Today I would like to share a video of an interview with Terry Pratchett in which he talks about his latest book, Making Money. Funny enough, it's about a banking scandal (1). How does he know these things are coming? For example, he wrote Jingo well before the Iraq war...go read both books, you won't believe how relevant they are.
....working exclusively with Terry Pratchett to produce a documentary series based on Terry’s recent diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s.Terry writes this to his fans:
In this, the 25th year since the first publication of Terry’s hugely successful Discworld series, the documentary team will follow Terry as he finds out about his condition, looks towards new horizons and follows numerous lines of enquiries that may offer some hope, conventional or otherwise.
The site also has some recent pictures of Terry at work.Nation (his latest book) has now been line-edited, and in theory I was going to have a month or so off, although a large part of that will now be spent reassembling what passes as our post room. In reality there are now more calls on my time than there have ever been, to the point where we are simply having to ignore approaches...I never intended that I would be some kind of AD spokesman, but the world seems to be deciding otherwise.
On a brighter note, I am now firmly ensconced with a specialist, testing last week showed that nothing much had moved since the end of November, except that in situations where I must parallel process I find that serial processing is about as much as I can achieve :o)
There are a number of things planned for the rest of the year, and they include cracking on with Unseen Academicals and also, with any luck, playing a rather larger role in the making of Going Postal.
Terry recently gave an interview to a morning show, where he talked very frankly about his health.
Meanwhile, work at the U.S. Seamstress Guild ("Where the customer always comes first") goes well. Members of the ConCom recently toured the hotel again to review the ballroom and the various spaces and they have sent these photos to the decorators at the Guild. As many of you know, The Guild is planning a large costume ball in honor of Terry for the North American Discworld Convention, which will take place on the Friday night of the convention.
Seamstress Guild members are having a great time deciding which of Paul Kidby's oficial Seamstress Guild t-shirts they will wear while decorating the hall before the big event. I have my eye on one or two of those. I also love the t-shirt that features Death with Kitten. (2)
In other news, Jason the Editor, of the Discworld Monthy, serves as co-Moderator with Anna M. at the Message Board for Terry Pratchett Books. If you love discussing the books, and all things Discworld, you might enjoy this site and that newsletter. (Anna is also the moderator at the Seamstress Guild board - how do they find the time?)
Those who care about Terry Pratchett might wish to keep a good thought for him on his upcoming birthday, which is April 28th. Many of us will wear the lilac both on that day, and on May 25th (3).
In Nightwatch, the men who fought and died (and in one case, fought, died and kept on fighting) in the Revolution are remembered by the wearing of sprigs of lilac every May 25th. The online Pratchett communities have adopted May 25th as Wear The Lilac day, an unofficial holiday celebrating Pratchett's work.
I recently planted a lilac bush in his honor (along with sending some money to the Alzheimer's Research Trust) and I will wear that color on both days. (3)
Let's end with a bit of Discworld trivia. In The Art of Discworld, Terry Pratchett writes:
I've always suspected the Nanny Ogg is, deep down, the most powerful of the witches and part of her charm lies in the way she prevents people from finding this out.
Lord High this and Lady Twinkle that, take note.
Regards to all here,
Sia
Update 4/27: Match It For Pratchett Is Not Approved By Terry Pratchett
It should be noted the the Match It For Pratchett campaign has not been sanctioned by Terry Pratchett. Fans are asked to send donations directly to the Alzheimer's Fund, instead.
He posted this note at the Cunning Artificer's forum:
As far as we are concerned this is not official, and if we don’t think its official, it aint. I hate to appear to be in any way negative about what appears to be very good intentions, but I could wish that the gentleman concerned had got in touch with us first before going ahead.The NA Discworld Convention site says this about Match It For Pratchett:
I have to say there are certain things that worry me about this project, not because they are in any way fraudulent, but raising and distributing money for charity can involve rather more problems than seem apparent at the start – especially in the loveable volatile world we know as fandom.
Most of the £13,000 raised since last Thursday has been sent to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust (https://www.committedgiving.uk.net/art/public/donor.aspx?id=cc) directly, which at least has the benefit of being straight forward.
All the best.
Terry Pratchett
First off, although of course Terry is glad to see donations going to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, he doesn't wish his characters to be used in any type of advertising, including the fan-based Match It For Pratchett movement's badges. So please respect his wishes if you are advertising the MIFP initiative anywhere.
Related Articles:
Links:
Official Discworld T-shirts & other items by Paul Kidby
Jeremy Irons playing the Patrician in the Color of Magic
Terry Pratchett on Alzheimers, Video - Part I
Endnotes:
(1) The British bank he refers to is Northern Rock, which like many banks here and around the world is facing a crisis that will cost jobs and hurt their customers.
(2) For those of you who are new to the Discworld, the character of Death is very fond of both curry and kittens. And "Seamstress" is a codeword for an entirely different sort of profession, one in which the ladies are also known to be very skilled with their hands. The head of the Guild is Mrs. Palm. That's a very old joke. Since this is a family friendly site, I can't explain it here. Look it up.
It's spring, and I'm hungry for color just now. I reserve to the right to change it all again as the need arises.
I find colored backgounds hard to read, so I stick with white for my reader's sake, as well as my own. I use verdana as a font, becuase it's easy to read (and not too pompus) and I make the font a bit larger then is usual because (ahem) some of us are getting a bit older, and we find tiny print too hard to read - SV
2 comments:
There is something about British tv that I like so very much.
Me, too
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