Turtle Recall Part 15

Very little is known about Bouncy Normo. He seldom spoke. Shortly after his arrival in Ankh-Morpork he was given sanctuary in the Guild because no other premises in the city would allow him across the threshold.

There are people with perfect pitch, people with absolute rhythm, and even people with green fingers. Bouncy Normo had two strange talents. He had no sense of humour at all, and he was a natural funny man. A really funny man.

Official public performances were banned when three people died laughing, even though Normo was standing with his back to the stage and did not utter a word. People would go purple and roll on the floor even while watching him shave.

Everything Bouncy Normo did was dangerously hilarious. Eventually Doctor Whiteface insisted that he wear a bag over his head but this, strangely enough, only made things worse; people would collapse with laughter at the thought of Normo being so funny under there.

Eventually, after leaving a short note which contained his unwitting catchphrase 'What is everyone laughing about?', Bouncy Normo leapt to his death from the top of the House of Mirth. He landed on the marquee over the custard pie b.u.t.ts, rebounded onto the trampoline used for Amusing Trouser practice, thence onto a seesaw being erected by The Three Incompetent Acrobats, was flipped through a window on the second floor, landed on a trolley laden with pastries which rolled down the stairs and out through the main doors, and was trampled to death by an escaped elephant. Seven people who witnessed this had to be treated for various self-inflicted traumas caused by laughing too much.

Bouncy Normo was a model clown. He told no illicit jokes, he kept his bed s.p.a.ce scrupulously clean, and he would certainly have made friends if anyone had been able to stop laughing long enough to talk to him.

In his memory, the library of clowning, with its unrivalled collection of books on jokes, j.a.pes and routine, was renamed after him and a statue of Bouncy Normo was erected over his door. To honour the memory of a true clown's clown, all the library steps were replaced by trampolines. Visitors should not miss the library during revision period, but should wear protective clothing.

AN OUTLINE OF FOOLERY.

The Guild uses the term 'fool' to apply to all members, even though their chosen field may be clowning or juggling. Newcomers to the Guild, of any age, are expected to work alongside more experienced Fools and will then progress, provided they are not foolish, through the various early grades of Muggins, Gull, Dupe and b.u.t.t within the first few years. It takes about five years to become a Fool, but it is then that the enthusiastic student will realise, even as his trousers fill with the official whitewash, that he is but setting foot on the very bottom rung of Foolishness. The senior ranks of Tomfool, Stupid Fool and Arch Fool beckon, and in the fullness of time he may even strive to become a Complete Fool.

The Guild does not admit women. It has been proved that women have no sense of humour whatsoever.

A HISTORY OF THE FOOLS' GUILD.

It was in fact Monsieur Jean-Paul Pune who founded the Guild in 1567, when he came to Ankh-Morpork from Quirm in search of people with a better sense of humour who didn't keep trying to drown him. It is quite probable that, before he gave his name to the cla.s.sic 'play on words', people had already made crude, rural attempts in that direction, but Pune was the first to explore and codify the 'pun' in his work Essay on a Form of Wit, in which he spent 160,000 words defining the Five Great cla.s.ses and seventy-three subcla.s.ses of pun. Pune was the first man to perfect the art of p.r.o.nouncing brackets, an invaluable aid to the punster faced with an audience lacking in intellect, as in 'Q. When is a door not a door? A. When it is ajar (a jar)', one of his early puns for which he was tarred and feathered and left for dead.

There was already an ancient tradition on Foolery, of course. The first fools, according to earliest historical records, were actually skilled warriors who rode alongside the king and fought bravely and Foolishly, hacking their way through the melee with comments like 'Aha, you need to get ahead (a head)!' and so on. They were also confidants and advisers, whose role was tell the king things that he really needed to know, such as the fact that he ought to be taking more baths at this time or year and perhaps he should adjust his chain mail.12 Ankh-Morpork already had fools, too. The King had a fool, Will Centunculus, a man recognised throughout the city as someone to avoid. Most city n.o.bles also had fools, imported from Quirm Societe Joyeux, La Sorb.u.mme (another slightly more sophisticated offering from M. Pune) and in fact there was already a loose a.s.sociation of fools extending throughout the Sto Plains and along the Ramtops.

M. Pune was a wealthy man. He felt that humour needed to be taken very seriously and he chose for his new school the recently vacated monastery (as already mentioned) which did not seem to be attracting new occupants despite being such a prime site.

The a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD next door had just acquired its Guild status. He immediately saw the status value of this and applied to the city's elders for his as yet non-existent school also to be granted Guild status.

Curiously enough, they concurred and the Guild of Fools, Joculators, Minstrels, Buffoons and Mime Artists was created before the first student had been enrolled.

Over the years the Guild's influence of all sorts of foolery is such that there soon were very few fools in civilised countries who were not graduates. It has been suggested that the new Guild became nothing more than a vast spy network, sending back to the House of Mirth snippets of political information which were used by the guild council to become enormously rich.

We must make it CLEAR that the Guild's vast wealth accrues from PROWESS WITH THE CUSTARD PIE, CAREFUL CONTROL OVER EXPENDITURE and other Foolish activities. Dr Whiteface is no more than a hard-working administrator, and certainly NOT the cruel and devious international manipulator that UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMOUR makes him out to be. Anyone suggesting otherwise can expect a visit from the Jolly Good Pals in VERY SHORT ORDER.

M. Pune toured the Discworld to recruit the most experienced Fools, Jesters, Idiots and other specialists to tutor his new Guild. He wanted the Guild run on very austere lines, with students having to work from dawn to dusk.

He promised a regime of cold baths, hard wooden beds, self-flagellation, awful food and hours spent meticulously copying the ma.n.u.scripts containing the true basis of humour, punning, pratfalls and the full paraphernalia of stomach-churningly embarra.s.sing humour. This brought to the school a collection of fooldom's bizarrest outsiders, misfits, s.a.d.i.s.ts and sociopaths. In the early years, most students succ.u.mbed to malnutrition, exposure or poisoned book pages. The recruitment and selection of staff is still carried out to M. Pune's specification a grand tradition which has been upheld to this day, although with Lord Vetinari's imposed health and safety guidelines, far more students now survive to graduate. Those who graduate in mime, however, generally don't last long after going down. In the early days, students were recruited from those who had failed to get entry to any of the city's other schools, colleges and Guilds. Although the FOOLS' GUILD offered, and still offers, a high standard of general education, having a child who is to qualify as a bit of a prat still carries a certain social stigma and it is only very strange parents and, of course, Fools who send their children to the Guild.

Nevertheless, most of the Disc's fools, jesters, minstrels, idiots and mimes herald from Ankh-Morpork's Guild. Indeed, in 1788, it bought out La Sorb.u.mme and now runs that as a summer school.

The Guild holds a strange position in city society. Most of the city's wealthy and n.o.ble now avoid contact with the Guild and its officers, but, because of the enormous donations made by M. Pune, the Guild retains a high status on the City Council, though Doctor Whiteface tends to be treated like the leader of a political party that will never get to form a government.

THE JOLLY GOOD PALS (THE b.l.o.o.d.y FOOLS).

Comedy requires discipline, and discipline is the discipline of the Jolly Good Pals, the Guild's enforcers, who are universally known by their nickname of The b.l.o.o.d.y Fools.

Not so long ago they would be required to police fooldom in vigilant search for tellers of unregistered jokes, lack of prescribed honking and unlicensed foolery of all kinds. Since they were often a long way from the Guild their response had to be swift and memorable, which it certainly was in the case of the Cement Down the Trousers, the 'Custard' Pie and, of course, the Seesaw of Jolly j.a.pes. Very few clowns ever got on that a second time.

Captain Billy 'Clapstick Jack' Nodger and his men patrol the Guild buildings and major places of entertainment and will deal with transgressions in immediate and (to bystanders at least) amusing ways.

A FOOL'S DAY.

When the Guild was first set up, a Fool's life was a very hard one. A typical summer regime was: 1.30am Rise 2.00am Nocturnal Jocularity (pillow fights, 'apple pie' beds, buckets over doors) 3.30am Puns 5.30am Breaking of Wind 6.00am Lectio (Recital of the Known Jokes)

Chapter Meeting.

Specialist work and lectures 8.00am Locus Publicus (Public Joking, in the quadrangle) Reading 11.30am Crusta et Bracae Laxae (slapstick humour, lit.: pies & loose trousers) Dinner Rest 2.30am Vesicae et Tintinnabulae (bladders & bells) The Merry Jests Supper 6.00pm Liber Caerulus (Jokes for Adults) The Eighteen Pratfalls 8.00pm Comploratus (wailing and honking) 8.15pm Retire to Bed However, the Guild has moved with the times. Merry jests are no longer compulsory, and clowns may go for a walk instead. Breaking of wind is allowable at any time. Nor are the rising and retiring times so rigid. Indeed, in the summer, students are often still copying out the Great Approved Jokes into their exercise books until well after nine in the evening and in winter the day's programme doesn't usually start until well after 5.30am.

SLOSHI THE FOOL'S MARTIAL ART.

Even a cursory glance at a clowning routine will reveal the carefully moderated insane violence underneath it, and Sloshi is, in a nutsh.e.l.l, clowning without the moderation.

It had its origins in the travelling clowning companies of uberwald, where competing troupes would duel for the choicer sites. Eventually this became formalised amongst student clowns in the mountain areas around Muning, where the scars of a sloshi fighter were worn with pride (only in very informal company, however, since sloshi garb involved protective padding everywhere but the b.u.t.tocks; showing the proud scars of battle became known, after the area, as 'muning'.) This was a highly stylised form of sloshi, making much use of the slapstick and pie, but battle sloshi is a different matter. Several Guild battalions have taken part in the defence of Ankh-Morpork during past wars, reaping a terrible revenge on enemies who literally died laughing. Indeed, the Guild Hall of Fame records that Uncle Bootsie, a sloshi master of the Seventh Nose, despatched seventeen Pseudopolitan mercenaries in one melee using nothing more than a ladder and two buckets of common wallpaper paste. In addition, forty-one mercenaries who witnessed the act were overpowered by the rest of the battalion while helpless with laughter.

It is strange but instructive to contrast the Guild with the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD next door. One is a pleasant, airy building, whose corridors echo with the laughter of students and hum with the quiet activity of people working hard in a job they love the other is gaunt, forbidding and silent except for the occasional m.u.f.fled sob. One leaves its gates open most of the time and its graduates are considered to brighten up any party the other operates its wretched craft behind locked doors and its members are regarded with disdain by right-thinking people. One turns out people who, admittedly, must in the course of their duties sometimes stab, poison or otherwise inhume their patients, but at least they never ask them to believe that pouring whitewash down someone's trousers is funny.

Forest of Skund. Enchanted forest Rimwards of the RAMTOPS. The only forest in the entire universe to be called 'Your finger, you fool', the literal meaning of the word Skund. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the CIRCLE SEA travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank s.p.a.ces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just a Mountain and I Don't Know, What? This is known as the 'surly native' technique of map-making. [LF]

Fox, Ca.s.sandra. Pupil at the Quirm College for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. A rather horsey gel. [SM} Frank, Mister. Card sharp on the Vieux River riverboats, until he played Cripple Mr Onion against Granny Weatherwax. [WA]

Fresh Start Club. Motto: UNDEAD, YES UNPERSON, NO. A club for those who are having difficulty in relating to being undead, founded by Reg SHOE, a zombie; it meets at 668 Elm Street, Ankh-Morpork, on the first floor, above a tailor's shop. The entrance to the club was via an alleyway, at the end of which is a wooden door with a notice saying: 'Come In! Come In! The Fresh Start Club. Being Dead is only the Beginning!!!' Club slogans, all devised by Reg, include: 'Dead Yes! Gone No!', 'Spooks of the World Arise, You Have Nothing to Lose but your Chains', 'The Silent Majority want Dead Rights' and 'End Vitalism Now!' A sad place. Most of its members were embarra.s.sed by the whole business but kept coming along so as not to upset Reg; the club is his whole life. As it were. Now that Reg has enthusiastically embraced a new life as it were in the WATCH, it is not known whether the Club is still in existence. [RM]

Fresnel's Wonderful Concentrator. Spell used to create the flying lens on which RINCEWIND and TWOFLOWER are taken to KRULL. The spell calls for many rare and unstable ingredients, such as demon's breath, and it takes eight fourth-grade wizards to envision. The lens itself is 20 feet across and totally transparent, with rings on to which pa.s.sengers and the twenty-four HYDROPHOBES strap themselves, and a stubby pillar dead centre. [COM]

Fri'it, General Iam. Officer who ran most of the Omnian Divine Legion. He clicked his knuckles when worried, which was often. History remembers him as a fairly honest soldier who fell among priests and politicians. [SG]

Froc, General. Borogravian Army. Handsome, with a fine head of white hair and a scar down one side of his face, which just missed an eye and shows up clearly against the wrinkles. The General had the Froc coat and the Beef Froc named after him. Known, to some close friends, as Mildred. [MR]

Frog Pills, Dried. The wizards of UU are right at the forefront of modern medical thinking, and make up these for the current Bursar, who is mentally as stable as a tapdancer in a ballbearing factory.

Frord, Grisham. Leader of the Grisham Frord Close Harmony Singers, a cappella a.s.sa.s.sins and crack enforcers for the MUSICIANS' GUILD. [SM]

Frottidge, Violet. One of DIAMANDA'S coven in LANCRE. (See also MAGENTA.) [LL]

Frout, Madam. Headmistress of the Frout Academy in Esoteric Street, Ankh-Morpork. and pioneer of the Frout Method of Learning Through Fun. Miss Frout, with her spectacles on a string around her neck, is not by any means a bad person and she is quite kind to children, in a haphazard way. However, she is rather silly and not a very good disciplinarian, which is a source of conflict with one of her teachers, Susan STO HELIT, who isn't and is. She had once been a good, if rather shy, teacher. [TOT]

Fruni. Prophet of the Omnian religion. [SG]

Fruntkin. Dwarf who worked as a short-order chef in Nodar Borgle the Klatchian's canteen in Holy Wood. [MP]

Fullomyth. An invaluable aid for all those whose business is with the arcane and hermetic. It contains lots of things that don't exist and, in a very significant way, aren't important. Some of its pages can be read only after midnight, or by strange and improbable illuminations. There are descriptions of underground constellations and wines as yet unfermented (see RE-ANNUAL PLANTS). For the really up-to-the-epoch occultist, who can afford the version bound in spider skin, there is even an insert showing the London Underground with three stations they never dare show on public maps. [S]

Furgle. Dwarf owner of a horn which sounded itself when danger was near, and also in the presence of, for some reason, horseradish. [SM]

Fusspot, Mr. A small, waddly, ugly dog with soulful eyes and a yappy bark, once owned by Topsy LAVISH. He reminds people of those goldfish with huge bulging eyes that look as if they are about to explode. Its nose looked stoved in, it wheezes, and its legs are so bandy that it must sometimes trip over its own feet. Mrs Lavish left Mr Fusspot shares in the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork. She then left the dog himself to Moist VON LIPWIG. Mr Fusspot was last seen in the company of Lord Vetinari. [MM]

Gaiter Family. Family for whom Susan STO HELIT worked as governess. Mr Gaiter was very successful in the wholesale boot and shoe business; Mrs Gaiter read books on etiquette and worried about whether a serviette should be called a napkin, especially since her husband persisted in not using either. Their children were Twyla and Gawain, which shows the damage that can be done when untrained people are let loose with a book of baby names. [H]

Galena. A troll who worked in the clicks in HOLY WOOD. His screen name was Rock Cliffe, although he had been considering calling himself Flint and having a cement nose-job. (In MAA, a Flint was working in the armoury and later joined the WATCH, but there are not a great many troll names and it might well be a different Flint.) Galena has pointed ears, a nose which looks like Neanderthal Man's first attempt at an axe, and a fist the size and hardness of a foundation stone. [MP, MAA]

Gamblers' Guild. Motto: EXCRETVS EX FORTVNA. (Loosely speaking: 'Really Out of Luck'.) Coat of arms: A shield, gyronny. On its panels, turnwise from upper sinister: a sabre or on a field sable; an octagon gules et argent on a field azure; a tortue vert on a field sable; an 'A' couronnee on a field argent; a sceptre d'or on a field sable, a calice or on a field azure; a piece argent on a field gules; an elephant gris on a field argent.

The arms represent the eight suits of the cla.s.sic Ankh-Morpork pack of cards.

The Guildhouse is in the Street of Alchemists. Current President (chosen by the draw of a card) is s.c.r.o.t.e Jones.

Guild membership is small, because it is restricted to professional gamblers. The Guild mainly exists to enforce rules about marked cards, loaded dice, shaved billiard b.a.l.l.s and so on. Note that it does not ban them, it merely regularises the size of marks and weight of dice and closeness of shave. (Since all professional gamblers use these items a game between any two of them means that they are cancelled out and the contest becomes, perforce, a matter of skill and luck.) The Guild also very strictly controls the amount of money a member may take from a non-member (a 'mark') in any game; in the words of s.c.r.o.t.e Jones, 'If you want to make money out of keeping sheep you don't rip their hides off all in one go.' There are plenty of customers in Ankh-Morpork, where the basic gambling survival rules appear to be unknown. (Never play Find the Lady, play cards against anyone named after a city, or gamble in any game against anyone called Doc.) Games. Disc games include: Aargrooha. Troll game, played with obsidian boots and a human head. Not played any more, of course, except in remote mountain regions. [SM]

Aqueduct (or is it Fishing Line/Weir/Dam?) Rules include mention of trumps, ruffs, trump return, trump lead, contract, psychic bids, rebiddable suit, double finesse, grand slam and rubbers. [LF]

BARBARIAN INVADERS.

Chase My Neighbour Up the Pa.s.sage. Details have never been given, but it appears to be a simple game like Old Maid or Happy Families. [WA, W]

c.r.a.ps. Dice game played with three eight-sided dice, and probably similar in general rules and terminology to our c.r.a.ps, although since it is played on the cobbles of Ankh-Morpork the name may have a rather more honest origin. [M]

CRIPPLE MR ONION.

Crockett [SN]

Darts. Effectively the standard British game, although the Ankh-Morpork rules specifically ban leaning out over the oche and hammering the darts in with your fingertip while exclaiming 'Ook!' [RM]

Dead Rat Conkers [T!} Exclusive Possession. Game once played by Death instead of the symbolic chess game. Reference is made to another player getting 'three streets and all the utilities'. One of the playing pieces is a boot. We can only guess at what the board looks like . . . [RM]

Floods and Droughts (played only by G.o.ds) [IT]

Foot-the-Ball (Poor Boys' Funne) [UA]

Grandmother's Footsteps [H]

Hooray Jolly Tinker [H]

Jikan no Muda. Game of a square filled with a lot of smaller squares, some of them containing numbers. Reproduced in the Ankh-Morpork Times. [MM]

Mad Kings (another G.o.d game) [IT]

Mighty Empires (yet another G.o.d game) [IT]

Pond. Game played on a table with holes and nets around the edge and, in rural areas, b.a.l.l.s carved expertly out of wood. [RM]

Saddle Pork [SN]

Shibo Yangcong-san (Learned readers, and are there any other, will instantly recognise this appears to be the Agatean of Cripple Mr Onion.) [IT]

Significant Quest. Very popular among G.o.ds, demi-G.o.ds, demons and other supernatural creatures. [S]

Star-Crossed Lovers (these G.o.ds certainly like to play games!) [IT]

Thud!

Tiddley Rats [T!]

t.u.r.d Races (Poo Sticks) [T!]

Wallgame. Played at the a.s.sa.s.sINS' GUILD, usually two or three storeys above street level. [P]

Gancia. Leader of the gang of mercenaries led by Herrena on their mission to capture Rincewind for Ymper TRYMON. A fairly long explanatory note for someone whose job was, basically, to die at the right time. [LF]

Gander, Adab. Trail boss of the caravanserai which transported ESK from Zemphis to Ankh-Morpork. An impressive figure in a trollhide jerkin, rakishly floppy hat and leather kilt. Trollhide as a type of very hard-wearing leather in fact, a flexible type of stone is certainly not politically correct wear in Ankh-Morpork these days. Or a survival suit, if it comes to that. [ER]

Gargoyles. An urban species of troll, which has evolved a symbiotic relationship with gutters, funnelling run-off water into their ears and out through fine sieves in their mouths. This means their mouths can never fully close and their speech is only intelligible to a trained ear. Gargoyles often spend years without moving from one spot and do not have names so much as locations or descriptions (see CORNICE OVERLOOKING BROADWAY). When they do move it is in a jerky fashion, like bad stop-motion photography. Few birds nest on buildings colonised by gargoyles, and bats also tend to fly around them.

Garhartra. Guestmaster of Krull. His job is to make sacrificial victims feel comfortable, at least up to the point just before they are sacrificed. A wizard, with a cracked yet cheerful voice. [COM]

Garlick, Magrat. A witch in LANCRE. The youngest member (comparatively speaking) of the coven that Granny Weatherwax swears she has not got. Magrat had a cottage in Mad Stoat, but she now lives in LANCRE CASTLE, as Queen to VERENCE II, after a romance which was always on the point of foundering because the princ.i.p.als were invariably too embarra.s.sed to speak to each other. They must have said something, however, since now they have produced an heir the Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling (don't ask). In becoming Queen, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax both feel she has settled for second prize.

Magrat is the daughter of Simplicity Garlick, now deceased. Her grandmother was Araminta Garlick, and her aunt Yolande Garlick. None of her relations was a witch, which is unusual. Although by tradition witches do not train their relations, witchcraft tends to run in families. Magrat is an original. Her unusual name is down to a misunderstanding over the spelling at her naming ceremony, presided over by Brother Perdore; her own daughter's unusual name just goes to show that, despite everyone's best efforts, things tend to keep on going wrong.

Magrat was selected and trained by Goodie WHEMPER, a methodical and sympathetic witch with a rather greater regard for the written word than is common among the Lancre witches. Goodie was a research witch; she may have had some long-term aim in mind.

In a certain light, and from a carefully chosen angle, Magrat Garlick is not unattractive. Despite her tendency to squint when she's thinking, and her pointy nose, red from too much blowing. She is short, thin, decently plain, well scrubbed and has the watery-eyed expression of hopeless goodwill wedged between a body like a maypole and hair like a haystack after a gale. No matter what she does to that hair, it takes about three minutes to tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe left in a shed. She likes to wind flowers in it, because she thinks this is romantic. In some other kind of hair it might be.

Magrat has an open mind. It is as open as a field, as open as the sky. No mind could be more open without special surgical implements. As a result, it fills up with all sorts of things. For example, Magrat is one of those people who firmly believe that wisdom is wiser if it comes from a long way away (see WISDOM). A lot of what she believes in has the word 'folk' in it somewhere (folk wisdom, folk dance, folk song, folk medicine), as if 'folk' were other than the mundane people she sees every day. She plays a guitar badly and sings wobbly folk songs with her eyes shut in a way that suggests she really believes them. She thinks it would be nice if people could just be a bit kinder.

She is a relentless doer of good works, whether or not anyone needs them or wants them to be done. She rescues small lost baby birds and cries when they die; at various times, trying to get into the swing of it, she has attempted to keep a magical familiar generally some small creature that wanders away or dies or just gets the h.e.l.l out of it at the earliest opportunity.

She is, however, more practical than most people believe. And latterly there is some evidence that marriage and motherhood are burning away some of the deeper layers of silliness. However, she still quite likes flowers in her hair. These days, she can afford slightly more expensive flowers.

Gaskin, Herbert 'Leggy'. A member of the City Watch. Killed in the line of duty. His widow lives in Mincing Street, Ankh-Morpork. [GG, MAA]

Gaspode (the Wonder Dog). Small, bow-legged and wiry; basically a rusty grey but with patches of brown, white and black in outlying areas. Gaspode has fleas, hard-pad, scurf, crusted yellow eyes, arthritis, rotting teeth and horrible bad breath, and is probably the only dog to contract Licky End, which is usually restricted to sheep. In fact he is host to so many doggy diseases that he is surrounded by a cloud of dust and, all in all, smells like a privy carpet.

He is named after the original 'famous' Gaspode, who belonged to an old man in Ankh many years ago. When his owner died and was buried, the dog lay down on his grave and howled and howled for a couple of weeks, growling at everyone who came near. Then he died. He was considered a paragon of doggy faithfulness and loyalty until it was discovered that his tail had been trapped under the stone.

Gaspode was thrown into the river with a brick in a sack when he was a pup. Luckily, it was the ANKH, so he walked ash.o.r.e inside the sack, forming for several days a certain confused relationship with the brick.

Gaspode encapsulates the essential schizophrenia of all dogs. On the one hand, he desires nothing more than to be owned, to have a master and in general have a very secure warm place in front of the fire of life; on the other hand, he rebels against the very idea of ownership and any restriction on his freedom to roam Ankh-Morpork, eating and rolling in whatever he likes. Gaspode's tragedy is that, unlike other dogs, he is aware of this conflict.

Oh, and he can talk. But not many people pay any attention, because everyone knows that dogs can't talk.

Gavin. A large wolf, and friend to ANGUA. Uncomplicated and well informed (he could understand over 800 words.) [TFE]