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#Pratchat40 Notes and Errata

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These are the show notes and errata for episode 40, “The King and the Hole of the King“, featuring guest Richard McKenzie, discussing the twenty-fourth Discworld novel, 1999’s The Fifth Elephant.

  • The episode title is a play on the repeated phrase from the book, “the thing and the whole of the thing”, used to refer to the Scone of Stone. While “the thing and the whole of the thing” sounds like it’s a reference to or riff on something, it originates with Pratchett as far as we can tell.
  • Magic: The Gathering is the world’s first and still most popular trading card game, designed by Richard Garfield in 1993. Each player collects the cards for the game in randomised (or themed) packs, and creates their own deck. Each card represents a creature, spell, source of power (known as “mana”) or other part of the game’s multiverse, and contains rules text that explains its effect when played. There are now more than 200,000 different cards, and so the number of possible decks – and strategies – is massive.
  • Scrabble – the classic word game in which players place letter tiles that form interlocking words to score points – was originally invented in 1938 by American architect Alfred Mosher Butts. There are thousands of dedicated Scrabble clubs, and in serious competition things can get fierce. Knowing the two-letter words helps because it lets you lay two words parallel by connecting them with shorter words – letting you score all those connecting letters twice. But as Liz points out (and which we elaborate on in a longer discussion which might end up in a future Ook Club episode), this makes you a “Scrabble dickhead”, since it also makes it quite hard for your opponent to find space for longer words.
  • We previous talked about the dinosaur-killing comet of the KT extinction event in our The Science of Discworld episode, #Pratchat35, “Great Balls of Physics“.
  • Raising Steam, the fortieth and second-last Discworld novel, does indeed introduce steam trains to Ankh-Morpork and the region of the Circle Sea, completing the Disc’s journey into steampunk. We’ll probably be discussing it in another year or two.
  • The most obvious inclusion of the “treacle mine” joke in the Discworld is the name of the street on which the old Watch-house sits: Treacle Mine Road! The building even used to house an entrance to the mine, which accessed deep deposits of treacle below the city. The Fifth Elephant mentions deposits of treacle as well, formed from ancient compressed sugarcane.
  • We discussed the previous Watch book, Jingo, in #Pratchat27, “Leshp Miserablés“, a little over a year ago.
  • For more about the Clacks, see our Going Postal episode, #Pratchat38, “Moisten to Steal“.
  • Police boxes were basically small blue sheds of various sizes used by police officers throughout the UK in the 1950s and 60s. Some housed a telephone which the public could use to summon aid, but they also served as a dry place for officers on duty to wait out the rain, contains various useful equipment, and some could even be used to temporarily hold an arrested suspect. They are no longer in use, but their memory is kept alive by Doctor Who, whose title character’s miraculous vehicle is disguised as one. (Ben somehow resisted the urge to mention this when Liz brought it up, which maybe means he gets to take a drink?)
  • WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and iMessage are instant messaging apps which offer end-to-end encryption – meaning that no-one, not even the company who makes the app, can see what you’re writing. There’s some variation in their levels of security, but even on WhatsApp – owned by Facebook since 2014 – you can be sure Facebook isn’t collecting keywords in order to advertise to you. (At least, not as of when this was written in February 2021…)
  • On the subject of dwarfs vs dwarves in Tolkien and Pratchett, it seems Pratchett might have been correcting an error – though Tolkien used “dwarves”, he admitted it should have been “dwarfs”. In his defence he noted that the really old archaic plural of dwarf was “dwarrow”, and used the same word in an in-universe explanation for the use of “dwarves”. You can go down the rabbit hole (dwarf mine?) on this one via this great question and answer on the Sci-Fi StackExchange.
  • Llamedos is the Disc’s equivalent of Wales, located immediately turn wise of the Sto Plains, the area surrounding Ankh-Morpork. While none of the stories are set there, it is the home of Imp “Buddy” Y Celyn, musical protagonist of Soul Music. We talked about that book in #Pratchat19, “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got Rocks In“.
  • There are a lot of different types of fat; here are a few we mention or which appear in the book:
    • Rendered fat is any meat fat turned to liquid by being cooked slowly over a low heat. (Faster, hotter cooking makes it crispy instead.) It’s also known as dripping, since it drips off the meat.
    • Lard is rendered pork fat; it is usually clarified, a process in which the liquid fat is strained, then boiled and allowed to cool (via numerous different methods), resulting in greater consistency and fewer impurities (BCBs?). The equivalent made from the meat of cattle or sheep is called tallow.
    • Ghee is a form of clarified butter which has been made in India for centuries. It is sometimes flavoured with spices.
    • Suet is the raw, hard fat from around the loins and kidneys of cattle and sheep.
  • As promised, here is Liz’s vegan recipe that tastes like bacon – which, it turns out, is a recipe for vegan bacon, aka facon!

Ingredients:

  • firm tofu
  • soy sauce
  • smoked paprika

Method:

  1. Slice the tofu quite thinly then dab as much moisture away as possible with paper towels
  2. Marinate slices in soy sauce
  3. Sprinkle smoked paprika on both sides, rub into the soy sauce
  4. Fry until a little crips
  5. There it is – facon!
  • The Scone vs Scone debate has been going on for decades, alongside the newer debate over whether you should put the jam or cream on first. We won’t wade into the second one, but as mentioned in the footnote, the split in pronunciation is geographical. You can see a great map of where people say what in the UK, created by Reddit user bezzleford based on data from Cambridge university. As noted in the accompanying description, Australians predominantly rhyme scone with “gone”, while it seems Americans prefer it to rhyme with “cone”.
  • The clan Mackenzie (in Gaelic MacCoinneach, “son of the fair bright one”), dates back to at least the 15th century and possible the 12th. Their ancestral lands are in Kintail and Ross-shire in the Highlands of Scotland. The current clan seat is Castle Lead, but the castle Richard describes is their oldest one, Eilean Donan Castle, which was ruined but later rebuilt during the twentieth century. It is indeed on an island, Eilean Donan, which is on the western Highland coast, at the meeting of the three sea lochs Loch Duich, Loch Long and Loch Alsh.
  • In addition to the potted history given by Ben in the footnote, the Stone of Scone has many similarities with the Scone of Stone, not least that it is rumoured to have been destroyed and replaced more than once. But always the current Stone is considered the true one – “the thing and the whole of the thing”, one might say.
  • Greek migration to Australia started in the 19th century, but the biggest wave of migration occurred in the aftermath of World War II, from the 1940s until the early 1970s. This was initially part of Australia’s encouragement of mass immigration under the banner “populate or perish”, which made it easy for citizens of specific (and mainly European) nations to come to Australia. This was under the “White Australia policy”, a series of immigration initiatives specifically designed to stop people of colour from settling in Australia, beginning shortly after federation in 1901. The last of these policies was only removed in 1973.
  • The population of Ankh-Morpork has several times – including in Small Gods, Mort and Guards! Guards!, to list those books in chronological order – been given as around one million, though it’s usually framed as a joke involving souls:

“Ankh-Morpork! Brawling city of a hundred thousand souls! And, as the Patrician privately observed, ten times that number of actual people.”

Guards! Guards!
  • In the 2017 TV series Star Trek: Discovery, the USS Discovery‘s crew complement has varied considerably. It’s original standard crew numbered 136, but during the “red burst” crisis of 2257 it accommodated more than 200 personnel, many from the USS Enterprise. In 2258, it underwent a risky mission and only 88 of the original crew remained aboard; they only seem to have added two more to the crew since then, but its possible we just haven’t met any further additions.
  • Jurassic Park’s gamekeeper is Robert Muldoon, portrayed by the late English actor Bob Peck. He is one of the few characters employed by John Hammond who never underestimates the dinosaurs, but even he is outsmarted by the velociraptors.
  • Surprisingly, trope-listing sites All the Tropes and TV Tropes don’t have an entry for someone being continually interrupted when trying to convey important news. Sybil’s attempts in this book to tell Vimes of her pregnancy are listed under the trope “Hint Dropping”.
  • Trolls in the WarCraft videogames created by Blizzard Entertainment are an ancient species of tall, lanky humanoids with long ears and large tusks. They have adapted to many environments, and have a tribal culture. They are depicted as speaking with various Caribbean or African accents. They are notable for possessing regenerative abilities, healing quickly from all but the most serious wounds – something they have inherited from the trolls of Dungeons & Dragons, in turn inspired by the 1950s fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, which also provided D&D with its version of Paladins and the concept of alignment. Pratchett’s trolls owe more to Tolkien’s, who turned to stone in sunlight, but they weren’t creatures of living stone. None of these fictional trolls are particularly close to the ones of Scandinavian folklore, where the word and concept originate – though to be fair, like a lot of ancient monster stories, they aren’t big on detailed or consistent descriptions.
  • Caligula was the nickname of third Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, who ruled from 37 CE until he was assassinated in 41 CE. Sources from the time – while not entirely trustworthy – say he turned cruel, sadistic and erratic after his first six months in the job. The most famous stories are of his sexual perversions and his attempt to appoint his horse as a Consul. We’re not sure what he’d do with an orange…
  • “Sonky” seems to have become a genericised trademark – a brand so successful it has become a common synonym the product it represents. Real world examples include biro (for ball-point pens), Aspirin (an early trademark for the painkiller acetylsalicylic acid) and in the US, jello (for jelly, from the brand Jell-O).
  • Condoms have been around since the mid 16th century, but were first made from rubber in 1855. These days most are made of latex, but “lambskin” condoms are still available, made from sheep intestines; they are primarily used in cases of latex allergy.
  • “Black cat freak-out” is Richard’s term for that moment in a film when the character is spooked by something seemingly horrible…but it turns out to be something innocuous, often a black cat. Weirdly this doesn’t appear on the tropes sites, but we did find this supercut on YouTube of moments in film where it happens…
  • The CSI franchise began in 2000 with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, featuring a CSI team led by Carl Grissom in Las Vegas. Its theme song was indeed “Who Are You?” by The Who, and it ran for 15 seasons and a two-part telemovie finale, finishing up in 2015. It launched the sping-offs CSI: Miami in 2003 (which used The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as its theme) and CSI: Cyber in 2014 (which used “I Can See For Miles”), spun off via “backdoor pilots” – an episode of an existing program doubling as a proof of concept for a new show. CSI: Miami introduced another spin-off, CSI: NY in 2004 (with the Who song “Baba O’Reilly”). CSI: Miami‘s lead investigator was Lieutenant Horatio Caine (played by David Caruso); he famously removes his sunglasses when making a dramatic statement about a murder. Also of note: the early working concept for what became The Watch TV series was, indeed, CSI: Ankh-Morpork, a show which would feature new stories about the established characters of the books.
  • The red briefcases Ben is thinking of are the distinctive despatch boxes – aka “red boxes” – used by government ministers in the UK to carry official documents – and not just briefing notes. “Despatch box” itself refers to a number of different types of box used for governmental purposes. The red boxes are required for transport of anything with a security level above “Confidential”, and are still in use, though travel versions are not necessarily red.
  • The modern briefcase evolved from satchels, carpet bags and gladstone bags, first appearing around 1850. The name dates back to around 1925, and is just a compound of case and brief, in the sense of the kind of document often carried inside. The attaché case – what we’d now recognise as the dominant briefcase design – is indeed called that because it was traditionally carried by attachés.
  • Ben’s quip about “The Real Werewolves of Überwald” references The Real Housewives franchise, which began with The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2006. It and its various American and international sequels were conceived as reality television versions of the drama Desperate Housewives, and follow the relationships and tensions between wealthy socialite women.
  • The Osbournes was a reality show documenting the lives of Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne and his family – his wife and manager Sharon, and their children Kelly and Jack. It ran for four seasons on MTV from 2002 until 2005.
  • The Jackal (1997, dir Michael Caton-Jones) stars Bruce Willis as an international hitman hired to kill a powerful American target. It’s a remake of the 1973 French film Day of the Jackal, itself an adaptation of the 1971 novel by Frederick Forsyth. In the French film, set in 1963, the target is the French President. As well as Jack Black as the typically ill-fated weapon maker, the 1997 version also stars Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier, but it was not well-received.
  • The term “latte-sipping liberal” is, surprisingly to us, an American import! It rose to prominence after a 1997 article by US conservative writer David Brooks about “latte towns” where “liberalism is a dominant lifestyle”. It’s part of a longer campaign that seeks to paint left wing politics as elitist and out of touch. Comparable phrases are “champagne socialist” in the UK, and gauche caviar in France. This strategy was named the “latte libel” by Thomas Frank in his 2004 book, What’s The Matter with America?
  • “That scene” in Beauty and the Beast is the one in which Belle, berated by the Beast for going into a forbidden area of his castle, runs outside and is attacked by wolves; he saves her but is injured in the process.
  • While we mention the term “alpha wolf“, its important to note that the theory that wolf packs have “alphas” – a specific leader – is at best controversial, and more likely a load of nonsense. It was popularised by David Mech in his 1970 book The Wolf, but he later learned that the sources he relied on were based on observation of unrelated grey wolves in captivity, and no reliable. In the wild wolf packs are generally family groups with the parents more or less in charge.
  • We previously discussed the Mary Celeste in #Pratchat34, “Only You Can Save Deadkind“. In brief: the American merchant brigantine Mary Celeste was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. The crew were all missing and never found, but the ship was oddly untouched –
  • The Hulk holds up an entire mountain range – not just a single mountain! – to save the Avengers in Marvel Secret Wars issue #4 from 1984. As well as appearing within the issue, it’s also on the cover – accompanied by the caption “Beneath 150 billion tons, stands The Hulk — and he’s not happy!”
  • Several Twitter users compared the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 with Nicholas Cage’s antics in the 2004 adventure film National Treasure (dir. Jon Turteltaub). In the film, Cage plays an historian and amateur cryptologist named Benjamin Franklin Gates who believes a huge cache of invaluable artefacts and treasure was hidden by the Freemasons during the Civil War and never claimed. Most of the clues that lead to the stockpile are hidden in code on the Declaration of Independence, the document signed by representatives from various American colonies in 1776 which formed the United States of America and declared it independent of Great Britain. Cage’s character opposes stealing it, but the authorities don’t believe him when he tells them his partner Ian (Sean Bean) intends to do so, prompting him to steal it himself from the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C. There’s a 2007 sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, in which Cage’s character defends accusations of his ancestor being part of a conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln by kidnapping the current President (no really), and after many years of speculation and “development hell”, a third film is said to be currently in the works.
    Here’s the iconic tweet, from US sportswriter Adam Herman:
  • “Chad” is Internet slang for a typical “alpha male”. While its become more generally used, often in a mocking way, the term has awful, eugenicist origins in the misogynist incel movement. We previously discussed incels in #Pratchat7A, “The Curious Incident of the Dragon and the Night Watch“.
  • The Hunt was released in March 2020, just before cinemas closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s politics seem somewhat confused; the hunter characters are “elitists” and describe their prey as “deplorables”, which seemingly casts them as caricatures of “latte-sipping liberals” rather than Republicans. Their motives are revealed as non-political, however, and critics seem to agree the film fails as any kind of satire.
  • We had Amie Kaufman as a guest for #Pratchat9, “Upscalator to Heaven“, discussing the first book of the Bromeliad, Truckers.
  • In chapter 13 of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, protagonist Katniss hides from the “Career” contestants thanks to her superior tree climbing abilities, meeting and befriending the youngest contestant, Rue, who is hiding in the same tree.
  • In the original 1969 British heist film The Italian Job, Michael Caine’s Charlie Croker organises a sophisticated plan to steal gold in Italy. While preparing his team, one of them tests explosives on an armoured car and blows the whole vehicle to bits; Croker responds with the iconic line “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” It became one of Michael Caine’s best-known lines (at least in the UK; the film was not initially a big success in the US), and he later titled his 2018 memoir Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life.
  • An “Agatha Christie moment” as Liz means it is the moment in a mystery where the surprising solution is revealed. An “Aldi version” is a cheap knock-off of a better known brand, as sold by the German discount supermarket chain Aldi. We previously discussed them in #Pratchat37, “The Shopping Trolley Problem“.
  • Ben entirely misunderstood Liz’s dogfighting joke, for which he apologises. Its origins in describing air fighter combat come from its previous use to describe any kind of deadly close combat, originally between people. The modern official military term is “air combat maneuvering”, or ACM.
  • Liz and Ben make reference to the Sherlock Holmes story The Final Problem, in which Holmes tracks down criminal mastermind Moriarty. The pair fight at Richenbach Falls and seemingly perish when they both fall over the edge.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 videogame from CD Projekt Red starring Keanu Reeves, and based on Mike Pondsmith’s 1988 tabletop roleplaying game, Cyberpunk. It features all the tropes we now identify with the genre, including cybernetic body modification.
  • The Ship of Theseus is an ancient philosophical thought experiment derived from the legend of Theseus, the Athenian who defeated the Minotaur. He returned home in a ship but forgot to change the sails as a signal to his father that he had succeeded, resulting in calamity. The ship was supposedly preserved for many generations, with its old planks replaced over time such that philosophers were divided over whether it was truly the same ship Theseus had sailed or not. Similar quandaries include the “grandfather’s axe” (as explained by the Low King), and Pratchett talks about the ship of Theseus in the Bromeliad and The Carpet People.
  • The trope in which someone hates others like themselves is identified by All the Tropes as the “Boomerang bigot“. They also list several other Discworld examples. In the real world, this idea is often used – potentially quite harmfully – to accuse conservatives who label homosexuality as evil as closeted themselves.
  • The unstoppable horror film villains Jason and Freddy are undead machete-wielding, hockey mask-wearing slasher Jason Vorhees, of the Friday the 13th franchise (1980-2009), and demoniac dream murderer Freddy Kreuger, of the Nightmare on Elm Street films (1984-2010). The pair faced off in the crossover film Freddy vs Jason in 2003.
  • Young Igor’s pet “Eerie” is a reference to the Vacanti mouse, which became headline news in the mid 1990s after photographs of it went viral via email. The hairless laboratory mouse seemingly had a human ear growing from its back, and led to protests against the misuse of genetic engineering, but in actual fact the ear was formed from cartilage cells in a biodegradable mould, placed under the mouse’s skin and supported by an external splint which was removed for the famous photo. It was not an actual human ear, and no genetic engineering was involved.
  • The Hurt Locker (2009, dir Kathryn Bigelow) is a war movie about an American bomb disposal squad during the Iraq War. It was written by journalise Mark Boal, based on his experience being embedded with soldiers during the war.
  • In the sci-fi TV series Firefly, the future human society who have colonised another solar system speak English and/or Mandarin. The main characters mostly speak English peppered with Mandarin curse words and other short phrases.
  • Lisa Simpson gets lost in Springfield’s “Russian district” in the 24th episode of The Simpson’s ninth season, “Lost Our Lisa”.
  • Twilight, the first in the series of vampire novels by Stephenie Meyer, was not published until 2005, six years after The Fifth Elephant. For more on those books, see the notes for #Pratchat36, “Home Alone, But Vampires“.
  • The inspiration for “heart in a box” is song “Dick in a Box“, the first single from comedy trio The Lonely Island (Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone). It features Samberg and Justin Timberlake crooning the instructions they used to make a Christmas present for their girlfriends by…well. It does what it says on the tin. It’s on YouTube here.
  • “Gold” is by Spandau Ballet, from their third album True, released as a single in 1983. You can watch the music video on YouTube.

#Pratchat40 – The King and the Hole of the King

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Comedian Richard McKenzie returns to get a bit gothic as he, Liz and Ben head to Überwald to discuss The Fifth Elephant in the room…by which we mean the twenty-fourth Discworld novel, published in 1999.

As Ankh-Morpork and its neighbours embrace modern semaphore technology, trouble is brewing among the dwarfs. A new Low King is soon to be crowned in Überwald – and not everyone is happy with the choice. The Patrician selects just the right “diplomat” for the job: the Duke of Ankh, Sir Samuel Vimes. He reluctantly agrees to face vampires, werewolves, Igors and dwarf politics in a place where his Watch badge holds no sway. He’s not going alone – though Sergeant Detritus (a troll) and Corporal Cheery Littlebottom (the first openly female dwarf) are not likely to be popular with the traditional dwarfs of Überwald. Luckily he also has diplomatic attaché Inigo Skimmer, and his strongest ally: his wife, the Lady Sybil Ramkin…

After exploring one vampire family from Überwald in Carpe Jugulum, Pratchett takes Sam Vimes out of his comfort zone and into the lands of the fabled fifth elephant, while making far fewer references to the Luc Besson film than you’d expect. With Carrot and Angua off on a B-plot, and Colon, Nobby and the rest of the Watch left behind in the C-plot, it’s also a chance for background characters Detritus, Cheery and Lady Sybil to shine. The novel also expands on the culture of vampires, werewolves, Igors and especially dwarfs, building the foundations for many future novels.

It’s a great read for a Discworld fan – but would The Fifth Elephant make a confusing introduction to the series? Was this Sybil’s finest hour, or were you left wanting more of her? Does a beloved character do a murder? If so, is it okay? And did Carrot really need to be there, or was he just a Gaspode enabling device? Tell us by using the hashtag #Pratchat40 on social media to join the conversation!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:29:06 — 68.7MB)

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Returning guest Richard McKenzie is hopefully back to hosting trivia twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, at the Cornish Arms on Sydney Road in Brunswick, Melbourne. He and Ben devised the Dungeons & Dragons themed impro comedy show Dungeon Crawl, which now usually appears at Melbourne games expo PAX Aus. He also appears in the lineup of ensemble comedy shows The Anarchist Guild Social Committee and Secondhand Cinema Club.

A a quick reminder that you can order Collisions, the short story anthology from Liminal Magazine, from your local bookshop! It includes Liz’s story “The Voyeur” and fifteen others. The link also has some online sources if you need ’em.

Next time we’re reading something very different: Pratchett’s standalone, non-Discworld young adult novel from 2008, Nation! We’ll be joined by educator Charlotte Pezaro. Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat41, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Want to make sure we get through every Pratchett book? You can support Pratchat for as little as $2 a month and get access to bonus stuff, including the exclusive supporter podcast Ook Club! Click here to find out more.

#Pratchat27 – Leshp Miserablés

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In episode 27, Liz and Ben are joined by guest writer and psychologist-in-training Craig Hildebrand-Burke to discuss the depressingly relevant yet uplifting 1997 Discworld novel of war and prejudice, Jingo.

In the middle of the Circle Sea, halfway between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch, the ancient and slightly eldritch island of Leshp has risen from the waves. Of course both nations want to claim it as their own, what with the other nation being filthy foreign devils, and almost immediately the threat of war is in the wind. An attempt on the life of a visiting Klatchian prince kills peace talks before they can even begin, and the Patrician is deposed – leaving Sir Samuel Vimes, Lord Commander of the City Watch, with a crime to solve. Can bringing a murderer to justice stop a war?

Jingo sees the Watch swell in size, gives a great deal of airtime to the Patrician, and also shines the spotlight on the Disc’s greatest inventor, Leonard of Quirm! And of course we spend more time in Klatch, now inspired more by Lawrence of Arabia than Arabian Nights. It’s a story of nationalism, racism and war – both of the regular kind, and between the classes. Jingo was not only still relevant when we recorded this, but has suddenly and awfully become more relevant since. Can Pratchett help us do away with ideas of Us and Them? Can he flesh out the previously cartoony city/nation/continent of Klatch? And how great are submarines? Use the hashtag #Pratchat27 on social media to join the conversation!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:05:29 — 57.8MB)

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Guest Craig Hildebrand-Burke is a writer who has recently completed a psychology degree. He’s written fiction, non-fiction, reviews and commentary for publications including Tincture, Writers Bloc, ACMI and SBS News. You can find him on Twitter as @_CraigHB.

Next month we leave the Discworld and head into outer space – and inside a computer – in 1992’s Only You Can Save Mankind, the first of the Johnny Maxwell books for middle grade readers. We’ll be recording in late January, so get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat28.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

We recorded before the current Australian bushfires reached their peak, and so barely mentioned them in the episode; if you’d like to help the firefighters, wildlife workers or those affected by the fires, this JJJ article has some good places to start.

Want to make sure we get through every Pratchett book? You can support Pratchat for as little as $2 a month and get access to bonus stuff, including the exclusive supporter podcast Ook Club! Click here to find out more.

#Pratchat27 Notes and Errata

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Theses are the show notes and errata for episode 27, “Leshp Miserablés“, featuring guest Craig Hilderbrand-Burke, discussing the 1997 Discworld novel Jingo.

  • The O.C. is 1990s teen drama we’ve previously mentioned in episode 23, “The Music of the Nitt“. It starred the other Ben McKenzie.
  • “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” – meaning there’s not a hidden meaning in everything, no matter how obvious the phallic imagery may be – is a phrase often attributed to German psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. It’s almost certain he never said it, though.
  • Cthulhu is the ancient, god-like being created by H. P. Lovecraft, giving the name “Cthulhu Mythos” to the universe of linked cosmic horror stories written by Lovecraft and others. They feature Cylcopean architecture with non-Euclidean angles, civilisations of horrific beings that pre-dated humans on Earth, and other elements of cosmic horror. We previously talked about Cthulhu in episode 10, “We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Broomstick“, as Moving Pictures also features Cthulhu-like horrors. (Bel-Shahamroth, featured in The Colour of Magic, also clearly draws inspiration from the works of Lovecraft.)
  • The tradition of a “Speaker’s Corner“, where anyone can stand on a soapbox and give their opinion, originates in Hyde Park London and dates back to at least the 19th century. The original Speaker’s Corner in Melbourne was at Birrarung Marr, on the banks of the Yarra River; it’s now held on the lawns outside the State Library and known as the Speaker’s Forum. Sydney’s Speaker’s Corner is at the Domain.
  • Blackadder Goes Forth was the fourth and final season of satirical historical comedy Blackadder created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, though the later seasons were written by Curtis with Ben Elton. They star Atkinson as various members of the Blackadder family throughout history, always accompanied by his dogsbody Baldrick (Toby Robinson). In Goes Forth, Edmund Blackadder is a Captain in the British Army on the Western Front of World War I. General Melchett (Stephen Fry) is their blustering Commanding Officer, who has no idea of their hardships and frequently orders them into danger from far behind the front.
  • You can find out more about the Mary Rose at the official web site.
  • The L-Space web was the primary web site hosting documents created on the newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett, including the Annotated Pratchett File (or APF). It still exists, though new annotations and notes now appear on the L-Space Wiki.
  • Pratchett spoke about “white knowledge” in several interviews, especially those given while publicising The Folklore of Discworld. He meant the phrase as an analogue to “white noise”, and defined it as knowledge you acquire without knowing how or where from.
  • Go Back to Where You Came From is an SBS reality television series which took groups of six Australians with “differing views” on asylum seekers and had them take the hazardous journey undertaken by refugees in reverse – sailing on small, seemingly fragile boats from Australia to nearby countries, and visiting refugee camps and other locations.
  • Tax avoidance is the (usually) legal avoidance of paying taxes, employed most successfully by the largest companies, who are allowed to offset profits with losses from previous years, depreciation of major assets (like the fleets of airlines or electrical infrastructure), or income shifting (assigning income disproportionately to subsidiaries in countries with the lowest tax rates).
  • While the militarisation of police in the US is well-documented – many forces there have military-style assault rifles, some have tanks, and quite a few have been trained by ex-military forces personnel – it’s a more recent phenomenon here in Australia. After a year or so of discussion, Victoria Police announced in December 2019 it was buying 300 AR-15 assault rifles for use in “active armed offender” situations, though they have promised the guns will not be carried in public.
  • Terry Pratchett was awarded no fewer than ten honorary doctorates. They come mostly from universities in the United Kingdom, the first being from the University of Warwick in 1999. He also had one from Dublin University in 2008, and his last – awarded in May 2014, less than a year before his death – was from the University of South Australia. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the Universities of Dublin and South Australia, which more-or-less just meant he occasionally gave a guest lecture.
  • Andy Serkis is an English actor who rose to fame through his motion capture performance as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He has since established himself as a influential voice in motion capture, both as an actor and director.
  • In the 2006 television adaptation of Hogfather, Nobby was played by Nicholas Tennant, who also played the Head Librarian in part one of the adaptation of The Colour of Magic.
  • The honorific “effendi” began life as a title in the Ottoman Empire, roughly equivalent to “sir”; it was derived from the Ancient Greek word authentēs, which means “lord”. It is still in use as an honorific in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, though it’s not quite used the way it is presented in most Western fiction.
  • The attempt on Prince Khufurah’s life has many parallels with the assassination of JFK: he is in a procession along a route lined by onlookers; the shooter was in a tall building thought to be empty; there is a second shooter elsewhere (in our world behind a grassy knoll, rather than a gnoll); and the idea that the first gunman could have shot JFK in the manner that killed him is sometimes mocked by conspiracy theorists claiming that it would require “a magic bullet”. The initial investigation determined that Lee Harvey Oswald – himself murdered while in police custody – was working alone; a later investigation determined that there was indeed a second shooter, though it agreed that Oswald’s bullet was the one that killed the President.
  • The “Zapruder film” is the most famous footage of the assassination of President Kennedy. It was filmed by local clothing manufacturer Abraham Zapruder on a home-movie camera; he developed three copies of his film and gave two to the US Secret Service, and it was used in both major investigations of the assassination.
  • Leonardo Da Vinci secured the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, in around 1482, and was commissioned to build a huge bronze statue of a horse. A full-size clay model was made and exhibited to much acclaim, but the 80 tons of bronze intended for the statue was instead used to build cannons in war against the French, and the statue was never completed. After the seizure of Milan by Louis XII, the clay model was used for target practice by French troops and destroyed. Some accounts say the Duke was impressed with Leonardo’s ingenuity and hired him to design weaponry, which may explain why his notebooks include many things that are definitely weapons, including a huge crossbow, guns with multiple barrels and armoured vehicles (including one with scythes to cut down enemy troops, illustrated complete with victims of the blades).
  • Hachikō was an Akita dog whose master, Hidesaburō Ueno, was a professor at the University of Tokyo. Ueno lived in Shibuya and Hachikō would come to Shibuya train station every day to meet him on his way home. Uneo died while at work in May 1925, but Hachikō continued visiting the station hoping to meet his master every day until his own death nearly ten years later. Hachikō became famous in 1932 when a newspaper wrote an article about him, and a statue was erected in his honour in 1934. The original statue was recycled during World War II, but a new statue by the original sculptor’s son was erected outside Shibuya Station in 1948. It’s still there, and the nearest entrance is now named after Hachikō. There are similar statues in Hachikō’s hometown Ōdate at the train station and the Akita Museum. In 2015, 80 years after his death, a new statue of Ueno meeting an excited Hachikō was unveiled at the University of Tokyo.
  • The film Lawrence of Arabia follows the exploits of real-life British officer T. E. Lawrence, who during World War I was sent to find out if Syrian Prince Faisal had any chance of aiding in the war against Turkey. The film has been a source of controversy over its perceived historical inaccuracies, though it won many awards and propelled its star, Peter O’Toole, to great fame.
  • Embassies – the permanent homes of major “diplomatic missions” to other states – are not generally considered “foreign soil”, or “extra-territorial”, but fall under the jurisdiction of local governments. But they do get a bunch of privileges under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations established in 1961 which includes exemption from many local laws. And it turns out to be true that citizens and authorities of the local country cannot enter without permission – even to put out a fire!
  • Heartbeat was a British police drama which ran for 18 years between 1992 and 2010, based on the “Constable” novels by Nicholas Rhea (a pseudonym for ex-cop Peter N Walker). It was set in mid to late 1960s in fictional Yorkshire village of Aidensfield. It originally centred around PC Nick Rowan (Nick Berry) and his wife, Dr Kate Rowan (Niamh Cusack), but after a few years both left the program and characters took the limelight. The only characters to remain throughout were Yes Minister’s Derek Fowlds as Nick’s Sergeant, Blaketon, who later retires and takes over the local pub, and older fellow PC Alf Ventriss (William Simons), who was a commando in World War II and whose wife was mentioned frequently but never appeared on screen. We never even find out her first name!
  • There are many examples of the “battle butler” in fiction. Aside from Willikins, there’s Alfred Pennyworth (Batman), Jarvis (The Avengers comics), Oddjob (Goldfinger), Cadbury (Richie Rich, especially in the film), Kato (The Green Hornet) and Mr Butler (Artemis Fowl).
  • The “white saviour” narrative is a common trope, especially in film, where a white protagonist saves non-white people from disaster or war, usually by leading them or making them “more civilised”. Lawrence of Arabia is one of the earliest major examples, but there are many, many others.
  • The Watchmen television series, which was first released in 2019, serves as a sequel to the 1987 comic book series Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The comic is celebrated as a deconstruction of the superhero genre, and features a number of second-generation costumed vigilantes investigating a global conspiracy that seems to mean them harm. The television series, whose show runner is Damon Lindelof of Lost and The Leftovers fame, is set 34 years after the events of the original comics.
  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is an 1870 novel by French author Jules Verne. It follows marine biologist Pierre Arronax and his companions Conseil and Ned as they investigate a mysterious sea creature which is attacking and sinking ships. The creature turns out to be the Nautilus, a miraculous and hyper-advanced submarine invented and commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo. The story is great, but Ben recommends you stick to adaptations as the book is “approximately 50% lists of fish Arronax sees out the window”.
  • The only major appearances of the nation of Klatch are in Sourcery and Jingo, but other nations of the Klatchian continent make major appearances in Pyramids (Djelibeybi and Ephebe), Eric (Tsort and the Tezuman Empire) and Small Gods (Omnia and Ephebe). Various others, including Howondaland, crop up in references
  • The Crown is a 2016 Netflix series chronicling the history of Queen Elizabeth II of England, beginning with her marriage to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Each season covers a different period of her reign, and so the main characters change and are re-cast over time. Elizabeth has so far been played by Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. The fourth season, coming in 2020, will bring the narrative through to the 1980s.
  • The “trousers of time” were actually first mentioned in Guards! Guards!. Inspiration for the phrase seems to have come from the 1960s radio sketch comedy I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, which featured a parody of Doctor Who titled “Professor Prune and the Electric Time Trousers”. The band Bangers has a track named “Trousers of Time” on their album Bird, which it seems must be a Discworld reference, since the first line is “I feel like I woke up in the wrong leg / Of the trousers of time”. “Trousers of Time” are also an item available in the videogame The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild; the wording may be a Pratchett reference, but it’s more directly based on a previous game in the series, Ocarina of Time.
  • The dis-organiser is an astonishingly accurate prediction of modern smartphones’ “Intelligent Assistants“, which interpret spoken commands and automate tasks. One of those is “predictive appointments”, in which they suggest appointments for your calendar based on the content of your emails and other clues.
  • “Shaddap You Face” was a single by Italian-American-Australian performer Joe Dolce. Released in 1980, the song is about a young Italian migrant living in Melbourne, and is based on the language used by Dolce’s Italian grandparents. The chorus is the character’s mother telling him to cheer up, It was a number one hit in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and several European countries – though not, it should be noted, in Italy.
  • The Discworld Tacticus is probably based on several Roundworld people: his name comes from two Greek military writers, Aeneas Tacticus (4th century BCE) and Aelianus Tacitus (2nd century BCE), but also likely references Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian from around the second century CE whose work is used extensively to teach Latin in schools. Tacticus’ advice on war seems more inspired by Sun Tzu, Chinese author of The Art of War from around the 6th century BCE.
  • For more on the names and genius of camels, see Pyramids.
  • Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was famously assassinated in Sarajevo on the 28th of June, 1914. He was shot by Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old assassin armed by the Black Hand, a group of Serbian nationalists (Bosnia and Herzegovina was at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian empire). This lead to hostilities between Austria and Serbia and eventually to World War I.
  • We note that while The Joye of Snackes certainly represents one kind of danger of magical knowledge passing into print, it was likely printed using engraved plates, as movable type doesn’t properly come to Ankh-Morpork until The Truth.
  • We previously tried to cast Lady Sybil in episode 7A, “The Curious Incident of the Dragon and the Night Watch“.
  • Miranda Hart is an English comedian and actor best known for her BBC sitcom Miranda and medical drama Call the Midwife. You might also know her from Hyperdrive, Not Going Out and various other British film and television comedies. She’ll next be seen playing Miss Bates in a new feature film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, directed by Autumn de Wilde.

#Pratchat24 Notes and Errata

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These are the show notes and errata for episode 24, “Arsenic and Old Clays“, discussing the nineteenth Discworld book Feet of Clay with guest weather presenter, meteorologist and science communicator Nate Byrne.

  • The gig at which Liz and Nate met was Sci Fight, a comedy science debate created and hosted by Ben’s sometime comedy partner Alanta Colley. At the time of writing, the next debate, “Nature Knows Best”, is on October 17 at Howler bar in Brunswick – featuring our own Ben McKenzie!
  • The Discworld videogame was released by Perfect Entertainment in 1995, and if we can find a way to play it, we’ll cover it for the podcast! It was written by Paul Kidd and designer Gregg Barnett, with the main plot drawn from Guards! Guards! but substituting Rincewind as the protagonist and adding in ideas from other books, especially The Colour of Magic. As well as Eric Idle as Rincewind, the voice cast includes Tony Robinson, Nigel Planer, Rob Brydon (The Trip), Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf), Jon Pertwee (Doctor Who) and – playing all of the notably few significant female characters – Kate Robbins (Spitting Image). Discworld was followed by two more games: 1996’s Discworld II: Missing Presumed…?!, with a plot written by Barnett and mostly based on a mash-up of Reaper Man and Moving Pictures, again with Rincewind as the protagonist; and Discworld Noir in 1999, an original story about Lewton, an ex-watchman and the Disc’s first private investigator, written by Chris Bateman in consultation with Terry himself. While none of the games are considered canonical, Discworld Noir is set not long after Feet of Clay.
  • We’d like to note that the language used in the blurb around suicide isn’t recommended; use of the verb “commit” implies criminal wrongdoing and further stigmatises those suffering from mental health problems. These days the recommended language is to say “died by suicide”, which acknowledges that such a death is caused by mental illness and other factors, rather than blaming the deceased.
  • There’s no good source for the origins of the name “Tubulcek“, but the golem’s names are definitely all based on Yiddish; see the further show note towards the end.
  • The golem myth Ben is remembering is actually about how to kill a golem. In some stories the golem has a word written on its forehead; one example is the word אמת (emet), which means truth. If the golem got out of control, erasing the letter aleph at the end of the word transformed it into מת (met), which means “dead”.
  • The 99% Invisible episode Ben and Nate refer to is episode 368: All Rings Considered (an almost Liz-worthy pun). It documents the rise and fall of customisable ringtones for mobile phones. The particular story they’re talking about is right at the end.
  • Dwarves as a plural for dwarf was popularised by J. R. R. Tolkien in his fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but is still not as popular as dwarfs. Its not as straightforward as that, though, as the conventions of Old English and its Germanic influences also play a part; episode 95 of The Allusionist podcast, “Verisimilitude”, describes some of the considerations involved when trying to invent a fictional language that sounds real, including some thoughts on English plurals.
  • Wildlife Wonderland was a minor tourist attraction and wildlife park in Gippsland, Victoria, which closed in 2012, leaving behind the abandoned “Giant Earthworm Museum” – a building in the shape of, and dedicated to, the Gippsland giant earthworm – and “Rosie”, a Great White Shark preserved in a glass and steel tank filled with formaldehyde. The podcast Abandoned Carousel has an episode all about Rosie.
  • Arsenic was originally popular as a poison because it’s very potent, easy to get ahold of – it was used in just about everything during the 19th century – and there was no way to detect its presence until the invention of “the Marsh test” in the 1830s. It remained popular in fiction for all of these reasons, and also because it causes really gruesome deaths.
  • Mr Pump is a golem who works for the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, and a major character in Going Postal. The fate of golems post-Feet of Clay is most significantly discussed in that same novel.
  • The 1920 play R.U.R. – “Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti“, or “Rossum’s Universal Robots” – was written by Czech playwright and author Karel Čapek. It imagines a future in the year 2000 where “roboti” – synthetic people made of flesh, closer to Blade Runner style replicants than mechanical robots – have replaced humans as a labour force, but rebel against the conditions under which they are forced to work. The play was a hit and was widely restaged and adapted, introducing the word “robot” in its modern sense into English. It comes from the Czech word “robota“, which referred to peasant forced labourers under the old Czech feudal system.
  • The “Galaxy Brain” or “Expanding Brain” meme is a series of illustrations of the human brain in order of increasing brain activity, culminating in one with energy streaming out of it. The images are paired with text of ideas that are humorously suggested to be increasingly sophisticated or intelligent. It first appeared in 2017, and you can find examples at knowyourmeme.com.
  • The dream of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, appears in the Bible in chapter 2 of the Book of Daniel, specifically verses 31-33, and 41-43.
  • Asimov is our resident “Pratcat”, who has his own Instagram account and was a guest in our recent episode about Pratchett’s non-fiction humour book, The Unadulterated Cat. Isaac Asimov is a famous science fiction author who created the “Laws of Robotics“, three rules used to govern the behaviour of all artificially intelligent robots in his books.
  • Orlando Bloom’s Dad – or, more accurately, his Pirates of the Carribbean character Will Turner’s Dad, Bootstrap Bill – was a member of the pirate captain Jack Sparrow’s crew when they stole cursed gold and forced to suffer a living death. In the first film, it’s revealed that Bootstrap Bill was the only one to defend Sparrow when his first mate Barbossa marooned him on the island from which they stole the gold, and was thrown overboard. As Liz predicted, this didn’t kill him, and in the second film we discover he is now one of the cursed souls who serve aboard the ghost ship The Flying Dutchman, under captain Squidfac- er, Davy Jones.
  • Tallow is rendered animal fat, usually from cows or sheep. It was once widely used in the production of candles, explaining why Arthur Carry’s candle factory is in the slaughterhouse district. Modern candles are predominantly made from paraffin wax, a petroleum product.
  • Otto von Chriek is the vampire iconographer for Ankh-Morpork’s first newspaper, The Ankh-Morpork Times. We’ll meet him for the first time in The Truth.
  • The Kentucky Fried Chattin’ podcast no longer has its own web site, but you can find it in your podcast directory of choice, or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. It’s hosted by Melbourne comedians Bec Petraitis, Peter Jones, and Xavier Michelides.
  • It is established later, in the Tiffany Aching books, that Wee Mad Arthur is indeed a Pictsie who has been raised as a gnome. Whether his accent is intended as Geordie or Scots is still up in the air.
  • Hornets are larger than wasps, and build large, enclosed paper nests, usually suspended from trees. They are very aggressive, but don’t come into contact with humans as often because they prey primarily on other insects, and aren’t attracted to sugars like wasps.
  • Titus Andromedon is the roommate of Kimmy Schmidt in the Netflix sit-com The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which we previously discussed in our bonus live episode, “A Troll New World“.
  • Modern casters (or caster wheels) were first patented in the US in 1876, making wheeled chairs a 19th century invention – so not entirely out of the realm of semi-industrial Ankh-Morpork.
  • “It is a good day to die” is a common battle cry of Star Trek’s Klingons, a culture of ferocious warriors with a code of honour that glorifies violence. It is most famously said by Worf, one of the protagonists of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is set at a time when the Klingons have made peace with the United Federation of Planets.
  • Red dwarfs are indeed among the smallest and coolest stars, but Ben is incorrect about this being part of their life cycle – red dwarfs actually have very long lifespans, and might actually still be burning when the Universe collapses!
  • The Dungeons & Dragons clay golem is listed in the free basic rules for the current 5th edition; you can find it online at D&D Beyond.
  • Golem stories come mostly from Jewish folklore, with connections to the Jewish, Christian and Greek stories of the first humans being fashioned by gods from earth or clay. The classic golem narrative is the Golem of Prague, created by 16th century Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel to protect his ghetto from an anti-Jewish pogrom. He was forced to kill it and the pieces of its body were supposedly kept in the Prague synagogue, to be brought back to life if needed again.
  • The golem names, in this book at least, are based on Yiddish. “Meshugga” is meshuga, which means “senseless” or “crazy”. “Dorfl” is a clever one, as it seems to be a mashup of the Austrian word for a town, “dorf“, and the German diminutive, “-l”, and is a play on the term Jewish folks in Austria used for their communities, “stetl“. Thanks to listener Felix who tipped us off about this, and also for pointing out that Dorfl’s name is particularly appropriate for a policeman!
  • For more info about the crowdfunding campaign for Night Terrace season three, visit nightterrace.com.

#Pratchat24 – Arsenic and Old Clays

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In episode 24, meteorologist Nate Byrne joins Elizabeth and Ben for a Discworld tale of murder, golems and nobility in 1996’s Feet of Clay.

Two old men have been murdered in Ankh-Morpork, but they’re not the worst of Commander Vimes’ woes. His best Sergeant is six weeks from retirement; his worst Corporal might be the Earl of Ankh; his newest recruit is an alchemist with some pretty strange ideas for a dwarf; and someone has poisoned the Patrician, though he’s damned if he can figure out how. And somehow, the golems are involved…

Content note: this episode contains brief discussion of (fictional) suicide. If you or anyone you know needs help, use the Wikipedia list of crisis lines to find one local to you.

Following on from Men at Arms (from way back in episode one!), Feet of Clay evolves the Watch – and its leader – even further, and introduces some of Pratchett’s most memorable supporting characters: Cheery Littlebottom, Wee Mad Arthur and Dorfl the golem. It gets a bit deep on questions of artificial life, gender expression and identity, and is a heck of a mystery novel to boot. Did you figure out “whatdunnit”? Who’s your favourite new character? And what do you think the Pratchat coat of arms and motto should be? Use the hashtag #Pratchat24 on social media to join the conversation and let us know what you think!

PS – we recorded this just before the casting announcements for The Watch television series, so don’t be disappointed when they don’t come up! We’ll find a place to discuss them in the near future.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:14:58 — 62.2MB)

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Guest Nate Byrne is a meteorologist, weather presenter and science communicator. He presents the weather for ABC News Breakfast, which means he gets up very early and had been awake for around 14 hours when we recorded this episode, making his jokes and insights even more impressive! You can find Nate’s writing for the ABC here, and follow him on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Next month we’re joined by author Claire G Coleman as we head back to the early days of Discworld with Equal Rites. Plus our subscriber-only bonus podcast, Ook Club, has launched! You can subscribe for as little as $2 a month to check it out. You’ll find all the details on our Support Us page.