's time to ride the wave to Querm. Vimes wakes in the sand and narrowly dodges the elephant. Stinky's alive, the boat's made it, the Quermian watch are ever so helpful and the goblins have made it onto their ship.

Now the ship needs chasing. Stratford's missing and we made Alva se y arrive. That was bad French, sorry. He catches Vimes up on colon and tobacco before they catch the ship up and arrest Captain Murderer. Jethro's free, Murderer tells all, Vimes demands names, Stinky marches off the goblins and Vimes takes a sedate boat home with the name of the Black ready to be sunk. There's a Clanks tower up at the hall, and Vimes reunites with his family and makes plans to return to Quirm. Colan's in the caves, and Sibyl's had a visit from Lady Rust. Vimes is king of the river, and there's dancing girls and special cocktails to celebrate. And apparently tipsy Sam heads to bed and a sober Sam catches Stratford and has him sent to veterinary before finishing his holiday.

Sybil writes letters and young Sam goes to the zoo. The pair head back to Ankh-Morpork while Vimes returns to the hall. There's arrivals at the opera house and Vimes starts a fire, addresses the village and oversees the arrests. Willikens finishes things with Stratford and Tears of the Mushroom astonishes the city. And three months later, on another attempt at a holiday, Vimes attends a Gordon wedding and receives a new book. LW – Madness. I think, you know, once we finish the podcast, I would like some way for you to continue doing these summaries of things because I think you've refined

it to a real fine art. I think you just have to just give me an item and tell me to summarize it. Please, summarize this item. Cut up. Okay, I really learned how to let things down. Helicopter and loin cloth boat watch. Sorry?

Helicopter and loin cloth boat. Helicopter and loin cloth boat watch. Well, I've decided the helicopter is a boat. Oh, yeah, sorry. Surfing, wonderful fanny, riding the dam slam all the way to Querm. All the way to the air. Basically a helicopter. And it's got spinning bits. And it has got spinning bits, gears and such, wheels.

Wheels and treadmills. Yeah. Oxen, oh my. The oxen themselves, however, don't qualify as helicopters because they don't have much in the way of airspeed velocity going for them. Thank goodness. Lovely oxen. For loincloths, I'm going with dancing girls.

I feel that some kind of bedazzled loincloth situation might be implied there. Francine, what's your favourite quote? FRANCESSE My favourite quote? You've just killed a rose bush, dear, said Vimes, impressed. It took a pretty good grip to push those blades through an inch of what looked like a small tree. It was a briar, Sam, wouldn't ever do any good. You could have given it a chance, perhaps. Sam Vimes, you treasure your ignorance of gardening, so don't start weaving a social hypothesis in front of an angry woman holding

a blade. There is a difference between plants and people." I love Sybil. I was like, Sybil immediately called, a little bit of a nudge of the fall fall again, I feel like. No, stop making metaphors, I'm gardening. How dare you? How about you? Brilliant moment, fairly early in the section. F Vimes is looking at the river and the rain and the horrors. And then for a moment, his inner eyes looked at Coombe Valley. He'd nearly died that day as water poured off the valley walls and thundered through the endless caves in the limestone, smacking him against the walls, banging him on the floors and the ceiling

and finally dropping him on a tiny beach of sand in utter darkness. And the darkness had been his friend, and vines had floated on the face of darkness, and there he had found enlightenment growing, and understood that fear and rage could be hammered into a sword, and the desire to once again read a book to a child could be forged into a shield and armour for a ragged dying castaway, who thereafter shook hands with kings. Oh, speaking of summaries, what a lovely summary of his last few traumas. Yep. Yeah, Vimes. Let's dive right in with him. So yeah, flashbacks, bit of trauma, unsurprisingly. It's interesting to see him come to terms with his own age a little bit. Yeah, he's definitely, you know, especially when he's fighting Stratford, he has the moment

of, I'm not actually 25. Yeah, I should probably remember that I am not actually 25. Yes, he's obviously still a good and a cunning fighter. He takes out 10 gallon very easily. But yeah, we're getting reminders that this is not the youngish man. I don't know still how young he was when we met him, that we met right at the beginning. And yeah, obviously he's a father now. He's a settled down maniac. Yeah, it's not just that he doesn't physically have all of the sort of scrappiness I'd say

he had in books like Guards, Guards and Minute Arms, but that his priorities are in a different place. It is far more important that he gets home. In the flashback, it's the desire to read the book to the child that is what keeps him going. I guess that's been going on since Nightwatch, really, hasn't it? Yeah. When he was trying desperately to get home to Sybil, as she was. Yeah, she was his motivator.

Yeah, with the little anchor of the cigar box. I like the comparison we get here between the dark as a separate entity in him and then his own personal dark that he sort of has his wrestling match with. Yes. It's something we've seen strengthen over the books, hasn't it? But we've seen hints of it right from the beginning, just this conversation with what he could do, what he wants to do and why he doesn't do it. Yes.

And we actually see it manifest in a mirror this time, interestingly. Yeah, and he talks about how he knows something like the eyes of Stratford because he knows that it's in himself as well. His own darkness and internal enemy, which knew that every time Commander Vimes dragged some vicious and inventive murderer to such mercy or justice as the law and its erratic wisdom determined, there was another Vimes whose urge to chop that creature into pieces on the spot had to be changed. And slightly later on, you get a moment of him talking about the difference between arresting someone and doing privately enacting your own punishment. And this idea of having policemen getting in trouble for

being violent, even though he might personally agree that that situation deserves violence. Yeah, and that's good. It's nice to see the evolution as well of his attitude on that. Yeah, the prioritizing of justice. And I think a lot of it does come back to Sybil and Sam. It's this idea of, I have got this thing that transcends justice for me now because I would do absolutely anything to protect them. But at the same time, I have this motivator to be the best person I can possibly be because of them. Yeah. And the realization that I can't be this person because I'd be too good at it. Yeah.

Oh, God. I mean, as we were saying last week or the week before, like especially Oh, God. I mean, as we were saying last week or the week before, like, especially last week, I think, especially now he's got the rising dark as this sentient presence with him. It'd be just terrifying if he went to the dark side. Very much so. I mean, I imagine I imagine them actually, like, I imagine Vettanari, who must be slightly aware of all of this, because it's Vettanari. Thinking about it in almost the same way as the witches thought about Tiffany when she was possessed. If things go wrong, we'd have to take this very powerful person we love out. Yeah, and we don't want to do that.

We trust them to be strong enough, but we do have to watch. Yeah, especially Tiffany and the Hiver, that possession. Yeah. He talks about the watch as a wall around him in Animal Fork, doesn't he? Yeah. The idea of the multiple Vimes is pulling themselves together to fight Stratford, the Duke and the commander and Black Bomb monitor Vimes throwing in the last bit of energy I really like. Then slightly later on you get a call back to it of all the people who made up Sam Vimes walk backward and forward across the deck. Which also just the way the list is written is a nice comedy moment veering between hope nausea, despair, self doubt nausea and the thrill of the chase and

nausea. Second hand on the end of the list for the nausea is great. Jess Ah, in fact it's still refining list humour. Jess Very much so. I wanted to ask you, how did you feel the first time you read The Drinking Miseract? I was going to bring that up actually. And I think I remember being a bit troubled by it, even though I was still drinking at the time. And then when I reread it, it made enough an impact that although I don't remember most of the plot of this book, I remembered that bit. And I remembered it coming up to it this time that it wasn't

the case. But yeah, I think it's a really interesting thing to do. I think it really throws the reader off like in a way I thought I understood him. Yeah, I remember being really thrown off by it the first time I read this book. But then he mentions like he could have Sherryerry earlier in the book because he didn't really like it. And I'm not sure whether that's something he was holding rather than drinking or what. It was an odd thing to throw in there. Yeah, I think the idea was that he'd walk around with it for the sake of the thing. It's not so much he'd be drinking the sherry. Yes, whereas he wouldn't want to do so for the glass of old bearhuggers or whatever the nice one was.

I think whiskey is the one that gets brought up a lot. As whiskey is to lemonade is the Lady Margulosa comparison when she's talking about drinking and blood. Yes. But yeah, no, it was interesting and obviously a relief to the reader or as they realize what has happened. I think because so much is happening at this point and at the end of the book and because it's told in a different way than the action scenes generally were, I think you do have to go back and reread bits of this section. Yeah, there's something about that we talk about sort of which perspective the narration is from a lot because although it's a person, it normally is more one's perspective and that scene

on the riverboat when they're celebrating when he's apparently drinking, it is still kind of Sam's perspective but it is a bit more omniscient. It's a remove, we're not in his thought process as he's doing it. You see it as an observer, not even omniscient as it because you're not meant to know that Willikens is the barman. You see it as like a slightly detached observer. I guess maybe you're meant to see it through Stratford's eyes. Yeah, quite possibly. And the hints are there that it's a misdirect, but yeah, I still remember it throwing me the first time of the sort of, that's not my vines moment. But it happens so quickly that, yeah, you just go along with it for a second and then

you're like, ah, aha. Yeah, it's not. I'm going to put the book down and refuse to read the rest because of this moment. Sounds like a really nice mocktail by the way. I usually don't hold with mocktails because that's a lot of money for a fruit juice. But this one sounds interesting. Yeah, I've occasionally bought the sort of non-al, spirity things like Zedlip. It's really expensive for what is basically, in that case, squash. It's the same cost as a bottle of gin. And since I mixed gin with tonic anyway, if I don't want to drink, I will just drink tonic

without the gin in it. Yes. I think it's a lot cheaper. I think if you like a sifter of the straight stuff, it's probably fine. But yeah, it's a little bit expensive. But yeah, I like a Virgin Mary, I think. Fine. Yeah, Virgin Mary is a good one. I drank quite a lot of that when I first given up drinking or just tomato juice with Tabasco, really. Yeah, it's true. I mean, what if I'm just literally something with a bit of a kick to it does the job. Yeah, yeah. Although I would very much like to, well. I wonder if we can track down somebody

who's put together like an approximation of Willikens as Morktail's. Oh, I hope so. Yeah. If not, maybe we could work on it. That'll be fun. Yeah, I might have a toy with that. I kind of like the sound of the recipe and I didn't. I don't like cucumber juice and cucumber and things. I like cucumber with Pimms. I did like that. Oh yeah, that's fair. I remember we used to go on a pub crawl to the listeners on New Year's Days and get Pimms. I did like that. Oh yeah, that's fair. I remember we used to go on a pub crawl to the listeners on New Year's Days and get Pimms at every place we could and kind of rate them on, not to their face obviously, because we were

being dickheads and asking for Pimms on New Year's Day, but rating them on what they had that they could have to Pimms on short notice in January. Yeah, there'd be any kind of fruit that was lying around. If it was somewhere that served food, you'd normally get quite an interesting salad. Yeah. Have you seen those Bloody Marys that have like an entire meal shoved in them? Oh, I hate it. It's like that same trend. It's like that same trend with the milkshakes and stuff. Absolutely nonsense.

But the rest of the scene, I really like the young Sam taking a bow with Vimes. Oh yeah, that's adorable. And he's happily signing things. And I know it's a bit of a front, but also Vimes very rarely gets to... He said something earlier, you know, oh, the times are going to make me out to be a hero. And he's grumpy about it and Sybil insisting you are a hero. Yes. And Sybil keeps going like, and I don't know where to put my face. I have that. Yeah. We'll go on to Sybil next. Did you have anything else about vimes? Oh, I think probably the rest of the stuff we've got will come up later, won't it?

Yes, so many vimes thoughts, it's the entire book. But I think both of us have fairly vimes oriented talking points too, surprisingly. Generally very vimes oriented today, but then when am I not? Yeah, exactly. I mean, in a Tiffany Aking book, it's harder to be, but I'm sure Wim Midline gave us an opportunity. We fucking brought him up and us. Actually, yeah.

I think both of us at some point said the words, like, not to bring up Vimes all the time out of context. Well, the whole does death appear in every book? I feel like we need one of those for do we mention Vimes in every podcast. Oh, which reminds me actually, I forgot to say that. Death hasn't turned up in this one. This is the first four adults, which obviously makes this world sound much more pornographic than it is. This is the most pornographic Discworld book, I would argue. It has got the most smarts, thank you, Terry Bratchett. But no death. No grim reaper.

No grim reaper, yeah. No psycho-pomp. No psychoo Pomp. I guess, yeah. This is the second one, the first one being Wee Free Men. Obviously that one is for younger readers. I think the only chance we could have had for a death appearance would have been to take Stratford away. I think it could have either been Stratford or it could have been Sam waking up on the beach and a kind of, oh, you've had another near me experience, but like, death in a deck chair or something. Yeah, death in a deck. That's like one of these like swear word, like convoluted swears.

Oh, death in a deck chair. Oh, I was thinking it sounds like a BBC limited series. Sort of the cozy murder but at the seaside vibes. Yeah, love. Love. Oh yeah, Sybil. Sorry, yes. As you say, I don't know where to put my face if you'd be so kind as to let our child down, I'll press said face mightily to yours. The moment that you were talking about in your

quote, which is she's deadheading the roses after Lady Rust has come for a visit. She may be an ignorant way-faced bitch who gives herself a title that is not rightfully hers, but there are such things as manners when all is said and done. The title line I thought was interesting. That took me a second to work out because Lady Rust is obviously Gravid's wife and she shouldn't be Lady Rust yet because Lord Rust Sr. is still alive. So technically Gravid is not Lord Rust, he's just Rust. Yes, but I think he's going around calling himself Lord Rust, isn't he? And therefore she's going around calling herself Lady. But yeah, wave-faced bitch.

Yeah, crikey. And then she says bitch again on the next fade. Yeah. Well done, Sable. Saving your swears for the right place. I think he said I think there was an instance of shit earlier in the book as well. Yeah, profanity is so rare in the Discworld books, but I still tend to sort of skim over it a little bit. Yeah, well, it never seems forced in, I think is the thing.

Yeah, it always does feel very natural. So I'm like, oh, I'm gonna use the naughty man. Yeah. Willikens especially. When he does it, blimey. Willikens has some like, quite bitchy things about the butler, Silver and Mrs. Silver. But I don't, I'm not sure if he swears or not, but he definitely the way he does it all feels very natural. Willikin's definitely a bitch.

Bracket affectionate. I want to gossip with Willikin. I want to hang out with Willikin's impurity. But like possibly while wearing Kevlar. And yeah, when Sybil is on stage at the Opera House introducing Tears of the Mushroom, a couple of lines that I love. Took a deep breath which caused several elderly gentlemen near the front of the audience to very nearly burst into tears. And the footnote, it's been said by someone years before that to see

Sybil Ramkin's upholstered bosom rise and fall was to understand the history of empires. I love it when Pratchett describes, especially Sybil like this, although some other characters get this sort of description, describing her as something like empires and a ship in full sail. A galleon. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. Just a real admiration of a larger frame. Yes. This is this glorious, wonderful thing, but not in a creepy way. Why would you be small? You are an empire, a galleon, madam. Gives me something to aspire to.

I didn't want to put my face, I'm sure. I very much aspire to being compared to the rise and fall of empires. Absolutely. But I think both of us are going to have to work on our handwriting if we're to be quite the ambassador that Sibyl is because these letters. CHARLEYY Oh, the letter writing campaign. Everyone in her little black book, which is actually a little pink book with a vial of perfume I thought was a really good detail. NICOLA Yeah, isn't it? I think we should introduce that. CHARLEYY Well, perfuming our letters.

NICOLA Yeah, but like, you know, those little sample sized perfume sprayers you can get, wouldn't they be perfect to attach to your stationery kit? Oh my god, that would be amazing. I imagine that's what she's done, right? Yeah. The new episodes of Bridgerton that came out this week, obviously... Oh, there's a part two now, yes. Sorry. There is a part two. Nicola Coughlin in various states of undress is wonderful and whatever, but really the little lap writing desks and little writing desks people have, and whatever, but really the little lap writing desks and little writing desks people have, my heart. I know. Both of us are moving soon, but both of us are moving to places where we can't

really entertain our fantasies of ridiculous writing desks. Although the lap writing desk... Yeah, no, I want like, I'm starting to adjust my fantasy like a fancy little writing desk, not a giant dramatic, the green leather desk of Moist's dreams. And the green leather dress of yours. That's a different dream, a one we shouldn't talk about on the podcast. Now that's an upholstered person. As the actress said to the bishop. But yeah, no, her wonderful diplomacy and quietly knowing how to change minds of everyone at once. Yes, I do like to see the two types of fury contrasted, hers and Vimes'.

Yeah, and the way that scene is done actually of the arrivals at the Opera House while Vimes' is back in the village is so cinematic as it's kind of going back and forth between them and it's each of them having their part. He's the one making the arrest but she is the one. And they're both putting on a show. Yeah. They're both standing on stage and introducing the show. Very much. But she's the one making sure that when the law does pass that goblins are much more than vermin, people will be behind it 100%. Whereas Vimes is enacting the law, possibly

slightly ahead of the law being the law. And we support it. Don't worry about it. Young Sam, I just wanted to mention briefly because I thought this was, there's so many sweet moments, obviously. And there's a couple more I'll talk about later. But young Sam walks over to the goblin girl and took hold of her hand, which was something he tended to do to any female he met for the first time, a habit which his father considered were quite possibly open doors for him later in life. She tries to gently to pull her hand away, but young Sam was a ferocious holder. It was just his easy like, acceptance, this is my friend now. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm not sure exactly at one point, it's going to stop opening doors and start

worrying people. But yeah, I mean, eventually that's going to be earning him a slap, not a... I suppose you take somebody's hand to kiss it, don't you? If you're a certain type of gentleman. Yeah, if he turns this into gentlemanly habits, then we can support it. He may want to keep his experiments in a separate room. But again, we support young Sam being whatever he wants to be. It'd be interesting to see whether he's given like mentors in being a gentleman or whether he finds out how to do it himself.

Because Vimes is not native to this experience, Willikens isn't, although he can help more with it. I was going to say Willikens could, I think Willikens might slightly give him lessons on both deportment and rotting. The two things every young boy should learn. Absolutely. I just want to know how he has guidance, but at some point, he's going to end up at some kind of school with awful rich boys. I feel like this is how Quirm College for Ladies ends up going co-ed.

Oh, yeah. Perfect. Good. Yeah. Or he ends up being taught by Susan because obviously, narrativium. Yeah. Because, of course, he's going to be a duke, isn't he? Yes, yeah. So we'll be at the title.

If the school for girls go co-ed, I think it'll be pretty much like Derry Girls. Oh yeah, he'll just be that one boy. I support that. But yeah, it's also nice to see his natural history talent being fostered. Yes, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy, thank you. And then Feeney, who doesn't get as much to do in this section once the sort of boat chase is over. No, well he got a bit battered in it before, so.

He had a bit of a moment. I really, really like these moments though where he doesn't exactly stand up to Vimes, so he just gets a bit sarcastic instead. So it's the moment where he's sort of like, well, I'm waiting for you to give orders that I think sensible. Because there's alligators coming over. Which also the alligator is just a nice callback to those logs could be alligators for all I know in the first section. Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that. But yeah, I mean, once we've had all of this, like the last section of Vimes having to teach him the very basics of coppering that he's missed out on, you do then get Feeney's chance to teach Vimes some of the very basics of a boat. Like, don't

do this, don't do that. Midships? Do you mean the middle of the ships? Yes, I mean the middle of the ship. When they realise the dam slam is coming and they can't stop it, we've got two choices, would you rather die on the river or under it? And then he says, what are your orders, please sir. And it's a really nice detail thing. I noticed more since I started copying these quotes into the plan, is what are your orders, comma, please, comma, sir. There's something about the extra pauses in there that's a little bit like, I know I'm asking you a really stupid question. What are your orders, please, sir? Because we are almost very much about to die.

Yes. Just the general bit of like, Vines gets away with not knowing how to ride a horse here, which is an interesting decision on practice up for half, I think, because he doesn't want to be showing up in front of Feeney but then immediately he is showing up in front of Feeney for not knowing shit about rivers. Yeah I like the horse bit as well because the way Feeney's like, oh you must be so confident on horses, you're a big hero, there's a little bit, does Feeney really believe that or is Feeney sort of trying to put him on the back foot and give him something he knows he's not comfortable with? Because really he does know that Vimes is not the most countryside of gentlemen. Samaritan This is true, but I think he is trying to

be nice because if you think about what the old fashioned view of heroism is and of a fighting man as Feeney puts it, it's always on horseback. Feeney doesn't know about cities and why it's a bad idea to be fighting on horseback. And Feeney doesn't know about cities and why it's a bad idea to be fighting on horseback. In fact, Lord Russ definitely didn't if you think about Nightwatch. Oh yeah. Yeah, I know. I think he was trying to, because we've talked about before and this might have been during a rabbit hole about the absolute shock when young men went to World War I and

fighting more than what they thought he was from the books. You have to imagine that Feeney would have a similar shock if he went and drank more pork and tried to get, maybe not quite as bad because the countryside does have a bit of, you know, spice. Sarah- quite a lot of spice if you want to believe. Jess- Oh yeah, fuck. And slab. Sarah- The horse moment takes us quite neatly to Stinky actually, because it's thanks to Stinky that the horse does what it's told.

Now isn't Stinky interesting? Oh, it's great. The reveal, remember little boy, little boy open book and he see evil goblin and I see nasty little boy. Good for us little boy that we were both right. My note here under the highlight is ha ha, holy shit. I thought that was such a great moment. I remember reading that for the first time and I had read Tiffany Aking at that point and I knew the book and it was just the thing.

Vimes is like, this has all kinds of like connotations, doesn't it? This idea that the goblin was looking back at Vines and Vines is looking at the goblin and does Vines have such powers of manifestation that it brought the goblin out of the book in some way? Is the goblin always a part of, you know, the background magic of the disc? Is he a little mischief spirit? Is he a... Well, okay, so let's quickly batch it theorisedize. Two batch of theories. First one, why the goblin sees Vimes, but there's no implication that he saw say Tiffany, who also had the book or Letitia, who also had the book, is Tiffany and Letitia both trying to cover up

the page, whereas Vimes stares at it intensely enough to see that it's just dots. Maybe that makes the connection. Pointless, unneeded theory, but I've made it anyway. Stinky is manifested. If we look at what Billy Slick's great-grandmother was saying in the last section about Ungu as a religion and this idea that it is there, it is there and it helps, but it is not God and it's not kneeling and praying. I wonder if he is some manifestation of the religion. He is the small god of Angu. He kind of appears to Sam Vimes because Sam Vimes needs him to help. The goblins? Yeah.

The goblins, yeah. And Stinky doesn't seem to really have any motivation beyond helping the goblins. No. But he is not just trying to help the goblins in this one situation, he's trying to help them seem better later when he helps on the clacks. Oh yes. The goblin is useful, the goblin is trustworthy, the goblin is helpful, the goblin isn't dead. Yes, you get these little italics asides, don't you, during Stacey's speaking?

Oh yeah. It's almost like spill wordish. Yes. But intentional spill words. Yeah. What's the other line? He gets a really, at the end of a completely normal interaction, I think it's to do with horses. There's no race so wretched that there is not something out there that cares for the misdivines. That was what happened with

the ungu theory. He's some kind of religious manifestation. Yeah. Not to bring goblins down to the level of animals, but it reminds me of a long time ago when we're talking, we're introduced to her in the hunted. Oh yeah, in Lords and Ladies. Yeah, the god of prey animals, where any kind of strong emotion like that does manifest a deity. Some kind of belief, yeah. Ah!

It's great. Isn't it? It delights me. Stinky. What a fun, what a fun fucking spanner in the works. And sort of pied piper-ing off the goblins once they've got off the boat as well. With a crab claw. Stratford. Stratford. I think we'll wait to talk about him as a villain, but the Stratford reveal. Yeah. So many good reveal moments in this book. Yeah. Yeah. Just, And it's set up really well. You get this moment when they first learn about the boat and Feeney says, he don't like boats,

he don't like water, he won't travel on a boat if he can help it. So it sets up, he's not good with water, he's not happy on a boat. And then you have Eddie Brassbound introduced as a water rat. And then you have these jumps, these surges and Miss Isilito staying vertical but Vimes, Amphenian Brass Band are all falling down. But then Vimes gets the hang of it really quickly. Yeah. And another bigger surge and it points out Brass Band landed heavily. And then you get that strap foot behind you with a crossbow. Gasp! Gasp!

And it's like reveal one and then reveal two. I knew it was you all along. I recognized your eyes. You fell down at the first surge. And that does depart slightly from what we were talking about and that generally you get to see Vimes' thought process on these things because it works so well for this. Yeah, it intentionally takes us out of that. But it's not like- We get that again, obviously, on the boat later. Yeah, yeah. I think with that boat scene with the original Stratford reveal, it's not even that we're out of Vimes' perspective. We just don't see that bit of it. It's all sort of just dialogue

and action. There's no introspection in that particular moment. Yeah. And it's another one of those ones where you do have to quickly go, oh wait, go back and read that but again, ah yes, I see the clues. There it is. It's so fun. It's so clever. Jethro Jefferson, we don't spend a lot of time with, but good to see him well. Yes. Glad he's healthy. I'd honestly forgotten about him until he turned up. Sorry, Jethro.

I do feel like the B plots and some of the smaller characters suffer in this book. We barely have Felicity Beadle in this section. She turns up at the end with Jethro and they're holding hands and that's lovely, but she falls by the wayside once it goes to action. Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of really where you put them back in without making the... Oh no, it would be shoe porn. You can't just have a turn up and quirm. Yes. If we had another few watchbooks then... Oh yeah.

...maybe we'd revisit but yeah. They haven't had a particular bad time in captivity though. It was fell fed beer, a daily tot of rum and given a number of back issues of girls, giggles and garters to while away his time. Everybody's favorite. You know I love a girls, giggles and garters shout out and then he becomes a copper. He does, although he does get to punt somebody first. Yes.

Which I think he needed after all that. And I like the fact that no one comes to the defense of the first mate either. No. They're like, yep, no, this is justified. Let's go for a mate. Yeah. And you get another little nice nod to the marquee of Fanteila. Yes. Fantire.

Whatever it is. Yeah. It's interesting to note that Vines has, maybe not effectively, but certainly for now, neutralized the threat of Jethro Tull as anti-establishment firebrand by putting a fucking police badge on him, which you know, I think greats against our anti-authoritarian streaks a little but chapter's fine for this. Yeah, did you just call him Jethro Tull? I did, yes. Sorry about that. I've been doing that in my head all through the book.

No, same. Same. It definitely says it in my notes a couple of times. Love a bit of Jethro Tells. I do like the idea as well of Vyme setting up a kind of exchange program with the Shires, like bringing someone, obviously he's kind of leaving Fred and Nobby there for a bit, bringing someone like Jethro or Feeny into the city to kind of learn a bit of city policing. And he's effectively in doing that expanding veterinary's influence because if they're Vyme-strained, they're going to that expanding veterinary's influence because if they are, if they're VIME strained, they're going to work under veterinary's laws. Yeah.

From VIME's point of view, I think it's just that right, I now see that these little rural outposts, like there's all kinds of shit going on that I don't want. And from veterinary's point of view, it's like, yes. Thank you. Which does then beg the question, will the influence of the guilds start to extend as far? Will we start getting thieves guilds? Rural thieves guilds? Maybe not, maybe. Maybe not, maybe. It's just a nice little thought exercise there.

It is. Something to toy with. Willikens. A little bit of a contradiction. Willikins is sort of left in charge and technically an acting copper and says, a friend, sir, dear friends, you've known me for a long time, they'd cut my ears off if they heard I was a copper. Of course, Willikins does join the special constables of the Aincmore Pork Watch every now and then, including in Thud. That is true. So maybe he's kept that very quiet somehow. Yeah. And yeah, he does then fuck off and murder someone. He's just not very good at it. I think it's fair to say that Willikins probably shouldn't. Well, he's very good at murdering, but yeah, not a great copper.

Yes, yes. Excellent murder. And I don't think any of us were sad to see Stratford die, really were we? Not really, no. I think Vines has chosen not to bring this up because it is Stratford and it is one of the, you know, undealable with villains. But you've really got to try and rein Wilkins in a bit, I think, because he's showing a worrying friend. JG Especially with the crossbow moment as well, having the crossbow that should absolutely be under concrete somewhere else. , I'm worried that the ice knife thing awoke something that had been dormant for a few years.

, you know. JG Hopefully purity can be a calming influence. , Yes. JG I do also, during the murder scene, I chuckled at the, I never punched a girl except Kinky Elsie, he was always going for that sort of thing and had me by the I'm not going to mentions at the time. Specifically, I mean Kinky Elsie is a great name, but I'm not going to mention. Instead of unmentionables, yeah. They're perfectly mentionable, but I'm not going

to because I'm a gentleman's gentleman. Anyway, please come here so I can slit your throat surgically. And then we have Gastric Silitto and Mrs. gentlemen. Anyway, please come here so I can slit your throat surgically. And we have Gastric Silito and Mrs. What a name. Gastric Silito. Oh, that's definitely a sheep disease. Quite possibly. Silito is a East Anglian-ish name. Is it?

Is around here. I am saying that. My basis is there is definitely a character whose last name is Siletto in a romance novel I quite like who starts off her journey around Cambridge. All right. Yeah. Nice. Where she ends up in the Cotswolds. They're awful romance novels. I love them. There's an Alan Siletto who's a famous writer from Nottingham. Ah, that's nice of him. But he's not a completely silly made up name. No, no. Gastric, however. Gastric, yeah. Lovely name for a girl. It's Mrs. who I'm really delighted by. Reminds

Sam of a younger Sybil. Personally, sir, I'd do him a favour if he killed every manjack of them, but life can't all be fun. As far as this one's concerned, could have been less gentlemanly, so I'd like you to tear him in the river, but I won't all be fun. As far as this one's concerned, could have been less gentlemanly, so I'd like you to throw him in the river, but I won't object if you refuse to tie a heavy weight to his leg. Jess We find out that she's the daughter of the Commander of Quirm. Jess The Mayor of Quirm.

Jess The Mayor of Quirm, that's it. So she is, yes, again, aristocracy. She's that kind of... Jess By the way, I'm used to being in charge and this is rather unpleasant and if we could deal with it quickly that would be lovely, thank you. Feel free to do a bit of murder but, you know, I do understand. Not so much murder you could do. With Mr. Silito, with Gastric, because he's immediately a sympathetic character. His boat's been taken over, his wife and daughter have been kidnapped and then he turns around and

says, oh, pay them no mind, goblins is just goblins. And I like this idea is not black and white, like our good guys have these shitty ideas. Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And it's very realistic. It's like, yes, when you talk to people, you know, and they seem perfectly normal. And then they come out with my bigoted shit you ever heard. Oh, no. Okay. Why, you know, you need something like what Sybil is doing, you shouldn't have to need that to consider these people human. But unfortunately unfortunately something has to be done to make sure these people are considered human and Sybil does it in a very non-confrontational way.

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's also, you know, there's a, they've not quite caught up on things like animal rights yet either. So even if they were considered animals, you'd feel bad about that. But we get a few hints throughout the Discworld and certainly in this book that there's no real law against being horrible to animals at the moment. Although Vimes will, I think, will be working on it. Heather. I believe so. Emma. Once he's got the sentient species protected by law. Heather. Yeah. Well, animals and sentient species, they're certainly a decent amount of overlap

when it comes to oak moorport. Oh yeah, absolutely. Make sure gasboats got rights. Yeah, no rights, yes, fine, but you know. Not a boat or... No power for gasboats. That's the platform I'm running on. Colon.

Oh yes, well done, chav. His B plot gets resolved nicely. He gets a lovely time in a cave. I do like when Vimes gets filled in by We Mad Arthur, everything starts to converge. He sort of thinks to himself, oh, God, he hates anything non-human on the quiet. What kind of pots he'd make. Yeah. And of course, he is he's been given empathy. He's turned up in the cave and is quite happily joining in eating the rabbit thinks everyone's quite delightful. My instinct is, and I'd be interested to know if this was right, that there were some B plot scenes involving Fred Curlin that were cut for reasons of brevity.

This is already quite a long book. Because we don't get to see a lot of Fred's descent into goblin unhappiness. But that does seem like the kind of thing that Pratchett would write very well. Niamh Yeah, especially you mentioned last week when you talked about origins of goblins and obviously you brought up like goblin market and there's a whole sort of descent into madness and odd stuff. And I feel like Pratchett could probably have that in the back of the mind somewhere if you're going to be weird and have some

madness and goblins around. Sarah And Hoombs and mongers. But again, it is a long book and if something has to be cut, I'd much rather the Colum plot got cut than anything to do with vines. Not that I don't love Colum, but obviously I love vines. Yeah. Nice to see him come around to things as well. Even if it doesn't last forever, I think he'll definitely be left with a good chunk of empathy that he did need. Yeah.

Nobby. Obviously the detail that the goblins are immediately attracted to him is entertaining. Yes. Funny, unsurprising, kind of the rainbows. A little touching perhaps. It is touching. It's not about business, Sam. And then when Sybil says that, she mentions the troll and the dwarf who've set up together in Lobbinklout. Niamh – Lobbinklout, yes, lovely. Lovely place name.

Georgie – Well, that's where Pepe's from. Niamh – Is it indeed? Well done, well remembered. Georgie – So I like that that's becoming maybe like the progressive area, that's the Brighton of Ankh-Morpork. Niamh – Well, that's right, yes, because Pepe and Georgie – Madame Sharna have a cross species fraternization. Something along that. Oh, and in this context of finding out about Nubby, we also learned that Verity Pushpram is engaged to a lad he's building up his own fishing fleet. And I am very happy. Yeah, yeah. Very happy for Verity Pushpram.

She's a she's an entrepreneur. She's an icon. She can look in two directions at once. Girl boss. She's got it made She can look in two directions at once. She's got it made. Yeah. Girl boss, Fergie Bush Bram. Oh, and lastly, I just want to mention acting Captain Haddock because we pointed out at the beginning of the book, he's been sent off to Quirm and obviously we get the payoff of that here when we end up in Quirm. And he's now called, what is it? Yes, he's gotten the nickname Heringue and it kippa and ankhmorpork because policemen have

a similar sense of humour everywhere. I haven't put Quirm in locations, but it is very nice to see Quirm. I like this idea as it's just sort of a Frenchy seaside town. Yeah, south of France somewhere, isn't it? Yeah. And with one, brackets one, bottle of brand sauce in the entire city. Merkle and Stingvat. You can see the bottle label in your mind, can't you?

Absolutely. Do we have any more location? I mean, we've got Hwanderland. We have got Hwanderland, but we're there very briefly on a depressing tobacco plantation. So I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time. No. Well, interesting moment when we met Arthur is surveying the land and is looking for rectangles. I quite liked that.

Oh yeah, I do like that as a detail. In the land without much geometry. He's like, right, rectangles, that is cultivation. That's where I'm going. I just thought that was fun. Yeah, no, that is a really fun detail. I like that. Not fun in context. Right. Elbis, we liked. What did you like, Francine? I liked the idea of water having memory in the water cycle. It knew the score. You evaporated. You floated around in a cloud until somebody organised everybody and then you all fell

down as rain. It happened all the time. There was no point in hurrying. After your first splash, you'd seen it all before. Then a little bit later, old treachery slowly wobbled back and forward from one bank to the other. As if uncertain about the whole water cycle business. We like sentient water and clouds and... Yeah, I've decided to throw in a headcanon that this is the return of the storm from Weird Sisters, but it's kind of jaded with the industry now. Yeah, I'm going to take a little bit of time meandering at a river before I go back to storming. It happens to the best of us. What else did you like?

I also liked the little bit about Sam and young Sam getting periwinkles. Ah, periwinkles and lots of salt and vinegar. Spent a happy time with young Sam picking periwinkles off the rock on one of the many small islands off the Quirm coast, and they gathered driftwood and they boiled them and they ate them with the help of a pin, racing to be the first to get one wiggly morsel out of its shell. And of course there was brown bread and butter and finally plenty of salt and vinegar so that the periwinkles tasted of salt and vinegar rather than of periwinkles, which would be a disaster. We get a little bit more of that with the snails later. But I like this bit because

A, because I come from an island where gathering periwinkles for food is a thing and I've done it. Also because we were talking about fantasy food and how nice food sounds in books generally. Of course, there was brown bread and butter and salt and vinegar and that sounds lovely. Then with all of that lovely description, of course, you have to finish it with a pratit flour and that would be a disaster. L. No one actually wants to taste a periwinkle. C. Not of the sea. taste a periwinkle. Snort of the sea.

Sea also cockles. The oysters for me are more snotty than a cockle or a periwinkle, but I do understand. Oh, the oysters I have such a separate loathing for from that one time I had to shuck like a hundred of them in an hour. I can't even get to being grossed out by the snotty nose because I am focused on the extreme wrist pain that's just flares up if I look at one. Do you like oysters? Oh, no, no, my wrist. Gosh, no. They don't like me. Potted shrimps though. Only makes sense to other chefs.

Potted shrimps though. There's a couple of mentions of potted shrimps in this and this made me want a bit of a potted shrimp situation. I love a potted shrimp. I think we could turn out to be great friends with the potted shrimp. I could be a pal of potted shrimp. Bon think we could turn out to be great friends with the potted shrimp. I could be a pal of potted shrimp. Bon appetit. All right, what about you? I see you've taken up a little... A little elephant. A twist on a theme here.

Relevance. Relevance. Relevance. Which I was pleased with because I was about to look for an elephant fact and then realized I didn't really have to. No, I wanted to... I'm going to talk about relevant elephants for a change. There is this wonderful metaphor that runs through a couple of Discworld books, End of Witches Abroad. They went the long way and saw the elephant. And just the desire of seeing the elephant is the metaphor for taking the interesting journey, taking your time. It's the end of fifth elephant when

Vimes and Sybil take the sleigh and have a little holiday together. And then we have elephants turning up at the end of this book and it does sort of tie into the metaphor. First you have vines waking up to the elephants on the beach and also just the idea of the zoo taking the elephants to the beach for a splash around in the morning is really nice. And then of course they have their trip to the zoo and not even the, why have I done this? Not even the philatelist finding, that's not how you say it, finding a rare reversed head blue triangle stamp in an unregarded secondhand stamp collection could have been happier than young Sam toddling away with his steaming bucket. Young Sam had seen the elephant." Something about adding this holiday moment

and young Sam gets to see the elephant in his very special way. It just brought me a lot of joy. Absolutely. And then just to throw in an irrelevant elephant reference later on when Sibyl's preparing the uphouse thing and she says, I pulled more strings than an elephant's corset. Elephants on the mind clearly at this point. Very much so. Also the description of a family size toenail was quite good on the foot of that one elephant. And stinky sitting on the trunk and bouncing around is great. It's a good comedy animal, your elephant. Your elephant is good for a laugh and

it will remember a joke for a long time. Anyway, something else, video game moments. I don't know how to segue into that. A couple of things I noticed, the obvious goblin connections when Vimes was working on Snuff around this time, this is when he was very into Oblivion and the Viltia mod, which is something we've talked about. Yeah, it's something we've talked about on the podcast a lot before. I will link to the Eurogamer article about Pratchett working on this mod with the creators and things again. Feminine place in our bookmarks that I think. It comes up a lot. But yeah, in an interview in that year ago, in my article, he described

he'd been exploring game goblin caves with Vildre and he wished he could study the goblins without having to kill them. This is Emma who created the mod. So I made him a goblin peace amulet to make the goblins non-hostiles so he could explore their dungeons without having to kill anyone. And this is all around the time he was researching his book, snuff. He even invited Emma and Charles who worked on the mod to the snuff launch party. When Emma created this give a gift mod, which started with Pratchett saying he wanted to be able to give a flower to Vilja as a thank you because she made her this sort of guide character. So they created this give a gift mod and they put tons of like snuff

Easter eggs in there. Like there's a scent you can give called Tears of the Mushroom. Wow! How would I have forgotten all this? So that's all a really nice connection. The reason I got to that is I was actually trying to see if Pratchett had referenced a different game. So this is when he's getting the signed effort David's in the Rampkin strong room. There's this description First, you need a combination which opened a smaller but nevertheless dangerously efficient safe simply to remove a key which had to be inserted in locks hidden in three separate clocks in the hall and each one triggered a clockwork timing mechanism. And that's very video gamey timed puzzle thing, but having very recently played Tomb Raider 3 on the new sort of re-release they've

done, there is a specific moment in the house in Tomb Raider 3 where you have to hit a bunch of time switches to get into like a sort of archive room where you keep all the treasures. Okay. So what do we think? I mean, this book would have come out over a decade after Tomb Raider 3, but he was a big Tomb Raider fan. He would have obviously played that. So I don't know if it was a reference to that specifically, but I feel like it was a it was a video game reference. It was like timed puzzle type thing. Or at least that's part of the seed of the idea. Yeah. So yeah, delights me. I love spotting Pratchett doing something video gamey.

Yeah, that's lovely. Brings me joy. Oh, and then one last thing. Sorry. Come on my moment there. One more thing. I've ended up with slightly chunkier references here just because I kept going down rabbit holes. No, no, I'm enjoying it. Please continue. So the Gordon family, the daughters, I was very annoyed I didn't get the joke until the epilogue when it mentions they've started the Gordon's bonnets companies that they are

called the Gordon's as in Gordon Bennett's. The Bennett sisters being the family and prejudice. I had to have a look then Gordon Bennett, which is a very British exclamation. Sort of thing Delboy says quite a lot. So this is very brief summary, but the possible origin of this is it was a reference to James Gordon Bennett Jr. Okay, sounds plausible. Yep. He went by Gordon Bennett to differentiate it was a reference to James Gordon Bennett Jr. Sarah reputation. You and I love a sort of out of context Wikipedia little list and I sent you a screenshot yesterday. This is from his Wikipedia page. Just lifestyle. Yachts scandal, move to Paris, return to the US.

F**k yes. He won the first transatlantic yacht race in 1866 on a bet. It was basically on a dare. In 1877, this is sort of just from Wikipedia, he left New York for Europe after an incident that ended his engagement to socialite Caroline May. According to various accounts, he arrived late and drunk to a party at the May family mansion and then urinated into a fireplace, some say grand piano, in full view of his host. Godness me. He organized the first ever sort of public polo and tennis matches in the US. He founded

the sort of big US polo club. Sure, sure. At age 73, he married to Maude Potter, whose father-in-law from a prior marriage, her first husband died, was the person who founded Rooters Press Agency. And then this isn't relevant to anything, I just am fascinated by this story. So when Gordon Bennett died, he had appointed James Stillman as one of the administrators and trustees of his estate, but Stillman was not able to do this because he died a few weeks later. Stillman had named John William Stirling as one of his executors and then Stirling then died suddenly. So these combined estates were

total to about $76 million. And then when Stirling died, he appointed his long time intimate companion, this is direct from Wikipedia, James O. Bloss to be one of his executors. And a few weeks after Sterling died, Bloss died. Yeah. And apparently there was no foul play. It was obviously looked into. It was all coincidence, but just what do I think? What happened in the end? We know. No, that was as far as I got before I realized that we couldn't spend half an hour of this on the podcast.

Wow. Cool though. Yeah. So Gordon Bennett. Gordon Bennett. Gordon Bennett. Gordon Bennett. What a list of references. Good job. Excellent. Let's go on to the bigger stuff. So we'll go a little bit unhinged today. Yay. Just for a laugh. I think we're all getting a bit unhinged towards the end of this book. So

let's just do it. So Stratford. Yeah. Is a recurring character. He is a type. We've talked about the different types of Pratchett villains and the main two archetypes, I think being the unhinged, mad eyed person and the auditor type of introduced too much order into this world. Yeah. And killing all interesting bits in the process. My unhinged theory, which kind of came to me as we were looking at Stinky, these men are all possessed

by some kind of dark, disquiet deity or other being. They are what makes these men broken. Okay, so, so, so we're always talking about how like mad the eyes are. Specifically, we always talk about the eyes. Yeah, there's like the carcer DNA. Yeah, gods can't change their eyes, just saying. And although the eyes do look a bit different in some cases, I think just we can say like the vibe behind them. And we also know that it doesn't have to be a god to be like a supernatural thing because we heard about, read a bit of description about the dark being a weird entity, but not a god and the cunning man. Similarly. Almost all of them, a couple of exceptions,

they're quite nondescript until they're angry. And all of them love weird tricks and extra weapons and cheating. And obviously, they're all very recurring. So my list of these of this man repeating himself, T-Time, obviously. Wolfgang von Ueberwald. Very much. Carcer. Andy Schenck. Yep. Stratford. And I've decided that five examples makes a stronger theory. Makes a pattern. So, Mr. Tea time, Tiatemi, to use his ridiculous. Tiatemi. Tiatemi. Had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows, but ultimately also something that was broken. Mr. Teatime enjoyed himself

too much and other people also. And what bothered Lord Downey far more than Teatime's false eye was the man's other eye, the one that might loosely be called normal. He'd never seen such a small and sharp pupil. T-Time looked at the world for a pinhole. Yeah. I'm going to be honest, this is largely just an excuse to go back close to the end of the books and have a look at all these, have a look at this particular archetype again. Yeah, villain retrospective. I love it. Stratford's our last one of these. Okay. Wolfgang. No animal had eyes like that, but Vimes saw them occasionally in some of Ankh Moorpork's less salubrious drinking establishments, where if you were lucky, you'd get out the door before the drink turned you blind. Cullen

called that sort of person a bottle covey. Knobby preferred sod nutter. But whatever the name, Vimes recognized a headbutting eye gouging down a dirty bastard when he saw one. In a fight, you'd have no alternative but to lay him out or cut him down because otherwise he'd do his very best to kill you. And actually in this book a little bit for that description of Wolfgang, but did he with Wolfgang and his mates chasing Vimes, you know, trousers and all. Vimes thinking to himself, he'd never killed someone with his bare hands before. This is where he thinks he's killed one of the werewolves with his bare hands. Truth to tell, he'd never deliberately killed at all. There had been deaths because

when people are rolling down a roof and trying to strangle one another, it's sheer luck who is on top when they hit the ground. But that was different. He went to bed every night believing that. And by the time we get to this book, Vimes very much knows he's killed people on purpose. Yeah. And does not particularly like that about himself, I think. And I think it's this recurring, awful type of man that is driving him to this stuff eventually. And it's never unjustified. But it has added this extra layer to Vimes that he doesn't want to have. He got Khalsa, obviously, I think the classic, the pinnacle, I would say, of this genre of twat.

Sorry, genre of twat just as a sentence. Khalsa was different. He was in two minds, but instead of being in conflict, they were in competition. He had a demon on both shoulders urging the other one on, and yet he smiled all the time in a cheerful, chirpy sort of way, and he acted like the kind of rascal who made a dodgy living selling gold watches that go green after a week. He'd stand there amid the carnage, blood on his hands, stolen jewellery in his pocket, and with an expression of injured innocence declare, me, what did I do? And it was believable right up until you looked hard into those cheeky smiling

eyes and saw deep down the demons looking back. What if it's a natural demon? What if it's a natural demon? And here, here we also get the cast that doesn't need a reason said violence, he just needs an excuse. And that I think is another common thread through these villains. The fact that they aren't doing it for the same reason as some of the other villains for power or for greed or for anything like that, although some of them have that as part of their motivation. T-Time wants immortality, he wants to be remembered

for taking out the biggest assassin victim ever. Andy Shank wants respect, I think, amongst everything. But at the core, what they want is to hurt people. That's just what they like. They like to do it in the same way that normal people enjoy steering a riverboat or seeing an elephant, whatever. Andy Shank, we're just going to visit briefly. So I think he's, although he works very well as a side and is he the big bad in Unseen University? No, I think he's quite antagonist. Yeah, he's an antagonist. Yeah. But he's not, he's no Carson. He always got a laugh. It was the first thing you noticed after the glint in his eye. And

then Andy was a stone cold psychopath who had a following only because it was safer than being in front of him. He could be quite charming when the frantically oscillating mood swing took him. That was the best time to run. And here we have another connection because almost all of these men have simpler and a little bit bad because they're willing to do violence but generally accepted as not as bad followers who follow at first perhaps for greed but eventually for fear of what will happen if they stop riding the tiger. Which whenever that phrase comes up I just imagine that scene in the Jungle Book. No, that's fine. And we'll deal with that.

And then yeah, finally Stratford. To tell you the truth, he sort of looks like everyone else, sir. That is until he gets angry. Ted's face lit up. And that, sir, is when he looks like Stratford. And then Gert, he's called a knife cove by Jiminy. Yeah. Going back then to Wolf the Gang where you have have the bottle Kobe. The kind of bloke you never want to see walk through your pub door. I don't mind telling you. And then Flutter talking about him again. I said, thank you all the same, Mr. Stratford, but I won't put you to the trouble and get my mouth shut because he had a funny look at his eye. Flutter

seemed to think for a moment and added, he always has a funny look in his eye. Yes. So I think yes, demons, one demon in particular is inhabiting all of these men. I know they overlap a little bit in the timeline, but you know, it's a demon, who's to say he can't do more than one. And I think in Vimes' case, he is repeatedly confronted by this demon in the form of Wolfgang Kasser Stratford, in ways that permanently alter him and make him more towards what he ends up being at the end of this book, which I think is a very complex character. He hasn't reached the pinnacle of good policemenhood or everything you could possibly want in a character. He's a lot more realistically, in a supernatural way, complicated and he's

done things he did not want to do to shape the world in the way he wanted it. And he's constantly having to fight down the dark. And maybe the summoning dark is like his version of that demon. And he was just cool enough to be able to look it up. Guard it. Yeah. To jump on this because I love this. So many thoughts. A, talking about Vimes not being the pinnacle of good policemen, because we have Carrot there as a contrast to that. Who's like, so shiny that everything just

bounces off. Yes. Get in there, just boing. Yeah, boing. Boing. Another sort of jumping on the wild theory. I mean, I love this idea. I like the idea that a belief in the idea that there must be something worse than me could be what manifests this kind of malevolent spirit. If you think about God's coming from belief, there is the belief that, okay, someone is worse. I know things can be nastier, just

as a theory. One last thing, the way you were describing a lot of those characters, not all of it, but a good amount of it can also apply to Moist One Lipvig. And so this idea of him as taking that villain archetype, but then he just doesn't have room for villainy in him. He has one gear too many, or he doesn't have the right gear, he doesn't have the right buttons to push, so maybe it's in there, it just can't, the way he's constantly moving, some of the descriptions of his eyes, his motivation not really being deep down greed but about succeeding. So whatever kind of thing this is, you can see it fail in two different ways through

Vimes and Moist Von Lippig. Yeah, through Vimes it almost fails in conflict, through Moist it doesn't fail, it just cannot fully manifest because Moist is just unable to be that evil. And then maybe he gets a little bit of help from having the avatar of whatever he's called on Discworld, the messenger god and things like that. He gets a bit of supernatural help of his own and so does Farnes, yeah. And if to take it out of the metaphysical within the fiction thing and think about it from a writing perspective as well, so we know Pratchett likes doing the archetype. It's like the early male characters in the book, are they're all different characters played by the same actor? Arguably that's

a similar thing happening with these villains. Moist is taking, okay, right, I've created that trope. What if I take that, do that trope without the evil? And I don't know how much that's at the forefront or just a subconscious thing, but it's a, yeah, here's a, here's a different flavor of that character. Yeah. Yeah, because Moist does crimes because he enjoys crimes. It's just his crimes are not as far as he knows victimless and he finds out later they're not and that's quite upsetting. And yeah, possibly without the button, the evil button that it manages to push in, say, Casa or Stratford, a redemption arc is possible.

Emma P It could work like this. Mad theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, this is just a fun way to thread together five, five now, iterations of the villain that we love to hate. We've talked about right from the beginning when we started with Tea Time and Hogfather, it's not right to the beginning, but early, that we were looking forward to the rest of the iterations of these villains because they stuck with us. Yeah. that we were looking forward to the rest of the iterations of these villains because they stuck with us. Yeah, and they are- I think Karsa right in the middle there, in the middle of five, I think is the peak of all five of these. And that might just be because he's within Nightwatch, which is like

the book that sticks with so many people. But Stratford, I think, I think because he doesn't really manifest until the end, doesn't have the chance to be as stick in the mindy as Carthage. Yeah, the fact that he does get outwitted every turn whereas Carthage. Once Vimes is in the same area as Stratford, Stratford does not have a win. No, and that might be because Vimes has dealt with people like this before several times. As well as these five, you do get the hints every time Vimes learns about this new one, that he's dealt with other

people like this before. The bottle cove is there. Heather Miedema Yes, there are plenty of others that just maybe go unnamed. And then you do sort of have Richie Gill as the one exception to the two flavors of Villain Rule. He's not quite either. He's more auditor than mad-eyed. But he does have the literal eye patch. Maybe that's the entity split between him and Moist and they've each got bits of it. That's really fun. I hadn't thought about throwing all of those together like that. That's great. I think you've kind of got an almost retrospective-y talking point as well,

haven't you? It's very hard not to be retrospective-y. Now we're getting so close to the end of the Discworld and I'm not thinking about that because I have an emotion and I haven't got that on the schedule for today. Yeah, I don't think we've said it explicitly, but this is the last Watchbook, obviously. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this is kind of another, isn't this book good talking point? But I do tend to get very defensive of this book because I don't think it's anyone's favourite watch book. It's not the best watch book because that's the fifth elephant. But

it is a really, obviously we kind of mentioned this a little bit before it does bug me and people go, oh, I read that one, I can see the Imbuggerants because this is really good and clever and tightly plotted. I think the only problem is that maybe the B plots fall to the wayside a bit because there's a lot going on. And I think that's fine. As I said earlier, I'd much rather have Vimes on a terrifying riverboat chase than Colon because I like Vimes more than Colon, I think most people do. But it's so well shaped and in doing so it becomes this kind of almost watch greatest hits, all this stuff we love about the books. So we have payoffs out the wazoo and callbacks as well, just throwing

this in, but callback to the zoons from equal rights. Yeah, yeah. That was a hell of a loop back. It took me, I had to sort of wander around and think to myself for a second before I could remember which book we'd seen them in. Yeah, about a fairy long time ago. With the mention of zoons and barges as well, I was a little bit hoping that Gaspar would show up because he goes off and sort of becomes a river dog. But he's doing it.

He's doing it. Yeah. I'm glad he's not. I wouldn't want to see him in peril. Well, yes. No, I don't want to see him in peril. I just want to see him floating past once everything's calm down. Yeah. You know, when you're walking along a canal and there's a boat and there's a dog on the boat and you see the dog and you wave and I love a little walk along a canal where you wave. Anyway,'s in her wonderland, he sees something horrible and he has decided he is the law. And in that

situation I greatly approve. Even if it wasn't a fair fight, I mean, there was only one of him and six of them, it wasn't a fair fight for them. What else could he do? He couldn't wait for their mates to turn up, really. Exactly. And this small and big crimes thing paying off this, yes, it might be an amusing peccadillo, but look, smuggling and tobacco does lead to slavery. Very big crime. Even the tools as weapons stuff. Yeah. Paying off when Vimes finds the complicated chicken farmers toolbox. Yeah. You're not even touched on the complicated chickens. There's so much in this book. Yeah, yeah. Square eggs, eh? It does seem complicated.

It does. And then less sassle moments as well. I mean, Chekhov's dam slam, going along the river, it's storming. The only time to worry is if you get a dam slam and it only happened very rarely. All right, well, we're going to get one in ten pages time. Yeah, yeah, sure. This is not a bad thing. That's part of a watchbook. You've got to have something Chekhov-y. Yeah. And you need it really. It's going to ruin the pacing if you explain it as it's happening.

Exactly. I think if nothing else, it's necessity. We've got to have a bit of river exposition. Yeah. It's fine. It's good writing. There are darker moments and they're not skipped over, they're dwelt on for a moment. You have these parallel moments. We met Arthur coming across the enslaved goblins in the tobacco plantation and putting a goblin out of its misery before freeing the rest. And then you have vines on the boat in the barge in this similar moment of knowing they aren't all alive and freeing what he can. And they are, I think they are intentionally written as parallels, you know, they happen about 30 pages apart in my copy of the book, obviously, mileage may vary. But it builds into

this running theme of the law needing to catch up to the action to the rightness. I have to say, now you've pointed that out, Vimes a little hard on himself when talking to Wee Mad Arthur, wasn't he? Because Wee Mad Arthur said, I hope I did what you would have done. And Vimes said, Oh, I think you've done much better than I would have done, you know, implying I'd have murdered the lot of them. And he didn't. He was in a similar situation and he didn't murder the lot of them. He arrested the chap that was ultimately murder by his butt, you know. Vimes didn't murder him.

Vimes didn't murder him. That's the thing. Yeah, no, you're right. I didn't actually think about it because he does. Vines does tend towards the introspective self criticism, but I think he does that as his way to keep a hold on the darkness. So I think we can, I'm not saying we should encourage his low self esteem, but let's maybe encourage his introspection a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nice to see so much of the external and interior walls of Vimes' murderous fratricities. But yeah, this builds into this theme of the law needing to catch up to the action and Vimes' prioritizing order, if not law, when he's on the ship when they're catching up to Captain Murderer. And he's saying, look, the law is going to catch up, they can speak, they have a society,

I've heard them play music. And he's, again, he's thinking on to himself about being a good or bad copper. And he says, law is order and order is law and it must be the highest thing. The world runs on it, the heavens run on it. And without order, one second cannot follow another. it, the heavens run on it and without order one second cannot follow another. To him order is not enslaving sapient species, which shouldn't be controversial. No, no. Should it, it's silly toro. So when it comes to this, not even really confrontation, the conversation with veterinary at the end, a veterinary saying, look, there is only so much we can do because at the time they hadn't broken the law. Lord

Rust Jr. has done many bad things, but making slaves of goblins under the current law cannot be one of them on the surface. He's also pissed off because now he's going to have to deal with Rust Jr.'s sister instead, he was clever. So I was hoping to have an idiot. On the surface, Vettinari is being clear that the law hasn't gotten to where Vimes believes it should be yet, but Vettinari then privately enacts his own punishment. He makes sure where Rust is being sent to happens to be near a clerk who has a lot of poisonous spiders as pets. Emma- Yes, that's fine. That's Vettinari's hobby, whatever. But yeah, you're right, it's interesting because Vimes is so into the idea of the law being the highest power and everything that's

going on about it. But he does take a really quite firm, it takes a firm reminder from veterinary that you can't retrospectively apply laws, which of course is entirely correct. And of course does feel on the surface quite unfair at the time when these things happen. But absolutely cannot be, you cannot set a precedent like that. Otherwise you are opening the door to awfulness. Ange 1 Yeah, exactly. And so veterinary is the one who is above the law. Veterinary will privately enact his own punishment. He doesn't believe that no one can be above the law, but he believes it needs to be one person and him. He needs

to restrain vines from doing this even as he still makes sure justice is done, even if the law hasn't caught up to it yet. But he can't honestly have that conversation with Vimes. That's one layer too much in the blurring the lines. Yeah. Yes. Now he needs Vimes to be black and white. Yeah. So that he can enact his shades of grey privately. Yeah. And eventually Vimes will hear that Russ Jr. died of a poisonous spider bite and smile quietly to himself probably. Yes, just think, oh, karma. Or realize because he's not stupid.

No, true, true enough. And obviously, so as you said, this is the last Watchbook, because we've only got two books left. It's not 100% the last time we see watch in the Discworld, see Vimes in the Discworld, however, but this is our last big Vimes adventure. And it does what the Watchbooks do best. It's a great action sequence and then a fantastic series of false endings. It really is. It's a watch greatest hit, so we have this very brief literal calm before the storm moment when Vyme sits down on the bench with Willikens. And then we have the boat chase in a storm with the treacherous river and you still get

Vyme's doing deduction as he's doing it. Okay, why would he pilot it like that? Why would he not stop? Realizes the threat to the family is the thing. And then we land in Quirm. In theory, the family is the thing. And then we land in Quirm. In theory, the action is done. Fiennes has got admittedly quite sandy coffee. And then you get that line. All sorted out. We've made sure those damn goblins caught their boat. And you realize,

oh yeah, no, there's like a good chunk of this book left. That's all it is, is it? And Captain Murderer again to bring back that Solitaire Point from earlier Reish rates. Goblins are cargo. And again, he's a shades of grey character. He's not really a bad guy. He's not a great guy. I don't think any of us are big Captain Murderer fans. And then he gets the Goblins back, signed affidavits, everything's done. He's going to go and get civil and Sam. He's going to bring them to Quern for a holiday. You can get Feeney saying it's plain sailing from now on, obviously he's talking about the river. And he watches the sun setting on the boat, but underneath everything that lingering threat of Stratford is still there. And that's very

castor in Nightwatch. That's getting back and the baby is born and it's fine and going to the celebrelerontarian small gods. And then of course, Stratford gets dealt with as far as Vimes is concerned. He's been packed up and sent to veterinary. Yeah. And you get the moment of what he was going to do to young Sam to really not make you feel anything about what's going to happen to him. Yeah. The fact that it was young Sam's room he snuck into. There's no sympathy left. And so Stratford's

dealt with the black is sunk or ready to be sunk. But the tension, the back and forth we talked about the stages, the village green and the opera house, the tension is tight as a string until the last moment. And then the ball finally drops, but it's diplomacy and veterinary that really finish things. Everything about it is just, it's a perfect watchbook, as in it is just fully in the shape of it. It is this kind of story that Terry Pratchett tells really well. It is not neatly wrapped up with a bow entirely at the end, although we have the promise of a poisonous spider. Jessi And we get Vimes' emotional state being wrapped

up with a bow at least. Happy with several cats full of sixpences. Emma I did look into that. I could not find an ori- because we've now had happy as a cat full of sixpences, black as a cat full of sixpences with Tiffany's dress at the end of I Shall Wear Midnight. Jessi Oh, I think it's just malpropism. He's just mixing up a couple of sayings because it's fun. Yeah. But I did try and see if there was a specific origin. I just got Terry Broughton. That happens so much. So much. But yeah, that's my point. Not everything is legally wrapped up, but vinesies.

Yeah, that's a good point actually, because I'd like to have your thought on this of how you think about it as a Vimes ending. As in Pratchett wrapping up Vimes' storylines here, because Vimes I think here is being shuffled slightly by Pratchett on his way to retirement. Because being shuffled slightly by Precci on his way to retirement. Because first of all, we get the physical deterioration, is that fair? But whatever, the first time really that Sam Vimes is properly vested in a fight like that. We also get him, I said earlier that the veterinarian needed to keep him black and white, but he's not anymore. Vimes, I think, really isn't black and white anymore. And you see that when he's happily nodding along to the policeman of Quirm turning this criminal into a informant instead of a...

Yeah, he makes a joke about teaching bad habits. Yeah. And it's not a petty criminal like you might normally turn into an informant in Atmallport. This is a smuggler. And somebody who smuggled sentient beings, cargo. You can tell he's really in quite a lot of inner, about this, about A, am I going to get in trouble? B, is this the right thing to do? You do get just the nice simple moments of him and his family at the end as well. And yeah, just the willingness to go on another holiday. Yeah. And then, oh, I forgot to mention earlier that the nice little within book wrap up

of going on a lovely walk through the countryside, listening to the liquid notes of the Robin, et cetera. Couldn't remember the others, but they were jolly good singers all the same. Yeah. And, you know, he's liking the countryside. He might start spending more time in the countryside. He's, I think, approaching retirement. How about you? Niamh I think what I really like is that what Pratchett

has done here, and again, not to be depressing about it, but Pratchett knew there was only a certain number of books left to write, although he had ideas for lots and lots more, is we can picture Vimes from the end of this book onwards, gently retiring, a very small amount of time. I don't think it would be one day he's retired. I think it would always be a little bit more in the country, maybe a little bit. And it's been happening slowly technically since Men at Arms when he was meant to drop out and become a gentleman. Remember that? I think it's notable that at the end of this book, Vimes does not get a title or anything. He doesn't even get a dartboard

for the Watch House. I think they can just afford them now. Yeah, I think they can just afford them now. Yes, he doesn't get an after boy. I think as the last watch, the last big Vimes adventure, I like the ending because it's not an ending. There's so much room for there to be more and we can imagine it neatly tied up if there is nothing more. But we think, yeah, I think definitely we're moving towards Carrot as commander of the

watch. Oh yeah, absolutely. Vimes is consultant until he dies definitely. Oh yeah, Vimes never is fully retired and Sybil has accepted that. But yeah, just from a writing standpoint and from a reading standpoint, I'm very happy for this to be a Vimes not ending. Yes. Yes. Have you got an obscure reference, Finneel, for me? Yes, I do. So the black-eyed Susan, one of the boats mentioned, and the two quotes here

are black-eyed Susan, quite speedy like her namesake, and black-eyed Susan who sometimes bounces like her namesake. I was like, should I miss something earlier? And did a little search in the book and no, but yes, a little Google brought up this thread from the Terry Pratchett forums where in 2011, Tony Black, super moderator says that a black eyed Susan is actually a flower, the state flower of Maryland, I think, but there was also a song called Little Black Eyed Susie, which is, I'm not going to read it out in full, but it's about a pretty little black eyed Susie who the singer is in love with. And yeah, basically, I think it's a little love song towards a lovely gal and I think maybe Pratchett just had that song in his head when he named the ship and

then put in a couple of jokes. Oh, and the same thread also says the Robert E. Biscuit probably refers to the Mississippi paddlesteamer, Roberta E. Lee, which makes sense. Excellent. Love it. It's an interesting thread all around, actually. So I'll link it. I've got to go through these forums properly at some point. We always say that. But many tangents abound in those forums. I'm not sure they can be trusted. I know. Right. I think that's everything we're going to say for now about snuff. Although we could

say many more things, of course. And we reserve the right to do so. We do reserve the right to do so. Original plan was to come back next week and have a look at World of Poo, the supplementary book. However, we've decided we're going to wait and do a couple of supplementary books at once. So we're actually going to have a couple of weeks off. Sorry, I'm being more specific about the upcoming schedule than usual,

because it's a bit different. So we will be back on the 8th of July with the Science of Discworld 3, and then the 15th of July with the Science of Discworld 3 and then the 15th of July with the Science of Discworld 4 to reassure listeners and Francine. Our plan is to really just focus on the narrative parts of those books, not so much the science because we're not very interesting when we talk about the science parts of those books. Now it turns out. Yeah, turns out we're quite dull. After that we are going to be having a little break.

We'll be back, be happy. Yeah, we are going to have a little break. We're not officially back until September where we'll be talking about Dodger. We're not officially back on the Discworld until October. And yes, I am trying to drag things out so I don't have an emotional breakdown. But we're doing a little bit of break because many things are happening. We're both moving house. However, there will be bonus content.

We have things in the works. We will be appearing at the Discworld Convention and you can expect a live episode recorded there, fingers crossed, if we don't get our wires crossed. And that's the beginning of August for anybody. Yeah. Anyone who's attending, please find us, please come watch us. We're doing a talk as well. And it would be lovely to see some listeners. Eagle-eyed amongst you may have also noticed that this episode is 149th.

Oh, yeah. And therefore 150th. Wait, is it? Yeah. I've got 147. Oh, that's probably because I miscalculated something somewhere then. Oh, no, this is 147th. The Science of Discord 4 will be 149th episode. I was at the wrong point in the spreadsheet. So a little chat, a little 150th chat if you want to get some questions and little things you want us to talk about in.

Well that means our 150th will be the live one. Yes, although that wouldn't officially be a number. Oh, because it comes in as bonus. Yes, sorry. 150th named episode. Yes. Yes. Let's have some extra mailbag time. named episode. Yes. Yes. Let's have some extra mailbag time. We'll have a little party. We'll wear hats. Send us albatrosses, postcards, all of the nonsense. Oh, and mild reminder that also my book, Friends in the Golden Age of the sitcom is coming out at the end of July and I'll put some links for pre-ordering that in the show notes down below. Please pre-order it. I need people to buy my book. Thank you. I'm so good at self promo. Anyway, we've got all of

that coming up. Until we're back in July, dear listeners, you can join our Discord link down below. You can follow us on Instagram at the TrueShare Makehefret, on Twitter and Blue Sky at Makehefretpod. You can join, follow us on Facebook at the TrueShare Makehefret. Join our subreddit r slash TTS NYF. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks and questions for our 150th bonus episode. The true show make you fret pod at gmail.com. And if you want to support us financially, you can go to patreon.com for true show make you fret. They exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. Oh, and rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. We like positive affirmations. Thank you. And until next time, dear listener, pride and extreme prejudice.