The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 84: Johnny and the Dead (This Gap of Nostalgia)

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, usually read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy - “Johnny and the Dead” Googly Eyes! Eurovision! Restaurant Reviews! Moose?!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:The Annotated Pratchett File v9.0 - Johnny and the DeadOmnibus Episode 2: Defenestration (Entry 326.2K0933) Misfits (TV Series 2009–2013) - IMDbThe War on Rock & Roll - Bill Hicks - YouTube Star Trekkin (The Firm) - YoutubeSub ire as hacks slash word length: getting the skinny on thinnernyms | Andy Bodle | The GuardianPratchett on ‘window books’ - alt.fan.pratchettOvaltineys - Wikipedia Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Let's ruin everybody's day. Tell them about the nice cake they're not going to eat. I'm so excited about this cake. So I only did the initial components today and then I'm assembling the stuff from it. So it's going to be a dark chocolate, like, sponge with chocolate creme pâtisserie whipped cream and caramel. And then a dark chocolate bus cream, caramel drizzle, dark chocolate ganache drip, and some salted caramel bus cream and topped with bits of like dairy milk caramel. So many things. Yeah. So I made the sponges, the chocolate creme pât, the whipped cream and the caramel today. Yeah. Because I don't like making bus cream ahead of time. And if I make the ganache, then I have to fucking rewarm it and then

recall it. So it's exactly the right consistency. And it's more fat than just making it when I need it. Right. What's the pat? Crème pâtisserie. Crème pâtisserie. I'm being wanky and using the abbreviation. Cool. I think nobody on Twitter will know what that is, but it sounds like you know what you're talking about. So they say it on Bake Off a Lot. Oh, okay. Well, maybe they will then. Yeah. No, that's good. It's chocolate custard. I had to resist the urge to just start eating it with a bowl from a spoon. Eating it with a bowl from a spoon. Yeah. A spoonerism. A polarism. A polarism. You can't talk miss things named for the things of the thing. I didn't even fucking do anything on it in the end. I had a note

listeners about what Joanna correctly told me should be called eponymous things or whatever eponymous inventions. Yeah, because I'd written down in my notebook earlier in the week when I was rather sleepy. Where is it? Things invented by name of thing. I think I meant to put things named for the inventor and Joanna made it even snappier and then I didn't even include it in the episode. So readers, listeners, write in with your favorite eponymous inventions. And we'll we'll see about that. Yes. I'm not even like 100% sure I'm actually using the word eponymous properly. Well, eponymous track is like if the album is called the name of that song. Yeah. Like our eponymous heroes. So like this is Johnny and the dead. So Johnny's eponymous. I think

using it correctly. Okay, so I don't care. So I was thinking about, well, not exactly this the other day, but is there a word for a verb that only works when you're applying it to someone else? Because I was thinking about the verb defenestrate. And obviously to defenestrate someone is to throw them out of a window. And I just side note that it just makes me really happy that there's a word for that in the English language. But you can't just say one defenestrates, like it has to be applied to something. Like you can't just defenestrate, you have to defenestrate something. And I'm sure there's a word for like, maybe we didn't see we're in the misgeneration of like the grammatical education in that we didn't learn any. Yeah, all of the terms for all of these different things we

didn't get at school. And so if I don't use it often, I don't know, I'm afraid. I only know any of them because we learned grammar when we were studying Spanish. But yes, so I've just been thinking about the word defenestrate a lot. Well, I'm glad for you. There's a whole omnibus episode on defenestration, and I'll send you a link to if that's your jam. That delights me. On a totally different note, Al Kennedy from the Island Discworld just tweeted, I saw right before I logged on, it's actually pronounced just like Jake keep gel boss. And that's just going through my head repeatedly, and I keep giggling to myself about it. So he does swell just like Jake.

Want to get a tattooed on me? That's hot. That's appalling. Well done, Al. Okay. It's also funnier than anything I'm going to say today. Well, that's not, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's see what we can do, because also it's tend to wait. We should start. Do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello, and welcome to the Two Shall Make Key Fret, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Francis Discworld series, one at a time in Cornelodge, Clota. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today we are talking about Johnny and the Dead, the second book in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy. We are. The Dead are deading.

But no, that's what kind of, I don't know, they're often about. I think I'm pretty good for it. We're having a nice time for it, which I'm pleased for them. No, on spoilers, before we crack on, we are a spoiler light podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for the book, Johnny and the Dead, possibly some spoilers for the next book in the trilogy, Johnny and the Bomb, which we'll be talking about next week. But we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we are saving any in 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.

Hurdling through telephone lines, freezing the technology as we get in. What a delight. What a delight. Have we got anything to follow up on? Maybe. You have some comments. I feel like you had some comments. Yes, we have some fun comments from patrons, Pete Jordan left this comment back on our one of our Men at Arms episodes. I'm us talking about language, I guess. And I'm sorry, I can't remember the context because Men at Arms was however long it was ago. Sometime.

Last year. And he said, I prompted by talking about language, I just wanted to introduce you, if you're not already aware, to Laden. I may not be saying that, right? A woman in human centred conlang created by Suzette Hayden Elgin. It was a central part of her novel Native Tongue, the first in a trilogy and a sadly prescient exploration of an early 23rd century US after the repeal of the 19th Amendment with added aliens and their languages and the effect of learning those as a native tongue has upon those children. The point or one of the points being that she was also a linguist. God, I'm clearly not. Linguish. Yeah, not all the way.

She was an accomplished linguist. Laden is a completely real, fully realized language. He's also got a copy of it. So that sounds quite cool and I want to read those books now. And also just it was quite fun that Pete and Steve got into an interesting chat about like old CIX forum type stuff. Oh, Steve also managed to get Journey 12 for Centurion real time working on his computer, which is a screenshot showing timer and everything. So good job. And I look forward to the update in 3,000 years. Yes, I am very much.

Everyone said it in your calendar because we will, of course, all be alive in 3,000 years. Well, I certainly intend to be. And if not, we've now learned the ghost can use technology. So no, it's dangerous listeners. Expect to meet you all metaphysically on Alpha Centurion in 3,000 years. Should we talk about the book then? Should we talk about the book, Johnny and the Dead? Yeah, it's a good book. I liked it. Good night. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the true shall make you fret.

So, so I'll introduce this. Shall I introduce the book? I mean, you've introduced us as usual. Good. I'm doing well. So this is Johnny and the Dead. It was released in 1993. And it is basically, basically loosely based. Oh, no, we're both doing it. Oh, well, this is going to go well. It is loosely based on real events in Westminster. In 1987, the Conservative Council, I sold three cemeteries, is building land for 15p, five feet.

The deal turned out to be both incompetent and illegal. I've decided going to detail in this month's rabbit hole instead of here because I started writing and researching about it for this intro section and then realized my notes were much longer than all the rest of my notes. And, you know, everyone wants to be able to go home. Eventually, I don't want to test everyone's patience. But the book, it was winner of the 1993 Writers Guild of Grapeburn, Best Children's Book Award.

It was shortlisted for the 94 Carnegie Medal. Practice himself was very fond of it as borne out by a couple of, what, lots of interviews and a couple of comments on forums I've found. I said, I'd not, if truth be known, picked up many awards. This was said in 2001. But I'm proudest of the one awarded in 1992. I think in 1993, actually, by the Writers Guild for Johnny and the Dead. That was a vote by other authors down there for the book.

Counts in the precise terms used in this thread as a masterpiece. And he said in 2004 that Johnny and the Dead was perhaps the thing he was most proud of. However, not everyone agreed. Almost everyone did for not everyone. He then recounted a bad review he'd gotten. This was in a discussion about a right-wing American burning Harry Potter books at the time. And he said, there was a very nasty attack on Johnny and the Dead quote about a boy who talks to corpses in a cemetery

by one UK newspaper when it was shortlisted for the Carnegie Award. They're basically calling it Satanist stuff. And I can't find that newspaper. And listeners, help me out here. If you know a way for me to access, like, I don't know, is there an online database archive of old book reviews from newspapers anywhere? I can find what looked like a couple. But I would need EG, a library card for the New York Public Library,

which I don't think they're going to give me on account if I don't live very near New York. So, sorry, was this a US newspaper? No, it was a UK newspaper. But it's the New York Public Library, so I thought there was a chance it would have. Oh, yeah, they have, like, a huge archive. All the ones based in England, I come home with university once and wouldn't let you look at them without a university ID. Yeah, that's weird.

I don't have my National Newspaper Archives membership anymore, because it costs quite a lot of months. And even if I did, I'm not sure I'd find it there. Anyway, if anyone knows where that is, or even better, where I can easily get into old book reviews, that'd be great, because I've spent quite a long time looking for these. An interesting title translation. Most of them were just Johnny and the Dead straight up.

But the German translation was ne du kannst sie verste hin. Sorry, Germans, which means only you can understand them. Oh, so it's like follows on from only you can save mankind. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I don't have a physical copy of the book. Could you read the blurb? I can read the blurb.

Thank you. Not many people can see the dead. Not many would want to. Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell can, and he's got bad news for them. The council want to sell the Cermet area as a building site, but the dead aren't going to take it lying down, especially since it's Halloween tomorrow.

Besides, they're beginning to find out that life is a lot more fun than it was when they were well alive, particularly if they break a few rules. Ooh. This also has a very solid opening line that brings me joy. Oh, yeah. Johnny never knew for certain why he started seeing the dead. Just as an opening line, that's a good one.

Yeah, that is. That's nice. Yeah, that's good. That's it. That's that hook, as they say. That's a grand viewer. Do they say that? Yeah, probably, right?

Right. In this book, In a new phase of trying times, Johnny and his mother have moved in with his grandfather. Taking New Route home from school, Johnny finds himself strolling through the Old Cemetery, soon to be built on. With Halloween on the brain, Johnny knocks on a mausoleum door,

only for it to be answered by an apparition of the Old Alderman. The next night, Johnny returns to the cemetery, pals in tow. The dead approach for a chap, but only Johnny can see them, and therefore save them from the closing of the cemetery. As Johnny researches the local histories buried in the cemetery,

he learns of the Blackberry Pals Battalion, and the dead get on the radio. The ghost of Grimm reminds them that they should stay where they're buried. The next day, while visiting his grandmother at Sunshine Acres, Johnny finds the room of Tommy Atkins, the until yesterday,

last surviving Blackberry Pals. In the night, the dead are dancing when Johnny visits, and as they find buried science in the radio, they tell Johnny he's making them freer. Johnny attends Tommy Atkins funeral and sees the pals come to collect him. The dead swim in the canal and resurrect the ghost of a television,

as Grimm grumps, and as the dead wander further afield, Johnny attends a meeting on the cemetery closure, and accidentally initiates a small town local revolution. The dead planned to escape the night by travelling on the phone lines, and Johnny finds the cemetery scarily empty on Halloween.

As the press arrive and conservation interests come up, the dead discuss popping home. That night, as Wobbler's Halloween party flops, a pop to the cemetery finds elicit build-osers on the brink of destruction, but the plucky bunch of ragtag misfits save the day. In the street, Mrs. Tackie undances in the blue lights of the dead,

transcended and ready to move on. They talk of finally ridding themselves of the cemetery, but Johnny stops them. Someone needs to remember. That's a good book. That's a good book. That's a good book. Helicopter and loincloth watch. Yeah, did you see any loincloths?

I've decided that the loincloth representation for this book is Johnny wearing a sheet over his head dressed as a ghost. Good, yeah. But we have a helicopter. Leonardo da Vinci hadn't got the motors or materials to make his helicopter. Yay, little helicopter.

Yeah. There is an actual helicopter mentioned, and therefore the bit remains justified. I mean, you don't need to keep trying to justify it. I can't be bothered to fight it. I knew I would. You can rely on my apathy. Yes, that's all I needed.

I also just noticed a couple of little disc-well-be-projected e-isms that I thought I'd keep track of. There's a nice conversation very early on about witches being abroad and what, like, Mallorca and that, which is just something... Hey, a spanner. Fever, España. And that delighted me because that's like an oft-repeated

silly little joke that crops up in, and obviously is the title of Anne Discworld book. Yes. And then there was also an argument, not like an argument, but like a discussion between the kids with her talking about how to do voodoo and how to be a zombie. And then there's another argument later on where the kids are arguing over who invented the phone

and then the dead are arguing over who invented the radio. Our eponymous inventions. And just they all really seemed reminiscent of the wizards. Yeah. Especially the voodoo argument. Yeah. And I really like that the wizards translate into one of these real world books as like a group of kids arguing because

that's how the wizards kind of argue with each other. Yeah, I definitely see Ponda and Yolas, like probably just a pleosaur, just some old dinosaur that ought to have been extinct 70 million years ago. Nothing's better. Yeah. Or maybe that's more like Red Cully and Ponda's like... Pleosaur.

I don't know. I definitely see a Ponda and Yolas parallel. Yeah. Oh, and finally, we have death. We have something similar to the Discworld death in the ferrymen speaking in block capitals. Yes. I feel like generally as well, like the little

sub-seam of refusing to see the supernatural before your eyes, is a bit... That's definitely... What do you call it? Discworldian. There's a hint of it. I like it more in Discworld purely because it's the... No, that can't be real.

We're on a fucking turtle and four elephants on a big spinning. But no, that's where you draw the mind. Fine. Yeah, yeah. I feel like William Stickers is a bit of a socialist scully. Yep, that's fair. I did put it in the notes. William Stickers also gives me big red shoe energy.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yes, the downtrodden I think may have been used verbatim again. Quotes. Quotes. Quotes, quotes, quotes, quotes. Our page numbers mean nothing, so we're using different editions. But mine's quite near the end, so if you want to go first. Sure.

So mine is, you never knew about people, like you never knew how deep a pond was because all you saw was the top. I like that. I like that. Isn't that good? Isn't that a good line? Mine's another very discworldy feeling one. There is a night that never comes to an end.

The clock of the world turns under its own shadow. Midnight is a moving place, hurtling around the planet at a thousand miles an hour like a dark knife, cutting slices of daily bread off the endless loaf of time. Very good. A delightful metaphor. Now, I think I saw it on one of the annotation sites that that was a little bit ringworldy.

Yeah, Annotated Pratchett had the whole idea of trying to stay in the same day by running ahead of midnight, which has come up in discworld, I think as well. But it's sort of theorized to be a reference to the opening of Ringworld, where the character does a similar thing. And one thing Annotated Pratchett pointed out is that in the original first printing of Ringworld, he's going the wrong way. He's going,

Yes. Ah, yes. I saw, I saw a reference to that in the forums as well, because somebody said, did you just write in that footballer who doesn't ever sense a direction to get in a dig at Niven? And Pratchett said, I would never be that. What was it?

Can he do flisters? Something dot, dot, dot, maybe a bit smiley face. Well, there was also a bit of it. So, yeah, there's a joke about, oh, please try and remember, we're going west Stanley. Yes, that's it. Yes, yes, yes. But Annotated Pratchett did mention as well, and I don't know how true this is.

Obviously, I was never an old fan Pratchett. There are often lots of, is this a Ringworld reference in reference to the discworld books? To the point where they're kind of used to use it as a bit of a winding him up thing. Oh, OK, right. So, yeah, there may have been an extra layer to that sarky bit there. OK. Which sort of delights me a little bit.

I like the idea that people were trying to wind him up with that. Yes. Right, should we talk characters then? Yeah, here we go. I want to briefly mention Johnny, because I like this line that sums up his character very well, which is that, oh, where's the page? Johnny just opened his eyes in the morning,

and the whole universe hit him in the face. Yeah, that was nearly my quote. It's very, yeah, he's like always trying to keep his head down, but just happens to absorb everything. So all the things happen to him. I feel quite sorry for Johnny, after being with the only you can save again happening to him.

Yeah, he's just like, wait, no, no, you can see the moment, can't you? Whether like, but you're the only one who can, he's like, no. Oh, thank you. I also quite like when the kids are kind of planning their careers and things, he's like, oh, there isn't a name for what I want to be. And it's a very like existential 12 year old. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up thing,

but it's sort of immediately trodden on with. Oh yeah, in like a few years, they'll have been Virgil's flat and you'll be a Virgil's flat operator. Jokes on them because I'm one now. Right. Anyway, that's about the dead. Because we've got points of view of them. Yeah, sorry, I should stop talking bullshit. Right.

We've got the Oldman. Which is like a word for councilman-ish. Yes. I think they still use it more in America. Yeah, I feel like it's not a completely dead term, but it's definitely not an official thing. I could be wrong, actually. I'm sure that's the ultimate society.

It's nothing I'm aware of. I don't know any Oldman personally. Thomas Bola. Thomas Bola. He had pro bono publico on his tomb. What does that mean, Joanna? For the public good. Because it's explained a few pages later.

Oh, well, as I say, I'm a bit tired when I started this. I was reading it like midnight. Which turned out to be very appropriate. Yeah, yeah, spooky. I read it last week, and then it's taken me like all of this week to put the posters in. Like, it's not a particularly challenging book. I just had no motivation this week.

But it's such a good book as well, isn't it? It's just- Yeah. Yeah. I kept getting distracted by reading it and not taking notes. Anyway, yeah. Sorry, so- Oh, sorry, Bola.

So he's, yeah, I like him. He's good. I like how polite he is. He's old fashioned, but open-minded and, yes, very polite. He sort of very nicely talks to Johnny. He doesn't find it any, it's all strange that Johnny can see him or challenges him on it. It's very nice about his own funeral.

You know, I didn't attend, obviously, but I believe the vicar gave a very lovely sermon. Yeah, sounds like he was a good sort. Yes. Yeah, so you have to say ow. I should think anyone would dancing like that, said the old one. And the mental image of it. Bichained and berobed Alderman moonwalking. Yes.

Yeah. I'm, I won't try and do it. I think I'm trying to read it out as it is in the book. I know that's not how Michael Jackson sounded. Yeah, that's that. Also, I can't being walk and kind of do the thriller dance. Not when I'm chained to my, chained to my desk with these goddamn headphones.

I believe you, Francine. Solomon Einstein is a taxidermist. Not that kind of thing. The other, the other Rhinestine, which leads to one of my absolute favorite lines and was nearly my quote. You've got a lot of time for abstract thought when you've got your hand stuck up a dead badger. A true word was never spoken. Well, quite.

I noticed that he'd put a cable street in again. Yes, I like an old cable street as practice. He is a fan of the cable street. Have you experienced this whole thing of cemeteries laid out with sort of street names and the like? No, I've never paid that much attention. But right. So the main two types of cemetery I've been to are very modern ones or very old ones. Yeah.

I've been to like old church yards or like, like our big cemetery in town is quite modern. Yeah, exactly. Paratively. And I think the one we're thinking of here is kind of more in between. It's more like a Victorian one, isn't it? So yeah. Yeah.

Which I don't think I've ever wandered around a Victorian-ish cemetery. If I did, I wasn't looking for street names. Yes. Listeners, tell us about street names in your local cemetery. What a weird thing was your request of you. But it's probably not the weirdest today. It is not the weirdest today. So yeah, so that was Solomon Einstein.

Big fan. Big fan, big fan. When I first read his name and he said, like, no, Solomon Einstein lived on Cable Street, Texas. I nearly cut off reading there to go and find out if he was real. I didn't. I'm hoping he wasn't now, but. Yeah, me too, actually.

I would have seen it. I would have seen it in annotated. Onto names slightly more sort of based in real life, I guess. William Stickers. Yes. And this is something I wouldn't have caught if it wasn't for annotated. The name refers to, there were posters forbidding fly posting, reading Bill Stickers will be prosecuted.

And so, of course, there was then the Graffito. And Kudos to annotated practice using the singular Graffito, actually. You don't see that often. Bill Stickers is innocent and similar. And William Stickers is obviously this much harassed individual. Super. Which just shows you everything you need to know about the British public's ability to be slightly dickish.

My, I like mild vandalism. There's a subreddit called Mildly Vandalized, which isn't as full of excellent things it might be. But I went through a phase of enjoying putting googly eyes on things. I used to love putting googly eyes on shit. Just like in, here's a recommendation for a wholesome activity, only slightly legal, listeners. Take a packet of self-adhesive googly eyes to your local supermarket

and just put them on the people on the packaging. That's funny as fuck. What are you thinking about? It works even better if you are 17 years old and stoned. Just as an aside. But still pretty good in your 20s. And I imagine much later too. Not that we endorse the weird, obviously, being British.

Oh, yeah. That's illegal. Yeah. That's more illegal than the googly eyes, probably. I don't know. It's for medical purposes, I assume. What are the googly eyes? Yeah.

You can get prescription googly eyes. Anyway, sorry, William Stickers, Bill Stickers. Sorry. Yeah, no, I'm dragging a soft track today. I do apologize. Workers of the World Unit. But also, he doesn't really believe in himself. And this is where I think of him as being a bit red-shoe-ish.

He was like, oh, I am struggling to find pages today. Belief in the survival of what is laughably called the soul, after death is a primitive superstition which has no place in a dynamic socialist society. Do you want to reconsider that? How? Oh, I don't think you can get around me just because you're accidentally right.

A very good attitude, I think. Yeah, no, I respect it. Solid. The deep black shroud here referred to in one point. It's a red flag or something, isn't it? Anyway, so we have Vicente. Mr. Vicente? Yes.

The escapologist with my other grave is a Porsche. Porsche. Oh, yeah, that's funnier. Who has ghostly white doves, unfortunately, just falling out of his sleeves in opportune moments, poor man. Yeah, well, I'm sure he likes the company, really. It's very sweet when the dead have decided to try and call Johnny at home and the grandfather answers,

and he's like, oh, how are you, dead? I am lovely. What have you been up to? Oh, dead, no, I'm sorry to hear. What was it? Sorry, it reminded me so much of Professor Farnsworth. How are you in yourself? Dead, I see.

To shreds, you say. To shreds, you say, will remain one of my favorite. Just offending. Cartooning points ever, yeah. Yeah, it's up there with you'll have to speak up when wearing a towel. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

And then Sylvia Liberty. Oh, Suffragette. Tireless suffragette. Very proper, but very... Progressive for her time, of course. Accidentally threw herself under the wrong vehicle, as it were. Threw herself under the Prince of Wales

rather than this horse, apparently was a rather large man. Although I can't imagine he was larger than a horse. I think that's probably the joke. I'm just going to ruin it by being very direct about the fact that very few people are larger than horses. Horses are very big. They are. Moose are big too.

I saw a video and read it the other day of a big moose. What fucking big dusters they are. But preferably from a bit of a distance. I've seen a moose like out in the real world once and it was at a distance in a car and it was still a little bit terrifying. Yeah, you know how scared I am of horses. Yeah.

Me, something even behind those stable doors. But yes, I like Sylvia Liberty's got a bit of the civil about her. And this sort of very much approving of healthy bodies, enjoying callus and NX, practical clothing. Yes, although she is her. But takes a little bit, a little while to come around on the idea of having fun herself. Well, yes.

But she gets there. She gets there. She's like her bloody great, great, great, great granddaughter. Not a fun person. Yes. Somewhat incompetent. I didn't go deeply into noting all the Blackberry Holdings et al. Characters because we've got so many dead people.

Oh, yeah, nice. Yeah, the dead are more interesting. Speaking of, we've already discussed Stanley Wrongway. The character may have been invented for the sake of a Niven reference. But either way is very nicely in whatever he's buried in for some reason, has left and right marked on his shoes now. So hopefully that helps with the own goals. Superdiva.

It slightly stressed me out reading it because like in the, you know, if I inevitably am forced to play in a football game, I'm sure I would score a lot of own goals because I get very confused about which way I'm meant to be facing at all times. Well, I'm pretty bad at navigation, Joanna. And I must say, I never scored own goals when I played football. So you'll probably be okay. This is the thing, I don't have bad navigation.

I just have incredibly bad spatial awareness. Yeah. Well, again, same as these, I think you'll be all right. It's pretty hard to get confused and do it by accident. I mean, I think by not knowing which goal you're going towards, I think generally own goals, if you accidentally like bounce it off your elbow or something. Okay, that's good to know. I mean, it's also very unlikely I'm actually going to be forced to play football, but you never know.

You never know. Well, something like a fun outdoors party could easily descend into such disgusting activities as healthful sports. So, yes. And despite the fact I really wouldn't be dressed for it, it wouldn't stop me. No. And then who else do we have? Sorry, I've lost track now.

Addison Vincent Fletcher. Which one's that? Oh, the phone. Mr. Fletcher. He was just after the helicopter mention. He was very excited because he spent long hours with motors and glowing bells and bits of wire. And now he's found a computer and that delighted me. Yeah.

Good lad. So that's our non-ghostly dad. And then we have our actual ghost, Mr. Grimm, which, fuck me, a little dark bit right at the end there. Yeah, a bit fucking grim, innit? I thought we were going to have some weird fairy tale. I mean, it was on Perfords, wasn't it? He was red herring us with a villain character.

And now he's actually just very upset. Grumping and haunting. Interestingly, not forced into some kind of cheerful redemption at the end. He gets a ray of light so that we don't end on a truly depressing note. But he's not like saved and sent to heaven afterwards. He just has a slightly nicer life stuck in the graveyard now. Yeah, I really like that there wasn't some kind of Johnny trying to force him to see the light or anything like that.

He's given a nicer existence and maybe one day we'll come to terms with himself and be able to do what the others have done, even become a glowing blue light. That's what we all hope for. And then continuing on with the slightly depressing theme, of course, we have Tommy Atkins and the pals battalion. Oh, mate, the way the e-book worked out, just the line they were walking through the car park or something like that was just on its own on a page.

And I was like, immediate tears. When they come to get him from his funeral and I think the line that got me was Tommy Atkins didn't look old anymore. It was a young man who got to his feet, marched out into the car park, turned and saluted Johnny and the dead. That was a very sweet, very sad moment. And we both have a foreword this time. Yes, but it ties more into what you were looking at.

So do you want to do the honors? Just Thomas Atkins was the name really used on documents in the British Army in the way that people now use A and other. And Tommy Atkins did become a nickname for the British soldier, which I'd heard of the British soldiers in World War I referred to as Tommy's before. Yeah, no, I hadn't heard Atkins at all. No. And that was quite a nice little thing. I had it in my head that it was because of the Thompson gun.

Yeah, I mean, that is a blessing. Which I'm not sure was even a thing by then. I really don't know. I shouldn't say things like that, emails. What, like a Tommy gun? Yeah. See, the problem is I hear Tommy Gunn and I think that bit in the mask where he makes it one out of a balloon.

Cute. Yeah, I don't know why, but they're indelibly linked. I think it's the first time I've ever heard the phrase Tommy Gunn. I think they were around by then, but possibly not used. Yeah, so maybe not. Oh, okay. So originally designed to break the stalemate, a trench warfare of World War I, but not finished until after the war ended.

So there you go. But yeah, I think the Tommy Atkins bit is the bit that got me the most emotional because I think World War I is the one I get just so fucking furious at the waste of life about. Well, you've seen me go on a massive rant about this on the podcast. So yeah. Consider our rants handled. Yeah. And that leads us fairly neatly onto...

Sorry, I got signal open. We just got a weirdly relevant message through saying, imagine if we lived on a world where you just tumbled in a way previously unknown and found yourself hurtling for an unknown dimension, which is pretty typical of the group chat. Right. Okay. Meeting that.

Mr. Atterbury. Atterbury, Atterbury. The Royal British Legion fellow who gets himself involved. Who I'm a big fan of. Yeah, absolutely. Who takes over the meeting at the end after they've all fucked off and says, ah, let's have a meeting then. And again, a nice little move away from maybe the the tropey or cliche way a kid's book might

handle it where Johnny would stand up and lead the meeting himself was realistically, you probably need an adult who can do full sentences about the things. Yes. Not that Johnny can't do full sentences, you know what I mean, politically. Johnny does stand up and start elisting the change. Yeah. But it's absolutely. Yeah, you can't expect him to chair a meeting.

I did also, I don't think I actually put Yolas in, but I like his moment of standing up and she's sort of doing that. The one in the shirt that she's like, do you mean the black one? It's okay. And who else? Mrs. Tachyon, which I'm mentioning now because she's a major part of the next book, Johnny and the Bomb. Oh.

But also, she reminds me a bit of old Mrs. Gammage in Discworld and The Beers. She's just the nice old lady who's in there and doesn't quite get that it's become the wids of the pub when she's quite happily, you know, raising a glass when the ghosts are drinking a pint. I like the phrase mad as a word used about people who've either got no senses or several more than other people. That was a good line. Also, apparently, a Tachyon is something. Yeah, so physics, yeah, that hasn't been proved or maybe has been disproved or something.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's a meta physics, I guess, almost. Listeners don't explain it to me. It ties into the general theme, I would say. Yes, it's a bit of physicsy. It's more relevant. We'll talk about it next week as well.

Yeah. And Big Mac. I just want to mention Big Mac recently because he gets a nice sort of resolution he was slightly missing in the last book. He went, the bit where he like charges is very, is that just like his breaking moment, I guess. Yeah, I feel like it's had enough of this shit from bullying people. He's got this simmering tension building up like I think they all talk about early in the book,

the reason he learns martial arts and gets his guns and ammo is to do with living with his brother. Yeah. And like he finally breaks, he has had enough of people being dicks and he really does lose it. And luckily, Yolas's family have been trying to take him in for some time anyway. Yeah. And he bags up his guns and ammo and his tropical fish and goes and lives with them and that's a nice little niche for him. Good luck.

Well done. Well done, Big Mac. Well done for punching your brother and shouting at the dog, growling at the dog. Good effort. And then on to locations. And I wanted to quickly talk about the town of Blackberry and this kind of naffness of small towns. Yeah, Blackberry is the name used in Bromeliad, right?

No, I don't think it is. First of all, I thought because it changed names or something. Oh, wait. Yes, no, it might have been. I did also have a quick Google of Blackberry to see if it was a real town. It's not, but there's like a Blackberry Hill fort English Heritage own place in Devon. It's like an old Saxon Hill fort. You can go and have a picnic.

Right. Yes. No, in the first book, it's called Blackberry and then it changes it to Grime Soap, I think. Right. Yes. Cool. But yeah. I'm glad he used the name and used it for something else.

Yeah. But yeah, there's kind of a bit of sad naffness about small towns. I know kind of the big turning point of the book is them deciding, oh, High Street's been taken over and polished and we want to take Blackberry back and make it ours again. It seemed to me like a small town on the edge of London. They're very much a. Like a suburbie going to get swallowed up eventually sort of town. Yeah.

Yeah. I got that vote. It was either that or up north somewhere. Yeah, could be that too. Yeah. Things were better in my day that feels very northern. Yeah. I've just been watching, rewatching Misfits first season.

Well, a couple of Misfits. I've never watched Misfits. You would, I think you'd like, no, you might like it. But the place they film it, I think it's somewhere in London. But it's just, Jack and I keep saying, what a fucking horrible place. They've done it on purpose. Obviously just found the nastiest place to shoot. And that's just the backdrop for it.

But God, it's grim. Wow. I like that as a kind of stylistic choice. I don't like places looking too shiny. Yeah. Also, it's all very desaturated and slightly over-processed because it was 2009 when the first season came out, you know, how everything worked out for a while on the telly. I like that.

But yeah, there's just the silly things that I think is a very, like, British-y small town. Like, the whole idea of the Oldman donating the horse trough. Yeah. Just as motorcars were coming in. And now there's still a sort of commemorative horse trough. But there's the sad shopping mall as well. Like, I feel like...

Yes. I've never really spent much time in shopping malls, but I can, I can picture it. There's one in Norwich, Castle Mall, which wasn't that... We used to go to town when I was a kid because we lived kind of halfway between Norwich and Berry. And that was, like, a fun day out. We'd go have a day out in Norwich and, like, we'd wander around the mall and stuff. And it was kind of sad then, but in a way, just everything in the 90s looking back on it was kind of sad.

But since then, it's still, like, open-ish, but there's a much nicer, shinier one. And it's all, like, half the shops are empty. It's quite decrepit. Like, it's a vibe. It's kind of a cool vibe, but it's very much a vibe. You and I have run through that mall trying to get to the train station on time. Oh, my God, we have. We did not.

Well, we might have caught that train and then missed the one in Stone Market. No, we missed, like, so many trains that day. It was ridiculous. And then I very drunkenly made pasta. Oh, good times. That was many, that was many moons ago. Anyway, sorry. So yeah, Sad Mall, the Sunday boredom, which...

So I grew up in my earlier years in a small village as well. And God, the Sunday boredom. Like, our town doesn't really have everything closes on Sundays anymore. It's quite quiet once you get past about four o'clock in the afternoon, but it's not... Jersey always did. Still does, I think, in all the places that's quite a way behind. So I don't know. We were very much, we're going for a walk family.

Oh, yes. See, I was not unless we were going to the races. It was either that or Dad is going to listen to some records. Katie's going to sit in her room and listen to some CDs. Final gun, listen to a tape. Yes, through the ages. Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful. It was much better once we had the computer and I could play Vig games.

Oh, God, yeah. Oh, Sunday sim sessions. To die for. Oh, and I got my PlayStation. I could spend a Sunday playing Crash Bandicoot. No way. Anyway, oh, yeah. And the Frank W. Arnold Civic Center and the whole idea and the public meeting.

Yeah. And there's something about just the sort of sad napness and no one can deal with a door marked pull. Yeah, the local politics meetings, all the bits about like the talking and talking until people didn't have the fucking energy to argue. Yep. It's very real. Occasionally, people would wander in thinking the meeting was the AGM of the Bowls Club. Yeah.

Yeah, that all just delights me in a sort of it's sad gray naftness because it's very relatable. Yeah, absolutely. And then the graveyard, it's much brighter and happier place. Yeah, I like how it was talking about like the silence in there. And I started thinking because I was reading on some nights, I say. So when I was going to sleep, I was trying to work out whether there was like a reason. Graveyards do seem to soak up a lot of sound, whether it's like an in your head thing.

But I guess like it's pretty, there's like a lot of things in between you and other things. And there's often a lot of trees in the ground is soft. And I know there's also like very rarely more than, you know, one or two people. I mean, if you're in a massive cemetery, then yeah, these, you're not, you're never a pound or a group. Yeah. So it always feels like you're alone in a cemetery or a graveyard. Yeah.

So I grew up like next to one. There was one house between us and the graveyard. I grew up next to a very old church. And obviously we didn't, we try not to play in the graveyard, but we very much played around the graveyard. You did Shag Percy Shelley there, right? No, I opted not to Shag Percy Shelley also because if I wanted to do it on my mother's grave, I'd have to go down to Goodwood where we scared the ashes.

And that's a public race course. So I feel like that would be awkward. Yeah. That's not gothic is it? That was just criminal. Well, now I've brought the meat down. Kind of sideways. I'm amazed the tone stayed raised this month.

So I've got so many terrible jokes I can make about having dead family members. I'm not sure how to, the thing is I tend to laugh with you because that's the dynamic we've developed around the subject. And I do want worry that I'm going to come across like an insensitive twat, but... No, it's fine. I know you know it's fine. Apologies to listeners. Also, this is like a harder thing to talk about.

I just deal with this with humour. So speaking of dealing with things in odd ways, are we going cafe night and nicotine up? Yeah, that's a good idea. Subliminal Cliff Richard, band name or a little bit you like? A little bit. I like wobblers talking about the wobbler has been claiming that if you play Cliff Richard records backwards, there's secret Catholic messages.

The secret messages from God, which is a fun play on a conspiracy. Kind of weirdly does tie in with like satanic panic stuff. Yeah, absolutely does. Got really into thanks to Sarah Marshall. She's a good fan of the You're Wrong About podcast. It was a whole thing that apparently if you played certain heavy metal records backwards, there were satanic messages to subliminally make children satanists, I guess. And now there actually are a couple where that works because there was such a fuss about it.

That people decided to do a fun game of cause and effect. Obviously, we decided to worship Satan of our own accord, not because we listened to heavy metal backwards. I don't worship Satan. We're just friends. Also, I feel like I'm on a pedestal like that. Also, I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the entertaining Bill Hicks rant on the subject, which was at the time.

So contemporary to it, which ended on, you know, if you play new kids on the block records backwards, they sound fucking better. I must have seen that. It's been a long time since I had a little YouTube Bill Hicks binge. I haven't watched any Bill Hicks for a while, but occasionally there are some bits that are just in my brain. Speaking of Wobbler, I feel bad that Wobbler's been kind of demoted from being good at computers. Yeah, he's less like good at computers.

And now that's something I didn't mention that this book quite works quite well as a standalone without like there's no mention of the events of the previous book. There's which works in that there's no like heavy exposition. And it's very different to Brameliad, which was almost one could almost have been one book or at least two books. Like the second book was almost sort of the B plot of the third. And yeah, it was a thing. Whereas these are much more standalone.

But yeah, I feel it's a bit unfair to Wobbler. But then I don't know if it's just he's not as good as computers. I think he has those skills. It's just those skills aren't really needed in the employment market at the time, maybe. Yeah, maybe say. I hope he grows up to do well. I haven't read the next book yet. Well, then you'll be very interested in how Wobbler grows up.

Metaphysics. What of it? I liked some of the briefly described in universe physics just like the older ghosts hadn't faded. It's just they were further away in like some new direction. That we can't quite understand. I like that as a concept. That's very cool.

And the kind of ghosts jumping in water and the ghost didn't get wet. The water got ghostly. I just enjoyed that. And the whole traveling through telephones and being like beamed up to the moon and back and things like that. I just I know it was all very pleasing. All of the metaphysics he fits. There's a fun little chat about the metaphysics with Einstein as well.

Oh, yeah. He explains what him and Mr. Fletcher are doing with like resurrecting the Ford Capri and the TV and like the ghost of the TV. And Solomon starts explaining it's metaphysics from the Greek matter beyond and physical meaning physics. And he says to Johnny, you were physicist and he says, I don't know anything about science. Marvelous, ideal qualification.

Yes, ignorance. Very important step. Continued reminder to listeners to never explain physics to me. We're in our very important ignorance phase, actually. Yeah, it's actually very important that no one explains physics to me. And I will either discover or undiscover the tacky on next week, probably when I finish making this dress. How's that dress going?

Well, I had to take the zip out and I need to put it back in later. But that's that's all that really needs to happen. Cool looking zips. I hate zips. Next along we have a reference to something or other. It's worse than that. I'm dead, Jim. Dead, Jim.

Dead, Jim. It's worse than that. I put this in just to make the listeners suffer. I've linked to this. So he's dead, Jim is a line from Star Trek that was used just often enough to become a meme in the early days of meming. It's worse than that. He's dead, Jim has never actually said in Star Trek,

but it's a famous line from the song Star Trek in an 80s classic by the firm. Across the universe. On the ship and the prize and the Captain Kirk. Star Trek in across the universe. I used to very much enjoy watching everyone in the fab dance to that. Yep. It still kind of delights me now whenever I remember that it exists. Partly because a running joke with a friend of mine,

we kept seeing each other, especially those Klingons on the starboard bow. And that kind of that kind of overlapped with us repeatedly shouting a line from what we do in the shadow of Nando. There's a fucking ghost on the front lawn. And so it became Nando. There's a fucking Klingon on the front lawn. It's true that there is.

Anyway, speaking of awful songs that are good. Are you going to watch Eurovision? I have never watched Eurovision. I haven't for many years, but they did a sweepstaker work and now I'm invested in Serbia. So I don't think we're going to win. Beyond like, I like that one. Instead of me, I eat veggies and pussy guy.

Excuse me. Have you not heard that? No, I haven't had any of these yet, no. It's been going around on TikTok a lot. It's the only reason I know it. And it's like the song I use with. Oh, not any Eurovision talk yet. Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy.

Cute. Which, you know, I respect. But no, I've never been into Eurovision. Like, I don't really... Not like in a snobby, I'm too good for it way. I've just never turned up in my pop culture life. But someone who I'm going to be doing some work with later this year is like a huge Eurovision superfan.

Oh, yeah? He was on eight out of ten cats once because there was a great news clip of him as he was like there is Eurovision superfan or something. And a news guy asked him like, Oh, do you think England have a chance this year? And the clip got cut off just after he said no. I need to find that clip.

I will see if I can find it for you. Thank you. It's really quite funny. Anyway, sorry, this is such a diversion. Yeah, no, that was entirely my fault. The point is listeners, if you have somehow not heard the song Star Trek in, I've linked it in the show notes. Go listen and then talk to everyone you know with it.

So everyone's got it stuck in their head. Very important. Newspaper nonsense. Newspaper nonsense. We love a bit of newspaper nonsense. The Blackberry Guardian heard a front page story headed council slammed in cemetery sale rumpus. The Guardian often used words like slammed and rumpus.

He wondered how the author talked at home. Two levels that it's good on. One, in fact, it was the journalist. And worked for like a small local paper. And yes. And two, headline news is just fucking fantastic. It properly executed. The kind of weird syntax of a headline can be very good.

More often, it's a bit clunky or ambiguous. So Thought Co. quoted this from the New York Times. I mentioned Thought Co. It's not linked to their articles. It's not a pill. In their quest for concision, writers of newspaper headlines are in better at sweepers way of little words. And the dust they kick up can lead to amusing ambiguities.

Legendary headlines from years past, some of which verge on the mythical, include giant waves down Queen Mary's funnel. Giant waves down Queen Mary. It's a lot easier when you read the fuck. I've done it again. I've done one of those things where reading it aloud is difficult. MacArthur flies back to front. And Eighth Army push bottles up Germans.

Amazing. Eighth Army push bottles up Germans. There we go. I fell victim to that one. The Columbia Journalism Review even published two anthologies of ambiguous headlines in the 1980s, which I need to get my fucking hands on, with the classic titles, squad helps dog fight victim.

And red tape holds up Newbridge. And then I've got one of my long bookmarked articles from The Guardian headline, subire as hags slash word length, getting the skinny on Thinolims. Thinolims being the coined term of this authors. What's he called? I'm very sorry to do Andy Bodle.

But has a great synopsis of headline ease. So you have to get rid of articles and put out a program, pronouns, all forms of the verb to be, similarly superfluous. So sisters praised for hitting back at sex attackers. Oh, here we go. There's another ambiguity. Boy wanted to kill Queen.

What? I thought Boy wanted to kill Queen. No. Boy wanted to kill Queen. So past tense replaced by the more concise present simple. This ties in with grammar we were talking about earlier. Yeah. So now modifiers, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, it's a long article and it's fantastic. And I will link to it. And it also talks about some of the, it puts a little glossary and at the end anyway, and has some of the classics, like mull and roast and slammed and rage. And you know how it is. It's always, it's always hits back at instead of replies to ramp up.

I also recommend yet again, the economist style guide, which has a nice little list of cliches. Stuff to avoid and that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. And so for that reason, I'm going to give a special mention to corporate nonsense because there was also the wonderful bit that was, the words above the picture said,

an exciting development for united, amalgamated, consolidated holdings forward to the future. Donnie didn't feel very excited, but he did feel that forward to the future was even after them. If it's a boot, it's a blackberry. Yes, I do love the corporates. It's also worth pointing out on the headlines topic that I think some people kind of miss in media literacy,

that the people in our schools often don't write the headlines for said articles. It's so annoying reading Twitter. All the subheads, guys, stand first. Yeah, so you get these very sensationalist headlines that really aren't necessarily the point the writer of the articles trying to make. And then people get outraged over the headline without reading the articles. Always fucking happens to Kayla Moran because she writes for the time, so it's behind the paywall.

So people read the headline and stand first and then get angry about that. Yeah, which is a shame because Kayla Moran writes in very funny columns, although I very rarely read them because... Time's a description. Yeah, and we both used to work on pubs. We used to get free copies, well, not free copies of magazines. We could read the copies of magazines, and now we don't do that. You get like a free Oscar a week or something,

but you usually use that to read Marina O'Loughlin's food reviews. I know where my priorities lie, and they're in restaurant reviews. I do subscribe to the New York Times, which just in general has better stuff than the Times of London, I'm afraid to admit. I think I mostly did the New York Times subscription because I do the crossword every day. So I have a lot of two separate subscriptions. I think I get like two or three New York Times articles a week as part of my crossword subscription. And then the rest of these is another subscription, which I think people...

No, but it means, again, like restaurant reviews and stuff. Oh, cool. You can include that. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Although I mostly read Helen Rosner, who I think actually works for the New Yorker. So I think I have another... I've got so many accounts for three free articles a week, mostly for reading restaurant reviews. And they're all reviews for restaurants. Like, I'm never going to fucking go to.

Doesn't matter. It's nice to read about. Anyway, oh, my last funny... Sorry, did you have anything else on newspaper? No, no, no, no. My last funny little bit I like is when they're dancing, they refer to it as making carpets. And I corrected that it's, in fact, cutting a rug, not cutting a rung. Reminded me of that The Aliens comic. Oh, yeah.

Nathan Pyle's comics. I can see your cursor in the plan. Hi. Hi. Sorry. I don't know why. That's exciting. I can see your cursor in the plan. Bigger stuff, then. Let's talk about the children's bookness of it all. And I think there's kind of... Yeah. I just put mine in first because it seemed slightly less serious.

Yeah. I was thinking about general themes in children's books, as I was reading this. And it kind of occurred to me that a running theme through a lot of children's stories, be that TV, film, book, is kind of this small... And I mean, very small C conservatism, which is the X aspect of your childhood. If that's a, in this case, a nice graveyard, quite often it's a tree. It's very often a bit of nature. But sometimes it'll be like a community center or something like that,

is being taken away by Y adult organization. And it's very adult. And I mean, I don't mean very adult. It's an adult organization. Like it's a brioche. It's a brioche. It's a... Yeah. It's very grown up.

Yeah. And I was just thinking about how that ties into the fear of growing up kind of thing, and whether that's deliberately tapped into by authors, or whether it's just like an obvious... And it's... There's like a kind of microcosm in this when the kids are talking about their futures and like career days at school and this height. I think it's this idea of the future is this big, bland, white, unknowable thing. And it very much depends on your experiences with the adults around you.

But if you think you're a kid, the adults you probably spend so much of your time with are teachers. Like that's your big example of doing something once you've grown up. And they are by nature, these kind of distant ish authority figures. Like, there's a line in this about Johnny Estacosi, the head teacher, to be congratulated and no one knows how you find the head teacher because they're so distant. They're up in a glass box. Absolutely. And yeah, it's kind of...

It's a theme throughout a lot of disc world, but works very well in young adult books especially. Practice kind of clarification that real evil is not often all swirling cloaks and Tim Curry. It's more likely gray. That real dark forces aren't dark. They're sort of gray, like... I made a note of this line because it kind of ties into what I was going to talk about. Oh, cool.

They take all the color out of life. They take a town like Blackberry and turn it into frightened streets and plastic signs and bright new futures and towers where no one wants to live. And no one really does live. The dead seem more alive than us. And everything becomes gray and turns into numbers. And then someone somewhere starts to do the arithmetic. I really admire your determination to read that one aloud.

Even like the fact I'd started reading it stop you there. Oh, no, sorry. I didn't notice you had started reading it. But no, I was really determined to read it aloud. That's why I made a note of it so quickly. I love you so much. Anyway, gosh, yes. And that, this kind of softer version of evil almost ties into but on the opposite end of the

spectrum of this softening of death that practice does not in an odd angels and sparkles way going over the rainbow bridge. But, you know, the dead is kind of friendly within the graveyard. No, maybe think of Neil games graveyard book, obviously, which came later. Definitely a death of desk world. Well, yeah. And the whole kind of part of the deal of death with this world is that quite often people go where they want to go, where they believed in.

It's very open. It's very, and you kind of have that here with like William Stickers choosing the ferryman and saying, if it doesn't work out, I'll go do something else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not twee, but it's encouraging. Yeah. And a couple of it.

Sorry, it's not very tied together point. That was just children's books in general. I found a bit where Pratchett answered somebody asking if it's like a window book, you know, where the comment said, I thought it was meant to be deep exploration of childhood angst where the protagonist's fantasies are projected onto reality in an attempt to escape into a different world where they are important and meaningful individuals, blah, blah, blah. Pratchett's reply, I can't be having with that pernicious rubbish. Window books say are called young seed has big problems of problems at home when history

and sea battles are dragon and that gives them strength to deal with the problems as if imagination and fantasy were some kind of medicines. I mean, that is kind of what I mean. You can say when kind was doing, but not by me, not because he's just very clearly said it isn't. Well, yeah, well, it kind of reads like that on the surface is what I mean. Yeah. It's a bit more than any goes on. There are natural explanations for a lot of things that happen in the books. If you are desperate to find them and people will sometimes go through some serious mental

gymnastics to avoid chasing their preconceived ideas about the universe. But I like to be equivocal about what is real and what isn't. To Johnny, it's all real. And that's what counts. Saving the screwy isn't some code for improving his own life. He deals with all the problems on their own terms. And half the time he's predicting reality onto fantasy. So is what happens in the books real?

Yes. Does it all happen in Johnny's head? Yes. Are the dead a metaphor? Yes. Are they real? Yes. Not just waving, but partically. So I quite like that massive rant and I only read out about a third of it. So I'll link to it. And finally, I like how he kind of embatt some of the tropes as well or like directly references them like with Yolas saying like, well done said PC Plunk said Yolas in Hollywood.

You have captured the whole gang. Good work fumbling for and they all went home for tea and cakes. And kind of just point and doesn't wrap it all up nicely in a bow just kind of points out that, you know, things are still not resolved. Yeah. And like the dead aren't here and doing what they're meant to do at this point, surely. And there's still twats around who probably just gave these guys cash in hand to do the bulldozing. And so the people behind it aren't going to get in trouble.

And yeah. Yeah. The root rot hasn't been addressed just the surface. And obviously more of it does get resolved by the end. You know, the cemetery doesn't get sold and but not everything. And it was like we were talking about earlier with Mr. Grimm. He doesn't get a fairytale ending. Yeah. And I'd say like even the driving force behind Johnny's actions isn't sorted, is it? Because I mean, he wanted to make a nice safe place for the ghosts and they

decided to fuck off by the time he'd managed it. Yeah. And even though it was a nice thing to happen in the end, that's not why he was doing it. No. But he worked out why it needed to be done, which was what I was going to talk about if he don't have much more on the job. No, I was going to transition for you. Thank you. It's just double checking. I wasn't talking over you again. No, no, no. You didn't talk over me. It's I did the first sentence and then you managed

to do the rest of the quote. Like if I hadn't objected, it would have been seamless. I promise I'm not a dick. I'm just incredibly single-minded. No, I knew you were doing it by accident. I'm sorry. I knew you were doing it by accident. It was just very funny. This whole thing, this big central theme of the book becomes, it's the two things it's needing to remember and needing to not run away from things. And you start right at the beginning with Johnny,

with Johnny making that decision of I could walk away now and I'll never find out what happens next and I'll grow up and get married, have children and take up bowls. And maybe in the end, an angel. I love the idea that that's kind of the most horrifying thing a child can think of. Yeah, I mean, I don't love bowls. I'm not sure I've ever played bowls. Played with a tonk.

That's basically the same thing, isn't it? And it's like, what if this angel turned up when I was dying and said, do you want to give that a go again? And maybe this is when that's happened. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, fuck. That's from another book as well, isn't it? That moment where it's like, now imagine you've made all those bad decisions and you're going back in time and get to make the system again and do it right this time. What's that from?

Fuck. Anyway, sorry. It's a bit of a theme. It's like the running thing with death, you know. I thought my life flashed before my eyes. It did. That was living. But that and then right through to the end where the Olderman explaining the pinball machine thing is probably very difficult to know that outside the game there's a room and outside the room there's a town and outside the town there's a country and

there's a world and a brilliant trillion stars. And once you know about it, you can stop worrying about the sloth at the bottom and you might bounce around and get a deal longer, which I love because, you know, galaxy song once you're Python. Just just remember you're in a pinball machine that's revolving. Revolving. Oh, no, it's gone wrong. The ghosts are in here. They did it. Maybe I shouldn't go into game development.

But yes, no, the perspective. Yeah. The perspective and getting from point A and what if the angel comes down and gives me another chance and I don't have to take up bowls to the final showing Johnny there's more outside the pinball machine and him making the decision of, okay, well, I was doing all this for you guys and you're fucking off. But no, actually, we did need this anyway, because we need to remember it. Yeah. And Solomon Einstein does this, you know, it's this balance exchange thing. Humans need to remember so the dead can forget and vice versa.

Yeah. And it's actually an amazing theme to have through the book because so to get depressing, I know I was making dead mum jokes earlier, but obviously like... But now we're going to make you be serious about it. Roller coaster. Obviously, I joked a lot on the podcast about how much grief I went through in like a single year and for the full context, it was like, well, four funerals technically, it would have been five because of lockdown. I couldn't go to one. I think it was a lot for one year. And a divorce. And a divorce.

And sorry, I just wanted to finish the film title. The five funerals of divorce and egg donation. Yeah. Well, that makes it a bit lengthy. It was a long year. And COVID. And COVID. And then I had to move house like the week after the egg donation. Anyway, God, sorry. The point I'm making is one thing I find I've learned from going through

that death and grief and what have you is all the funeral stuff, all the what to do with the stuff afterwards. Of course, that doesn't mean anything to the dead. It is all about the people left behind and what they want to remember or don't. And I made a horribly inappropriate joke to my sister the other day because we lost our father when we were a bit younger. And we were sorting through some more of my mother's things. And there were some of my father's things in there and said, I don't know why I'm so much more sentimental about our dad stuff. And so he died when we were much younger. We have very nostalgic, raced into glasses. Whereas when mom died, it was recent enough that we can remember she was kind of a bitch. Apparently you shouldn't say that,

but she didn't assist to not find the funny bit in that. She's trying not to laugh. No, she did giggle a little bit. It was her husband who's never been through this kind of thing who struggled with the humor there. But if you know, you know, sorry, I've now lost track of the point. The point I was making the point you were making is grief, dealing with it, people that left behind. Yeah. And cemeteries and loss as well. It's such a beautiful theme carried through the book. Yeah, book that the dead learned that they don't need this. Yeah, it's we haven't left behind anything of importance. No, and it's there for the living to remember. Yeah. Yeah. And choosing how to be a living person who has that to remember.

And in a certain sense, the cemetery giving them that outside of the Pimmel machine perspective. Because what's going to show you more that there might be more beyond this than the big place where you go to remember the dead. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I just didn't want to punctuate it with an ill sort out quip. Oh, no, do please do. No, it's fine. I lost it now. But everything about the mythology, the dead build up around themselves, these rules, we need to stay here. We can't go wandering off all of this stuff. Oh, yeah, the rules. The rules like are they rules? They're not rules. Why did they go? Why did they arrive there knowing the rules if they aren't rules, Joanna? I feel like it's this ingrained leftover from life,

like expecting, expecting a judgment day because you expect a judgment day. Everyone knows, everyone knows ghosts attained their gravestones, whatever. Exactly. And Mr. Grimm is just more convinced of that than most. I feel like it's not just that is that I feel like Mr. Grimm is not willing to consider the alternative because he feels like having to haunt is like I think he wants to stay away from judgment that having to haunt kind of is his punishment. He feels guilty. I hope the TV modernizes him enough that he can. Yeah, I feel like it's left open ended that he could get there one day, but I'm glad it's not resolved in the last two pages of a book because that would have been trite and unpratchetish. I wonder if Euro trash will make things better or

worse. I don't know. God, I forgot about Euro trash. I never watched it at the time, obviously, because that would have been very inappropriate. But duck got me to watch. Oh, did they did a reboot version, like one episode, some special thing, I think. Yeah, I did watch that. Well, I watched and it went back in time. Yeah, I didn't watch like it when it was airing in the 90s. Obviously. Yeah. But I did watch it in like my early, early teens late, not quite teens, because it was like re shown on late night TV. Okay, yeah, I didn't have a lot of parental supervision and watched a lot of late night TV that I probably shouldn't have watched. But so I was introduced to Euro trash quite long. Young. I'm also not going to try and explain what it is to our listeners

because they don't need to do it justice. We'll link to a clip. Yeah. It was a weird late night TV show about weird stuff and jump or go to a was in it. Lots of tits. Lots of tits. So I think that's about to say it's like a TV version of Sunday sport, but that's actually not very helpful if you're explaining it to people who aren't from the UK, which is who we would need to explain it to. So I felt like also it was a bit more weird, the Sunday sport. The idea was it was a bit subcultury and it went into like weird fetish clubs and stuff. Obviously, you didn't see anything that just makes up at stories. Yeah, the Sunday sports just a weird little tabloid full of tits that also makes up silly stories. Yeah. Yeah, there's no old culture really. Yeah. Remember, we did a Sunday

sport word search in the pub once and there was a spot difference with two topless women because Jack had run out of crosswords and that was the best someone could offer. Oh, fuck. I was about to say something. Do you remember that magazine Bizarre? I even had a subscription to that at one point. I used to buy that for my boyfriend at the time and his friends because they didn't want to be seen buying porn. Actually, I got the subscription for my networks, which is great. The boys were feeling weird about I guess it's more convincing that I would buy it for the old culture, not for the tits, which is very heteronormative. Yeah, very much. Because the magazine like ended, but I had that subscription, I didn't cancel the subscription

in time. So for like a few months, I ended up with subscription to the 40 in times. Oh, I fucking really want to get a subscription to the 40 in times. I've got a use for it now, this fucking podcast. Right. We've completely gone off the rails, though. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, my God. How did I get us to the 40 in times from your dead mother? I'm very sorry. Honestly, I was running out of things to say. I was going to start making awful jokes again. So I feel like this is a good time for a obscure reference video. Alrighty, oval titties. The quite being here that, oh, I've lost it. Oh, here we go. I was an oval teeny when I was a little boy. That was during the war. The one against the Germans. Did I ever tell you we used

to sing along with the people on the wireless? I will teeny was spelt oval, T E E N I E, which led me down the wrong path to start with, because that is a type of round sweet made of compressed oval teen. Right. Oval teen for listeners who aren't familiar, because I'm just googling where it's actually sold. I would have sold in the US as well. Okay, cool. It's like, it's like, Horlicks is a multi, multi sugar drink you mix with hot milk or whatever. So I'll say handy if you want to make like multiple milkshakes, it's basically like smart. Yeah. It's like the inside of a little teaser in a drink. Yes. But the oval tiny's spelt T I N E Y S was a league of oval tiny's was a children's club

developed in the 30s to promote the sale of oval team brand. So probably oval teeny's, I guess, again, in the United Kingdom. Founded in 35. It had it. It did have its own radio show. Um, broadcast on Sunday evenings from radio Luxembourg over the powerful long wave transmitter. And it became well known throughout the UK for its theme song. We are the oval teeny's marvelous. Yeah. Uh, received a membership badge and book and the chance to take part in competitions and other activities. There was a weekly comic too. And can I please remind everybody of around our age and older of the delight of being part of a comic subscription club where you got to be like the be no club kind of thing, you know, I never had one of those. I had a really deprived

childhood now. Like I did be no pretty religiously, but kind of like was in like the subscription club and now I'm very sad. Yeah. You did tell us earlier about how you went to the races on a Sunday. So deprived of the big strong. It was very specific deprivation, Francine. You know, you mean when you just got this gap of nostalgia, like something should be here. Yeah. Sometimes when we went to Waitrose, they didn't have the be no and I had to make do with the dandy Francine. Oh, no, that is desperate down desperate times, desperate down. Like we need to end this fucking podcast. I'm really hungry. I could eat a whole cow pie. Jesus. But in fact, I'm going to eat an oven pizza because it's

nearly half past nine and he's got time to slaughter a cow and get over your vegetarianism at this time of night. I'm going to eat leftover misaka. Nice. Yeah, I planned ahead. Right. Sorry. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the true show, make you fret where I think at some points we did discuss the book, Johnny and the dead. We definitely did. We will be back next week to talk possibly about Johnny and the bomb, possibly about some more trauma from my life. Yeah. Last week, Joanna, you promised me that this week's subject would be a bit less depressing and wide ranging the war. And so now we've done death. Are we going to go even further up the cheerful spectrum? Do I need to book in therapy in advance? That's what I'm saying. I don't want

to spoil it for you. Okay. All right. But yes, war. Okay. Again, I'm going to get that from bomb, I guess. Yeah. No. All right. And time travel. Okay. Sorry. Until next week, dear listeners, you can follow us on Instagram at the true show, make you fret on Twitter, make you fret pod on Facebook at the true show, make you fret. Join our subreddit community, our slash T T S M Y F. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, albatrosses and tachyons, the true show, make you fret pod at gmail.com. If you would like to support this bollocks financially, and why would you go to patreon.com forward slash the true show, make you fret and exchange your hard earned pennies for even more. I'll tell you where they should. I'll tell you where they should

because I'm going to go into detail about the Westminster cemetery scandal this month, which is not as exciting as I'm, as I'm saying it, it's going to be, I'm going to, I'm going to make it dynamic. It's really, it's really scandalous, guys. And if you join the castles and snacks to, you will get recipes. I have no idea what this month's recipe will be. It's just a slander. I'm leaning towards for catcher. But if you have thoughts, let me know. I like for catch recipe. Oh, and go follow us on TikTok. Francine does cool shit. And I'm bad at sharing it. Sometimes. What's our TikTok? Is it at the true show, make you fret? Probably is. Let me check. Hold on.

Yeah, no, I did a video. They've got some views on it. That was exciting. Yeah. It was really nice for a couple days there. I just got to read comments from people telling me I did a good job, which as everybody who knows me knows is basically my dream come true. Should I tell you you're doing a good job more? Do you tell me that? I try to. No, you're good. You're good. It is the true show, make you fret. Yes. Okay, good. Go there, TikTok. True show, make you fret. Follow us. And where the fuck's my book on? We're doing for a while.

Until next time, dear listener. Oh, look an advert. What shall we do now? Perfect. Well, I enjoyed that. That was fun. I don't know if any more that I should have done considering I'm not sure we... No, I think we hit the bullet points. We hit the bullet points. We hit the bullet points. We had some good chat and lots of laughs. I'm getting ashamed in the fact. We've had some fun, kids. We've had some fun, kids, but now it's time to talk about Ovaltine.