Terry Pratchett is a genius
An extract from his book: The Wee Free Men, which I'm currently reading:
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The teachers were useful there. Bands of them wandered through the mountains, along with the tinkers, portable blacksmiths, miracle medicine men, cloth peddlars, fortune-tellers and all the other travellers who sold things people didn't need every day but occasionally found useful.
They went from village to village delivering short lessons on many subjects. They kept apart from the other travellers, and were quite mysterious in their ragged robes and strange square hats. They used long words, like 'corrugated iron'. They lived rough lives, surviving on what food they could earn from giving lessons to anyone who would listen. When no-one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog. They went to sleep under the stars, which the maths teachers would count, the astronomy teachers would measure and the literature teachers would name. The geography teachers got lost in the woods and fell into bear traps.
People were usually quite pleased to see them. They taught children enough to shut them up, which was the main thing after all. But they always had to be driven out of the villages by nightfall in case they stole chickens.
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"When no-one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog." !!! Still laughing!
I WISH I wish I wish I wish he was Tony Blair's main adviser!
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The teachers were useful there. Bands of them wandered through the mountains, along with the tinkers, portable blacksmiths, miracle medicine men, cloth peddlars, fortune-tellers and all the other travellers who sold things people didn't need every day but occasionally found useful.
They went from village to village delivering short lessons on many subjects. They kept apart from the other travellers, and were quite mysterious in their ragged robes and strange square hats. They used long words, like 'corrugated iron'. They lived rough lives, surviving on what food they could earn from giving lessons to anyone who would listen. When no-one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog. They went to sleep under the stars, which the maths teachers would count, the astronomy teachers would measure and the literature teachers would name. The geography teachers got lost in the woods and fell into bear traps.
People were usually quite pleased to see them. They taught children enough to shut them up, which was the main thing after all. But they always had to be driven out of the villages by nightfall in case they stole chickens.
--------------
"When no-one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog." !!! Still laughing!
I WISH I wish I wish I wish he was Tony Blair's main adviser!
posted by Gill at 11:36 am
4 Comments:
Saw him interviewed on BBC 3 or 4 recently. Worth watching if it is repeated.
Mind you, if he were Tony Blair's chief adviser I think we would be in even more trouble. He has a wicked sense of humour, and I wouldn't put it past him to say something stupid like, "I know, why don't we get this really big database with absolutely everything about everybody in it" or "Let's invade Iraq, that'd be a laugh" or "We could sell these peerages for cash, you know" and Bliar wouldn't realise he was joking.
Blimey, yes, good point! We'd be in real trouble if all of THAT happened!
^^
Have you seen Suspect Nation? You can watch it online on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo0a23YDXLM
Thanks Paula :-)
I hadn't, but I will now :-)
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