I’ve never read them, but I know lots of you have. NewScientist is asking for questions to ask him next week. I’ll be disappointed if at least one doper doesn’t get a question asked.
I’d ask “Do the Trousers of Time have cuffs?”
I wish I could think of something to ask but the time I was at a convention he was at and had him sign a book and ran into him numerous times in the elevator (we were on the same floor) I could only smile stupidly and tell him how much I loved his books. I wanted to start a conversation when I saw him buying a Darwin fish in the dealer’s room but all I could think of was “How about that Darwin, huh?” or “Creationism, pretty silly, right?”. So I just grinned stupidly some more.
I thought Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimers. If so it’s good to see that he can still do this; if not, better.
So he does. But after he made the public statement about his disease, he quickly had to make a second one that unanimously stated, “I aten’t dead.” As far as I understand it, as of now, it affects his skills with finding the right word and his writing ability most (on a BBC radio interview, he used the metaphor of typing while wearing thick mittens). Last time I heard, he’s switched to voice recognition software for his writing.
Check Terry’s page on Wikipedia (or just about anywhere) to understand his special, rare Alzheimers variant. He has trouble with 3-dimensional thinking–if he picks up his jacket upside down it takes him a long time to get it on–and some other problems.
I prepared a question and got a chance to ask it at the First N.A. Discworld Convention: In the dedication to Hogfather (UK edition, not the US, I think) he says a bartender (ppint) asked “the question that Susan asks” in the book. Susan asks a lot of questions! Which one was it?
Answer: What does the tooth fairy do with all the teeth?
I’ll rack my brains for a clever question regarding a science-related question.
I want to know if Foul Ole Ron’s thinking-brain was supposed to be Gaspode from the beginning, or if that was a bit of retconning.
I thought that was supposed to be obvious: In the first introduction of both, the dog is listed as having the same litany of diseases, including runny bottom, and you can’t get that unless you’re a pregnant ewe.