The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

educated,’ she informed it with icy precision, ‘by some of the finest scholars in the land.’
    The doorknocker did not appear to be impressed.
    ‘Iff they didn’t teach you the magic word,’ it said calmly, ‘they couldn’t haff fbeen all that fine.’
    Keli reached out, grabbed the heavy ring, and pounded it on the door. The knocker leered at her.
    ‘Ftreat me rough,’ it lisped. ‘That’f the way I like it!’
    ‘You’re disgusting!’
    ‘Yeff. Ooo, that waff nife, do it again …’
    The door opened a crack. There was a shadowy glimpse of curly hair.
    ‘Madam, I said we’re cl—’
    Keli sagged.
    ‘Please help me,’ she said. ‘Please!’
    ‘See?’ said the doorknocker triumphantly. ‘Sooner or later everyone remembers the magic word!’
    *
    ‘The first thing you learn when you enroll at Unseen University, I’m afraid, is that people don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. It’s what their minds tell them that’s important.’ …
    ‘Actually it’s not the first thing you learn when you enroll,’ he added. ‘I mean, you learn where the lavatories are and all that sort of thing before that. But after all that, it’s the first thing.’
    *
    Keli drummed her fingers on the table, or tried to. It turned out to be difficult. She stared down in vague horror.
    Cutwell hurried forward and wiped the table with his sleeve.
    ‘Sorry’ he muttered, T had treacle sandwiches for supper last night.’
    *
    You can tell from the following exchange that these two are made for each other.
    ‘I don’t want to get married to anyone yet,’ Mort added. ‘And certainly not to you, no offence meant.’
    ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on the Disc,’ Ysabell said sweetly.
    At least I don’t look like I’ve been eating doughnuts in a wardrobe for years,’ he said, as they stepped out on to Death’s black lawn.
    At least I walk as if my legs only had one knee each,’ she said.
    ‘My eyes aren’t two juugly poached eggs.’
    Ysabell nodded. ‘On the other hand, my ears don’t look like something growing on a dead tree. What does juugly mean?’
    ‘You know, eggs like Albert does them.’
    ‘With the white all sticky and runny and full of slimy bits?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘A good word,’ she conceded thoughtfully. ‘But my hair, I put it to you, doesn’t look like something you clean a privy with.’
    ‘Certainly but neither does mine look like a wet hedgehog.’
    ‘Pray note that my chest does not appear to be a toast rack in a wet paper bag.’
    Mort glanced sideways at the top of Ysabell’s dress, which contained enough puppy fat for two litters of Rottweilers, and forbore to comment.
    ‘My eyebrows don’t look like a pair of mating caterpillars,’ he hazarded.
    ‘True. But my legs, I suggest, could at least stop a pig in a passageway’
    ‘Sorry—?’
    ‘They’re not bandy’ she explained.
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘Enough?’ she said.
    ‘Just about.’
    ‘Good. Obviously we shouldn’t get married, if only for the sake of the children.’
    *
    History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It’s been around a long time.

    ‘Would you like a strawberry?’
    Mort glanced at the small wooden punnet in the wizard’s hands.
    ‘In mid-winter?’
    ‘Actually they’re sprouts with a dash of enchantment.’
    ‘They taste like strawberries?’
    Cutwell sighed. ‘No, like sprouts.’

    ‘I shall die nobly, like Queen Ezeriel,’ [said Keli.]
    Mort’s forehead wrinkled. History was a closed book to him.
    ‘Who’s she?’
    ‘She lived in Klatch and she had a lot of lovers and she sat on a snake,’ said Cutwell.
    ‘She meant to! She was crossed in love!’
    ‘All I can remember was that she used to take baths in asses’ milk. Funny thing, history,’ said Cutwell reflectively. ‘You become a queen,reign for thirty years, make laws, declare war on people and then the only thing you get remembered for is that you smelled like yoghurt and were bitten in the—’
    *
    The most famous inn on Discworld used to be called the Broken Drum (Broken Drum -You Can’t Beat It!). Renamed after a