The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

him to do.
    Currently he was trying to remove the ‘Now Wash Your Hands’ sign over a cracked basin.
    *
    And what is this ?
    ‘It is a cat. It arrived. It does not appear to wish to depart.’
    And the reason for its presence?
    ‘It appears to tolerate the company of humans, asking nothing in return but food, water, shelter and comfort.’
    *
    ‘Look at the bird.’
    It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a birdhouse.
    ‘Looks like some kind of old box to me,’ said Lobsang. He squinted to see better. ‘Is it an old … clock?’ he added.
    ‘Look at what the bird is nibbling,’ suggested Lu-Tze.
    ‘Well, it looks like … a crude gearwheel? But why—’
    ‘Well spotted. That, lad, is a clock cuckoo. A young one, by the look of it, trying to build a nest that’ll attract a mate. Not much chance of that … See? It’s got the numerals all wrong and it’s stuck the hands on crooked.’
    ‘A bird that builds clocks? I thought a cuckoo clock was a clock with a mechanical cuckoo that came out when—’
    ‘And where do you think people got such a strange idea from?’
    ‘But that’s some kind of miracle!’
    ‘Why?’ said Lu-Tze. ‘They barely go for more than half an hour, they keep lousy time and the poor dumb males go frantic trying to keep them wound.’
    *
    Of the very worst words that can be heard by anyone high in the air, the pair known as ‘Oh-oh’ possibly combine the maximum of bowel-knotting terror with the minimum wastage of breath.
    *
    ‘We’re having rabbit,’ Mrs War said. ‘I’m sure I can make it stretch to three.’
    War’s big red face wrinkled. ‘Do I like rabbit?’
    ‘Yes, dear.’
    ‘I thought I liked beef.’
    ‘No, dear. Beef gives you wind.’
    ‘Oh.’ War sighed. ‘Any chance of onions?’
    ‘You don’t like onions, dear.’
    ‘I don’t?’
    ‘Because of your stomach, dear.’
    ‘Oh.’
    War smiled awkwardly at Death. ‘It’s rabbit,’ he said.
    Despite himself, Death was fascinated. He had never come across the idea of keeping your memory inside someone else’s head.
    ‘Perhaps I would like a beer?’ War ventured.
    ‘You don’t like beer, dear.’
    ‘I don’t?’
    ‘No, it brings on your trouble.’
    ‘Ah. Uh, how do I feel about brandy?’
    ‘You don’t like brandy, dear. You like your special oat drink with the vitamins.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said War mournfully. ‘I’d forgotten I liked that.’
    *
    ‘The poet Hoha once dreamed he was a butterfly, and then he awoke and said, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?”‘ said Lobsang.
    ‘Really?’ said Susan briskly. ‘And which was he?’
    ‘What? Well … who knows?’
    ‘How did he write his poems?’ said Susan.
    ‘With a brush, of course.’
    ‘He didn’t flap around making information-rich patterns in the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?’
    ‘No one ever mentioned it.’
    ‘Then he was probably a man.’

    Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football.

    Ankh-Morpork had not had a king for many centuries, but palaces tend to survive. A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed the Glorious Memorial to the People’s Industry.
    *
    Wienrich and Boettcher were foreigners, and according to Ankh-Morpork’s Guild of Confectioners they did not understand the peculiarities of the city’s tastebuds.
    Ankh-Morpork people, said the Guild, were hearty, no-nonsense folk who did not want chocolate that was stuffed with cocoa liquor, and were certainly not like effete la-di-dah foreigners who wanted cream in everything. In fact they actually preferred chocolate made mostly from milk, sugar, suet, hooves, lips, miscellaneous squeezings, rat droppings, plaster, flies, tallow, bits of tree, hair, lint, spiders and powdered cocoa husks. This meant that according to the food standards of the great chocolate centres in Borogravia and Quirm, Ankh-Morpork chocolate was formally classed as ‘cheese’ and only escaped, through being the wrong colour, being defined as ‘tile grout’.
    *
    The Quirm College for Young Ladies had been very advanced in that respect, and its teachers took the view that a girl who couldn’t swim two lengths of the pool with her clothes on wasn’t making an effort.

    Her one chocolate today and it was damn artificial