Once again the Auditor managed to retain a shape for a few seconds, and managed to say: you cannot do this, there are rules!

 

YES. THERE ARE RULES. BUT YOU BROKE THEM. HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU?

 

The scythe blade was a thin blue outline in the grey light. Death raised a thin finger to where his lips might have been, and suddenly looked thoughtful.

 

AND NOW THERE REMAINS ONLY ONE FINAL QUESTION, he said. He raised his hands, and seemed to grow. Light flared in his eye sockets. When he spoke next, avalanches fell in the mountains.

 

HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY . . . OR NICE?

 

HO. HO. HO.

Yup, this is still one of my favourite books, and definitely a must-(re-)read for end of the year.

Ridcully pulled him away.

‘What’s all this, Mr Stibbons?’

‘I really should talk to him, sir. He’s had a near-death experience!’

‘We all have. It’s called “living”,’ said the Archchancellor shortly.

:)

It was a big drink. A very big and a very long drink. It was one of those special cocktails where each very sticky, very strong ingredient is poured in very slowly, so that they layer on top of one another. Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow’s Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Goodbye, Mr Brain Cell. In addition, this drink had some lettuce floating in it. And a slice of lemon and a piece of pineapple hooked coquettishly on the side of the glass, which had sugar frosted round the rim. There were two paper umbrellas, one pink and one blue, and they each had a cherry on the end. And someone had taken the trouble to freeze ice cubes in the shape of little elephants.

After that, there’s no hope. You might as well be drinking in a place called the Cococobana.

The God of Wine picked it up lovingly. It was his kind of drink.

Hehe.

‘You mean you have actually devoted time to considering how to inhume the Hogfather?’ he said weakly. ‘You’ve actually sat down and thought out how to do it? You’ve actually devoted your spare time to the problem?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. And the Soul Cake Duck. And the Sandman. And Death.’

Downey blinked again.

‘You’ve actually sat down and considered how to—’

‘Yes, sir. I’ve amassed quite an interesting file. In my own time, of course.’

‘I want to be quite certain about this, Mister Teatime. You . . . have . . . applied . . . yourself to a study of ways of killing Death?’

‘Only as a hobby, sir.’

Still one of the best conversations on a Pratchett novel. :)

And I apologise in advance: I love quoting from this book and there are just so many quotable paragraphs.

Here we go...

"EVERYTHING STARTS SOMEWHERE, although many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things. They wonder aloud how the snowplough driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictionaries look up the spelling of the words. Yet there is the constant desire to find some point in the twisting, knotting, ravelling nets of space-time on which a metaphorical finger can be put to indicate that here, here, is the point where it all began . . ."

This is a re-read for me, and it's not the first re-read. This is one of the books that I love reading around this time of the year. It's perfect - when the saccharine mush of festive cheer gets going, I like to be reminded of the darker side of festive legends. 

No, not the auditors.

I do mean the verruca gnomes! 

;D

To anyone else reading The Hogfather this month, 

Have fun All!