Ben McKenzie

#Pratchat90 Notes and Errata

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These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 90, “Mind the Ginnungagap”, discussing the 40th Discworld novel, 2013’s Raising Steam, with returning guest Craig Hildebrand-Burke.

Iconographic Evidence

The cover of the first edition US hardcover, the first of Pratchett’s books to be published by Doubleday in the US. The cover art is by Justin Gerard, his only cover for a Discworld novel, though he did do the US covers for The Science of Discworld books, The Folklore of Discworld, A Blink of the Screen and A Slip of the Keyboard.

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title makes the obvious gag that Pratchett himself didn’t, combining ginnungagap – the primordial “yawning void” of Norse (and Discworld dwarfish) mythology, from which the world (or one of them, at least) was created – and “mind the gap”, the famous advice on posters and announcements in the London Underground, warning passengers of the gap between the train and the platform.
  • As mentioned, Craig was previously a guest on one of our last pre-pandemic episodes: #Pratchat27, “Leshp Miserablés”, discussing Jingo.
  • “Gunzel” is uniquely Australian slang for a train or tram spotter – or by analogy, anyone with a specific nerdy interest (though that usage is uncommon). While it has an uncertain etymology, the term is at least several decades old; one account traces it specifically back to employees of the Sydney Tramway Museum in the 1960s, who supposedly picked it up from The Maltese Falcon (as they enjoyed using exaggerated American slang from old films and magazines). Originally used as a insult akin to British terms like “gricer” and “anorak”.
  • Melbourne’s City Loop is a central underground railway system passing in a circle through five stations in Melbourne’s central business district (CBD). Until 2025, all major train lines in Melbourne entered the loop on one of four tracks, passing through all of these stations before exiting again. In order to relieve congestion – there are eleven different train lines, but only four tracks in the loop – a new Metro Tunnel project was commenced in 2015 to dig a new tunnel across the CBD, linking the southeast directly to the northwest and creating five new underground stations (some of which are connected directly to the existing ones) in Melbourne and its inner suburbs. Those stations and the new tunnel opened in November 2025, and eventually some of the train lines will stop running around the loop and only run through the tunnel. (While not a true gunzel, Ben is very keen on public transport, so unlike Liz he’s very much looking forward to travelling on the new train route and seeing the new stations.)
  • Rob Wilkins gives an account of the writing of Raising Steam in the final chapter of the official Pratchett biography, A Life with Footnotes. He described the process as quite different from the usual, with Pratchett producing many, many scenes, but never getting to the stage of finding the “unifying, crystallising vision that would have turned these scenes into a novel”. He credits Pratchett’s UK editor, Philippa Dickson, with finding the pattern and the gaps in those scenes, and giving Wilkins advice on where to guide Pratchett in order to turn them into a book. Notably not involved was Pratchett’s previous and just as talented and beloved US editor, Jennifer Brehl, as he had only recently switched US publishers from HarperCollins to Knopf Doubleday. (This explains the new cover artist, as seen on Ben’s edition.)
  • Train-based fantasy, sci-fi and other fiction that we mention include:
    • Perdido Street Station and its sequels The Scar and The Iron Council, weird fiction novels by China Miéville which combine elements of fantasy and steampunk. The Iron Council features trains most prominently of the three.
    • Iron Dragon, perhaps the first “crayon rails” style train board game set in a fantasy world.
    • Westworld, the television series (based on the 1973 film) about fantasy theme parks staffed by “Hosts”, artificially intelligent robots indistinguishable from humans. The titular “Westworld”, a wild west town, was serviced by a replica steam train, which later plays an important part in the plot.
    • Points and Lines, aka Tokyo Express in the newer 2022 English translation, a 1958 Japanese crime novel by Seichō Matsumoto involving trains and timetables.
    • The Dark Tower series of novels, specifically The Waste Lands and Wizard and Glass, by Stephen King. These books feature Blaine, an insane artificial intelligence which controls a monorail train. The children’s book which references Blaine is Charlie the Choo-Choo.
    • Deadlands is a roleplaying game originally designed by Shane Lacy Hensley. The supernatural ore that powers some of its steampunk technology is called “ghost rock”. The current version is a setting for the Savage Worlds roleplaying game, rather than a game in its own right. Note that like many “weird west” games and stories of the twentieth century, the original 1990s edition contained plenty of appropriation (and misrepresenation) of the cultures of Native and Black Americans; we’re not sure what the later versions are like.
    • Spire: The City Must Fall and Heart: The City Beneath, a pair of related tabletop roleplaying games designed by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor. The class Ben mentions is the “Vermissian Knight”, though Ben got their ability twisted a bit; one of their “zenith abilities” (that are generally a character’s final act) turns them into a living train, who steams off into the Heart (the weird, living dungeon beneath the city of Spire, from which the abandoned Vermissian train system drew its power). The remaining members of their party get a special “Deus Ex Machina” abiltity that they can cash in once to have the train-thing return, smashing into an enemy who is defeating them and dealing massive damage before going on their way again.
    • The Peter Grant novels, particularly Whispers Underground, by Ben Aaronovitch. Aaronovitch is a big Pratchett fan, and references the Discworld in most of his novels; he also coincidientally reviewed Raising Steam for The Guardian when it was first published.
    • Snowpiercer, a film and subsequent television series, both based on the French graphic novel by Jacques Lob.
    • Abiotic Factor, a survival videogame by New Zealand developers Deep Field Games. The Train, also known as “the Steam Engine” or IS-0138 (a designation usually given to creatures or objects, rather than worlds), is noted as “highly dangerous” with the note “IT MUST NEVER STOP”.

More notes coming soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.

#Pratchat90 – Mind the Ginnungagap

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Psychologist Craig Hildebrand-Burke rejoins Liz and Ben as we don our flat caps and anoraks, as we make sense of Terry Pratchett’s penultimate Discworld novel, 2013’s Raising Steam.

Dick Simnel has created Iron Girder, the Disc’s first steam engine – and he’s brought it to Ankh-Morpork seeking an investor. He finds one in Sir Harry King, who is keen to be known as the King of something other than what brought him his wealth. As excitement and interest in the “steam engines” starts to build, Lord Vetinari sees its potential – but only if someone oversees this new enterprise on behalf of the city. That someone is, of course, Moist von Lipwig, who is in need of a new way to live dangerously. And dangerous it will be, since the conservative dwarf grags are once again moving against their progressive King. They’re attacking anything too new to be traditionally dwarfish – which means modern dwarfs, clacks towers, goblins with jobs…and the steam train…

Terry Pratchett clearly had a love of steam engines – he particularly requested a steam roller be the thing to destroy his unfinished works after his death. This at least partly explains why – instead of the announced Raising Taxes – the next Moist von Lipwig book would see him helping to bring the Discworld into the age of steam. Written in 2012 and 2013, as Pratchett’s illness started to worsen, it had a troubled journey into existence, with Rob Wilkins writing in the official biography that ‘the real triumph of Raising Steam was that it existed at all.’ But while it might lack the sharpness of plot and theme and structure that mark Pratchett’s best work, there are still plenty of great jokes, characters, observations and ideas in Raising Steam – especially for the Discworld fan who’s also a bit of a gunzel (that’s Fourecksian for “train spotter”).

Have you read Raising Steam? How do you rate it, compared to the previous novels in the series? How many words did you have to look up? What were your favourite allusions to the history of steam, and to railway fiction, that we didn’t mention? Get aboard the comment train by using the hashtag #Pratchat90 on social media, or comment on our website, to join the conversation!

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Guest Craig Hildebrand-Burke (he/him) is an educational and development psychologist who last joined us way back in January 2020 for #Pratchat27, “Leshp Miserablés”, to talk about Jingo. He specialises in working with neurodivergent children and young people and their families, as well as d/Deaf and hard of hearing children and families. We can’t advertise his actual practice, but you can find him on Instagram as @craighbpsychologist. (There are only a few posts in the grid, but he shares a lot of great stuff as reels!)

You can find episode notes and errata on our web site.

Now we’re nearly at the end of the Discworld, it’s time to make sense of it all – so next month, we’ll be sifting through the A-Z of the series, The Discworld Companion! (We’ll be using The Ultimate Discworld Companion as the default, but any version you have should do!) Send us any questions you have about this encyclopaedia-like tome via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com), or send a clacks over your social network of choice using the hashtag #Pratchat91.

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 page for details.

#Pratchat89 Notes and Errata

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These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 89, “An Awfully Teeny Weeny Adventure”, discussing the 1995 computer game Discworld, with guest Jody Macgregor.

Iconographic Evidence

We’ll add a few choice screenshots here! Watch this space.

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title is obviously a reference to one of the companies who made Discworld, Teeny Weeny Games, and the fact that it’s a graphic adventure game. But it’s also a riff on “an awfully big adventure”, which is how Peter Pan describes death in the original play by J M Barrie. An Awfully Big Adventure is also the title of a film – coincidentally released in 1995, the same year as Discworld – about a teenage girl drawn into the drama and trauma behind the scenes of a post-war production of Peter Pan. It was directed by Mike Newell, and starred Georgina Cates, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. (Note that the film comes with a few content warnings.)
  • You can read a PDF of the 1993 interview with Terry from PC Gamer #1 via the PC Gamer website. It was originally made available for ‘A tribute to Terry Pratchett’, an article by Christopher Livingston published on 13 March 2015, soon after his death.
  • We mention two articles which discuss who holds the rights to the game:
  • Unsurprisingly we mention a lot of videogames in this episode, especially adventure games. Here’s a quick list of the adventure games; we’ll add more games, and some details, soon.
    • The Secret of Monkey Island (LucasArts 1990)
    • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (LucasArts 1991)
    • Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (Sierra On-Line 1991) – Ben was wrong about the prequel that was skipped; he’s confusing the time travel in this game (in which space janitor Roger Wilco visits several sequel games that don’t yet exist) with the missing fourth game in Sierra’s Leisure Suit Larry series. (Similar “Search for the Sequel” jokes have been proposed for films, but none filmed as far as we can find.)
    • Day of the Tentacle (LucasArts 1993)
    • Sam & Max Hit the Road (LucasArts 1993)
    • Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (Humongous Entertainment 1994) – designed by Ron Gilbert, who also made The Secret of Monkey Island and most of the other adventure games mentioned by Ben this episode!
    • Full Throttle (LucasArts 1995)
    • The Curse of Monkey Island (LucasArts 1997)
    • Grim Fandango (LucasArts 1998)
    • Duck Quest? (Waffle Friday Studios 2013)
    • The Cave (Doublefine Productions 2013)
    • Thimbleweed Park (Terrible Toybox 2017)
    • Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox 2022)

More notes coming soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.

#Pratchat89 – An Awfully Teeny Weeny Adventure

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Games journalist and PC Gamer editor Jody Macgregor joins Liz and Ben to take control of an oddly Pythonesque Rincewind and discuss the 1995 graphic adventure game Discworld from Teeny Weeny Games and Perfect 10 Productions.

A nefarious secret society has summoned a dragon in Ankh-Morpork! It’s a suspiciously familiar plot, and of course the only one who can save the city is…Rincewind? This wizard might not know any spells, but he’s decidedly snarky and cunning – and accompanied by an inventory window on legs. Together, they’ll use petty theft, time travel and logic that would put Rube Goldberg to shame to rid the city of this scaly threat forever…twice!

Terry Pratchett was famously an early adopter of computers, and a devoted video game player, so its no surprise that there were other Discworld videogames before…er…Discworld. But this 1995 point-and-click graphic adventure game is by far the most well known and beloved of the lot – despite also being infamous for its difficulty, in a genre known for obscure puzzles with illogical solutions! The player controls a version of Rincewind voiced by Eric Idle, who must travel back and forth all over Ankh-Morpork (and to the edge of the Disc) to collect a variety of random objects to save the city. The plot is loosely based on Guards! Guards!, with some flavour from Moving Pictures and a cast drawn from the early wizards novels. It was followed by two more games from the same team: Discworld II: Missing, Presumed…?!, and Discworld Noir, each with quite different visual styles, and the latter with a brand new protagonist. Sadly, all three are “abandonware” – not only unavailable, but languishing in copyright limbo, with no-one sure enough who currently has the rights to get them published again.

Have you had a chance to play Discworld? What do you think of this version of Rincewind, Ankh-Morpork and the Disc? Would you like to hear us do episodes about the two other adventure games? And what other adventure games would you recommend for folks looking for a similar vibe? What other kinds of Discworld videogame would you like to see? Click on Pratchat and choose the question mark icon to join our online conversation, using the hashtag #Pratchat89.

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Guest Jody Macgregor (he/him) is a journalist who started out writing about music, but now writes mostly about videogames. He’s been writing for PC Gamer for about a decade, and is currently the magazine’s weekend and Australian editor. You can find out more about him, and read his most recent reviews and articles, by looking up his profile at pcgamer.com.

You can find episode notes and errata on our web site.

Next month we’re catching a train – the Ankh-Morpork Scenic Railway, that is – as we read Terry Pratchett’s penultimate Discworld novel, Raising Steam! Send us your questions via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com), or get on board via your local social media platform using the hashtag #Pratchat90.

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 page for details.

#Pratchat88 Notes and Errata

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These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 88, “They’re All Good Dragons, Bront”, discussing Paul Kidby’s 2024 art book, Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, with guest Brendan Barnett.

Iconographic Evidence

We can’t show you photos of the book, but you can find a lot of the art on Paul Kidby’s official website.

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title refers to a famous tweet from the social media account WeRateDogs. This account shared photos of dogs submitted by their owners on Twitter, and rated them with outrageously positive comments, giving all of them scores of at least 10 out of 10. In 2016, another Twitter user named Brant complained about their rating system. WeRateDogs asked “Bront” (a deliberate misspelling of his name) why he was so mad, and he replied that “you give every dog 11s and 12s, it doesn’t make any sense”. Their now famous reply: “They’re good dogs Bront”. (We based our title on the misquote “They’re all good dogs, Bront”.) WeRateDogs is still going, and still a delight; you can find their social links at weratedogs.com.
  • The book Brendan describes from his youth with Death keeping bees is almost certainly the original large-format edition of Eric, lavishly illustrated by Josh Kirby. See #Pratchat7, “All the Fingle Ladies”.
  • The desktop calendar Brendan mentions might have been a Discworld Day-to-Day Calendar, available in 1999 and/or 2000. It’s one of those types with a plastic stand holding a pad of small square sheets, one for each day of the year. Ben thinks he might also have had one of these back then.
  • George Rex is an Adelaide-based illustrator and cartoonist, and friend of the podcast. She appeared as a guest in #Pratchat7, “All the Fingle Ladies” and #Pratchat55, “Mr Doodle, the Man on the Moon”.
  • For the record, the book does a great job of crediting all the art by other artists or from other publishers in an appendix. Ben just wishes the Kidby pieces were given years and sources as well!
  • Colin Morgan is an Irish actor most famous for playing the titular young wizard in the BBC fantasy adventure TV series Merlin from 2008 to 2012. His other credits include the sci-fi series Humans, Kenneth Branagh’s film Belfast, and the podcast drama Passenger List. He was the narrator for the first full sub-series of new Discworld audiobooks from Penguin, the Wizards books. That includes The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Eric, Interesting Times, The Last Continent, and Unseen Academicals. (The Last Hero is not published by Penguin, and did not get an audiobook.)
  • Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch is a 2023 book written by Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent, compiling Tiffany’s in-character thoughts on witchcraft with commentary by many of her mentors (amongst other characters). It’s published in a very similar format to Designing Discworld, and is also lavishly illustrated by Paul Kidby. We originally planned to discuss both this book and Tiffany Aching’s Guide in the same episode as this one, but we’ve got other plans for it now – watch out for a discussion of it next year. We interviewed Rhianna and Gabrielle when it came out in #Pratchat74, “Hogswitch”.
  • On closer inspection, Ben thinks the “handwritten” footnotes might be done using a handwriting font rather than actually being written by Paul. He’s not sure, but either way, it’s a fun visual choice!
  • The painting Ben describes is actually The Discworld Massive Massif, a larger and much expanded version of Kidby’s earlier Discworld Massif. The new was painted to commemorate Paul’s thirty years of illustrating Discworld in 2023. It features 140 characters, which we assume isn’t a deliberate reference to the old days of Twitter. You can buy one of a limited collector’s edition print of it from Paul Kidby’s website, or get it in jigsaw puzzle form from the Discworld Emporium.
  • There’ll be more notes on art and artists to come, but for now, here’s a list of UK first edition cover artists of Terry Pratchett’s major works. (The American covers are a whole other thing.)
    • Terry did his own covers for his first two novels, The Carpet People and The Dark Side of the Sun (#Pratchat18, “Sundog Gazillionaire”). His third, Strata (#Pratchat68, “Discus Ex Machina”), had a piece by Tim White which bears little connection to the novel itself.
    • The original cover for The Colour of Magic (#Pratchat14, “City-State Lampoon’s Disc-Wide Vacation”) was by Alan Smith.
    • Josh Kirby was brought in when the Discworld novels moved to Gollancz and Corgi, and he did them all – as well as various spin-offs – until his death in 2001, his last being Thief of Time (#Pratchat48, “Lu-Tze in the Sky with Lobsang”). Kirby also did the original covers for Truckers (#Pratchat9, “Upscalator to Heaven”), Diggers (#Pratchat13, “Don’t Quarry Be Happy”) and Wings (#Pratchat20, “The Thing Beneath my Wings”), plus new covers for Terry’s older novels when they were re-published by Corgi. He also did art for most German editions of Pratchett’s other books, including anthologies of short stories in which work by Pratchett appeared.
    • Cartoonist Gray Joliffe collaborated with Pratchett on The Unadulterated Cat (#Pratchat22, “The Cat in the Prat”), including the original cover art. (The most recent edition was The Unadulterated Maurice, which replaced the cover and all interior illustrations with images of Maurice from The Amazing Maurice film.)
    • The original cover for Good Omens (#Pratchat15, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It, But We Feel Nice and Accurate”) was designed by Chris Moore, though the most famous early cover was for the paperback edition, which features art by Graham Ward.
    • The Johnny Maxwell books didn’t originally have unified cover designs, with each one done by a different artist: David Scutt for Only You Can Save Mankind (#Pratchat28, “All Our Base Are Belong to You”), John Avon for Johnny and the Dead (episode currently unavailable), and an uncredited designer for Johnny and the Bomb (#Pratchat37, “The Shopping Trolley Problem”).
    • In between Kirby and Kidby, presumably because it was the first Discworld book for younger readers, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (#Pratchat33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids”) originally had cover art by David Wyatt.
    • Paul Kidby’s first Discworld covers weren’t for novels, but for other books – diaries, maps, the New Discworld Companion, and The Science of Discworld (#Pratchat35, “Great Balls of Physics“). After collaborating on The Last Hero (#Pratchat55, “Mr Doodle, the Man on the Moon”), he took over the main Discworld covers beginning with Night Watch (#Pratchat54, “The Land Before Vimes”), including the Tiffany Aching books. He did the original cover for Dodger (#Pratchat6, “A Load of Old Tosh”), and later new covers for the Johnny books, and a deluxe illustrated edition of Good Omens.
    • The spin-off picture book Where’s My Cow? (#Pratchat62, “There’s a Cow in There”) had cover and interior art by Melvyn Grant.
    • The original UK cover of Nation (#Pratchat41, “The Adventures of Crab Boy and Trouser Girl”) is by Johnny Duddle, who also did the interior artwork.
    • The Long Earth (#Pratchat31, “It’s Just a Step to the West”) and all four of its sequels have covers designed by Rich Shailer, who also did all the exploded diagrams that appear on the inside.

More notes coming soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.

#Pratchat88 – They’re All Good Dragons, Bront

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Illustrator, game designer and educator Brendan Barnett joins Ben to discuss art, ideas, inspiration, creative process, dragons, wizards and goblins (oh my!) as we leaf through Paul Kidby’s 2024 gorgeous coffee table book, Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.

Paul Kidby started bringing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld to life when, on the third attempt, he showed off his skill to the author by drawing his own versions of Discworld characters who had so captured his imagination. After several successful collaborations on art books, diaries, maps and the epic The Last Hero, he took over as the cover artist for the series after the death of Josh Kirby in 2001. His illustrations of the characters have become iconic, and Pratchett himself referred to him as his ‘artist of choice’. In this book, Paul discusses his pre-Discworld career, his long collaboration with Terry, and even shows us a glimpse of what might have been by sketching drafts of covers for the books that never were.

Do you have a favourite illustration from the book? What was most interesting to you about Paul’s process as an artist – and what’s it like to read if you don’t consider yourself one? How many of originals that Kidby parodies or does an homage to did you know? And who are your other favourite artists? Illustrate your point by sending us your answers (or questions) via a comment, or on the back of a social media post using the hashtag #Pratchat88.

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Guest Brendan Barnett (he/him) has spend around 15 years working with young people to foster their creativity, including for most of the last decade with Ben at their previous workplace, the creative writing centre 100 Story Building. Trained as an animator and an actor, he is also a keen lover of fantasy roleplaying, and has designed some very well-received adventures for Dungeons & Dragons and similar games. You can find out more about his work at brendanbarnett.com, and find his latest adventure, Grotto of the Golden Gargoyle, on itch.io – as well as his recent collaboration with Ben, the one-page adventure Flee the Flying Saucer!

You can find episode notes and errata on our web site.

Next month we’re surfing the wave of Melbourne International Games Week (which happened just as this episode was being edited) to discuss the 1995 graphic adventure videogame Discworld! A slightly odd adaptation of the plot of Guards! Guards!, Discworld stars Eric Idle as the voice of Rincewind, alongside a small but equally impressive cast of UK comedy talent. It’s not currently commercially available, but you can find play-through videos of it on YouTube. Get your questions in via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com, or send them via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat89.

Then, for December, #Pratchat90 will return us to the Discworld novels for nearly the final time, as we read the final Moist von Lipwig book, Raising Steam! We’ll remind you about it next month, but if you want to get your questions in early, the hashtag for that episode is #Pratchat90. And don’t worry – we have plans to discuss Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch in the new year. Watch this space!

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 page for details.

#Pratchat19 Notes and Errata

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These are the show notes and errata for episode 19, “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got Rocks In” featuring guest Fury, discussing the sixteenth Discworld novel, 1994’s Soul Music.

Iconographic Evidence

We didn’t know about this when we recorded this, but twenty episodes later in #Pratchat39, “All the Fun of the…Fish?”, guest Marc Burrows told us about the 1981 song “There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis”, the lead single from debut album Desperate Character from British singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl (1959-2000). Clearly the inspiration for a certain line of dialogue! And, no doubt, one of many music references we likely missed (though this one might be forgiven; we’re not sure it charted highly in Australia!). Here’s Kirsty is performing it on what we think might be Top of the Pops. (Thanks to listener James for prompting us to add this Kirsty in the comments.)

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title puns the title of Duke Ellington’s 1931 jazz standard “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”, which has been recorded dozens if not hundreds of times over the last 90 years.
  • The Valhalla Cinema was a cinema in Melbourne which specialised in audience participation films – and in its early days you had to bring your own seats. Opening in 1976, it later relocated to Westgarth and changed names. The Wikipedia entry has a charming story about a rather eventful screening of The Blues Brothers – though we doubt that this was the one that Pterry attended (if, indeed, he attended one at all).
  • Look, the French Foreign Legion have a long and storied history, but in popular culture they are the go-to reference for the group you join when you want to get well away from your old life. Brendan Fraser’s character in The Mummy? French Foreign Legion.
  • Why are denim trousers called jeans? They’re named after the city of Genua, where the original fabric was manufactured. Read more about their history here. We know; we hoped they would be named after Gene Wilder too.
  • Rebel Without a Cause is one of James Dean’s most famous films and is often credited with kicking off the idea of the teenager.
  • Arthur Daley is a character from Minder, a British comedy-drama series that ran from 1979 to 1994.
  • Animorphs, first a book series, later adapted into a TV show, followed the adventures of a group of friends who had been given the power to morph into different animal shapes in an attempt to fight back against a secret alien invasion on Earth. Their enemy were the Yeerks – a parasitic species which would occupy the body of a host and control them.
  • Is Sioni bod da real Welsh? According to the Annotated Pratchett File: “‘Bod Da’ is Welsh for ‘be good’. Ergo, ‘Sioni Bod Da’ = ‘Johnny B. Goode’.”
  • “The Day the Music Died” is the name given to the tragic day where musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” J.P. Richardson were killed in a light aircraft accident. Both Holly’s wife and mother heard the news from media rather than authorities (his wife, Maria Elena, via a TV report and his mother via the radio). His mother collapsed at the news, and Maria Elena shortly afterwards had a miscarriage. This series of events led to the development of a policy for proper notification of victims’ families. The events of the day also inspired Don McLean’s song “American Pie”.
  • There have been at least two Dalek invasions of contemporary Earth in Doctor Who; the first was in the 1964 story The Dalek Invasion of Earth, later adapted into a feature film starring Peter Cushing.
  • The natural human preference for length of day is a subject of much debate. Some studies showed that the human circadian rhythm, when absent of outside stimuli like light and knowledge of time skewed more towards 25 hours, but later studies dispute this. Need more people to volunteer to sleep whenever they want for further study? We’re available!
  • Two-up is a traditional Australian gambling game. A designated “spinner” throws two coins into the air from a special paddle or board called a “kip”, which has recesses to hold the coins. Players bet on which way the coins will land: obverse (both heads), reverse (both tails) or “Ewan” (one of each). It’s often played on ANZAC Day, when it is officially legal (at least in the state of New South Wales), as it was very popular among soldiers during World War I. Modern games still often use old pre-decimalisation pennies from a significant year like 1915, the year of the Gallipoli campaign.
  • According to the Stratocaster Guide, Keith Richards once said “The Strat is as sturdy and strong as a mule, yet it has the elegance of a racehorse. It’s got everything you need, and that’s rare to find in anything.” Basically? They’re the quintessential cool guitar.
  • In the TV series Gilmore Girls, Dean and Jesse are, respectively, Rory Gilmore’s first and second boyfriends. Dean is an absolute garbage heap of a human being which only becomes more apparent as the show progresses. Jesse starts out only marginally better, but he improves. In the end it doesn’t actually matter though, as the re-boot proves that Rory herself is actually the worst of them all.
  • Popular Scottish indie group Belle & Sebastian are named for the book and television series about a boy and his dog. Their namesake is about as charming as the music they produce.

#Pratchat87 Notes and Errata

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These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 87, “Exclusive Possession: Ankh-Morpork Edition”, discussing Martin Wallace’s 2011 Discworld board game, Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, with guest Richard McKenzie.

Iconographic Evidence

The box and its contents, though only two player colours of tokens are on display here. The cards at the bottom are green and brown player cards; personality cards (the secret roles); area cards; and event cards.
The state of the board at the end of our second game. Ben was green, Richard was red, and Liz was blue.

Below are all the specific cards we mentioned this episode; you can also find lots more photos of the game on its BoardGameGeek page.

Photo of the seven personality cards from the Discworld: Ankh-Morpork board game: Dragon King of Arms; Commander Vimes; Chrysoprase; Lord Vetinari; Lord Selachii; Lord Rust; Lord de Worde
The seven personalities.
Photo of six player cards from the board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.
The cards Mr Shine, Dr Whiteface, The Fools’ Guild, Gaspode, The Fresh Start Club and Igor.
Photo of six player cards from the board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.
The player cards The Luggage, Shonky Shop, Wallace Sonky, Harry King, Mrs Cake and CMOT Dibbler.
Photo of six player cards from the board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.
The player cards Errol, The Fire Brigade, History Monks, Sergeant Angua, The Peeled Nuts, and DEATH.
Photo of six player cards from the board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.
The player cards Moist von Lipwig, Rincewind, Mr Slant, Wee Mad Aerthur, Hubert and Carcer.
Photo of four player cards from the board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.
The player cards Ruby, Harga’s House of Ribs, Susan and Zorgo the Retrophrenologist.

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title refers to Exclusive Possession the suspiciously Monopoly-like game to which a dying person once challenged Death. Death briefly mentions this in Reaper Man. (He was the boot.)
  • Richard previously appeared on #Pratchat5, “Ten Points to Viper House” discussing Pyramids, and #Pratchat40, “The King and the Hole of the King”, discussing The Fifth Elephant.
  • We only mention them a little, but the other (official) Discworld board games are:
    • Thud (2002, designed by Trevor Truran) – a Hafltafl-style game in which one side of pieces are dwarfs, and the other are trolls. As seen in the novel Thud!, though as mentioned the game pre-dates the book! Discussed in the bonus episode #PratchatPlaysThud, “The Troll’s Gambit” with guest Dr Melissa Rogerson.
    • Guards! Guards! A Discworld Board Game (2011; designed by Leonard Boyd and David Brashaw) – players take on the role of various Guilds who recruit various Discworld characters to help track down the missing spells from the Octavo. We played it for #Pratchat75, “…And That Spells Trouble” with guest Dr Melissa Rogerson.
    • The Witches (2013, designed by Martin Wallace) – a semi-cooperative game in which the players take on the role of Tiffany Aching and her fellow apprentice witches, solving problems around the Ramtops. We discussed it in #Pratchat67, “The Three-Elf Problem”, with guest Steve Lamattina.
    • Clacks: A Discworld Board Game (2015; designed by Leonard Boyd and David Brashaw) – players are Clacks operators competing to send their messages the fastest – or collaborating to send a message before Moist von Lipwig can deliver it via horse… Discussed in #Pratchat82, “Clack Go the Gears”, with guests Nicholas J Johnson and Lawrence Leung.
  • We mention a lot of other board games in this episode; some we have more to say about below, but here are most of them in a handy list with BoardGameGeek links and a brief description:
    • Ticket to Ride (2004, designed by Alan R. Moon) – a popular gateway game still going strong after all these years. Players take turns to collect sets of coloured cards and play them to place trains on a map of the US (or various other countries in other editions), trying to complete routes between specific cities for points. It’s easy to learn and plays pretty fast, but if you’ve played a few board games already, you might like to consider some of the alternatives in this video from No Pun Included.
    • Gloom (2005, designed by Keith Baker) – a storytelling card game in which you try to have the most miserable life in a very miserable family. It’s fun schtick is that the cards are transparent, and you layer them on top of each other. There’s also a Cthulhu version, and a handful of others, including one based on Game of Thrones.
    • Big Trouble in Little China: The Game (2018, designed by Christopher Batarlis, Boris Polonsky and Jim Samartino) – a miniatures-based game, adapted from John Carpenter’s 1986 action-comedy movie starring Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall and James Hong. Up to four players take on the roles of characters from the film to collaboratively defeat the sorcerer Lo Pan, who is trying to lift a curse so he can return to his evil ways. We think Richard might have found an actual playthrough video, though; this how to play video is only 12 minutes long!
    • Magic: The Gathering (1993, designed by Richard Garfield) – the first and still the most successful collectible card game, or trading card game. Buy packs of random cards and build a deck consisting of lands which give you points of “mana” in one of five colours, and spells that spend that mana to summon creatures and otherwise attack your opponent.
    • Talisman (1983, designed by Robert Harris) – originally published by Games Workshop, this game sort of resembles fantasy Monopoly. Players roll dice to move one of many different characters around a board to land on spaces where something good or bad might happen to them as they seek the “Crown of Command” to win the game. There are several “levels” to move through, and as Richard mentions, lots of expansions which add even more.
    • Blood on the Clocktower (2022, designed by Steven Medway) – a modern social deduction game – essentially a much more sophisticated version of Werewolf. Players live in a village struck down by a curse of some kind; everyone has a unique role, and tries to figure out which of them is possessed by a murderous demon – or conceal the demon, to further their own evil plans. The game comes with multiple scenarios and a large number of unique roles, and players are able to continue influencing the game even if their character is killed.
    • Pandemic (2008) – we mention this every board game episode, because it’s one of Ben’s favourites. Collaboratively try to collect samples to cure four rampant diseases before they overwhelm the world. The game’s mechanisms have been adapted to everything from Cthulhu to World of Warcraft, Star Wars, Ancient Rome and most recently Lord of the Rings. Designed by Matt Leacock, whose other similar games include Thunderbirds, the Forbidden series, and the “solve climate change” game Daybreak, co-designed with Matteo Menapace.
    • Mythos (1996, designed by Charlie Krank) – another collectible card game from the 1990s, Mythos was a Cthulhu-themed game in which you scored points by telling stories about your investigator’s adventures. Ben still has a bunch of cards and is hoping to play it again soon.
    • Oath (2021, designed by Cole Wehrle) – beautiful and colourful, Oath is more or less a wargame about the fight over the throne in a fantasy kingdom. It’s often bigged up for creating interesting stories, but Ben has found it wanting in that department. He’s willing to give it another go, though – not least because it was very expensive. The Discworld fan conversion Ben mentioned is by BGG user dugbride, and basically transforms every card in the game into a Discworld equivalent. Heads up that it uses entirely AI-generated art.
    • Cluedo (1949) – an old-school deduction game in which players move around a map of a mansion gathering cards representing clues to a murder. By slowly figuring out which person, weapon and location are missing from the deck, they race to be the first to put the solution together. The original American name is Clue, but the name more familiar to the rest of the world is a pun on “clue” and “Ludo”. Like Monopoly, it’s been released in many themed versions, though it’s usually modified a little more than Monopoly. A lot of the themes have been TV shows, like Brooklyn-99, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Doctor Who and Bob’s Burgers. (In more family friendly versions, the crime is no longer a murder.)
  • The board game video by Aunty Donna is “Explaining a Board Game” from April 2020.
  • There are three editions of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, and you can find photos of all three on BoardGameGeek:
    • The standard edition, the one Ben owns and the one you’ll most likely find secondhand, comes in a standard square-shaped box the same size as Ticket to Ride. It has a painting of Great A’Tuin on the cover (which we think is the art by Paul Kidby). This has the regular wooden pieces seen in our photos, with cardboard coins. It was published by Treefrog Games and Esdevium in the UK, Mayfair Games in the US, KOSMOS in Germany, Phalanx Games in Poland, and a few others in other European countries.
    • The Collector’s Edition comes in a rectangular box with alternate art of a dragon flying over Ankh-Morpork by the game’s main artist Peter Dennis. This version includes wooden coins, a custom d12 with “no eight”, a larger board, and a poster of Peter Dennis’ card designs.
    • The Deluxe Edition is the same as the Collector’s Edition except that it replaces the minions, buildings, trolls and demons with resin miniatures. Ben particularly likes the demons in this version, which better match the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions in the books than the wooden horned demon tokens.
  • The Ankh-Morpork map on the board seems to be based on The Streets of Ankh-Morpork by Steven Player, the first official published map of the city. It lines up pretty well with that version of the city, though there are likely a few more differences with the later Compleat Ankh-Morpork. Note that some fan sources treat the board game map as canonical, including using the names of the areas as names for neighbourhoods or suburbs of the city. While most are drawn from the books, some seem to be an invention for game purposes.
  • The part of the kidney that Liz thought Ankh-Morpork resembled is the glomerulus.
  • The card that lets you add a minion without adding trouble is Mr Shine.
  • “Mulligan” is a term used in games for when a player is allowed to have another go at something to keep the game competitive and fun. It may have originated in golf, or possibly baseball, and dates back to at least the 1930s, though its exact origins are unknown. A mulligan in golf is only for casual play, but is where a golfer is allowed to take a shot again from the same position when they lose their ball. Another well-known use is in Magic: The Gathering, where it is an official rule that a player can choose to take a “mulligan” and re-draw their initial hand of cards for the game, albeit with an increasing penalty for multiple mulligans in most most formats of the game.
  • As far as we know, there has never been a Discworld: Ankh-Morpork tournament. An opportunity for a future Discworld convention, perhaps?
  • Nanty Narking (2019) is the “re-implementation” of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork plublished by PHALANX. Re-implementation is board game jargon for re-using the same (or significantly similar) rules with a new theme or narrative – in this case, fictional Victorian London. As Ben mentions in the footnote, the main rules changes are a tweak to the Chrysoprase personality card, and some alternate rules for more advanced play. That includes the alternate personalities Ben mentioned – and you can find Ankh-Morpork versions of those on BoardGameGeek – but also an “Agent & Buildings” variant which introduces two additional sets of cards. Players are dealt three Agent cards and one Building card at the start of the game; these are initially hidden, and provide specific additional powers which interact with the player’s Agents (equivalent to Ankh-Morpork’s Minions) or Buildings on the board.
  • The Cthulhu expansion for Nanty Narking is titled Nanty Narking: The Rise of Cthulhu, and was funded by a successful campaign on GameFound (a crowdfunding platform specifically for games) in February 2025, raising over €200,000. As of July 2025, you can still join the campaign via a “late pledge” to get discounted copies of the expansion and a new printing of the base game, as well as some other bits exclusive to the campaign. The expansion adds a lot: players can now play as “Great Old Ones” attempting to take over London, using giant miniatures, powerful “Elder Ones” who are like Agents (the game’s version of minions) but with special powers, and many additions to existing elements of the game. It seems to evoke similar themes to Wallace’s 2024 Cthulhu in Victorian London game, Cthulhu: Dark Providence by CMON Games, part of their Cthulhu: Death May Die game setting. (This is itself a re-implementation of Wallace’s 2013 game A Study in Emerald, based loosely on the short story by Neil Gaiman.)
  • We’re pretty loose with the game’s terminology. We don’t recommend anyone learn to play from our description, but we thought we’d clarify a few game terms and rules:
    • The board is divided into twelve “City Areas”, each representing a district or neighbourhood, like The Shades, Dolly Sisters, the Unreal Estate or The Scours. Each has a corresponding City Area Card (the game is very good at naming things plainly), which gives a player a specific benefit: usually a simple ability they can use once per turn, like gaining $2. A City Area Card is claimed when a player builds a building in the corresponding area (not by controlling an area as we repeatedly say; see below), and only one building can be in each City Area. In the (relatively rare) event that a building is destroyed, the player loses the corresponding City Area Card.
    • A player controls a City Area by having more pieces (minions or buildings) in the area than any other single player. This has no special effect aside from helping to satisfy the win condition of the three Lord personalities.
    • Ben refers to Rincewind’s power to draw a “special ability”, but what he means is the Random Event cards that include (among other things) a riot, a dragon attack, or adding trolls or demons to the board. All wizards have the octogram symbol that requires a player to draw a Random Event; this is the only action that is not optional. These are quite rare in the first half of the game.
  • The Discworld train game was shared with us by subscriber Lachlan, who’s a big fan of train games. The game in question is an “18xx” game – part of a family of games which all draw inspiration from the 1970s game 1829 designed by Francis Tresham. Each game has its own quirks, and there are two main “lineages” which take the form in different directions; many of them take a long time to play. A major theme of these games is that players don’t have their own train company; but instead are buying stock (i.e. shares, not train stock) in private train companies, which become active when they receive enough investment. The player with the most stock in a company then gets to spend the company’s money and choose how it operates, hoping to make money and then decided what to do with its profits, affecting its stock price. BoardGameGeek lists nearly 300 18xx games, some which adapt the rules to other themes, and there are many more fan-made games as well. The one Lachlan brought to our attention is called “18DW” or “18Discworld”; it was based heavily on Raising Steam, and includes one major company, forty-seven private companies and “attacks by fundamentalist dwarves”, among other things. The only evidence of the game is a photo on a BoardGameGeek list of 18XX expansions in progress (it’s #124 in that list), and an online auction listing for a seemingly finished version of the game that lists the designer’s name as Christopher Bird. Perhaps this was the only copy? As an unlicensed fan game, its unlikely to ever fully see the light of day, but its nice to know someone out there has a copy. (Sorry it’s not you Lachlan!)
  • There are indeed fan expansions and variants of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, as well as fan recreations of the game to deal with the fact that it’s long out of print! Most add additional personalities, player cards and event cards, though some also add new pieces as well. You can find discussions of a bunch of these – including the Discworld adaptations of the variant personalities from Nanty Narking – in the game’s Variants forum on BoardGameGeek.
  • We’ve previously discussed the history of Monopoly and its origins as The Landlord’s Game in #Pratchat59, “Charlie and the Whale Factory”. The 99% Invisible podcast has a good overview of this history in episode 189, “The Landlord’s Game“. The website landlords-game.com has lots of info about the multiple versions of Elizabeth Magie’s original game, and has brought one of them back into print!
  • Not only is Elton John Monopoly real, but it’s recent – released in March 2025, and available via Elton John’s official merch store. It renames (but doesn’t remodel) the houses and hotels as stands and stadiums, and replaces the traditional playing pieces with iconic pieces of Elton’s headgear.
  • You can find Thinker Themer on YouTube. They’ve made a lot of videos, but currently are focussing on their “Shelfworthy?” series of reviews. If you like their channel, you can support them by buying their merch – their logo is super cool!
  • Armello (2015) is a digital board game from Melbourne developers League of Geeks. As described by Richard, it has a fairytale talking animals theme in which the old king (a lion) is paranoid and dying after a corruption has taken hold of the land. Players take on the role of various animals vying to be the next monarch, though means fair or foul. Armello is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, XBox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Android. It remains a reasonably popular multiplayer game, and in its final update in 2022, added crossplay, supporting multiplayer between different platforms. A tabletop version of the game, designed by Rob Heinsoo, was crowdfunded in 2024 and is expected to be published in 2025 by Australian company King of the Castle Games.

More notes coming soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.

#Pratchat87 – Exclusive Possession: Ankh-Morpork Edition

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Comedian and quizmaster Richard McKenzie returns to vie with Liz and Ben for control of the most odorous city on the Disc, as they discuss Martin Wallace’s 2011 board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.

The Patrician has gone missing! This leaves a huge power vacuum in Ankh-Morpork, and several of the most powerful figures in the city immediately start jostling for control. Lords, criminals and vampires position their minions in every district, each on their own path to power – and getting in each others’ way. Ankh-Morpork can only remain leaderless for so long – and there will be only one winner…

The first of the later Discworld board games, and generally considered by fans the best, Discworld: Ankh-Morpork (or just Ankh-Morpork) is a medium-to-light complexity game designed by Martin Wallace and published by Treefrog Games. Players take turns to play cards, following symbols and written instructions to alter the state of a map of Ankh-Morpork. Each card represents a character or location from the city, wonderfully illustrated by Peter Dennis. If the cards run out, then points are added up – but more likely, one of the players will achieve the secret objective of their “personality”, a hidden role which gives them one of five different victory conditions. Unfortunately the game was only available for five years before Treefrog lost the Discworld license, but it still holds pride of place in many fan collections – and goes for a pretty penny in the secondhand market. Especially the collector’s editions!

Have you had a chance to play Discworld: Ankh-Morpork? Does it capture the feel of the Discworld, or the city of Ankh-Morpork? Do you have a favourite card? What’s missing from the books that you’d love to see added in? And now we’ve covered all the Discworld board games, do you have a favourite? Or an idea for a new game? Play your cards right by joining our online conversation, using the hashtag #Pratchat87.

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Guest Richard McKenzie (he/him) has been a comedian in the Melbourne scene for around twenty-five years. As well as writing and performing many solo storytelling shows, he’s supported big names like Adam Hills and Ross Noble, written and performed sketches and plays with WATSON and the Anarchist Guild Social Committee, and partnered with Ben for nerd comedy, including the Dungeons & Dragons-themed improvised show Dungeon Crawl. As of July 2025 you’ll find Richard hosting trivia at The College Lawn in Prahran on Wednesday evenings from 7 PM, and at The Cornish Arms in Brunswick on Thursday evenings (7 PM, general knowledge) and Sunday afternoons (2 PM, pop culture).

Liz’s upcoming event to which psychology is relevant is the Sci-Fight comedy science debate for National Science Week, with the topic “Psychology is a Freud”. It’s on Tuesday, 12 August 2025 in Brunswick; find out more and book tickets via the Sci-Fight website.

You can find episode notes and errata on our web site.

Next month we’re back on the books – and we’re doing two at once! We’ll be discussing a couple of Discworld companion volumes, namely Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch by Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent, and Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld by Paul Kidby – who also illustrated the Tiffany Aching book! Get your questions in via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com), or sling them at us on social media using the hashtag #Pratchat88. Do listen to our interview with Rhianna and Gabrielle first – we’ll be avoiding doubling up on questions we asked them!

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 page for details.

#Pratchat85 – AT LAST, SIR TERRY

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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. (A new edition, with an updated introduction by Rob, will be published in October 2025.) The televised version is also (currently) on YouTube.

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 – if under more narrow circumstances than Pratchett might have liked. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill provides similar access, and was introduced in the UK parliament by backbench Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in November 2024. At the time of publication (March 2025), it’s currently at the committee stage; see the episode notes for more details.

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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”, in September 2019.

GNU Elspeth Sutherland; Kat Muscat; Stella Young; Cal Wilson; DJ Ian; and Terry Pratchett. We’d love you to consider supporting 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 (which coincidentally launched in between us recording and publishing this episode). Pratchett’s favoured charities are well known: the Orang Utan Foundation, and the Alzheimer’s Society. The local Australian equivalent is Dementia Australia.

You can find episode 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), 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 page for details.