Canting Crew

The Canting Crew is a group of beggars living under Misbegot Bridge. Other beggars don't even want to be mentioned as being close to them, possibly because of Foul Ole Ron's Smell.

Members of the Crew are:

• Foul Ole Ron
• Coffin Henry
• The Duck Man
• Arnold Sideways
• Altogether Andrews
• Gaspode

Appearances of the whole group can be found in:

• Soul Music
• Hogfather
• The Truth

Foul Ole Ron and Gaspode, individually and sometimes together, appear considerably more often than the other members. The crew are also sometimes mentioned as exemplary of the Ankh-Morpork beggar culture, although they are no longer formal members of the Beggars' Guild - everyone's got to have heroes...

They were joined during the events of Soul Music by a person they universally called Mr Scrub. This happened to be Death on one of his 'fancies'. He fitted in well - anthropomorphic personifications being just as invisible as beggars to most people, and beggars being close to death in the normal run of things anyway.

During the events of The Truth, the Canting Crew become sellers of William de Worde's paper of news. In one of those moments of narrative causality and inevitability, their individualistic approach to language leads to them crying their wares in the manner of those random kiosk people you get - certainly in the UK, but I guess everywhere - not by shouting "Ankh-Morpork Times! Get your Ankh-Morpork Times here!" but by declaiming "Squidaped-Oyt" and "Hoinylaryup!"

Annotation

This lack of vocal mastery is similar to the wonderful Morecambe and Wise sketch (of which TP cannot have been ignorant) whereby the seller keeps calling out "Mo-orny Stannit!" and the well-dressed buyer keeps correcting him with a beautifully enunciated "Mor-ning Stan-dard". This keeps going, with the seller gradually getting closer to "Morning Standard". Finally the buyer is satisfied and walks away, opening his copy of... The Morny Stannit! You can see it - and it is truly genius - here.