A Blink of the Screen

prevailing winds, vibrate at a frequency that causes considerable unease and ill-temper in the brains of dwarfs, trolls and men, but attempts to prove this experimentally have failed three times because of fights breaking out amongst the researchers.
    The most recent battle involved a party of young dwarfs from Ankh-Morpork, who were visiting the area as part of a cultural tour. City dwarfs feel that it is very important for their offspring to stay in touch with the roots of dwarfishness, and often send them back to Copperhead or Überwald for what is known as some ‘mine time’. On this day, unfortunately, a party of young trolls were also visiting the area for very similar reasons, and after some name-calling the two tour groups fell to fighting and gave a very spirited re-creation of the earlier battles.
    Thud
    The game of Thud was devised as an alternative to the fighting. It was considered by some older dwarfs and trolls that a non-fatal means of contest might be a boon to peace in the mountains and, besides, they were running out of people. And, in recognition of the general state of all unsuccessful fighters in the wars, it is a game of two halves.
    For according to the trollish philosopher Plateau, ‘if you wants to understan’ an enemy, you gotta walk a mile in his shoes. Den, if he’s still your enemy, at least you’re a mile away and he’s got no shoes.’
    Legend says that a large war party of dwarfs and a smaller one of trolls were hunting one another in the valley, and that on this occasion the leader of the trolls tried an artful strategy. Usually, both groups would hunt each other among the big rocks that litter the valley, but this time the troll leader positioned his company right out in the middle of a stretch of open ground, reasoning that the dwarfs would never look there.
    ‘After all,’ he is recorded as saying, ‘dey always find us when we hide behind fings ’cos dey look behind fings, so if we stands out in the open they won’t find us
’cos dere’s nuffin to look behind
.’
    This major step in trollish thinking had some success because of the heavy fog that, most unusually, had fallen that morning. However, it lifted shortly after sunrise, and the trolls were, to the confoundment of what seemed like impeccable logic, immediately spotted. Battle ensued, both sides claiming foul play on the part of the other, and both sides claiming to have won.
    The Thud game seeks to re-create this and has been credited with seriously reducing the number of major wars between dwarfs and trolls, replacing them instead with innumerable bar-room scuffles in which Thud boards, and sometimes pieces, are used as the weapons. But since this becomes merely a police matter, it counts as peace …
    1 And was called, amazingly enough,
Thud!

A FEW WORDS FROM LORD HAVELOCK VETINARI
    O N THE OCCASION OF THE TWINNING OF A NKH- M ORPORK WITH W INCANTON, 2002
    This address was written by me, Terry Pratchett, and delivered with appropriate solemnity by Stephen Briggs, who has often played the part of Lord Vetinari in amateur dramatic plays: frankly, it’s hard to get him out of the costume! A bewildered bystander, I watched the twinning, which was of course attended by many, many fans wearing strange and exotic garments, in some cases quite possibly the same garments that they wear every day – but even they were very nearly outdone by the people of Ankh-Morpork who came out dressed, as they say, ‘en fête’. It was one of those occasions when some time afterwards you wake up and think ‘Did that really happen?’ And, on enquiring, I am very glad to hear that it did
.
    My friends …
    It is with extreme pleasure that I welcome this – I believe – very first twinning between one real and one apparently unreal city. I say apparently because here in Ankh-Morpork we are taking firm steps to make it clear to our citizens that there is indeed a place called Wincanton and that it hasn’t just been made up.
    Fortunately we in Ankh-Morpork have the advantage of being the home of Unseen University, whose magical library potentially contains any book that will ever be written anywhere. And it was here, after some searching, we located
A Specially Written Guide to Wincanton
.
    We learned that it is a town noted for the extreme wisdom of its men and the unsurpassed beauty of its women, for its racecourse and for its traditional manufacture of some wondrous thing known as ‘bed ticking’. Beyond that, it would