The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 148: Dodger Pt. 1 (Universal Psychopomp Coin)

Episode Date: September 1, 2024

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 1 of our recap of “Dodger”. Farthings! Sovereigns! Bones!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:Decoding TV Dodger: An interview with Professor Sir Terry Pratchett. Part 1 - YouTube  Crown and Anchor - Wikipedia Punch and Judy - Wikipedia  Charon's obol - Wikipedia In Which a Trope Is Described - TV Tropes London Labour and the London Poor (Vol. 2 of 4), by Henry Mayhew—The Project Gutenberg eBookSewer Gator - TV Tropes Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

So yeah, no, I think future career is a scarecrow, possibly a good thing for me. I don't know if it's like necessary to stick little bits of straw onto yourself. I'm hoping not because I feel like this would make a very itchy career. And I'm not sure I want an itchy career. Oh, someone I know is now volunteering at Oxfam bookshop, our local one, which is one of my favorite places for finding random, interesting nonfiction. There's only one specific book I've told them to look out for. Who about that? The 1973 Reader's Digest Guide to Folklore, which is what Tim Downey and Justin Chubb have based their folklorist podcast on. I would like to get a copy of that. But I don't

want to go on A Books or something and buy a copy. I want to find a copy in the wild. Does it count if someone else finds it? Oh yeah, if it's given to me as a gift, that's wonderful. But it's also like, I like looking for things in the wild and then finding it and having a delight and going, oh, a book. Does it count if you smash open a hunk of dirt and it falls out? Yeah, I feel like that also counts. Also if I pull it out of a stone. Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah, oh yeah. Given to you by someone in a lake.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Given to you by someone in a lake. Yep. Moistened bins lying around in ponds distributing folklore guides are no basis for a system of podcasting. Found out bricked up in a chimney to ward off witches. Yeah, quite possible. Under a bush. Oh no, that's porn. It's one of those items that's like been eaten by a tree. Yeah, yeah. Quite possibly. In a Ziploc bag, hopefully, if it comes floating items that's like been eaten by a tree. Yeah, yeah, quite possibly. In a Ziploc bag, hopefully, if it comes floating down the river. Oh, inside a fish. Inside a fish. Obviously inside a fish. Yeah. Oh, in a little reed basket floating down the river.

Ooh, foundation myth. Very nice. Now you should be king. Does that mean I'm king or the book's king? Probably the book, but I imagine you would have to be regent. I make a good regent, I think, on behalf of a 1973 freelance digest kind of folklore. Let it never be said, we let the concept go too early. Clearly not. So you know that terrible reality show, Love is Blind? Yes, I've not watched it yet. They recently did a UK season. There's a podcast I listened to called Decoding Reality that covers

Love is Blind. I'm a big fan of the podcast for some of the David Chen because he does lots of other stuff like A Caster King, which is Game of Thrones podcast. I've been following him for a while, but I listened to Decoding Reality and that's now basically the only reason I watch Love is Blind is because I really like him and his wife Joy covering it. They were covering the UK one and I sent in an email to clarify, like, here are some British things, such as we're all not great at necessarily recognizing regional accents. Here are some other things that go on a full English breakfast. The guy hosting it, Matt Willis, I didn't recognize, but when I googled, I realised he's from Busted. Here's Busted's

first song. Anyway, yeah, they read my email on the podcast. It was very confusing because they were sort of like, oh yeah, we got an email from Joanna. I was like, hey, that's my name. It took a good couple of minutes, which I realised they were reading my email. That's the same kind of stuff I wrote. My favourite bit though is I mentioned one of the girls on the show, one who's actually from Jersey, had a very specific British mean girl energy, which was she definitely played netball at school. She was definitely a netball girl. She had big netball girl energy. But obviously these are American hosts, so I also had to explain what netball was and hearing

two Americans absolutely appalled by the concept of netball and agreeing that yes, that would create very mean people. It's my favourite thing I've ever done. Australians very into netball as well. Yeah, but do Australians have netball girls? Because again, I feel like that's a specific British mean girl. Hmm. See, my cousin's a big netball player. Like very good, but and she's from Jersey. Wait, this isn't s***, is it?

No. No, okay, good. I was debating texting and was like, do you know Catherine from Jersey? She looks like she plays netball and she's a dental nurse. No, no, I think s*** is in finance. Everyone's in finance or a dental nurse in Jersey. The two genders. I'm looking for a guy in finance because there's no other jobs that pay enough salary to get rent here.

Yeah, that was one of the brief explanations I think I sent in the email because they were talking about her living with her parents and she's in the early thirties and was sort of like, yeah, no. Did you send them a whole booklet? Yeah, yeah. Joanna's very specific guide to England based on this one reality show. Well, no, I was talking about seaside towns and how you have the affluent seaside towns and then the amusements seaside towns and then the combination of the two that's also got historical stuff and then the sad rundown liminal space seaside towns. Right,

should we make a podcast? CHARLEYY We guess so, yeah. I forgot we did that. CHARLEYY We've caught up. We've had a chat. Should we make a podcast? We've had a chat. Listeners, I'll cut out most of this chat, but we basically just had a nice afternoon's coffee and a chat. I suppose we could make a podcast, yeah.

Yeah, let's make a podcast. Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The True Shell Make You Threat, a podcast in which we're usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one of Steinman Chronological Order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today we are talking about Dodger. Yes we are. Which is not a Discworld book. We've left Discworld once again and landed on the grimy streets of Victorian

London. Gone to that London. Note on spoilers before we crack on, we are a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book Dodger, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discord series past Snuff. I'm not thinking about how few books that we have left. And we will avoid spoiling any, we will avoid any and all mention of The Shepherd's Crown until we get there so you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Jumping desperately from a carriage making a noise like a squealing pig. The carriage that is, not us.

Yes. Maybe both. I might make a squealing pig noise, you never know. I don't want to limit you. Yeah. I'll make squealing pig noise if I want to. I won't because it'll sound horrible on the microphone. Thank you.

Yes, bear with us, dear listeners. We've just come back from a little accidental hiatus. Long hiatus. We can kind of remember how this goes, it's fine. We can remember how this goes. We've returned, we are back, although not on the disc. Because of that, we don't have anything to follow up on because it's been ages and I can't remember what we last talked about. Francine, do you want to introduce us to the book Dodger. Sure. So Dodger was released in September 2012. And I'm going to quite hear from an interview with Harry Pratchett from Trinity College Dublin as it was coming out. He said, Once upon a time, quite a long time ago, in a bookshop in Penn,

I came across an enormous volume with London Labour and the London poor. I was a very strange young adolescent at the time. I kept looking at this and thinking, this is a bloody gold mine. Everyone's heard of Charles Dickens and a lot of the things he did that helped people in Victorian England to realise the plight of the London underclass. And he didn't give the full picture, but he had a friend, Henry Mayhew. He, Dickens, and other people got together to see if they could shame the government and the middle classes by laying in front of them what was happening more or less on their doorsteps. And Pratchett went on to

explain that he talked to a lot of people about Victorian London and a lot of them hadn't realized, well, A, hadn't read Henry Mayhew's work, and B, just hadn't realized that the extent of the desperation of the London poor. And he said, once I realized this, I realized I can't shout at everybody, but I can write a book. And yeah, he said he wanted to take Dodger and move him through this world so he could tell us something about it without knowing he's doing it, which I thought was a really nice way of putting it. Yeah. So yeah, it's set broadly in the first quarter of Queen Victoria's reign, which is 1837 to 1850 something. It won best foreign novel in fantastic prize. German listeners, please correct my pronunciation, which is German

sci fi awards, which is quite cool. I've never looked into how many best foreign novels Jerry Pratchett had won. But yeah, we will talk more about its inspiration material as we go on, I think. Pratchett does mention in the author's note that he drew heavily from London. And May he as well. May he run the London for.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, this was a weird one to read because I remember buying this when it came out. But I literally remember nothing about it. I do not remember reading it. That's fine. So this felt like reading a new brand new Pratchett book, which was very exciting. I'm sure I did read it, but I think maybe I just like just didn't take much in or was just

disappointed it wasn't a Discworld book or... Yeah, I do remember reading this. I read it in London when I was commuting there. So I read this on the train home. So that's a nice easy remember one. Yeah. I'm always a little bit Leo pointing meme at a book set in Victoria, London and set in Seven Dials because I love going and wandering around that bit of London. And I've done lots of historical research on it for a project I was doing with someone else a million years ago. So I was like, oh I know there. Seven Dials, is there a Seven Sisters in Outmoreport?

No, there's a Dolly Sisters. Is there not also a Seven Sisters? Maybe. I read something about dollies actually that I also thought might be a reference. Everything is probably a reference in Terry Bridget. Yeah, Seven Sleepers, sorry. Perfect. But yeah, a dolly shop apparently was like a poor person's version of a pawn shop.

So I think it might be that might be where Dolly Sisters ended up. Anyway, sorry. Porners in P-O-R-N not Porners in P-A-W-N. P-A-W-N, yeah. shop so I think it might be that might be where Dolly Sisters end up anyway sorry. Porners in P-O-R-N not porners in P-A-W-N. P-A-W-N yeah. Oh okay yeah yeah sorry I heard Dolly and I was thinking I think I was thinking something like Molly and Brackles and yeah so I'm not just being dirty minded I am also being dirty minded because let's face it that's the way I'm supposed to pass. Yes yes.

dirty-minded because let's face it, that's the way I'm a person. Yes. Right, so in this section, which goes from chapter one to chapter six, inclusive. In chapter one, there is a daily use in London, a screaming coach and a screaming woman and a boy springs from the drain to prevent a beating. Two men come across the rain soaked misfits and Dodger and the golden haired girl go to Henry's to dry off. Charlie employs Dodger for an investigation, but first our eponymous hero visits her and watches till dawn. There's happy families, an unhappy husband, and a golden crest on a ring. In Chapter 2, Dodger gets breakfast, finds treasure in the sewers, and fetches

brandy for a dying grandad. He's named King and leaves coins for the ferryman. In Chapter 3, Dodger gets home, there's sleep and soup, Solomon and Onan, and he's sent to get a shonky suit. Out for a drink, Dodger asks some pointed questions, and Bessie certainly didn't hear a coach or any foreign lingo. In chapter 4, Dodger visits Fleet Street and prevents a mass knifeman from making a mistake. The hero goes for coffee with Charlie, prays to the Lady of the Sewers, and tells Charlie some of his story. In chapter 5, Dodger visits the Mayhues and tells less of his story in exchange for breakfast. He sees newly named Simplicity, answers a question of trust, and makes plans for a walk before kissing the cook on his way out. In chapter 6, Dodger chats on the walk home and reacts to the Punch and Judy show. He feeds some

kids, listens to rumours, and drops some pork off before a trip out toishing. And meanwhile, in a dark room, Sharp Bob has a meeting. He's lost the girl and the man in the shadows once Dodger watched." Ooh. Ooh. So, helicopter and loincloth watch. I think the screaming carriage wheel is definitely spinning as a helicopter. No, as a loincloth. And the suit that's uncomfortably tight in the crotch, but don't worry about it, just don't get too excited. Until it's loosened up. Yep. Yep. Definitely our loincloth of the week.

Perfect. Perfect. Screaming, carriage wheel, making notes like this is something I'll refer to later. Yes, absolutely. Ah, yes, the helicopter of the thing. Quotes. Quotes. You're first. You, yes, the helicopter of the thing. Quotes. Quotes. You're first. You're right at the beginning. I am right at the beginning. And I could have, there's so many little bits I wanted to quote as well. I resisted the urge to get carried away. I didn't at all. I was about to say I don't believe you at all, but please carry on. MADDIE Boldface lighting on the podcast. It was a deluge. The drains and sewers were overflowing, throwing up, regurgitating, as it were, the

debris of muck, slime and filth, the dead dogs, the dead rats, cats and worse, bringing back up to the world of men all those things that they thought they had left behind them, jostling and gurgling and hurrying towards the overflowing and always hospitable River Thames, bursting its banks, bubbling and churning like some nameless soup boiling in a dreadful cauldron, the river itself gasping like a dying fish." What a way to open a book. Also, something I noticed, because I write these quotes out for the episode plans so

I'm not rummaging through the book constantly, a lot of semicolons. I think there's something, he's gone not like, oh, I'm trying rummaging through the book constantly. A lot of semicolons. I think there's something, he's gone not like, oh, I'm trying really hard to write like Dickens, but there's a lot of these sort of semicolon filled run on sentences that I think are trying to do a bit of a Victorian vibe. I think so, yeah. I was going to say it's, I think I've read somewhere one of the fan sites, maybe it's very Edward Bilber Lytton. Oh, right. It's dark and stormy night vibes, isn't it? Yeah, there's a joke a couple of pages later about on this stormy of stormy nights. But I think he's done it and done it well.

Yes. It's nice where it's sort of, I've imitated the style a little bit, but not so much that this is unreadable. Yeah. I think he does it in a similar way to Dickens in that it's one of those books that's quite hard to stop reading. Oh yeah. And you know, it's very trite to say what page turn it's unput down of all, but it kind of is because it is constantly flowing. Yeah.

Well, it's just like Dodger is constantly, the book is constantly on the move. Yeah. Pacey, Pacey! That's what people say. I don't like that, but it is. God, I hate the phrase Pacey. What was your favourite quote? That's what people say. I don't like that, but it is. Heather Meehan God, I hate the phrase, Pacey. What was your favourite quote? Emma Brown Oh, mine is pretty short.

Talking about when you might sell your tools to the pawn shop, AW, and then buy them back when you're in work again, because it's easier to eat bread than eat hammers. Heather Meehan That is true. Emma Brown Wise words. Heather Meehan Yeah. Emma Brown And just made me laugh at that. It's a really good line. Also, I'd already seen yours.

I was like, we can do a short one here. I couldn't not do that one. No, obviously. No, no. Love a list. Love some weather wet imagery. Speaking of wet imagery. Oh no.

Sorry. Characters. No, no, no. I just wanted to bring up a word that I learned from this book, which is disemboag. So it's of a river or stream emerge or be discharged into the sea or a large river. But in this context, Pratchett was saying that Dodger disemboaged himself with a sixpence, which I just thought was a nice tie into general river-ness. Love that. Beautiful.

Perfect. So Dodger, let's talk about characters. Should we start with our hero? Yes, let's start with our hero, Dodger, who often embogues himself into sewers. Or embogues himself out of sewers. All of these things. But yes, Dodger is a very cool character, I think. It is nice to see another young man from Pratchett, isn't it? It's been a little while since we had a coming of age male perspective. Yeah, we had them like the early spate of books where you have, you know, we talked about the one actor playing all the characters. So we had our Victor and our Carrot and our... Yeah, but they've definitely aged out of it now. This is a brand new actor. Yeah. We've got a new guy. I love this. I like his opening because you come in on him saving the girl and then standing up to Charlie and Henry. And he's angry, but it's understandable

anger. He stopped two men from beating up a woman, but he's immediately a bit defensive of who he is to Charlie and Henry. He says, I ain't no dog you knobby sticks nor ain't she we have our pride you know I make my own way I does all kosher straight up. I'm not going to try and do the cheeky cockney accent here. No, no it's interesting as well because Pratchett right at the beginning says that Dodger has like a surprisingly deep voice like a man's voice. Yeah. Whereas when I hear when I read his accent right now, I automatically translate it into scrappy Victorian urchin.

Yes. You know. Well, it's the- Take that down ten octaves. Well, it's the Dickens of it all, obviously, the references to Oliver Twist. And so you're thinking of consider yourself. Yes, yes, exactly. It will be revealed as we discuss this book that I am far more familiar with

the musical version of Oliver Twist than I am with the original written work. But as a character- I think I might have consumed each once or twice, so I'm fairly sympathetic. No, I think I've only read the book. I have read the book, but I think I've only read it once, whereas I was in a rubbish version of Oliver when I was a bit younger and I've definitely watched it quite a few times. You have a favourite Dickens? I have a very complicated relationship with it but I love Grey Expectations and A Christmas Carol,

obviously. But that's just like a- Little sit down treat, isn't it? A little eating treat. And I can feel classy when I watch the Muppets version because they actually use a ton of the original text. Yes. I did a slow working through of Great Expectations once with a proper annotations book, like a study guide, which is cool. It's worth doing because obviously he was a popular writer. We made so many references and things. I'd like to do that at some point. Yeah, it's really worth doing. I think you can pick up editions with it in, but they'll definitely be online by now.

I think I did that in 2012 or something, around when this came, actually it might have been inspired by this. Yeah, quite possibly. Now I think about it, I was sitting in the pub next to the bookshop where I bought this book. Yeah, so. Great Expectations is a weird one because we did it as a play when I was in year 11 and I read the book before I auditioned to be in the play.

Oh cool. And I didn't get the part I wanted which I was obviously very sulky about because I was a brat. Also I was a good actor and should have been given a lead role. But also the drama teacher who to be fair I I just generally didn't get on great with. I was gonna say, but you also weren't a suck up or blonde, I'm guessing. And she decided to edit the script. And by edit, I mean like taking out entire storylines. Okay, she took out Magwitch.

Yeah. How? Badly. Did he just wander onto the blasted Heathens house? I think he just wandered off stage and then never got mentioned again. So hence my complicated relationship with it because I love the story. I think it's a beautiful book but I also like feel just really bitter about that one badly edited play of it that I was barely even in. You know what they say about Charles Dickens? Terrible writer needs editing via mid drama teacher.

Yep. I can't even remember her name now. Well good. I was lucky I had great drama teachers. Yeah it was on and off. Anyway, but moving on back to Dodger and this coming out of the drain and then this conversation it's a really good character intro to give you like just a massively strong sense of who he is. He's got potential for violent outbursts, but generally on the right side of things. He's definitely got a strong sense of right and wrong and he's definitely got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, which adds up to it because you can't do a non-disquare book without sort of looking for little parallels between these characters and disquarely characters. There's bits of Vimes there. LW – Yes, oh yeah. MG – But it's sort of Vimes who's already learned the lessons that young,

when we meet young Vimes in Nightwatch, hasn't. LW – Yes, it's Vimes if he hadn't had the protection of his mother. MG – Yes. LW – The whole bit about him being a chimney sweep that ran away, it's a little bit reminiscent of, I've literally, I'm sorry, just read this section in the Henry May who's saying so if I keep mentioning it, I'm sorry. But it's a little reminiscent of like the main informant, as he called it, for the Toshers, which he was apprenticed to a blacksmith and kept running away from that

because he hated it so much. But just I was in a profession and then I ran away and became a Tosher, which is much better. Yeah, the tosh-ing stuff is great. This whole idea of the lady of the tosh-ers is wonderful. Just this, we've got a personal deity in it. She's not a big deal. Are we going to talk about her more like in other sections? Oh yeah, definitely. Okay, cool, cool, cool. There's the obvious like Harry King comparison as well, who obviously one of my favorite like secondary

Discworld characters, but especially talking about tosharoons and that really great conversation between Harry King and William DeWerd in The Truth of, you know, finding a tosharoon as a mudlark and getting it taken away and William DeWerd saying this paper, this is my tosharoon and the big boys are trying to take it. trying to take it. Grandad's death is a pretty hard scene to read because there's something so matter of fact about the whole thing. The idea that someone in their 30s is known as grandad because he's older than anyone else doing this. Literally our age 33. Yeah. Are you 33? You're 32.

I'm 32. I'm close enough. Literally my age. Age Jesus died. I've nearly beaten him. You've nearly beaten Jesus. But you get a lot of insight into Dodger in that because Granddad was kind of the one who taught him and he says Dodger treated Toshing like one of them professors going through a pile of books. There's something about I found this thing, I like it and now I'm going to be the best

at it. Yeah, yeah. Which is a bit moist on lip Viggy. Yes. Yeah, in a very different way. Yeah, very different motivations, but similar. Yeah. Cogs in the brain.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, yeah, it's very, it is very matter of fact and stuff, but at the same time, you're seeing, you're seeing Dodger kind of plead with him, probably knowing that it's not going to happen. But he's like, come on, I've got to try and save you. And then obviously you see him run home and grieve. But yeah, granddad himself is like, that's me. Probably shouldn't have come down here in a storm.

Only body sparks get us a brandy. But it starts this, there's this sort of, not upward, but this trajectory that starts partly with that Ford Dodger of making more of himself. You know, he thinks I don't want to die like that and sort of like, okay, how do I want to die then? Yeah. Which there's the great line, if there isn't what I want, what should I strive for? It was a surprising little thought, one of those that hangs around out of general view until it pops up like a wart, and he placed it behind his ear, as it were, for future deliberation.

Niamh Yes, I love that. Yeah, yeah. Sam And I was thinking a lot about this trajectory thing of him moving, say, upwards through society, because this trajectory thing of him moving say upwards through society because it's not about him moving physically upwards from the sewer. When he leaves Grandad he runs up to where he lives which is an attic. He's already going upwards but it's this more sideways trajectory. He doesn't leave anything of Dodger behind. He puts on new clothes and goes into new places. Yeah. And then immediately, you know, when he needs to think, goes back down. Yeah. He doesn't start despising his old self or his old life.

Yeah, he doesn't try and... I don't want to die like that. Yeah. Yeah. And he doesn't start looking down on the people around him. He doesn't look down on the Rookeries itself. They're still, you know, the people he cares about. They're still his family and he still wants them to have good lives since, you know, he comes into money and one of the first things he does is feed a couple of kids. Yeah, yeah, it is just immediate. And like it's described as at first, like his generosity is being kind of a survival thing. Yeah.

You know, that's himself describing almost. And then you can see very quickly that, no, it's just kind of what he wants to do as well. Like his instinct when he has money is to give away the money. Yeah. And because it's this third person, but still kind of in a wants to do as well. Like his instinct when he has money is to give away the money. Yeah. And because it's this third person, but still kind of in a monologue, there's some great little just run on sentences in a monologue and stuff like he's thinking about getting in and out of big houses and people have too many big dogs these days, don't they? Just is all like in Dodger's tone in the internal monologue, which is fantastic. Also, just one of my favorite little details about him and he tells his story to Charlie and then he's thinking about his own story, including the bit

where he realized that if he was going to be an urchin, if you were an urchin, then it might help to treat it as a vocation and get really good at it. If you wanted to be a successful urchin, you needed to study how to urch. Yes, and has Fractic used urching as a verb before? I feel like he has. He might have done. Either way, it's a great usage. Yeah, but it's beautiful. If he did, it was a long time ago. The actual description of it, of becoming that kind of cheeky chappy, knows a little bit of everything and knows how to say hello to everyone. Yeah. But you know, it's probably just about time that he starts aging out of that because

it's good. It's hard to keep that up past 18. Yeah, I was gonna say once you're in your late teens, especially if your voice is dropped 10 octaves. Yeah. I think because he's acting that as well, it's a little I mean, it's it's disturbing in several ways, but a little disturbing when he like gets the kick softness as quickly as I was like, oh yeah, you're not 13. Okay. The pneumatic. This is still not great. Any more thoughts on Dodger?

Not for now. Not for now. Solomon. Oh, Solomon's a great character. Solomon's a great character. I thought Solomon was really interesting because he's this sort of anti-Fagan, again going with the Oliver Twist comparison, but if you've got a character called Dodger who's like older, you know, mentor type character is Jewish, you can't know what compared to Fagan, which was obviously Fagan. There is the issue of it being like a quite nasty anti-Semitic stereotype and anti-Semitism

being a thing. I think Pratchett does it well in that he doesn't take out the anti-Semitism that would have existed in this time in Victoria and London, but he makes Solomon more than a bad caricature. unnecessarily. I think he uses, I spotted one mild slur as you'd expect. But it's used in the context of this is, yeah. Yeah. Actually, it doesn't go on and on like some authors do. The slurring question, I did, I was curious about what the origin of that one was. And it was popularised from a comic strip in Judy, which was a Sixter magazine to punch.

Oh, okay. punch. I just thought that was from about 1867, so obviously we're in the right time. Which was founded by Nahy, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So just as a link to it. I mean, I'm curious about thoughts from if we've got Jewish listeners, how they think Solomon's depicted, because obviously we're coming at this from a non-Jewish perspective.

Yeah, I like the, and I don't know if Pratchett's written about this before, if it's somebody else I'm thinking of, but I like the depiction of being able to argue with one's deity. Yes. And I've seen, again, obviously I'm not Jewish, but I've seen a lot of Jewish people having conversations about that, mostly in places like Tumblr and stuff of like, yeah, you can totally be a Jewish atheist and argue with God about it. Being Jewish is arguing. But yeah, I know Solomon's kind of just matter of fact way of dealing with Dodger as well is pretty cool. Like he knows that he knows how to deal with somebody like Dodger, which is to be kind and patient, but also just straightforward and not like, oh, you poor darling, whatever. Yeah, he doesn't pity Dodger. He just wants the best for him and he lets Dodger figure

stuff out for himself. Yeah, yeah. But you do need a suit, my lad. Yeah. I can see you're not going to figure this one out. Yeah, he knows when to directly say, right, go and buy a suit now. And when to quietly give him a suit and wait for him to think through something. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get the, you know, I don't remember it ever being really fleshed out but enough details about his past as well that he's obviously faced with the pogroms

in Russia. Yeah, that was, he loses his wife during the pogrom in Russia and he talks about how much she's traveled. And there's more like when we get into the second and third sections, just sprinkled throughout the book of just what an interesting life he's had. He's traveled a lot, which is now he knows how to make really good food. Yes. And has very good slippers. And has very good slippers. And a smelly dog. I forgot to write it down, but there is a wonderful moment when he's making the sprockets and he says something about, I enjoy knowing that I'm helping time know what it is. Which is a nice way to think about things. And yes, Onan, whose name I'll save talking about because there's a joke about it in a later section, but the wonderfully stinky dog.

Pratchett has a gift for describing the smells of a particular sort of dog. Yeah, yeah. He's very good at writing from a dog's point of view as well. Yes, this dog is a little, I would say, cleaner minded than gas-bowed. I'm just going to guess. Very bone driven. Bone driven, has a nose for rubies, which is always a... I mean, that's what you look for in a dog really, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Every time. How is Echo at sniffing out a ruby? Have you tested her? Well I don't know whether it's because she's bad at smelling them out or because there aren't that many jewels on

our walks but so far nothing. Right well you want to work on that. Yeah. Take her into a jewelers, get her familiar with it. Yeah. Take her down to the sewers. Yeah. Charlie. Charlie. What the dickens? Indeed. Sorry, I've been waiting to say that. I know. This is fun because it is someone who we're all familiar with as an actual historical figure but then you can still sort of put whatever personality you want on him within

reason. Yeah. Yeah. He's a journalist as he was in real life and I believe he even works with a newspaper, Morning Chronicle. The Morning Chronicle, yeah that is. And is where Mayhew had his stuff published first actually I believe. Yeah. But yes, serials, what a time to be alive. Love serials. I like all of his little note taking bits when he notices other people things

and say, you know, as a reader you can also feel smug about certain little references although author of the storm I can't I'm not sure which one that was. Oh I forgot to look it up yeah yeah obviously we got great expectations in there. He says the games of foot which is obviously a famous Sherlock one although originally comes from Shakespeare yeah it's from that speech I like to reference a lot. Which one? The once more run to the breach dear friends. Oh yeah, yeah. Towards the end of the games of first.

Old Dickies. One of them. It's a Richard or a Henry. Yeah. Oh yeah, it might have been a Henry. Whatever. Those are the only two names. Those are the only two names in Shakespeare. But yes, he definitely gets all of the fun personality traits, I think, of the pair of Charlie and Henry. He gets to be slightly more incisive, less of a do-gooder, but still good-hearted. I think there's something nice about putting him in a coffee shop for a conversation, although this is Victoria and they're not quite the hotbeds tradition they were when they first opened. But there is still something specific tonally. It's for a particular flavor of person. Henry Mahie, you can't imagine hanging out in a coffee shop.

No, no. You've got to be a proper journo rather than an academic sort, I reckon. Yeah. And there's a great moment when they're in the kitchen after they've got back to Henry's and Simplicity has been taken off to be looked at. I wonder if those gentlemen who were harassing her knew about the child. Perhaps we shall never find out, or perhaps we shall. And there it was. That little world shall was a knife straining to cut away until it hit enlightenment and Charlie's face stayed totally blank. that little world shell was a knife straining to cut away until it hit enlightenment and Charlie's face stayed totally blank. That's a really good bit. He's definitely being painted as the investigative journalist with a creative authorial mind

in there somewhere. Yeah, he's great. Also, because everything is from Dodger's perspective and when we're sitting in the coffee shop and everything, Dodger I think quite often thinks he's got one up on Dickens, but from our perspective, we're never quite sure. How much Dickens is getting through there. I do like actually Dickens' line about Dodger. He says, you're a tabula rasa, a clean slate, you're smart, but you have so very little to be smart about. Yes. Ouch.

No, I don't think that's an ouch so much. I think it's a compliment. It's just if you had been given an educational education. I know. I know. It's not an insult, but it's still not nice to hear, is it? No, that is true. But then he also makes the line of you're clearly too intelligent to have gone to school. And yeah, Henry, like I said, he's a bit of a blank figure in this early section. Obviously the real Henry Mayhew is very interesting, but here he's quite unblank and there's so much propriety stuff around him I thought was very interesting. I do like his- I'm quite worried but interested.

Yeah. His line, the upper classes, while generally very gracious in the amount they give to churches, foundations and other great works, tend not to look too hard below them apart from occasionally making soup for the deserving. The amount of sarcasm Pratchett can imply behind the word deserving. There was a similar joke about that in Snuff, I think, as well. Was it Snuff? Yeah, in something recently, The Deserving Poor. Yeah. Yeah. This is, I think, considering we now learn, perhaps it read this book so early on in life, we can definitely see where quite a lot of the class-based rage has stemmed from in a lot of those books. Yeah, it's quite interesting to think about this as such an influential text behind a lot and then finally getting to be more textual here in the immortal words of Garth Marenghi.

I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards. Ah, Garth Marenghi. So simplicity. Yeah, we don't spend much time with her here. It's sort of building the mystery around her. We know she's been beaten and had a ring and doesn't want to go back, has a card game and doesn't want to go back to her family. I do dislike this, the beaten hard enough to lose a child thing, which also happened in I Shall Win Midnight. And I think the fact that these two books come so close together, it does feel a bit like perhaps it's just gone. Well, that's the worst thing I can think of, let's do that. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, it's also one of those things that in this case is enough to really shock

the mayhues. Yeah. Yeah, it adds another, it adds another layer onto domestic violence, which might be pretty much accepted in a lot of circles. I see why he's done it, but yeah. It's never my favourite thing to read. Beccy No. But it is also interesting because you get all these different levels of propriety around her and the way the makis are treating her and versus how Dodger wants to treat her. And she distrusts them not because she thinks they're bad people, but because they might think it is proper to return her to her husband. Yeah. Yeah. And I do like Dodger's question in contrast, which is what would you like to happen next? Yes. You are a person with agency, I believe. And she shows herself to be what shows herself to Dodger to be cleverer than she's letting onto anyone else. Yeah. She's quite smart straight away. to dodge her to be cleverer than she's letting onto anyone else. Yeah, she's quite smart straight away.

Talks differently in a different accent, different wording straight away as soon as they're alone. I get the feeling she's also downplaying the Germaness slightly to the Makeus. Because obviously the Germaness is important to the plot. It is. The plot. It is. The plot. And then Mrs. Sharples because every Victorian of all needs an unfriendly housekeeper. Borrowed again, I think, from I Shall Wear Midnight. Yes. Definite hints off.

Brought straight in. The housekeeper came in casting a look of pure hatred at Dodger and he was happy to see one that wasn't much better towards Charlie. Jessi Journalists and street urchins. Feifei Yep, another line a bit later, her eyes gleamed with a cheerful malignance. Yeah, I just like her again, fully fleshed out immediately with, yes, this person is just carrying a certain amount of hatred for everyone around her other than the makies. Jessi Yes.

And there's also a little petty criminal herself also. Yes. So her colleague thinks. Yes, her colleague quickly the cook because every Victorian novel also needs an over-friendly cook. Absolutely. The magic chef. That's our new reality TV program. The laugh she laughed had a sneer in it was a great line when you go into Dodger's little internal monologue of the way people place laughs and farts and little interjections into conversations to show disrespect or not on reading people. But I like this idea of, she

talks about being a risen woman, she fell once and bounced back up again. That's the way to think about it. Anyone can rise if they have enough yeast. Which is another like propelling Dodger forward in his whole striving for not betterment, but for advancement or something along those lines. Yeah. There's no yeast? Yeah. Also just curious to Terry Braddock for what was nearly my quote, which was,

she gave Dodger a hug involving a certain amount of giblet. Ghiblet. Ghiblety hugs. I do like this obviously have the Night Watch and a few other Desquale books as well. But the importance acknowledged of just giving these hungry children and adolescents something to eat. Yes, yes, I would like to help you in your advancement through the world and the best way I can do that is give you a square meal so you've got enough energy to do it yourself. Yeah. Just getting the bacon and eggs from Mr. Mayhew and

sort of, oh, normally a person would have breakfasted before coming but obviously you haven't had the chance. Yes. Yes. But the cook- But suddenly he feels a new man. Yeah. But the cook knows it immediately. She doesn't need to see him be hungry to be reminded. She just gives him the food because of course he would. And if he's a bit on the turn anyway. And hopefully at some point she was given some mutton that wasn't too much on the turn in her life. And that made a difference. And yeah, speaking of that, Marie Jo, I just wanted to mention quickly, she's a very small side character,

but I like her as a character. Yeah, she does seem lovely. Mysterious. Once been an actress in froggy parts of Fay and Mercurial. And this idea of these wonderful knobby chefs coming in, making sure she gets some of their leftovers so it can become part of the wonderful soup.

Yeah. It is a nice thought. Yeah, and this one person you don't haggle with because she challenges you exactly what she thinks you should pay. Yeah, actually it is, again, a kind of nicer version in this case, but I can't remember the name of the establishment that finds, sticks young Nobby in with a... Yeah, one of the sort of like gentlemen cafeteria type places where you just give them a zap of money

and they take what they're given. Yeah, yeah. Right, make sure you get paid for the next few days, please. Slumgullion, oh yeah. Oh, slumgullion. That was a fun... That's good and gulliumy. That was an etymology rabbit hole

that I've now forgotten all of. Yay. So yeah, locations, we're in London. Gulliumy. That was an etymology rabbit hole that I've now forgotten all of. Yay. So yeah, locations. We're in London. Yep. We're full of wonderful water and river imagery throughout, including, like I said, my quote above.

And we're spending a lot of time in the sewers of London. We are, yeah. The Roman sewers, I guess, still. I'm not sure how many improvements have been made thus far. I don't know that much about Victorian sewers, but I'm sure by the end of the book, I will have thoroughly rectified that when I'm procrastinating doing something else. One location note, the coroner at Four Farthings was noted as being the person who pays the best night. I don't recognise

Four Farthings as a place name. If it is, I haven't found it, but it is definitely a place in the Lord of the Rings. The Four Farthings of the Shire are part of the geography. It could be one of those like the place ends up nicknamed that because there's a pub nearby called the Four Farthings. Four Farthing Farthing sounds a bit like a pub name. Oh, I noticed also there was a pub called Gunner's Daughter, which I quite liked because there's a pub locally that does a nice beer called Gunner's Daughter. CHARLEYY Oh, there you go. And the Baron of Beef, which is a pub in Cambridge, wasn't it? NICOLA Yeah. On the sewers thing though, I do quite like the book early on, like, upends the reader's understanding of what the sewers are and what they're for.

And so yes, some coves called the Romans have built the sewers are and what they're for. Some coves called the Romans had built the sewers to keep the rainwater flowing down to the Thames instead of pouring into houses. But these days, toffs were getting pipes run from their cesspits into the sewers and Dodger thought this was really unfair. It was bad enough with all the rats down here without having to make sure you didn't step in a Richard. So yeah, these weren't as standard for waste from houses at the time. No, I mean, it was mainly septic tanks and cesspits, wasn't it? And honey wagons, which get a mention in this bit as well.

Yeah. But yeah, no, they were supposed to be dealing with actual drainage and water flow. Yeah. And obviously, entitled rich fuckers just started using them for other stuff. But it's interesting because when you first start thinking about someone in the sewers, you think of it as a modern context and you think of it being really rather smelly. And it's not not smelly, but if they're not the main purpose, it gives you a different perspective on what it is that Dodger's doing and looking for down there.

Yeah, absolutely. Right. Little bits we liked. What do we like? Victorian style chapter summaries. Oh yes, we do like those. This is fun to look at. For example, chapter one has the little opening in which we meet our hero and the hero meets an orphan of the storm and comes face to face with Mr. Charlie, a gentleman known as a bit of a scribbler. He uses some advice in going postal in the opening chapter things,

which is a nice detail because going postal is arguably the start of the Discworld industrial revolution era. This device was very popular in Victorian literature, especially because you had so much serialized fiction. These little summaries basically worked as blurbs for the chapters being published because they would quite often be on the front. So it would be chapter X and have this and that would be sort of the blurb. Because these bookstores and stuff people would be browsing effectively by covers. The origins of it go back a bit further, Renaissance poets who would have these short prose arguments at the beginning of each sort of section of things, like Milton uses them a lot in Paradise Lost. I grabbed a couple of examples from Oliver Twist.

LW – Thief. MG – I thought Oliver Twist would be appropriate, so chapter 10. Oliver becomes better acquainted with the characters of his new associates and purchases experience at a high price, being a short but very important chapter in this history. Nice. And chapter 27, because I just thought this was hilarious, atones for the unpoliteness of a former chapter which deserted a lady most unceremoniously. Is it a very cool device? There's a whole TV tropes page on it,

on the Inwich trope, called Inwich a trope is described. So I'll link to that in the show notes. I like that as a detail. Yeah, that is good. So I'll link to that in the show notes. But yeah, I like that as a detail. Yeah, that is good. It must be fun as well. Yes. What did you like? I quite liked Coins for the Ferryman on Grandad. I just think it's a nice tradition to carry across to this book. I know Patrick likes it. In the witches books, they put the coins and things. It's an interesting one actually, just coins on eyes to pay the ferryman. I was kind of looking into whether it would have still been practiced in Victorian times or so the other.

I didn't get that far with it. I got as far as I showed you the page of Caron's Obol, which I thought was quite nice, which is kind of an elusive way to talk about putting the ferryman's payment in general. But this is in ancient Greek times, you'd put a specific coin and obol into somebody's mouth and that was payment for the ferryman. In other places, you'd have coins in people's hands. In the mouth seems to be the most common, but it seems to be like the two coins on the eyes for the ferryman seems to be kind of all mixed together with just having coins on somebody's eyes to keep them closed, which is kind of a nice way to do it. Yeah. But anyway, mainly I just like it as something that Dodger would do.

It's thoughtful and I think Pratchett a few times, but many times actually describes when somebody dies, somebody just doing the things that need to be done. Yes, what Dodger does, it's very practical. I was just checking. I put something about for the ferryman in the summary and obviously that's sort of how we know what the coins are for, but in the actual bit it doesn't say anything about the ferryman. He counted out two coins, which he solemnly placed on the dead man's eyes because it was something you had to do because it had always been done. Which is nice because obviously the deity in question, if a deity is going to come and take granddad is obviously the lady who is just seen so there's no need for a ferryman. Yeah, oh yeah. So payment for the psychopomp of your choice.

Luckily they all take the same, the universal psychopomp coin. Luckily, they all take the same universal psychopomp coin. Fucking exchange rates for psychopomps. Exchange rates for psychopomps. Like, oh no, it's gone up. The pound's not worth anything. So you're like stacking a pile of 50p's. One of my favourite things from that Wikipedia channel, by the way, was the little bee oval because one of the things was that a lot of the ceremonial coins for this purpose were

ceremonial coins. They were too thin to be used as real currency. They could be prettified in ways and there was like a bee pressed into a gold bar which was really cute. What did you say? You found something fun, didn't you? Oh yeah, I think I sent you a screenshot of it. There was a sort of satirical writer who was writing about this stuff and in one of his works, The Dialogues of the dead, a character has just died and Karen has asked him for an oval in order to convey him across the river. Manipus refuses to pay the oval and consequently to enter the world of the dead, claiming that you can't get blood out of a stone. Literally, you can't get any ovals from one who doesn't have any. So just a really early usage of that saying,

can't get blood out of a stone. Thank you. Possibly it's coining. Ooh. Also, further tangent, if any of our listeners knows what, if anything, a gold sovereign or a gold coin in a rat's mouth symbolises, I'd like to know. I feel like it should be some kind of omen. Yeah, a rat with a coin in it as well. I know a rat holding a coin can be something like feng shui. Like you can buy like a little statue of a rat with a sack full of coins and that's like

a wealth detractor. But I don't think that's what we're looking at here. I feel like finding a dead rat with a sovereign in its mouth should be an omen of some kind. And if anybody has any actual information or wild speculation, I would like to hear answers on an Obol. Yes. Inscribed very, very small. Spikes. Spikes. Well, obviously we'll talk about set up and payoff in a much bigger way when we get towards

the end of the book because this is one of our fun, there's a mystery to be untangled a little bit here and we enjoy those. But just a very quick one-two punch of it, we go into the morning chronicle, the spikes on the desks, dodge your ass about them, and then it all pays off over a couple of pages when he uses one of the spikes to stop the man with the knife. Which, A, the fact that we've got this set up immediately being paid off over a couple of pages, it's very fun, it's quick and well written. And a nice callback to the truth as well, where we have the idea of the spikes for the first time and then you have William Duard slamming his hand down on a desk

and realizing it was right next to one. I like the spikes on desks. I might get myself a desk spike. I'm not going to get myself a desk spike. I will stab myself with it. Yeah. I'm sure if I had a desk spike. I also don't really have a lot of- I think I had a folder called spiked in my first book. Maybe I'll do it. I can't remember if we actually had a spike or not. Or whether it just went in the outro. Anyway. I might do a spike folder. I don't really work with physical papers enough to need a

physical spike? Be that set up and pay off, this is kind of a, we've got a parallel check of storm surge, haven't we, to snuff? Oh, yeah. Anyway, peelers. I'm not going to go into this very much. I think we did a long time ago anyway. I just quite like the way they were described in this bit and I know we'll meet John Peel later on anyway. But you cried uncle, you cried aunt, you cried your eyes out. The moment you fell foul of the peelers and the bleeders wouldn't even help you put them back and they drank like fish and roared like the devil and weren't friends with anybody. And that amazingly included the knobs. It's another great run on sentence.

But yeah. Also, you just said John Peel. You meant Robert Peel. John Peel was- I did mean Robert Peel. I've got above it a quote from Mayhew where the cops were called the Johnnys for some reason. Oh, that's an unfortunate nickname.

Obviously, John Peel also quite famous music lad. Oh yeah, yeah. That's right. Anyway, we'll meet Robert Peel later. Probably not John Peel unless we're really getting anachronistic. But yes, a very cool bit of history, the takeover from the Bow Street Runners. For a completely inaccurate comedy set around that time that unfortunately was only got one season, there's a one with Matt Berry that I've now completely blanked on the name on as like a Victorian copper. I will find it, it was

on channel four, I believe. I'll find it. I think it was called White Rabbit or something along those lines. Okay, cool. Something about rabbits in the title. I will, yeah, I'll find a link and put it in the show notes. Nice. I'll watch that. Anything with Matt Berry in. Yeah. Yeah. It's worth watching just for Matt Berry being Matt Berry. What else have we got here? Smokey Room interludes. Oh yeah, one of our favorites. That's the entire reason this section

ends in chapter six, not chapter five as well, and why I wanted to break this section here. We have the end of chapter six, Sharp Bob meeting the man slash men in the shadows. We've talked enough about Pratchett, Masterful 3X structure, makes splitting these books up really easy. But I do really like in his mystery type books, like a lot of the early Watch books and stuff, he places these smoky room interludes to introduce us to the conspirators at the end of the first act. Obviously in Discworld, they're usually discussing their plot to kill a real veterinary. Niamh. We get one in Snuff again though, don't we?

Yeah. We get one in Snuff. As in Men at Arms with Edward Gonn you get one. The Truth you get Deward Senior in his little room. And it starts with the meeting of the mysterious Brotherhood and guards guards, which is fun because it starts with mocking a trope and then he adopts the trope because it is a really handy trope to introduce the bad guys at the end of the first act. Smokey room interlude. Yeah, love it. There might be a proper word for it. I'm calling them smokey room interludes. Yeah, love it. There might be a proper word for it. I'm calling them smokey room interlead.

I don't think there needs to be a proper word for it. I think that's perfect. Amazing. Anyway, so let's talk about the bigger stuff. Do you want to talk about toshing and mudlarking? I do. I do a little bit. Let's rant endlessly about this. So yeah, okay. So the book upon which Pratchett drew He for this London labor and the London poor has a large section about the thriving kind of recycling trade of the city. And so that section is split up into three you've got, quoting here, the bone grabbers and rag gatherers who are indeed the same individuals, the pure finders, which is dogshit recyclers, Harry King's boys, and the cigar end and old wood

collectors. Old cigar end collectors was a thing. Number two, we have the dredgemen, the mudlarks, and the sewer hunters, atoshas. Number three, we have the dustmen and nightmen, the sweeps and the scavengers, the gnolls, I guess. I'm going to keep drawing Angmorphork parallels despite us not being anywhere near discworld today. We're always near discworld in our hearts. In our hearts. Oh, fuck. That's worse than the journey. The second part of this is obviously where we're focusing. Quoting again, the sewer hunters, strange as it may appear, are certainly smart fellows and take decided precedence of all the other finders of London. They earned

a lot more. They seemed to be just generally more skillful, clever, courageous, according to me, Hugh. He liked the toshas and so it's so his practice, he said, the interview I was quoting before, which I will link to. When he goes to find his informant, he says, it would be a waste of time to inquire for them by their right names, even if you were acquainted with them, for none else would know them and no intelligence concerning them could be obtained. While under the title of lanky Bill, long Tom, one eyed George, short-armed Jack, they are known to everyone.

Oh, there's a good list of names similar to that. Oh, there is, yeah. If you can find it. I'll find it in, yeah. If you can find it. I'll find it in a moment. Thank you. And then we've got... Okay, so the two main kind of river, well, there's three. There are river drudgers, then you've got the mudlarks, and you've got, which are also known as river finders.

And then you've got somewhat confusingly toshas, who are also known as shoremen, but they're the sewers. Yeah. Now mudlarkers were the class below the toshas basically. So they were the ones working sort of on the banks of the Thames and... Yeah. Yeah. And it was much slimmer pickings. You're looking at coal and rope and things like that. Copper nails were the most valuable thing you could find, but they were like a really dangerous thing to look for. There was one mudlark that Mayhew talked to, a little boy who'd managed to lame himself for some time because he stood on a copper nail. Which had, that whole story had a really nice ending actually because Mayhew saw that this little kid was very smart and his mom

had come on some hard times and she used to run a grocery shop, but lots of unfortunate circumstances meant that they were broken. The little kids were going out to work in horrible places. But Mayhew just gave him a couple of sixpence's or whatever, which sort them out for a fortnight or something. And then he mentioned the little boy to one of his other Nobby mates. And that particular Nobby mate was like, oh, we'll sort them out. And sent him off to school nearby and gave him a day school rate, whatever,

and gave his mom enough money for this, that, or the other. And she was opening a thriving business and he was, no, that's right. He got the little boy a job in the printers and he worked his way up to, like working in the printers or as a journalist or something, but earning enough money to then set his mom up in the shop again. And it was all working out well. It made me cry. It was really nice. I found the name list. Yes.

Bent Henry, Lucy Diver, One-Arm Dave, Preacher, Mary Go Round, Messy Bessy and Mangle. Yep, there we go, pretty much the same. Mangle. Mangle. But yeah, so it does sound like a fucking wretched job anyway. And Toshers sought themselves above mud lockers, certainly a lot more. As Mayhew put it, look down on them with aristocratic contempt. By Mayhew's day, the job of Toshas was harder than it had been largely due to modifications in the sewers.

This is mid 1850s. So big iron doors were placed in the sewers for various reasons of drainage that I'm sure we'll look into when we get into learning about these sewers and they came with accompanying legal restrictions, which meant that people were not meant to go in the sewers without a permit. And that was a reward for ratting them out even. But the Toshers were still reasonably successful because they'd learned a lot by this point. Where is it? It is however, as Mayhew said, more than suspected that these men find plenty of means to evade

the vigilance of the sewer officials and continue quietly to reap a considerable harvest. They also did seem to enjoy kind of better health and longer lives than in practice telling. So some of the older leaders of the gang were more like 60, even going up to 80, than like 33 being the upper limit. Although unfortunately, the part about all the money going straight to the public and does seem to be true. Like now they have a wealthy, um, they used to carry this large iron hoe with them. Um, this was to check the ground ahead of them or to pull themselves out of the quagmire if they got it wrong and to rake about them for treasures.

Pretty cool. Um, they almost always went down in gangs, like, um, Dodger going down on his own would not have been the norm. And then the last bit I kind of wanted to mention was a bit about the rats because we love rats. We love rats. Practice gone on about the rats in this. This is the words of Mayhew's informant. He says, I've often seen as many as a hundred rats at once and they're whoppers in the sewers, I can tell you. Them there water rats, too, is more ferociouser than any other rats, and they'd think nothing of tackling a man if they found they couldn't get away know-how. But if they can, why, they runs by and gets out of the road. I know a chap, as the rats tackled in the sewers, they bit him hoarfully. You must have heard of it. It was him

as the watermen went in after when they heard him a him a shouting as they was rowing by. Only for the watermen the rats would have done for him safe enough. Do you recollect hearing the man as was found in the sewers about 12 years ago? Oh, you must. The rats eat every bit of him and left nothing but his bones. I knowed him well. But yeah, obviously you've got to assume that's a tall tale to make you a bit. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Oh, I love that. So I think I might do a rabbit hole on this whole bit actually, like the recycling

folk of London in this time period. Cause obviously, Praktic loved it, has written it into a lot of his books. And yeah, like I said, we love Harry King for a reason. It's really, well, I like the answer to the question, where does the shit go in a fantasy novel? Ever since I saw someone pointing this out as a writing thing, like, come up with whatever ridiculous system you want, but if you can't answer that question, you need to think about your world building. Yeah.

And it is now something I think about whenever I read a fantasy novel. So I like that Franchette has built in Harry King. Yes. And also before Harry King became a big thing, he had the honey wagons and everything, didn't he? Yeah, the honey wagons and stuff was still there and being sold to the tanners and the... Yeah. Yeah. But I think specifically he said he had Bunt leaving the city or something, didn't he? And this and the other. Yeah. This might have been during the flashback era. But anyway, sorry. Yeah. Carrie, your talking point. Oh, no, I was just gonna say on the mudlarking thing, there's now like a sort of slightly

more modern trend of mudlarking along the Thames with a more like archaeological bent to it. There's a couple of interesting people I follow on Twitter, although now I can't remember who they are. But if I can remember, I'll link them in the show notes. I think I sent you a TikTok a while ago of a mudlarker. I'll see if I can find that again. But yeah, that's quite an interesting thing that it's become a completely different... But the fact that there were these sort of class divides between mudlarkers and toshas. Amazing how human beings will draw a class divide wherever they can. Absolutely. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah, it is interesting. Like, yeah, you get these academic sorts doing the mudlocking now,

as opposed to what really did sound like a fucking terrible, terrible job. Like, they were absolutely filthy, dressed in worse than rags and finding two or three bits of coal not enough to buy a loaf of bread, all this. Yeah. Anyway, games. What about them? Let's play some. In a narrative context. In a narrative context. The games, as a theme running through this section, I thought was really interesting. So we have the really obvious one, which is the happy family's cards. And they're interesting because the concept of happy mother, father, and two children together

is a fairly foreign one to a lot of the people in the story. That is not Solomon's life, that is not Dodger's life, that is not the life of the people he knows in the Rookeries. There are families but they're not often happy. We do see it with the Mayhues, however, we have the mother, father and the two children, but we see it in this scene that's fraught with frontal and background worry. You have the children fighting and the mother stressing, Mrs. Mayhew who could only smile frantically at Dodger from this tiny war. And of course you have the background of their middle class and maybe they're a bit worried about money and you have this underground stress even in this happy family situation despite the fact they

have an incredibly knobby life compared to Dodger's tenement attic. Then you have this wonderful thing, this is moving slightly away from the games theme, but the bigger idea of the families, the husbands and wives, and the wives who help the menfolk who sold stuff on the street. Although the man was the master, which was right and proper, if you watched and listened you'd see their marriage was like a barge with the wife being the wind that told the captain which way to sail. And Mrs. Mayhew, if not being the wind, certainly knew when to apply the right puff.

But then you go into Solomon's description of the game itself when Dodger brings the cards home and shows them to Solomon. And he says the game is duplicitous and it encourages you to lie and comes to a conclusion with tears and shouting and slamming of doors and a child playing with their parents would have to learn how to deceive them and you say this is all a game. And then followed up with like, perhaps it did not need to go this hard. The games we play are the lessons we learn, the assumptions we make, the things we ignore and the things we change make us what we become. Just cracking line in the middle of, oh yeah, there's still a card game for kids. Yeah. I think Solomon did not care for this card

game. He did not. But I think it's interesting, Dodger thinks, sort of writes off some of this and says, well, whatever, it's a stupid card game for knobby kids because only posh kids have these sorts of games. Kids in the rookeries don't have time for something, we don't play games. It's silly, it's childish and it's for posh people. But he also starts pulling this idea from the game and from the stuff Solomon is saying, this idea of, okay, he wants to be a player, not a playing piece, which again is part of this trajectory of his. Yeah. And it is very, very practical to be, you know, the writing your own story, but it's very Tiffany. It's very, yeah. Militia. Militia, yeah.

But then he thinks of himself as above this sort of thing while quietly taking a lesson from it, or at least from Solomon's diatribe on it. When then you then see him, you know, he walks along and he's chatting to people and you see these games and these things around him and you realize he's not above it. They are part of his life. It's just they're very different and they're using both prophets in some ways. So he walks past the man playing crown and anchor, which is, you know, potentially winnable if you're sober enough and the dice roll your way. I didn't look into how one plays Crown and Anchor. I assume it rolls dice.

LH It does, yeah, with little icons of different things on them rather than numbers, I think. MW Oh, right. LH I very, very briefly Googled it and then decided it wasn't going to be my off. MW And then of course you have the thinbles and the peas, the cup and ball thing, which is that famous scam trick that you're never going to win. But he's thinking about it in context, but people will go back to it and they will keep trying. I really like this use as a theme because it comes back to what Dodger is experiencing. The happy families game becomes a point of comparison to the things he's experiencing, but then so did the other stuff around him. To cap this off, you then have him walk past

the Punch and Judy show. Punch and Judy, always ominous. JG Especially if you're a River of London fan. STS Yeah, I was going to say. Ben Aranovich has done a lot with that. But it was always kind of creepy and weird and unpleasant. I guess Punch and Judy was kind of newish at this point. I don't know when they saw it. I didn't want to research it because, again, Punch and Judy kind of freaks me out. For non-English listeners, I guess, these were this very common puppet show and the idea was you have Punch and his wife and there is usually a policeman and an alligator and some sausages. 1662. Wow, is that how old it is? Yeah, and it's horrible and there's a high pitched voice and that's the way to do it

and lots of being beaten. I don't think I ever cared for it. No, it always freaked me out when I was made to watch one at the seaside. And Dodger's reaction, you knew when you grew up that Punch was the man who throws the baby out of the window and beats his wife. Of course, such things did happen. Certainly the beating of the wife as to what happened to the baby that might not be the subject for children, not a happy family. But it becomes this motivating thing for Dodger. He'd known this forever, but simplicity was someone he could maybe do something about. And that something

wasn't just for simplicity, it was for himself too in some funny way he hadn't worked out yet. So games and puppet shows and things for children and things he's maybe separate and above from become, you know, these big points of comparison to him to what he's about. And then he suddenly realizes if he's not a playing piece, he's a player, then he can be active. He can, he can't fix everything ever that's bad, but he can maybe move someone more towards the world of happy families and away from peace, thimbles and punch and judy. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a really, it's a fantastic factor. It's a good book. It's quite like it. As we haven't said it yet today, that Terry Pratchett, what a writer.

That was quite a good book, wasn't it? Yeah. Have you ever played Happy Families? Yeah, I remember having it as a kid, but I don't think it's something I would have played because you know, I had like, you know, some kids card games and things I remember having that one but I probably didn't play it much because I was the youngest in the family and I wanted to sit and play something that simple so we'd play fish which is happy families but with actual cards. Oh fun fact it was developed by Jean-Jacques, who's also credited with popularizing tiddlywinks, ludo and snakes and ladders. Yeah. And of course, ludo goes quite far back into the pre- as in BCE India.

Yes. Anybody who would like a properly constructed sentence on that can listen to Joanna's very good rabbit hole on the history of board games. Yes, thank you. I forgot what time was for a second there. How do I say over 2000 years ago? Long time ago, a while ago, Ludo's existed for a bit. Also, for some reason, there's a naval version that's exactly the same, just in a slightly different direction. Oh yeah, cool. I don't know why the navy. Pram and Anka is a naval game but looks a bit gambling-ish.

Ah! Well that makes sense because if we're sort of post-Napoleonic wars and so you have a lot of disenfranchised sailors and things that end up living in poorer areas, that's how naval games end up spreading. Cool. Oh sorry, I'm getting way too interested in this little wicky rabbit hole. Okay, I've clicked away. Well done.

Francine, have you got an obscure reference for Neil for me? Do you just want to pull one out of that wicky rabbit hole? Francine I mean, kind of, yeah, but I've already got one here. So let's go with that, I guess. It's again, just plucked straight from Mayhew's works. This is about the pig, the sewer pig. Niamh Yes. Francine Which in this book is mentioned as a mythological folkloric whatever. A scary pig who escaped and became a scary sort of pig. But in this book, there is a strange tale in existence among the shore workers, the Toshers, of a race of wild hogs, not just one, but a whole

race of them in the neighborhood of Hampstead in the sewers there. So yeah, the story runs that a pregnant sow got down into the sewer somehow, wandered away, had her offspring, and then yeah, there's a lot of garbage and awful washing and they all ate it, became massive, bred, multiplied, and then became almost as ferocious as they are numerous. This story, apocryphal as it seems, has nevertheless its believers, and is ingeniously argued that the reason why none of these subterranean animals have been able to make their way to the light of day is that they could only do so by reaching the mouth of the sewer at the riverside, while in order to arrive at that point they must necessarily encounter the fleet ditch which runs towards the river with great rapidity, and as it is the obstinate nature of a pig to swim against the stream, the

Plough Dogs of the Suez invariably work their way back to the original quarters. What seems strange in the matter is that the inhabitants of Hampstead, they never saw any of the animals pass between pass beneath the grates. They never heard them anything like that. Mayhew says the reader of course can believe as much of the story as he pleases. But it is right to inform him that the sewer hunters themselves have never yet encountered any of the fabulous monsters of the Hampstead sewers. I love this though. This is a story that crops up in anything that's referencing Victoria, London or just London sewers in general. Somewhere you'll get a nasty beast in the sewers, as normally a pig or a wild boar or something. And in New York you have the crocodile.

Yes, because people flush baby crocodiles down the toilet and now you end up with crocodiles overrunning the New York sewers. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if every city with a big sewer system has like its own beast in the sewers, like, like, I wonder what Istanbul has. Listeners from foreign parts. From foreign parts. If you live somewhere. From distant lands.

Listeners from far away places. Tell us about your sewer monsters. Yes, let us know what's living in your sewers, unless they're turtles that like pizza. We know about those, it's fine. Answers on a very grubby postcard. Inscripted, very small. Right, I think that's everything we're going to say about part one of Dodger.

We will be back next week with part two, which covers chapters seven through 12, inclusive. Until we return, dear listener, you can of course rate and review this podcast wherever you find it because it helps with the algorithm and people find us and also we want validation thank you. If you want to chat to fellow listeners you can join our discord link down below you can follow us on instagram at the true show make key fret on twitter and blue sky at make key fret pod on facebook at the true show make key fret join our subreddit r slash ttsnyf email us your thoughts queries castles snacks and ovals the true show make key fret pod at gmail.com and if you want to support us financially you can go to patreon.com forward slash the true

shamakey fret and exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. And until next time, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Ah, super picks. I'm gonna go and read some Dickens now. I don't think I've actually got any physical Dickens. Physical Dickens. Oh dear, she's got the physical Dickens, has she? Ha ha ha.