Terry Pratchett diagnosed with Alzheimers

[Primula Baggins]

Frelga is just so darn handy to have around.

[WampusCat]

She saves the rest of us a lot of typing (and thinking)

[Frelga]

OK, that's it. Next time, I'm staying out of it and let someone else reply.

[Primula Baggins]

[WampusCat]

[Teremia]

Just read WYRD SISTERS -- now, that's very early, isn't it? Has a zanier, lighter feel to it (having just read WINTERSMITH, the more recent versions of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are very vivid in my mind). And perhaps a bit too many Shakespeare jokes. I enjoyed it, but not as much as, say, the Tiffany Aching books or HOGFATHER.

[Inanna]

I quite like "Wyrd Sisters" - I loved the Hamlet theme, and the whole 'power' of words. Granny is pretty much like herself, isn't she? How did you find her different?

[Frelga]

Here's something sure to amuse: A Guards! Guards! trailer made as a first year animation project. It's pretty --ing impressive, even if the voices aren't the greatest by the author's own admission.

Spoiler level typical of trailers.

Watch on YouTube

Oh. For the non-Pratchett reading mods: --ing is a reference to a character in Truh, who goes around saying --ing all the time. It's not short for anything, it's just a velar nasal sound.

[Inanna]

You mean Truth

[Frelga]

Er... right.

[WampusCat]

That's amusing, Frelga. Vimes isn't at all how I imagined him but the rest are passable, for this level of animation. And the trailer-maker chose some great quotes to highlight.

[Primula Baggins]

Oh. For the non-Pratchett reading mods: --ing is a reference to a character in Truh, who goes around saying --ing all the time. It's not short for anything, it's just a velar nasal sound.

Darnie-poohs! She's too fast for us, Voronwë.

I'll put away the thumbscrews. Again. <heavy sigh>

[Inanna]

Oh. For the non-Pratchett reading mods: --ing is a reference to a character in Truh, who goes around saying --ing all the time. It's not short for anything, it's just a velar nasal sound.

How did you figure that out? I thought it was a short form, and that Pratchett was poking his stick at the "beep" censor sounds on TV, Radio etc.

Psst... Prim, I don't think her case is watertight. Get out the thumbscrews

[Primula Baggins]

Put 'em away, get 'em out, put 'em away, get 'em out. . . .

There's all these little tiny pieces, and when I go for the Phillips head jeweler's screwdriver set that should be in the credenza, someone <looks around menacingly> has always taken the entire box. . . .

[Frelga]

Oh. For the non-Pratchett reading mods: --ing is a reference to a character in Truh, who goes around saying --ing all the time. It's not short for anything, it's just a velar nasal sound.

How did you figure that out? I thought it was a short form, and that Pratchett was poking his stick at the "beep" censor sounds on TV, Radio etc.

Sacharissa says something to the tune of "He was saying "Ing" all the time, and I am sure he meant something naughty," and toward the end of the book she goes all "Ing! Ing! Ing!"

Also Terry was talking about a theatrical production of The Truth and how Mr. Tulip was talking in what sounded like a version of Zulu clicking language.

What Phillips head jeweler's screwdriver set? I didn't see no Phillips head jeweler's screwdriver set.

[Primula Baggins]

<goes off to find something to punt>

[Aravar]

I've just started the latest opus Unseen Academicals. Its set in Ankh Morpork, and it's about football. I'm about a quarter of the way through and its shaping up nicely: lots of new characters, but with a number of old ones too.

[Frelga]

An interview with Pterry in New Scientist


On Unseen Academicals:

Pratchett's latest book, Unseen Academicals - an addition to the Discworld series - was prompted by his fans who suggested he write a book about football. "Football is there to carry the plot," says Pratchett, but the book itself is about his crab bucket theory. The idea, he explains, is that football evolved during the industrial revolution, when people converged on cities from the countryside. "The old certainties back home had gone, they had nothing in common apart from their poverty but they formed a clan by supporting the same football team." And crab bucket? Because crabs don't often escape from traps: "Self-made ghettoes are hard to get out of."

On environment:

"I think we're doomed," he pronounces, "because politicians think in five years at a time. Every time I remember that we live on a planet, it scares the shit out of me, because they're such dangerous things to live on: two miles down there you burn, two miles up there you freeze. It's so delicate." Pratchett says he's always recycled and still grows his own veg, evidenced by the marrows as big as space ships and the Halloween-esque squash that litter the garden.

On death:

He prefers the term "assisted death" to "assisted suicide" because of the negative implications of suicide. "The current situation suits no one. It's like a nun giving you a sex lesson," he says. "They don't want you to do it."

[Inanna]

I didn't even know a new book is out! Where are my border rewards coupons....

[Inanna]

For Terry Pratchett:

Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthusiastic amateur who'd never looked at a real sunset. This was one of those sunrises. It was the kind of sunrise a man looks at and says, 'No real sunrise could paint the sky Surgical Appliance Pink.'
- Terry Pratchett in Thief of Time.

Well, this was a sunset outside my window... but it fit Pratchett's quote so well.