The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

still be honouring us with the capping-out ceremony? There’s drinks,’ Ptaclusp stuttered. ‘And a silver trowel that you can take away with you. Everyone shouts hurrah and throws their hats in the air.’
    ‘Certainly’ said Dios. ‘It will be an honour.’
    ‘And for us too, your sire,’ said Ptaclusp loyally.
    ‘I meant for you,’ said the high priest.
    *
    Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and orientated, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow.
    The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly built pyramid was to achieve absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would indeed live forever - or at least, never actually die. The time that should have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyramid and allowed to flare off once every twenty-four hours.
    After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by a) ritual b) pickling people and c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
    This seldom works.

    He … liked my singing. Everyone else said it sounded like a flock of vultures who’ve just found a dead donkey.

    He knew about tortoises. They could be called a lot of things - vegetarians, patient, thoughtful, even extremely diligent and persistent sex-maniacs -but never, up until now, fast. Fast was a word particularly associated with tortoises because they were not it.
    *
    The fastest insect is the .303 bookworm. It evolved in magical libraries, where it is necessary to eat extremely quickly to avoid being affected by the thaumic radiations. An adult .303 bookworm can eat through a shelf of books so fast that it ricochets off the wall.
    *
    Kings who hadn’t got a kingdom any more were not likely to be very popular in neighbouring countries. There had been one or two like that in Ankh-Morpork - deposed royalty, who had fled their suddenly dangerous kingdoms … carrying nothing but the clothes they stood up in and a few wagonloads of jewels. The city, of course, welcomed anyone -regardless of race, colour, class or creed - who had spending money in incredible amounts, but nevertheless the inhumation of surplus monarchs was a regular source of work for the Assassins’ Guild. There was always someone back home who wanted to be certain that deposed monarchs stayed that way. It was usually a case of heir today, gone tomorrow.

    The Ephebians made wine out of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate anything that couldn’t climb out of one.
    He pushed the food around on his plate. Some of it pushed back.

    ‘The diameter divides into the circumference, you know. It ought to be three times. But does it? No. Three point one four one and lots of other figures. There’s no end to the buggers … It tells me that the Creator used the wrong kind of circles.’
    *
    Someone was just putting a torch to the lighthouse, which was one of the More Than Seven Wonders of the World and had been built to a design by Pthagonal using the Golden Rule and the Five Aesthetic Principles. Unfortunately it had then been built in the wrong place because putting it in the right place would have spoiled the look of the harbour, but it was generally agreed by mariners to be a very beautiful lighthouse and something to look at while they were waiting to be towed off the rocks.
    *
    Ptraci didn’t just derail the train of thought, she ripped up the rails, burned the stations and melted the bridges for scrap.
    *
    It was another nice day in the high desert. It was always a nice day, if by nice you meant an air temperature like an oven and sand you could roast chestnuts on.
    *
    It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than theclassical four. Scientists say that these don’t normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.
    *
    Teppic takes a novel approach to the age-old Riddle of the Sphinx:
    ‘What goes on four legs in the