Pratchat - a Terry Pratchett and Discworld book club

Liz and Ben delve deep into the archives and come back with some highlights from the collected Discworld Diaries from Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs’ The Ankh-Morpork Archives Volumes I (2019) and II (2020), plus Terry’s 2004 collaboration with Bernard Pearson, The Discworld Alamak. Between 1998 and 2003, Discworld fans got an extra little treat: an in-universe diary themed around one of the Guilds or other major institutions of the Disc, full of new Discworld history and gags penned by Pratchett with the assistance of Stephen Briggs, and illustrations by Paul Kidby. In 2004, they got something a little different: a Roundworld version of the Celebrated Discworld Almanak, a publication famed for its wisdom, length and absorbency, co-authored by Pratchett and Bernard Pearson. After a brief break, two more diaries with new gags and Discworld lore appeared in 2007 and 2008, but any subsequent diaries or journals were just compilations of quotes and existing material. Like all diaries, these were smaller print runs and never reprinted, so for most fans these extra tidbits were lost to time. But then, in 2019 and 2020, Stephen Briggs and Paul Kidby brought all that weirdness back in two new books: The Ankh-Morpork Archives Volume I, and Volume II, each collecting the original content from four of those diaries and presenting them in a coffee-table style larger format, with new layout, updated or new art, and all the charm of the originals. Did you ever have one of the diaries? Did you write in it? What do you think of the new presentation of all these gags? Do the more unusual diaries have the same charm, or does it feel a bit like the best themes had already been used? And if you were to see new books based on any of this stuff, what would you want to see? Note your answer in your diary, then send it to us using the hashtag #Pratchat84. You can find episode notes and errata [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2025/04/08/pratchat84-notes-and-errata/] on our web site. Next month we knock off one of our few remaining Discworld novels: Sam Vimes’ detective’s holiday in the country, Snuff! Get your questions in via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com [chat@pratchatpodcast.com]), or social media using the hashtag #Pratchat86. (Our numbering got a bit messed up due to the delay of this episode, but trust us: the next one is 86!) Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us [https://pratchatpodcast.com/support-us/] page for details.

To mark ten years since Terry Pratchett’s death, Liz, Ben and guest Myfanwy Coghill discuss his 2010 Richard Dimbleby lecture, “Shaking Hands with Death”. Please note that this episode includes discussions of death, terminal illness, assisted dying and suicide. Pratchett was the first novelist to give the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, an annual talk broadcast on the BBC in memory of Dimbleby, a BBC broadcaster who died in 1965. His subject was a turning point in his activism: from raising awareness (and money) for Alzheimer’s Disease, to talking openly about the inevitability of death, and the importance of being able to choose a good one, safely and legally. The speech was collected in A Slip of the Keyboard in 2014, and published in a standalone volume with an introduction by Rob Wilkins in 2015. The televised version is also (currently) on YouTube. [https://youtu.be/90b1MBwnEHM] We hope we’ve done Pratchett justice in carrying on this discussion. We are lucky to live in Australia, where citizens in most states have access to assisted dying – even if under more narrow circumstances than Pratchett might have liked. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill [https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3774] provides similar access, and was introduced in the UK parliament by backbench Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in November 2024. It’s currently at the committee stage. (See our episode notes for more details.) Guest Myfanwy Coghill (she/her) has been many things, including an opera singer, a teacher, a funeral director, and a Dungeon Master (of the Dungeons & Dragons variety). She previously appeared to discuss Maskerade in #Pratchat23, “The Music of the Nitt [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2019/09/08/episode-23-the-music-of-the-nitt/]”, in September 2019. GNU Elspeth Sutherland; Kat Muscat; Stella Young [https://stellayoung.com.au]; Cal Wilson; DJ Ian; and Terry Pratchett. We’d love you to consider supporting the Kat Muscat Fellowship [https://www.expressmedia.org.au/the-kat-muscat-fellowship], which provides support and development for a young Australian writer or editor each year; or helping to fund a new documentary about Stella Young, I Am Not Your Inspiration [https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/stella-i-am-not-your-inspiration/] (which coincidentally launched in between us recording and publishing this episode). Pratchett’s favoured charities are well known: the Orang Utan Foundation [https://www.orangutan.org.uk], and the Alzheimer’s Society [https://www.alzheimers.org.uk]. The local Australian equivalent is Dementia Australia [https://www.dementia.org.au]. You can find episode notes and errata [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2025/03/08/pratchat85-notes-and-errata/] on our web site. Next month is our rescheduled discussion about both volumes of the Ankh-Morpork Archives, which collect material from the Discworld diaries, and their sibling publication The Discworld Almanack! There’s still time for a few more questions; send them in via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com [chat@pratchatpodcast.com]), or social media using the hashtag #Pratchat84. Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us [https://pratchatpodcast.com/support-us/] page for details.

Our recording of #Pratchat83 was delayed at the last minute, so our discussion of The Ankh-Morpork Archives and The Discworld Almanak will have to wait until later in the month – hopefully around the 25th February. But subscriber Molokov suggested it might be fun to discuss some of the other, less book-like Discworld merchandise available, so in this shorter bonus episode, Ben does just that! We’d love to hear about your favourite merch, official or fan-made! Drop us a line and/or a photograph using the hashtag #PratchatMerch on social media, via email, or chat to us via our subscriber Discord. The merch Ben mentions this episode from the Discworld Emporium [https://www.discworldemporium.com] includes the Ankh-Morpork Doodle Map [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/ankh-morpork-doodle-map/], Terry Pratchett’s Hat silver pin badge [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90b1MBwnEHM]; Death’s Omega cloak pin [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/death-s-cloak-pin/]; the Band with Rocks In tour T-shirt [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/band-with-rocks-in-t-shirt/]; the plushie Greebo [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/greebo-plush/] and rat-onna-stick [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/rat-onna-stick/]; beermats of pubs [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/discworld-beermats-inns-taverns/] and brands [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/discworld-beermats-brands/]; and the dried frog pills box [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/dried-frog-pills-box/]. It’s not as easy to link to individual items at Discworld.com [https://www.discworld.com], but things Ben mentioned from there include various pins and badges [https://discworld.com/products/pin-badges/]; rare collectible pins [https://discworld.com/products/collectable-pins/]; shopper bags [https://discworld.com/products/shoppers/]; acrylic beanies [https://discworld.com/products/beanies/]; and the Great A’Tuin golf umbrella [https://discworld.com/products/umbrella/]. The Anoia tea towel [https://www.discworldemporium.com/product/goddess-anoia-tea-towel/] Ben liked was also from the Emporium, not Discworld.com, though they have tea towels too [https://discworld.com/products/tea-towels/]. He forgot to mention Discworld.com’s notebooks [https://discworld.com/products/notebooks-and-stationery/] – the Unseen University and Assassin’s Guild ones are especially good. And their T-shirts aren’t as “subtle” as he remembered, though their socks are certainly a bit less subtle than the Emporium’s. The episode title is a reference to a specific scene [https://youtu.be/fgRFQJCHcPw] in Mel Brooks’ 1987 Star Wars parody Spaceballs [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/]. We’ll be back in late February with #Pratchat83, discussing The Ankh-Morpork Archives Volume I and Volume II, and The Discworld Almanak. If you’re very quick you could still get a question in about those! In March we’re commemorating the tenth anniversary of Terry’s death by discussing his thoughts on dying from “Shaking Hands with Death”, the Richard Dimbleby lecture he gave (with help from Tony Robinson) in 2010. It’s most readily available in A Slip of the Keyboard, but you can also watch the original speech on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90b1MBwnEHM]. It gets pretty heavy, but we’ll approach this discussion with empathy and kindness. Get your questions for that one in using the hashtag #Pratchat84. Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us [https://pratchatpodcast.com/support-us/] page for details.

Liz and Ben are joined by guest Dr Tansy Rayner Roberts PhD (Classics) to chat about fashion, faith, food…oh, and football. Yes, join us for an episode that goes well into extra time (i.e. it’s over 3 hours long) as we discuss Terry Pratchett’s 37th Discworld novel, Unseen Academicals. The Wizards of Unseen University are still recovering from the Dean’s defection to become Archchancellor of rival Brazeneck College, but they have a bigger problem: if they don’t field a foot-the-ball team, they’ll lose the bequest that supplies most of their dinners. But the sport has become lawless and violent – a game of the streets in which matches last long into the night and players die. And then there’s the fans… But something’s in the air. The game’s about to change, and at the centre of it are an unlikely quartet of junior University staff: Glenda the sensible baker; beautiful and fashion-conscious Juliet; Trev, son of the game’s greatest player; and Mr Nutt, a goblin who’s good at everything – except explaining who and what he is… The last of the Discworld books to “star” the wizards, and the longest in the series by a fair margin, Unseen Academicals repeatedly says that it isn’t really about football. And, indeed, there’s a lot else going on: new ways for both dwarfs and trolls to express their femininity; the internal voices which hold us back from reaching our potential; the struggle between progress and fairness, of power and the people. And at the heart of it, four brand new characters who represent a side of Ankh-Morpork we don’t usually see in our protagonists: the regular people, caught up in the Shove. What did you think of Unseen Academicals? Does it have enough football in it, or too much? What are your favourite takes on orcs? What other sports would you like to see come to the Discworld? And do you know where we can get a megapode? Shout out from the Shove using the hashtag #Pratchat83! Guest Dr Tansy Rayner Roberts PhD (Classics) (she/her) is a Tasmanian author of sci-fi, fantasy and cosy crime. Her essay series Pratchett’s Women was collected into a book, and her follow up series on Pratchett’s men [https://www.speculativeinsight.com/essays?author=65692615de4abc6f789c649c] can be found at the online magazine Speculative Insight [https://www.speculativeinsight.com]. Tansy recently reprinted her “Teacup Magic” series of cosy mysteries, and her newest novel is the time travel comedy Time of the Cat [https://tansyrr.com/books/time-of-the-cat/]. You can find Tansy online at tansyrr.com [https://tansyrr.com] and as @tansyrr on social media; you’ll also find her in our previous live episodes: “A Troll New World [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2019/06/23/bonus-episode-a-troll-new-world/]” (from Nullus Anxietas 7 in 2019) and “Unalive from Überwald [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2024/08/08/pratchat79-unalive-from-uberwald/]” (from Nullus Anxietas IX in 2024). You can find episode notes and errata [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2025/01/08/pratchat83-notes-and-errata/] on our web site. Next month we’re looking at a stack of Discworld ephemera – namely both volumes of the Ankh-Morpork Archives, which collect material from the Discworld diaries, and their sibling publication The Discworld Almanack! If you’ve read any of those, please send us your questions via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com [chat@pratchatpodcast.com]), or social media. Use the hashtag #Pratchat84. Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us [https://pratchatpodcast.com/support-us/] page for details.

Puzzlers and previous guests Nicholas J Johnson and Lawrence Leung return to play and discuss Leonard Boyd and David Brashaw’s 2015 board game Clacks, based on Terry Pratchett’s 33rd Discworld novel, Going Postal. Postmaster General Moist von Lipwig has come up with a plan to prove the Ankh-Morpork postal service is still relevant – a race against the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company! The Grand Trunk has a monopoly on the “Clacks”, a system of optical telegraph towers which transmit messages using patterns formed by a grid of six lights – surely they can beat a man on a horse? But the Grand Trunk knows Moist has something up his sleeve, and they’re taking no chances – the fastest and best new Clacks operators will have to prove they’re worthy of the job by racing each other first… The fifth (and so far final) Discworld board game, Clacks is the second Discworld design by Boyd and Brashaw’s BackSpindle games (following Guards! Guards! [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2024/02/08/pratchat75-and-that-spells-trouble/]). Clacks turns the race at the climax of Going Postal into a logic puzzle where up to four players must use punch cards to turn patterns of lights on and off in a grid, hoping to form another pattern which equates to a letter in Clacks code. It’s a race to finish your word (or words) first, either against each other, or as a team against Moist von Lipwig – but sharing the same grid of lights makes this puzzle very unpredictable. Is it Discworldy enough? Does it feel like the Clacks technology of the books? Do you find it fun or funny, and do you prefer it collaborative or cooperative? And what else would you play to get your logic puzzle fix? Oh, and if you want to try making the longest sentence you can out of our Clacks words, the ones we drew were SHINE, SONKY, MAGIC, URIKA, ADORA, TOMAS, GUILD, QUIRM, RUFUS, GROAT, MONKS, GNOME, PIXIE, TROLL, TURVY, ANDRE, AHMED, CELYN, THIEF and KLOTZ. Let us know how you went using the hashtag #Pratchat82. Guest Nicholas J Johnson is an author, magician, educator and expert in deception, who goes by the nickname “Australia’s Honest Con-Man”. You can find details of Nick’s shows and workshops, including his upcoming magic show for children at the 2025 Melbourne Comedy Festival, at conman.com.au [https://www.conman.com.au], or follow him on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/honestconman.bsky.social], Instagram [https://instagram.com/honestconman] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/honestconman] as @honestconman. Guest Lawrence Leung is a comedian, screenwriter and actor, known to Australian audiences for live and screen comedy, including the 2015 feature film Sucker, and more recently appearances in My Life is Murder, Aunty Donna’s Comedy Cafe and Time Bandits. For all the latest about Lawrence, including his upcoming research into seances and mediums in Victorian Melbourne, visit lawrenceleung.com [http://lawrenceleung.com], or follow him on Instagram at @mrlawrenceleung [https://instagram.com/mrlawrenceleung]. You can find episode notes and errata [https://pratchatpodcast.com/2024/12/08/pratchat82-notes-and-errata/] on our web site. One quick correction: Marc Burrows’ one man show The Magic of Terry Pratchett is on in Adelaide from 21 February to 7 March. See the full notes for details. We’ll be kicking off the new year with one of the few Discworld novels we have left – and why not go large with the longest Pratchett novel of all, Unseen Academicals? We’ll be lacing up our football boots and dusting off our mortarboards alongside returning guest Tansy Rayner Roberts! Send us your questions via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com [chat@pratchatpodcast.com]), or social media. Use the hashtag #Pratchat83. Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us [https://pratchatpodcast.com/support-us/] page for details.