And still she sat and still she span and still she wished for company

[flemmings]

I made this Persian recipe for dill lima beans and rice, using organic tinned lima beans and off-the-shelf basmati. If I ever do it again I'll reverse that, because organic beans are famously bland (no salt) and 2nd grade basmati is equally bland, and the resulting dish had no flavour at all. Threw in margarine and raisins and chopped apricots and turned it into a pilau of sorts, but the main appeal of the thing is still the texture. Lima beans' gluiness has always fascinated me, ever since I was a kid and we had them with roast lamb on Sundays, but one rarely gets them in restaurants hereabouts.

Reread Making Money and am still a bit blinkety-blink at the notion that Vetinari is grooming Moist to succeed him. Moist gets rattled far too easily. Vetinari need only look at him sideways-- indeed, occasionally needn't look at him at all-- and Moist immediately starts gabbling, 'I dun it, yer onner, I confess.' He may be inspired when his mouth runs away with him, but cities are not run by spur-of-the-moment invention.

Have the weekend free for the first time in three weeks. Alas that there's nothing interesting on at the Bloor (though *next* week I could happily stay there all Sunday) so maybe perhaps I shall flog myself into some reading and writing and grammar study.

Comments

[chomiji]

If I were to group Discworld novels into categories and rate them, the industrial fantasies with Moist etc. are my second-least favorite, after the very, very early Discworlds like The Color of Magic.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

There's certain resemblances here and there between Moist and Rincewind, whose books are the ones I can do without. But I liked Going Postal very much-- thought it nicely balanced and not as dark as some of the Watch books. Maybe a one-shot wonder; I don't think I'd care for a second book about William de Worde either, that ineffable snot.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

I heard the rumour about Moist being groomed to succeed Vetinari, too, but I wasn't sure how much weight they had.

Moist is clever but is he two steps ahead of everyone else?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I think it's fannish hypothesis, based maybe on the fact that Moist is hand-picked for his jobs (and forcibly thrust into them) by Vetinari, while Vimes and William come by their place in Vetinari's scheme of things all on their own.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Hm. But he was also willing to use wossname, that fellow who ran the clacks company into the ground, the same way as he uses Moist. Only wossname turned down the offer.

I like to think of it as this: Vetinari is a self-confessed collector of useful people (if he were an old lady he'd collect bits of string, instead) and Moist is sort of like picking up a banged up old antique that with a bit of elbow grease you could buff up and make a glorious piece in your collection.

[incandescens]

I personally see it more as Vetinari cultivating a useful talent, than Vetinari specifically cultivating a successor. That line of his somewhere that it's not about everyone pulling in the same direction, as everyone pulling in different directions...

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

And training that useful talent to go in directions that profit the city, rather than just the useful talent himself. Moist qua Moist couldn't be allowed to go on as he was. There's collateral damage to bilking the greedy, as Moist discovers; and even worse, he's a lone operator with no Guild membership.

[incandescens]

Right. Moist as he now is is useful to the city.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Yes! Aahah, I just posted a comment about how Vetinari collects useful talent and Moist is very useful... with a bit of elbow grease he could be a shining jewel in Vetinari's collection.

((Is it wrong that I sometimes wonder if Vetinari's friendship with Lady Margolotta might come up and he converts to being a vampire on the sly just so he can keep AM running smoothly?))

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It would be a temptation-- possibly The Last Temptation Of Vetinari. But if he did I think he'd resign as Patrician just on principle. Eternal rule by one man is the path of dictators. And I fancy he might like to try pulling strings from behind the scene for a change.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I like the idea of his Last Temptation!