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Younger Readers

#Pratchat62 – There’s a Cow in There

8 December 2022 by Pratchat Imps Leave a Comment

In this very special episode, Liz and Ben are joined by fellow Discworld podcasters Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel on an existential journey deep into our very souls! Yes, it’s part three of our Thud!-related trilogy, in which we discuss Where’s My Cow?

Every night at six o’clock, Sam Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, reads the picture book Where’s My Cow? to his one-year-old son, Young Sam. But tonight, in between doing the barnyard noises, Vimes starts to question whether this is really the right story for a child of Ankh-Morpork.

Released at the same time as Thud!, Where’s My Cow? is a picture book based on a novel inspired by a board game. Lavishly illustrated by newcomer to the Discworld Melvyn Grant, it takes the couple of pages explaining the book – and the “Vimes street version” – and brings them vividly to life, along with wonderful new visions of some of our favourite Discworld characters. But is Young Sam cute, or in the uncanny valley? What’s the deal with that flying book? What do you think the Discworld’s answer to duct tape would be? Are are you, in some way, looking for your cow? Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat62.

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_62.mp3

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Guests Joanna Hagan (chef, poet, playwright, author) and Francine Carrel (writer, editor) are the hosts of the Discworld podcast The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, which is about to reach its 100th episode! Their format splits each novel up into three weekly episodes per month, and they’re going through the Discworld books in mostly publication order, with side trips to Pratchett’s non-Discworld work along the way. Find them wherever good podcasts are available, but also at their website, thetruthshallmakeyefret.com, and on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, TikTok and probably something else by the time you read this. If you like what they do, please consider supporting them on Patreon.

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

As mentioned above and at the end of the episode, we’ve decided to cut ourselves some slack in the new year by extending the “Thud! trilogy” to four parts. In January we’ll be welcoming back Matt Roden to discuss the Discworld short story “A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices“, featuring A. E. Pessimal and available in A Blink of the Screen. We’ll also tackle some more of your brilliant Thud! questions! If you have questions about the short story, send them via social media with the hashtag #Pratchat63 or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

Finally, if you want to catch The Amazing Maurice before the rest of the Australia, and you’re in Adelaide, the Australian Discworld Convention’s fundraiser screening is on Saturday, the 10th of December, at 3 PM at the Palace Nova Prospect. Get details and book your tickets here! (We won’t be there, but do tell us if you go!)

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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Ankh-Morpork, Ben McKenzie, CMOT Dibbler, Detritus, Dwarfs, Elizabeth Flux, Foul Ole Ron, Francine Carrel, Joanna Hagan, The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, The Watch, Tie-in, Vetinari, Vimes, Where's My Cow?, Young Sam, Younger Readers

#Pratchat64 – GNOME Terry Pratchett

8 February 2023 by Pratchat Imps Leave a Comment

This month, Ben flies solo with guest Andy Matthews as they reach back into Pratchett’s earliest fiction to discuss Beatrix Potter, writing practice, The Matrix…oh, and Terry’s 1973 short story for the Bucks Free Press, “RIncemangle, the Gnome of Even Moor”!

The suspiciously familiar-sounding Gnome Rincemangle lives a sad, solitary life on the strange and mysterious (but also wet and cold) Even Moor. One day an owl tells him about the wonders of the nearby human village of Blackbury, so off he goes, accidentally hitching a ride on a lorry to department store. There he discovers he’s not the only Gnome in the world – but is the Store truly as much of a paradise as it seems?

Written on Thursday evenings for “Uncle Jim’s” children’s page when Pratchett himself was just 25 years old, this story forms the blueprint for the novel Truckers, published sixteen years later. How has Pratchett’s writing evolved over time? Is Andy right that “yearning” lies at the heart of his most successful work? Would this story amuse or frighten your children? Which of his other short stories should we give the full episode treatment? And is Pratchett the undisputed king of “fishing in his own stream” (sorry again, Ryn), or is this something all writers do, just less obviously? Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat64.

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_64.mp3

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https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_64.mp3

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Guest Andy Matthews is a comedian, podcaster and most recently an author. He writes and performs sketch comedy with Alasdair Trembly-Birchall, both live and on the podcast Two in the Think Tank, and the pair previously hosted the ABC radio comedy science quiz The Pop Test. Andy is also the Director of Stupid Old Studios, a podcast and video production studio in Melbourne, and the author of two volumes (so far) of Gustav & Henri, a “science fiction mystery time travel detective story” about friendship and snacks starring a dog and a pig, illustrated by Peader Thomas. You can find Andy on Twitter at @stupidoldandy, and his podcast at @twointank.

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

For our March episode, we’re going where Pratchat has never gone before: into Pratchett’s nonfiction! Author, publisher and roleplayer Peter M. Ball joins us for a collection of Pratchett’s scribblings about genre, fandom and Neil Gaiman. The specific pieces are “Kevins”, “Wyrd Ideas”, “Let There Be Dragons” and “Notes From A Successful Fantasy Author”, plus “Neil Gaiman: Amazing Master Conjuror” and Neil’s foreword to the book in which all of these were collected, 2014’s A Slip of the Keyboard. You’ll find all of those (except the foreword) in the book’s first section, “A Scribbling Intruder”. Send us your questions about them via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com, or on social media using the hashtag #Pratchat65.

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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Andy Matthews, Ben McKenzie, Bromeliad, Bucks Free Press, Nomes, Short Fiction, standalone, Younger Readers

#Pratchat44 – Cosmic Turtle Soup

8 June 2021 by Pratchat Imps Leave a Comment

We’ve waited two-and-a-half years for its 35th anniversary, but finally Joel Martin rejoins Liz and Ben to resolve the Disc’s first (and most literal) cliffhanger in The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett’s second Discworld novel, first published on the 2nd of June, 1986.

When we last saw them, failed wizard Rincewind, Twoflower the tourist and Twoflower’s magical Luggage – a living chest on legs – had fallen over the Rim of the Discworld. But instead of being lost in space, they mysteriously land back on the Disc in the Forest of Skund, surrounded by talking trees, gnomes and gingerbread cottages. The senior wizards of Unseen University – including Chancellor Galder Weatherwax, and scheming second-in-command Ymper Trymon – soon discover what’s happened: the Octavo, the Creator’s book of spells, wants to keep Rincewind alive. One of its spells is inside his head, and it’s needed to avert an impending apocalypse heralded by an ominous red star…

While the usual story is that Pratchett only returned to the Discworld because The Colour of Magic proved popular, he did set himself up for a sequel by dropping his protagonists off “THE EDGE”. Unlike its predecessor, The Light Fantastic has a pretty straightforward plot about averting the end of the world – but that doesn’t stop Pratchett from parodying everything from fairytales to druidic sacrifices and the conventions of fantasy writing. Plus this book introduces some concepts, and especially characters, who will come back later, including a now ex-human Librarian, Death’s adopted daughter Ysabell, and octogenarian barbarian Genghiz Cohen. (The rest of the supporting cast are less fortunate…)

Does this feel like a “real” Discworld book yet? How do we reconcile these versions of Death and Ysabell with the ones we come to love later? Is it really a bad idea to start with the early books – or is it fun to begin with the early versions of ideas Pratchett would later develop more fully? And what on the Disc happens to Rincewind between this book and Sourcery? Use the hashtag #Pratchat44 on social media to join the conversation!

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_44.mp3

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Guest Joel Martin (he/him) is a podcaster and writer who has joined us twice before: way back in #Pratchat14 to discuss The Colour of Magic, and then again in #Pratchat31 for The Long Earth. He’ll be back for The Long Mars (#Pratchat57) and The Long Cosmos (in 2024). His speculative fiction writers festival, Speculate, wrapped up in 2022, and his podcast The Morning Bell is on hiatus, though you can find links to episodes where Liz and Ben appear at the bottom of our Episodes page. Find Joel online at thepenofjoel.com or on Twitter at @thepenofjoel.

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Next episode we go back to another second book of a series, as we take a little break from the Discworld. Yes, it’s book two of Pratchett’s five novel collaboration with Stephen Baxter, The Long War! Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat45, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Annagramma, Awf'ly Wee Billy Big Chin, Ben McKenzie, Daft Wullie, Discworld, Elizabeth Flux, Granny Weatherwax, Jeannie, Lettice Earwig, Miss Level, Miss Tick, Nac Mac Feegle, Petulia Gristle, Rob Anybody, Sally Evans, Tiffany Aching, Younger Readers

#Pratchat43 – Big Wee Hag: Far Fra’ Home

8 May 2021 by Pratchat Imps Leave a Comment

Poet and writer Sally Evans joins Liz and Ben as they rejoin Tiffany Aching for a trip up into the mountains to meet the next generation of witches in A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett’s 32nd Discworld novel, first published in 2004.

Note that while this episode discusses a book for younger readers, it does contain swearing and we discuss concepts only appearing metaphorically in the book, including puberty and (briefly) masturbation. Parents may wish to listen first before listening with their big wee ones.

Tiffany Aching’s life is all change: she’s off into the mountains to apprentice with Miss Level, a research witch who even other witches find a bit weird. She’s left behind her home, her family, and everything she’s ever known. Even the Nac Mac Feegle – the drinking, fighting pictsies who’ve become her fierce protectors since she was briefly their Queen – aren’t coming with her. Tiffany soon finds that fitting in among other new witches, and learning the craft, are far harder than anything she’s done before. And that’s before the one bit of magic she knows brings her to the attention of a hiver – a bodiless, mindless, invisible creature looking for someone with power to inhabit…

While a certain other magical young person was attending a school of magic and magic (as the copyright lawyers insist we call it), Pratchett’s own Tiffany Aching sets out on a very different journey of discovery. While only 11, she must grapple with her own burgeoning powers (barely under her control), new social dynamics, the affections of someone who is merely less annoying than he used to be, and all the perils of growing up, including the monster in your own head…

Is this book too grown up for 11-year-olds? Are we on the money about the metaphors? How great would it be to have an ondageist? Is it just the younger Earwig devotee witches who are into appearances, or are the hats and black dresses of other witches a sign that it’s important to all of them? Are the Feegles still fun, or has Tiffany already outgrown them? Er…so to speak. Phew! So many questions this month. Use the hashtag #Pratchat43 on social media to join the conversation!

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_43.mp3

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Guest Dr Sally Evans (she/her) is a poet and researcher based in Melbourne, Australia. As part of her PhD, Sally created four chapbook-length sequences of poetry, including a modern reworking of The Odyssey by Homer, and giving Fifty Shades of Grey the blackout poetry treatment. You can hear Sally talk Mad Max: Fury Road on the apocalyptic fiction podcast Catastropod, hosted by previous Pratchat guest Marlee Jane Ward, and follow her on Twitter at @SalacticaActual.

Next episode we fulfil our stupidest promise: yes, two and half years after we discussed The Colour of Magic, and around 35 years after its first publication, we finally resolve Pratchett’s most literal cliffhanger. Join us as we read the second ever Discworld novel, 1986’s The Light Fantastic! Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat44, 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 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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Annagramma, Awf'ly Wee Billy Big Chin, Ben McKenzie, Daft Wullie, Discworld, Elizabeth Flux, Granny Weatherwax, Jeannie, Lettice Earwig, Miss Level, Miss Tick, Nac Mac Feegle, Petulia Gristle, Rob Anybody, Sally Evans, Tiffany Aching, Younger Readers

#Pratchat37 – The Shopping Trolley Problem

8 November 2020 by Pratchat Imps Leave a Comment

Author Will Kostakis returns to face time travel, unexploded bombs and a tangle of timelines in Terry Pratchett’s final Johnny Maxwell book from 1996, Johnny and the Bomb!

When Johnny and his misfit friends look after homeless eccentric Mrs Tachyon’s shopping trolley, they soon discover she has a complicated relationship with time. Johnny, Yo-less, Wobbler, Bigmac and Kirsty travel back to World War II, on the eve of the “Blackbury Blitz”. Johnny knows bombs are meant to destroy Paradise Street – but can he and his friends do anything about it? Do they even have the right? And how will they get back ho- hang on. Where’s Wobbler?

Pratchett’s first book focussing on time travel also touches on the worries of teenagers, local history, racism, sexism and the nature of fate and destiny. It might seem weighty for a children’s book, but children think about this stuff all the time! Did you follow all the time travel shenanigans? How do you think Pratchett’s handling of these issues compares to modern middle grade fiction – or even his own previous Johnny books? And if you could go back in time, would you try and change things for the better? Join the discussion using the hashtag #Pratchat37.

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_37.mp3

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Returning guest Will Kostakis is a writer and award-winning author. Since we last saw him in #Pratchat18, “Sundog Gazillionaire“, he’s published his first fantasy YA novel, Monuments, and its sequel, Rebel Gods. His new novella, The Greatest Hit, is out now from Lothian Children’s Books as part of the Australia Reads initiative. Find out more about Will at willkostakis.com, or follow him on Twitter at @willkostakis.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

As mentioned at the end of this episode, the fiction anthology Collisions from Liminal Magazine is out now, featuring Liz’s story “The Voyeur”! Order it from your local bookshop. And we also announced that the Australian Discworld Convention in Sydney has had to be postponed from 2021 to 2022. Find out more at ausdwcon.org.

Next month we see out the year with a favourite, as we time travel about ten Discworld books ahead to meet Moist von Lipwig in Going Postal! We’ve invited two experts on con artistry to discuss it with us: writer and magician Nicholas J Johnson, and comedian and actor Lawrence Leung! Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat38.

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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Ben McKenzie, Bigmac, Elizabeth Flux, Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny Maxwell, Kirsty, sci-fi, time travel, Will Kostakis, Wobbler, Yo-Less, Younger Readers

#Pratchat33 – Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids

8 July 2020 by Pratchat Imps Leave a Comment

Liz, Ben and writer Michelle Law go on a surprisingly dark ride in Terry Pratchett’s skewed take on the Pied Piper, 2001’s Discworld for Younger Readers book, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

Everyone knows that the best way to get rid of rats is to pay the Piper – even Maurice, and he’s a talking cat. So when he met a Clan of similarly smart talking rats, all he needed was a stupid-looking kid who could play and he had the makings of the perfect con… At least, until the rats (and the kid) decide that what they’re doing is unethical. Maurice convinces them to pull one last scam in a tiny Überwald town, but all is not well in Bad Blintz: the mayor’s daughter immediately sees there’s something odd about Maurice and the kid, and the town is convinced they already have a plague of rats – but the Clan can’t find a single one…

After two trilogies of children’s books set in our own world, and before he invented Tiffany Aching, Pratchett tried getting kids into the Discworld with a story of talking animals, plucky kids and unspeakable evil. The Amazing Maurice explores some weighty ethics, punctures the safety of Enid Blyton, questions the lessons taught by the Brothers Grim, and goes to some very dark places, metaphorically and literally. All born out of a footnote joke he wrote for Reaper Man a decade before!

Is this really a children’s book? Would you let your kids read it? Is it a terrible mistake, or is it maybe the greatest book Pratchett ever wrote? And most importantly: what’s your rat name? Use the hashtag #Pratchat33 on social media to join the conversation!

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_33.mp3

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Guest Michelle Law is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor based in Sydney. Her work includes the 2017 smash hit play Single Asian Female, the SBS TV series Homecoming Queens and contributed to numerous magazines and books. Michelle’s next play will be Miss Peony for Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre, and she has a story in the anthology After Australia from Affirm Press. You can find out more about Michelle at her web site, michelle-law.com, and follow her on Twitter at @ms_michellelaw.

Next month we complete our hat-trick of Pratchetts for younger readers by returning to the English town of Blackbury to catch up with Johnny Maxwell in 1993’s Johnny and the Dead. We’ll be joined by children’s author Oliver Phommovanh! Get your questions in via the hashtag #Pratchat34 by July 21st 2020.

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

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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Ben McKenzie, Discworld, Elizabeth Flux, Keith, Malicia, Maurice, Michelle Law, The Clan, Uberwald, Younger Readers

#Pratchat32 – Meet the Feegles

8 June 2020 by Pratchat Imps 5 Comments

Liz, Ben and librarian Meaghan Dew come down from the mountains to a land of sheep, chalk and tiny blue warriors, and meet the youngest witch ever, in Terry Pratchett’s 2003 Discworld for Younger Readers book, The Wee Free Men.

Nine-year-old farm girl Tiffany Aching lives on The Chalk, a lowland area famous for its sheep and…er…sheep products. It’s not famous for attacks from mythical river monsters, so when one turns up she lures it with her brother as bait and hits it over the head with a frying pan. Searching for answers, she meets the very real witch Miss Tick, and realises that’s what she wants to be. In her first truly witchy move, she disobeys Miss Tick’s advice and tries to take on the Queen of the Fairies, who has kidnapped her baby brother. Luckily she’s already met and impressed the Nac Mac Feegle – a clan of tiny blue “pictsies” with a love for fightin’, stealin’ and drinkin’…

After the end of the Witches series in Carpe Jugulum*, Pratchett launched a new protagonist destined to become one of his most beloved characters. Tiffany Aching is practical, serious, thoughtful and wilful, with a steely gaze and a mind so sharp she might cut someone else (she certainly knows which bit to hold onto). Pratchett weaves the story of a young girl stepping into some big – and tiny – shoes with themes of grief, family, community, belief and the stories we tell…oh, and a tiny blue and red whirlwind of swearing, violence and other Scottish stereotypes known as the Nac Mac Feegle.

Do these two things mesh well for you? Is this Tiffany’s finest hour, or just a taste of what’s to come for her? And was Granny Aching a witch, a shepherd, or something else entirely by the end? Use the hashtag #Pratchat32 on social media to join the conversation!

* Carpe Jugulum is coming soon(ish) to a Pratchat episode near you!

https://media.blubrry.com/pratchat/pratchatpodcast.com/episodes/Pratchat_episode_32.mp3

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Guest Meaghan Dew is a librarian and podcaster. For around seven years, Meaghan hosted and produced the podcast for Australian arts and culture magazine Kill Your Darlings. Meaghan currently works as a librarian in Melbourne, and produces her library’s podcast program.

Ben was reading the The Illustrated Wee Free Men, the 2008 hardcover edition of the book with full-colour illustrations by artist Stephen Player – and a few extras from Terry. Player advises that the colours are off in the printed book, but you can see many of the original illustrations on his web site.

Next month we travel to an entirely different rural area of the Disc for more younger readers adventure, in 2000’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. We’ll be joined by writer and screenwriter Michelle Law! Get your questions in via the hashtag #Pratchat33 by June 20th 2020.

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

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.

Posted in: Podcast Tagged: Ben McKenzie, Discworld, Elizabeth Flux, Granny Weatherwax, Meaghan Dew, Miss Tick, Nac Mac Feegle, Nanny Ogg, Queen of the Elves, Rob Anybody, Tiffany Aching, William the Gonnagle, Younger Readers

#Pratchat33 Notes and Errata

8 July 2020 by Ben Leave a Comment

Theses are the show notes and errata for episode 33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids”, featuring guest Michelle Dew, discussing the 2001 Discworld novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

Iconographic Evidence

Thanks to listener Steavie, who co-directed the Brisbane Arts Theatre‘s 2014 production, here are some images of the musical version of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. (See below for more about the musical.) The Brisbane Arts Theatre usually produces at least one Discworld adaptation every year; while they took a break during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, they resumed in 2022 with Night Watch.

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title references both Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie’s first feature film from 1998, and the common refrain of unmasked villains in the cartoon series Scooby Doo – a show Malicia would probably have mixed feelings about.
  • Überwald is located about 1,500 miles Hubwards and Widdershins of Ankh-Morpork, according to The Discworld Mappe. The name “Überwald” is a pretty direct German translation of  “Transylvania”, both meaning “beyond (or over) the forest”.
  • Hermione is an ancient Greek name meaning “Princess of Hermes”; in classical mythology, Hermione is the daughter of Menelaus, King of Sparta, and is a child at the start of the Trojan War. Hermione Granger is the most notable contemporary character to bear the name, but others appear in the works of P G Wodehouse, D H Lawrence and Pee-wee Herman.
  • This book was the first standard Discworld novel with cover art not by Josh Kirby. The Last Hero, published earlier the same year, was a large-format illustrated book with a cover and internal illustrations by Paul Kidby. For more on that see #Pratchat55, “Mr Doodle, the Man on the Moon“. Kidby would take over the Discworld covers from the next book, Night Watch. The Amazing Maurice was published only a month or so after Kirby’s death, so we’d speculate the change was mostly due to it being a children’s book – while Kirby did covers for the re-issue of The Carpet People and the original Truckers trilogy, the Johnny Maxwell books each had art by a different artist, though Kirby illustrations were used for some foreign language editions. The original Amazing Maurice cover was by David Wyatt; Ben’s edition has a cover by Paul Kidby; and Michelle’s edition of the audiobook has a cover by Bill Mayer. The newest edition has cover art by Laura Ellen Anderson. You can see all of these on the L-Space wiki entry for the book.    
  • “Crazy Old Maurice” is the nickname of Belle’s father, an “eccentric inventor”, in the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. Gaston calls him by this derogatory nickname in song. The inventor angle is a departure from the original fairytale, in which Belle’s father is a failed businessman who has lost all his money. While there are certainly a few Beauty and the Beast references in The Simpsons, we couldn’t find any evidence of this one.
  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin – or Hameln, as the real German town’s name is properly spelled (thank you Sven) – is a folk tale with origins that go back to around 1300 CE, though it may also have been inspired by real history (see below). The most common version of the story is that the town is plagued with rats and hires a piper with magical powers to get rid of them. (He’s “pied”, meaning he was dressed in gaudy or multicoloured clothing.) Once the job is done, the town’s mayor refuses to pay the piper (giving rise to the modern idiom); in retaliation he uses his music to lead all the children of the town into a crack in a nearby mountain, which seals shut – leaving only one young boy, with a lame leg, behind. In the Aarne-Thomspson-Uther index, which categorises folk tales, it is classified as ATU 570, “The Rat-Catcher”.
    • Unlike most folk tales, which have their origins in ancient mythology, the pied piper story seems to be based on an historical event in which a majority of the children in Hameln were lost. Theories include them dying in an accident, being captured and sold off to workhouses, or being forced to move to other regions, though it’s all very mysterious. For more on this fascinating aspect of the story, we recommend “Narratively Satisfying Lever“, the second episode about The Amazing Maurice from sibling podcast The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret.
  • The Netflix show Liz remembers is 2019’s The Society; it’s a weird modern twist, loosely inspired by the legend. A second season is due late this year.
  • Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” is probably the most famous English language version of the story, and is still popular thanks to it’s dynamic rhythm and catchy rhymes. It was first published as the last poem in his 1842 book Dramatic Lyrics. (Ben is wrong that Pratchett quotes it directly; he closely paraphrases it.)
  • Pet rats are usually domesticated Norway Rats (Rattus norvegicus), aka laboratory rats or “Fancy Rats”. Michelle is spot on about their lifespans: they live on average for 2-3 years, but can live up to 4-5 years if well cared for (and lucky). The oldest known pet rat we could find was Rodney, who lived in Japan and died at the age of seven years and four months in 1990. (We couldn’t verify this for sure but it seems legit.)
  • Überwald is first mentioned by name as the home country of both Angua and Cheery Littlebottom in Feet of Clay (discussed in #Pratchat24, “Arsenic and Old Clays”), and plays a major part in both Carpe Jugulum and The Fifth Elephant (both published shortly before The Amazing Maurice in the series). But Granny Weatherwax and her Lancre coven visit a small town in the shadow of a castle on their way to Genua in Witches Abroad (see #Pratchat12, “Brooms, Boats and Pumpkinmobiles“), and while neither the town nor country are named, it’s clearly the same place.
  • Scrote is a small town in the Sto Plains, and like most places there makes most of its money from cabbage farming. It features briefly (but memorably) in Soul Music, when The Band With Rocks In stops there for the night while on tour at the Jolly Cabbage. Death also visits Scrote during the events of Hogfather.
  • “Rathaus” – pronounced “RART-house” – is indeed the German term for Town Hall. It comes from the words “rat” meaning “council”, and “haus” meaning…er…well you can probably figure that one out. 
  • The Rat Name Game is the invention of Pratchat subscriber Joel Molin. (We mention him later in the questions section, but felt it was remiss of us not to mention his name at the time when we played it.) Send us yours using the hashtag #Pratchat33!
  • We’ve mentioned The Good Place before; the short version is that it’s a sit-com in which Eleanor (Kristen Bell) dies, ends up in a heavenly afterlife, and quickly realises she’s been swapped with someone else by mistake. Her supposed soul mate, an ethics professor (William Jackson Harper), agrees to help her learn to be a better person.    
  • The film adaptation of the book, titled The Amazing Maurice, is a co-production between German studio Ulysses Filmproduktion and the Irish Cantilever Group. It was announced in June 2019, with the more recent news in October 2019 that it had scored a global distribution deal. What we know so far is that it has an “unexpected” script by Terry Rossio, who wrote Shrek and has worked with Disney; character designs by Carter Goodrich, best known for Ratatouille and Despicable Me; and the directors will be Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann, whose previous work is not well-known outside of Germany. Ulysses Filmproduktion list it as “in production” on their web site, and the announcements gave an expected release date of 2022. There’s no word on how COVID-19 delays or the exclusive Narrativia/Motive Pictures deal have affected the production, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
    • If you’re reading this in or after late 2022, you’re in luck – The Amazing Maurice film is about to be released! We’ll chat about it eventually, but you can see the trailer here and find details about the cast and crew here.
  • The “if a dog wore pants” meme stormed the Internet in 2015 and spawned many imitators and extrapolations. 
  • The theatre cat in the Andrew Lloyd-Weber musical Cats is Gus, invented by T. S. Eliot in the poem “Gus, the Theatre Cat”. His full name is “Asparagus”; he was played by Stephen Tate in the original West End cast in 1981, and by Ian McKellan in the 2019 film.
  • The musical version of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (see above for some photos) seems to now only be available as a package for schools that includes photocopiable scripts, limited performance rights and supporting materials. It was written by Matthew Holmes, who also created a similar adaptation of Johnny and the Bomb. We’ve heard mixed reviews; one listener thought it sacrificed a lot of the humour, and considered the Stephen Briggs theatrical version superior. On the other hand Steavie – who directed the production in Brisbane – feels it does a great job of paring the story back to the essentials to make room for some great songs – including ones for the Trap Squad and the Rat King. Steavie thinks its the best Hopefully we’ll get to see it one day!
  • In the 2001 Dreamworks animated film Shrek, Lord Farquaad is the ruler of Duloc, a city-state where he has outlawed fairytale creatures and the citizens live in austerity. (The Pied Piper appears in the fourth film in the series, Shrek Forever After.)
  • We’ve previously talked about Enid Blyton in #Pratchat9, “Upscalator to Heaven” and #Pratchat22, “The Cat in the Prat”. Her Famous Five and Secret Seven books are the most obvious inspiration for Malicia’s adventurous notions.
  • We last mentioned Jasper Fforde in #Pratchat31, “It’s Just a Step to the West”. Many of his worlds break down the walls between reality and fiction, but this is especially true of his Thursday Next series, beginning with The Eyre Affair.
  • We’ve talked about Neil Gaiman many times. A fantasy writer who started as a journalist and first made his name in comics, he was a long-time friend of Terry Pratchett.
  • Goosebumps is a series of horror novels for middle grade readers, all written by Robert Lawrence Stine, aka R. L. Stine. We previously mentioned them in episode 18, “Sundog Gazillionaire”.
  • Rllk is clearly the pre-Clan rat sound for “fuck”.
  • Hieroglyphics are the characters of the ancient Egyptians form of writing, though the term is sometimes applied to other cultures’ similar forms. While each character was an image, and could represent the object they resembled – making them pictograms –  they also represented sounds, making up the syllables of longer words, and clarified the meanings of other adjacent heiroglyphs. The Clan’s written language is not quite the same.
  • A guru, from pan-Indian tradition, is a spiritual guide and teacher. The term applies to teachers and mentors in Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. 
  • We’ve previously talked about Pratchett’s obsession with Lobsang in #Pratchat31, “It’s Just a Step to the West”.
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces was written by American professor of literature Joseph Campbell in 1949; in it he argues that there is a common mythological hero story across many cultures. The book is hugely influential on modern fiction – it’s effect on Pratchett is perhaps felt most in Only You Can Save Mankind – but has been applied in a very reductive way, and its popularity has led many to view the stories of other cultures through a very classical, Western lens.
  • Pratchett’s love for the lone wagon wheel rolling out of an explosion appears most prominently in Soul Music, but also in several other books as an aside.
  • Secret Valley was an Australian kids’ adventure show, co-produced with Spanish and French companies, first aired in 1980. It was about the kids who worked and played at the fictitious holiday camp, Secret Valley, and their ongoing rivalry with a gang of bullies led by Spider McGlurk (no really). Spider – who despite Ben’s insistence off-air was not played by a young Russell Crowe – was paid by developer William Whopper to ruin the camp so he could buy up the land. The series was repeated often on the ABC throughout the 1980s, and was created by Roger Mirams, who went on to create the spin-off  Professor Poopsnagle’s Steam Zeppelin. Ben never saw the latter show – it ran on Channel Nine, before his country town had more than two television stations – but it apparently has quite a cult following in the UK, even today. The Secret Valley theme was indeed sung to the tune of “Waltzing Matilda”.
  • The Doctor Who serial with the giant rats and overt racism is 1977’s Victorian-era adventure The Talons of Weng-Chiang, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor, Louise Jameson as Leela, and introducing two fan favourite guest characters, theatre proprietor Henry Gordon Jago (Christopher Benjamin) and pathologist Professor George Litefoot (Trevor Baxter). The other one, with the character screeching “Ratkin!”, is 1989’s Ghost Light, from the show’s final season before being cancelled in 1989.
  • Neil Gaiman’s urban fantasy Neverwhere was originally a television series, produced for the BBC in 1996. It introduces the idea of “London Below”, an alternate city invisible to those who live in “London Above” and where various aspects of London take on supernatural forms. In London Below, rats are revered as intelligent beings, and the Rat Speakers are an entire sect who serve them. Neverwhere was turned into a book, and followed by the short story How the Marquis Got His Coat Back. Gaiman is currently working on a full-length sequel.
  • The film in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson leaps off a tower is 2018’s Skyscraper, in which he plays a war veteran and former FBI agent who is frankly over-qualified to take on a security job in the new tallest building in the world, being built in Hong Kong. It’s attacked and set on fire by terrorists while his family are inside, instigating the jumping.
  • Eight (it’s okay, it’s safe to say on Roundworld) is established in the very first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, as the number of occult significance on the Discworld. Wizards avoid saying it out loud, using euphemisms like “7A” and “twice four”, as in the wrong time or place it can summon evil creatures – notably Bel-Shamharoth, aka “the Soul Eater” or “the Sender of Eight”.
  • Cranium Rats first appeared as part of the Planescape campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons’s second edition in 1994. They are not natural creatures, but are created from regular rats by the evil psychic beings known as Mind Flayers. You can find details of Cranium Rats for the game’s current, fifth edition in Volo’s Guide to Monsters, published in 2016.
  • “Deus ex machina” is a narrative cliche in which the plot is resolved suddenly by an unlikely or overtly supernatural occurrence. It comes from ancient Greek theatre, and means “God out of the machine”; the playwright Aeschylus invented it as a way of ending plays, and they literally brought Greek Gods onto stage using machines – namely a trapdoor or a crane – to end the story.
  • For an explanation of the Gonnigal, and the origins of the name, see our previous episode, “Meet the Feegles”.
  • Truckers is the first in Pratchett’s “Bromeliad” trilogy about a society of Nomes, tiny creatures who live in the cracks of the human world. We’ve previously covered all three books in the trilogy: Truckers, Diggers and Wings.
  • Phillip Pullman is the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy that began with Northern Lights in 1998 (which won that year’s Carnegie Medal). After a moderately successful film adaptation of the first novel (under it’s American title The Golden Compass), the trilogy is now being adapted for television by the BBC and HBO, beginning with a season covering the events of the first book in 2019. Pullman is currently working on finishing The Book of Dust, a sequel trilogy to His Dark Materials. His other work includes the Sally Lockhart novels, beginning with The Ruby in the Smoke, which was also adapted by the BBC starring Billie Piper.
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth in the Harry Potter series, is the first after the proper return of “wizard Hitler” Voldemort. It features the horrendously cruel teacher Dolores Umbridge and the death of a major, beloved character. So…you know, pretty heavy for a 7-year-old.
  • There have been a lot of adaptations of Oliver Twist, but not that many cartoon versions: the two most recent straight versions are a 1974 American production, and a 1982 Australian one. The 1989 Disney film Oliver & Company loosely adapts the story to be about a lost kitten who joins a gang of street dogs, though Sally doesn’t die (or indeed appear) in that one.
  • Animal Farm is George Orwell’s 1945 novel which serves as an allegory for the communist revolution in Russia. In the book, the animals of Manor Farm depose the human farmers and take over, creating a fairer society before falling prey to greed and corruption. The “glue factory scene” also involves the death of a beloved character.
  • Burgo’s Catch Phrase was a popular Australian version of the US/UK gameshow Catch Phrase, originally using the same name, that ran from 1997 to 2003 on the Nine Network. Contestants viewed animated picture puzzles, not unlike a rebus, and had to determine the phrase they represented. It was renamed to include “Burgo” in the title in 1999, to capitalise on the popularity of host John Burgess, a media personality known as “Burgo” or “Baby John”, who was previously famous as the Australian host of Wheel of Fortune.
  • The “dab” is a dance move in which a person ducks their head into one bent elbow while stretching out and raising their other arm. Exactly where it originated is hard to pin down – similar moves appear in Japanese anime – but it seems pretty clear the worldwide fad, especially amongst teenagers, was inspired by American footballer Cam Newton, who dabbed after a goal, though he was taught the move by his teenage brother. It’s popularity was pretty long-lived for a fad, only having waned in the last couple of years; it was partly kept alive by inclusion in the immensely popular videogame Fortnite: Battle Royale.
  • Graeme Base is an English-Australian children’s author and illustrator, most famous for his picture books Animalia and The Eleventh Hour. Animalia has an illustration for each letter of the English alphabet: “M” features “meticulous mice monitoring mysterious mathematical messages” on computers while wearing monocles and headsets. It’s glorious.
  • “He protec, he attac” – originally “he protec, but he also attac” – is a meme that started in 2016. It’s been used for all sorts of things but the earliest origin seems to be two images of a nude man wielding a lightsaber. The more you know…
  • Zoom is a popular videoconferencing application which has seen a boom in use in the last year, especially since the start of mandated isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Zoom’s popularity has largely come from its easy to use design, but this approach has been criticised for causing multiple security problems, leading some major corporations and governments to ban its use. Many of the major security concerns have been addressed in updates since May 2020.
  • Lord Vetinari befriends the intelligent (but not talking) rats – not mice – in Guards! Guards!, communicating with their leader Skrp in their own language and using them as spies when he is temporarily deposed and imprisoned. We loved Skrp, as you’ll hear in #Pratchat7A, “The Curious Incident of the Dragon and the Night Watch”.
  • Magneto is a character in the X-Men books from Marvel Comics. Usually a villain, he is the leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (they leave the “Evil” out in later versions), and one of the most powerful mutants in the world, able to create and manipulate power magnetic fields, primarily to move metal objects. He is played in the films by Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender. 
  • “Yeet” is a modern slang word meaning to throw something with a lot of force. It can also be used as an exclamation, something that seemingly started with basketball players who were sure they would score when shooting, and was briefly a dance, which seems to have been where it spread most widely. Like a lot of such fads, it originated with African Americans before quickly becoming appropriated into general “youth culture”, a pattern that has repeated many times.
  •  Jurassic Park III (2001) features Alan Grant returning to the abandoned secondary site where the Jurassic Park dinosaurs were created. There he meets a Spinosaurus, a huge predatory dinosaur. Michelle may also be thinking of the Indominus rex from Jurassic World (2015), a hybrid dinosaur created by combining DNA from multiple species.
  • Margo Lanagan is a multiple award-winning Australian author. Her 2008 YA fantasy novel Tender Morsels draws inspiration from the Grimm fairytale “Snow-White and Rose-Red”, though note it deals with themes of family violence, sexual assault and miscarriage. 2012’s Sea Hearts (published outside Australia as The Brides of Rollrock Island) explores the consequences of a witch selling seals transformed into women as brides.
  • Jeremy Lachlan is an Australian author. His Jane Doe series for older children (13+) begins with Jane Doe and the Cradle of Worlds, and continues with 2020’s Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls.
  • The Call is a 2016 horror-fantasy YA novel by Irish author Peadar Ó Guilín, in which people are abducted to another world, where they hear the call of a hunting horn… It has one sequel so far, 2018’s The Invasion.

 

Posted in: Episode Notes Tagged: Ben McKenzie, Discworld, Elizabeth Flux, Keith, Malicia, Maurice, Michelle Law, The Clan, Uberwald, Younger Readers

#Pratchat62 Notes and Errata

8 December 2022 by Ben Leave a Comment

These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 62, “There’s a Cow in There“, discussing the Discworld picture book, 2005‘s Where’s My Cow? with special guests, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel of The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret.

Iconographic Evidence

  • We’re sourcing a good video of a hippo – watch this space!
  • We might also add some partial images from the book; we apologise this episode was so visual!

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title refers to the theme song of the Australian version of Play School, a children’s educational and entertainment programme produced by the ABC since July 1966. The first line of the song is “There’s a bear in there”, referring to one of the two staple toys from the show, Little Ted or Big Ted. (See below for more about them.)
  • The other children’s book to make its way from Discworld to Roundworld is another favourite of Young Sam’s: Miss Felicity Beadle’s The World of Poo. It appears in Snuff, and was published alongside the Corgi paperback edition of the novel. We’ll cover it when we get to Snuff, but it stays much more in-universe than Where’s My Cow?
  • The rock song that might have inspired Detritus’ line in the book is actually the poetic opening to the Moody Blues’ 1969 album On The Threshold of a Dream. The first words heard are: “I am, I think I am. Therefore I must be. (pause, then uncertainly) I think…”
  • Ben likens the Sams’ flying chair to the music video for the UK’s 2022 Eurovision song; specifically that’s Sam Ryder’s “Space Man”.
  • Blackboard is one of the puppet characters from the long-running Australian children’s program Mr Squiggle; we previously referred to him in #Pratchat55, “Mr Doodle, the Man on the Moon“.
  • The Abominable Snow Baby is a 2021 animated adaptation of Pratchett’s early short story of the same name, produced for Channel 4. It was narrated by David Harewood, and starred Hugh Dancy as Albert, and Julie Walters as his Granny; the picture of Terry Pratchett appears in Albert’s flat, though it’s not clear if he’s meant to be Albert’s grandad or not.
  • The children’s book about death mentioned by Liz is Duck, Death and the Tulip by German children’s author and illustrator Wolf Erlbruch, first published in English in 2011.
  • You can find Terry’s official answers about the cow on the L-Space web.
  • The Amazing Maurice opens in Australian cinemas on 12 January 2023, but if you’ve looked this up very soon after our episode was published, you can get tickets for the 10 December preview screening in Adelaide from the Australian Discworld Convention. Head to ausdwcon.org/amazing for tickets and more info!

More notes coming soon!

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

Posted in: Episode Notes Tagged: Ankh-Morpork, Ben McKenzie, CMOT Dibbler, Detritus, Dwarfs, Elizabeth Flux, Foul Ole Ron, Francine Carrel, Joanna Hagan, The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, The Watch, Tie-in, Vetinari, Vimes, Where's My Cow?, Young Sam, Younger Readers

#Pratchat37 Notes and Errata

8 November 2020 by Ben Leave a Comment

These are the show notes and errata for episode 37, “The Shopping Trolley Problem“, featuring guest Will Kostakis, discussing the third and final Johnny Maxwell novel, 1996’s Johnny and the Bomb.

  • The episode title, inspired by Will and Liz, is a reference to the famous ethical dilemma called “the trolley problem”. The short version is that a cable car trolley is going to hit and kill a bunch of people, but you are standing next to a lever that could shift it onto another track, where it will only hit and kill one person. The ethical debate centres around whether it is right to cause someone’s death, even to save others. It features fairly heavily in the television series The Good Place, especially in the episode titled…er…”The Trolley Problem”.
  • For our discussions of the previous Johnny Maxwell books, see #Pratchat28, “All Our Base Are Belong to You” and #Pratchat34, “Only You Can Save Deadkind“.
  • The Big Mac is one of the main hamburgers on the menu at McDonald’s Restaurants, at least in English-speaking countries.
  • In Good Omens, Famine – one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – goes by the name of Dr Raven Sable, famous dietician and author of Foodless Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful. He invented the hamburger and owns the biggest fast food chain on Earth, though its name is not revealed. See #Pratchat15, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Nice and Accurate)“, for more.
  • The TV adaptations of the Johnny books are entirely unrelated to each other. Johnny and the Dead was produced for Children’s ITV in 1995, only a year after the book was published, and featured Brian Blessed as Marxist ghost William Stickers. Johnny and the Bomb was made much later, in 2006, by CBBC, and featured Zoë Wanamaker as Mrs Tachyon. They were released on video and DVD in the UK, but are very hard to get ahold of now. (While there’s not yet been a television adaptation of Only You Can Save Mankind, it was adapted for radio by the BBC in 1996.)
  • Foul Ole Ron is the, er, greatest of the beggars of Ankh-Morpork and a member of the so-called Canting Crew, who show up in many of the books. As well as his distinctive catchphrase (see below), he is also famous for his Smell (which exists independently of him), and for having a “thinking brain dog”, most likely a side gig for Gaspode the talking dog. Ron features most prominently in Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Hogfather, Jingo and The Truth.
  • The phrase “Buggrit buggrit millennium hand and shrimp” was first uttered by the Bursar of Unseen University during his trip to Lancre for the royal wedding in Lords and Ladies. (Foul Ole Ron first says it in Soul Music.) As noted in the Annotated Pratchett File for that book, Terry used a computer program to generate nonsense phrases from a bunch of source texts, including a Chinese takeaway menu and the lyrics of the They Might Be Giants song “Particle Man” – just one of many TMBG references scattered throughout his books.
  • Timecop is a 1994 science fiction action film directed by by Peter Hyams and based on a comic book story of the same name. It does indeed star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and is in fact his highest-grossing and probably most popular film as a lead actor. He plays a cop fighting time travel crime named Max Walker, though as far as we know he is not modelled after the beloved Australian cricketer and commentator of the same name.
  • Cassandra or indeed Kasandra was a princess of Troy and priestess of Apollo. He fancied her, and gave her the gift of prophecy, but when she spurned him (or just wasn’t into him) he twisted the gift so that no-one would believe her. It’s almost as if Kirsty had seen her own future…
  • Johnny is twelve years old in Only You Can Save Mankind and Johnny and the Dead, and fourteen in this book. It probably makes more sense to imagine that he’s actually thirteen in the middle book, meaning he has one big weird adventure a year, in between the other smaller ones (see a later note).
  • We’ve previous mentioned Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere in #Pratchat22, “The Prat in the Cat” and #Pratchat33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids“. The protagonist, Richard Mayhew, does indeed send his life off on an unpredictable course when he stops to help Door, a seemingly homeless woman who is actually a member of a noble house in the fantastical realm of “London Below”.
  • Ben’s time travel show from six years ago is Night Terrace, and the episode about evil robot Hitlers is the fifth from season one, “Sound & Führer”, by John Richards. You can find the show at nightterrace.com.
  • We discussed The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents in #Pratchat33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids” with Michelle Law. In between this episode being recorded and released, on November 5, there was a major announcement regarding the film adaptation, The Amazing Maurice: it has a confirmed release date of 2022, will now premiere on Sky Cinema (in the UK at least), and has several roles cast, including Hugh Laurie as Maurice! Check out the full announcement on the Narrativia web site.
  • We’ve previously talked about famous English children’s author Enid Blyton (1897-1968) many times, but especially in our discussions of Truckers, The Unadulterated Cat and The Amazing Maurice. Liz’s 2012 article “Is it okay: To read Enid Blyton books?” for Lip Magazine discusses many of the tropes in her work we’d now consider harmful.
  • The 3rd of October appears in the 2004 film Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey and based on Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes, about the social dynamics of high school girls. Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) asks new girl Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), who has a crush on him, what day it is in class, which she sees as a milestone in their relationship. The date was October 3rd.
  • The fax machine – short for “facsimile” machine – has roots in much older technology, but the version that transmitted pictures over a standard telephone line was first patented by Xerox in 1964. In many places they are still in use, especially for transmission of medical records in hospitals, medical practices and other public health organisations. In the UK’s National Health Service, they were planned to be phased out by early 2020, though it’s unclear if that goal was met. Fax machines are still widely used in Japan, and found in many convenience stores. In many countries, however, non-medical businesses have adopted email and other forms of Internet-based communication instead.
  • Will is thinking of the reaction image meme known as “Math Lady“ (or “Confused Lady”), which features Brazilian telenovela star Renata Sorrah thinking intensely, with superimposed mathematical diagrams.
  • Liz is a big fan of Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci series, which spans seven books published between 1977 and 2006. They chronicle the adventures of Christopher Chant and others who magically travel between alternate worlds. We’ve previously mentioned Jones many times, but the Chrestomanci books come up mostly in our discussion of parallel worlds book The Long Earth, #Pratchat33, “It’s Just a Step to the West“.
  • We talked about white feminism only last episode. It’s a term for feminism practiced from a privileged perspective that is not intersectional – it doesn’t consider how discrimination based on factors other than gender (race, sexuality, disability, class etc) complicate sexism and put many “solutions” out of reach.
  • “The classic” Will is referring to is the Grandfather Paradox, which was considered “age old” as long ago as the 1930s. It describes a situation in which time travel into the past creates a logically impossible or at least inconsistent sequence of events. The name comes from the most frequently cited example of going back in time and killing your own grandfather when he was a child, making it impossible for you to exist.
  • English singer-songwriter Kate Bush known for her distinctive style which mixes electronic and acoustic sounds, and for drawing on literary inspiration for her lyrics. Her very first single, “Wuthering Heights”, was released when she was 19 years old and hit number one in the UK and Australian charts in 1978. “Running Up That Hill” is her second most successful single, making it to number three in the UK (and number six in Australia) in 1985, the first single from her fifth studio album, Hounds of Love. A remix of “Running Up That Hill” released in 2012 made it to number six in the UK.
  • We mentioned Highlander (dir. Russell Mulcahy, 1986) back in #Pratchat16, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Vorbis“. The film stars Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, an immortal being who cannot die unless decapitated. He and others like him are drawn to fight and kill each other, concentrating their magical powers in fewer and fewer immortals until only one is left, who will claim “the Prize”. Spoilers: the star of the film claims the Prize at the end, and exclaims “I can see through time!” It makes him mortal, but also “at one with all living things”.
  • Dad’s Army was a long-running and popular BBC sit-com about a (fictional) platoon of the (real) Home Guard, a volunteer militia (originally called the the Local Defence Volunteers, or LDV) made up of men exempt from conscription during World War II, mostly for reasons of age. Set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, the local chapter is led by local bank manager Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) and a clerk from his bank, Sgt Wilson (John Le Mesurier). Their platoon is filled with elderly misfits, as well as a young man excused from service because of his rare blood type; the humour largely resolved around them incompetently attempting various schemes to protect the town, and they rarely engaged the enemy, though they were certainly game to try. It ran for 8 series between 1968 and 1977, though it was repeated well after that in the UK and Commonwealth countries. There was also a film in 1971, and a new film in 2016 with a new cast, including Toby Jones and Bill Nighy as Mainwaring and Wilson.
  • Bakelite was the first synthetic plastic, developed in 1909 by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland (hence the name) in New York. It became widely used in the casings of electrical equipment since it was non-conductive and relatively resistant to heat. The first Bakelite telephone handset was designed by Eriksson in 1930, and various designs were produced through to the 1960s. Many stayed in service until the introduction of touchtone-dialling in the 60s and 70s saw them gradually replaced by handsets with push-buttons, made of newer plastics like polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
  • We’ve been unable to determine what exactly the rules were around unauthorised use of air raid sirens during the Blitz, but they would have been under the control of Air Raid Precautions (ARP) wardens.
  • “Had a stressful day? What you need is a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down” was the 1950s and 60s advertising pitch for “Bex”, a popular Australian painkiller sold as tablets and powder. It combined a little caffeine with the analgesics aspirin and phenacetin; the latter was banned in the early 1970s, as it was discovered to be addictive and caused kidney problems. In 1965 a Sydney comedy revue titled A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down, starring future television stars Ruth Cracknell and Reg Livermore, ran for over 250 performances, further cementing the phrase in Australian popular culture. It’s sometimes used as a directive to calm down or relax.
  • The study of psychological trauma was advanced greatly, unfortunately, by the plight of British soldiers from World War I, as many as 10% of whom were identified as suffering from “shell shock”. The condition was first formally described in The Lancet in 1915 by Charles Myers. This evolved into a broader diagnosis of “gross stress reaction” in the 1950s, and then the more modern idea of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was first listed as an official psychiatric diagnosis in 1980.
  • Pratchett sometimes gave hints about his future writing plans, and had said in interviews he had a sequel to Dodger in mind, but he never mentioned as far as we can find anything about further Johnny books. Ben might not be right about him planning the last two books together, though, as he wasn’t sure in 1994 when the final one would come out, and it at one point had a working title of Johnny and the Devil, which suggests a very different plan! Vague details of some of his unrealised Discworld plans were revealed in an afterword to The Shepherd’s Crown: a whodunnit with goblins starring Constable Feeney, a story of elderly heroes battling failing memories to defeat a dark lord, and the return of the Amazing Maurice – now a ship’s cat! When the hard drives containing Pratchett’s unfinished writing were destroyed by a steam roller, his personal assistant Rob Wilkins revealed they contained ten unfinished novels, though it’s unknown whether these match up to the afterword. The manuscripts were probably “draft zeroes”, the term Pratchett used for the first versions of his books; these were entirely unedited, and no-one else was permitted to see them.
  • As we mention, the “naff epilogue” Will refers to is the widely derided one from the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, set nineteen years later as the now married (to each other) protagonists send their own children off to Hogwarts, aka “the Hogwarts for killing people“.
  • Pratchett’s thoughts on J K Rowling are actually more guarded than Ben remembers, but what he doesn’t say speaks volumes… (Though note this relationship is given considerable more context by the Pratchett biography, A Life In Footnotes.) We’ve linked to this 2004 article from The Age, “Mystery Lord of the Discworld“, before, but it seems very timely to do so now as he was in Australia on a tour to promote the next book we’re reading, Going Postal! He also mentions his initial meeting with Snowgum Films, makers of the Troll Bridge short film, which was finally released in 2019.
  • Many towns and cities become “twinned” with another, usually in another country, as a form of cultural exchange. In the UK and much of Europe these are known as “twin towns“, whereas in the US and Australia they’re often referred to as “sister cities” (in Australia perhaps because there are at least two prominent towns split in two over state borders, which are sometimes referred to as twin towns). At the start of chapter five of Johnny and the Bomb, it’s mentioned that Blackbury is twinned with “Aix-et-Pains“, which is indeed a fake-French pun for “aches and pains”. For more on twin towns, see #Pratchat53, “A (Very) Few Words by Hner Ner Hner“, in which we discuss the speech given by “Lord Vetinari” on the occasion of its twinning with the UK town of Wincanton.
  • We couldn’t find a real “Bonza Feed” award, but the term itself is still in use in Australian slang (indeed fast food chain Red Rooster used it in advertising around Australia Day as recently as 2018). “Bonza” itself is a slang term roughly meaning “excellent” or “deserving of admiration”, and dates back to at least the early 1900s. Its origins are uncertain, but one frequent suggestion is that it comes from the French “bon ça“, which means “that’s good”. Another almost certainly fabricated story is that it comes from a Cantonese phrase meaning “good gold”, used by Chinese immigrants in the gold rush, but there’s no evidence for this, or indeed matching words in Cantonese. A more likely explanation may be that it is a localised contraction of “bonanza“, a Spanish word meaning prosperity that was used in America when finding a good vein of silver to mine. That might place it back in the gold rush, though how it came to Australia (when few Americans seem to have made the trip at that time) is uncertain.
  • Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is a 2012 Australian crime drama set in 1920s Melbourne, based on a series of novels by Kerry Greenwood. Essie Davis stars as Miss Phryne Fisher, wealthy socialite and private detective, who solves various crimes. It ran for three series between 2012 and 2015 on the ABC, and enjoyed some cult success overseas. The original cast and crew made a feature film set after the TV show, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, which was released in February 2020. There was also a 2019 series of spin-off telemovies for Channel 7, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries; these were set in the 1960s and starred Geraldine Hakewill as Phryne’s niece Peregrine Fisher, who joins a secret society of women adventurers after her aunt disappears. While all three screen adaptations were made by Any Cloud Productions, the differing production partners may make licensing all the content for a streaming service quite difficult, and at the moment the series seems to be only available to stream on AcornTV, a streaming service specialising in British television.
  • A “stobie pole” is a kind of power line pole made of two steel joists separated by concrete, invented by James Cyril Stobie in 1924. They were a workaround for the fact that termite-resistant timber was in short supply, and were mostly used in Adelaide in the 1930s and 1940s, though some are still standing today.
  • In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione Granger is given permission to use a magical Time Turner so that she can attend classes that are scheduled at the same time. She, Harry and Ron use it to go back in time, eventually realising they are responsible for several weird occurrences they had previously noticed.
  • The time travel heavy episodes of Night Terrace written by Ben are season one’s “Time of Death”, which is both a parody of Phryne Fisher and a murder mystery that happens out of order, and “Ancient History”, in which the protagonists land in ancient Europe but can’t figure out when or where they are, complicating their efforts to avoid changing history.
  • Sliders was a 1990s American science fiction TV show in which genius physics student Quinn Mallory invents a method of travelling between parallel universes, but accidentally transports himself, his lecturer, his nerdy friend (who has a crush on him) and a passing soul singer into another universe. To escape a disaster he is forced to modify his “sliding” device, which means it now counts down a random amount of time before opening a portal to a random parallel universe. Many episodes revolve around them either losing the timer or trying to find a safe place to hide until it opens a portal to take them home.
  • The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is a way of explaining the macro-level consequences of quantum theory. According to quantum theory, fundamental particles like electrons do not occupy a definite position in spacetime, but can only be represented by a wave function, which gives a probability of their location. In the many-world interpretation, such particles literally exist in all of the possible positions, giving rise to many different universes in which each possibility plays out. Those changes are small in local effect but would add up to an infinite number of universes with large-scale differences – the classic idea of parallel universes (though they’re not parallel, as they branch off from each other).
  • Back to the Future (1985; dir. Robert Zemeckis) is one of the most famous time travel movies. In the film, teenager Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) accidentally uses a time travelling car invented by his eccentric scientist friend Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd), landing in 1955. He inadvertently changes history so that he might never be born, and he seeks out the younger version of Doc for help putting things right. The sequels, Back to the Future Part II and Part III, were filmed back-to-back. In Part II, Marty buys a Sports Almanac in the future with the intention of using it to win horse races in the present, but it is stolen by Biff, the antagonist of the first film, who gives it to his young self. Marty and Doc must go back to 1955 and interact with events from the first film to put history back on track. In Part III, Marty discovers Doc, who is trapped in 1885, will be killed by Biff’s outlaw ancestor, and goes back to save his friend. We’ve previously talked about the films in our discussions of Reaper Man, Diggers, Good Omens, Johnny and the Dead and The Science of Discworld.
  • About Time (2013) is a romantic comedy written and directed by Richard Curtis, starring Domhnall Gleeson as Tim, Rachel McAdams as Mary and Bill Nighy as Tim’s father James. James reveals to Tim that men in his family can travel back in time to any moment they have lived before, but warns him not to use the gift to become rich or famous, so he tries to use it to improve his love life and gradually learning the limitations of his gift. It got a lukewarm reaction from critics, but did pretty well with audiences, especially – to everyone’s surprise – in South Korea.
  • Unfortunately there were many actors shafted by the modern Star Wars sequel trilogy. John Boyega, who plays ex-Stormtrooper Finn, has talked openly about his experience of facing racism from fans, something also experienced by Kelly Marie Tran, whose character Rose Tico was all but dropped from the third film. Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson’s characters were also given short shrift in the final film in favour of turning the whole plot around to appease a vocal minority of fans who wanted something more traditional, summed up by the often ridiculed line of dialogue: “Somehow, Palpatine has returned…”
  • Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989; dir. Stephen Herek) follows two Californian high school slackers, Bill S Preston (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan. Their dreams of being rock stars are threatened as they are about to flunk history, which will result in Ted’s Dad sending him away to a military college. They are visited by Rufus, a time traveller from a future were Bill and Ted’s band Wyld Stallyns has brought world peace through their music, who lends them the time machine to research history so they can pass their final oral presentation exam. The sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991; dir. Pete Hewitt), is Ben’s favourite of the two, though it involves less time travel and more weird afterlife shenanigans, including a comedic version of Death not a million miles away from Pratchett’s. (We previously mentioned the sequel in #Pratchat11, “At Bill’s Door“.) Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020; dir. Dean Parisot) is a “legacy film” sequel which was written in 2010, but took a decade to secure a production deal; in the film, an older Bill and Ted are struggling to live up to the legend of themselves they’ve been told awaits them.
  • Ben mentioned a few other time travel stories that he loves, but we cut them for time. Obviously there’s Doctor Who, but also the films Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009, dir. Gareth Carrivick), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012, dir. Colin Trevorrow) and 12 Monkeys (1995, dir. Terry Gilliam), and the television series Sapphire & Steel (1979-1982), Quantum Leap (1989-1983) and Continuum (2012-2015), plus many many more.
  • The Time Traveller’s Wife is the 2003 debut novel from American author Audrey Niffenegger. It tells the story of Henry, a man who has a genetic condition which causes him to randomly travel through time, and Clare, an artist who meets him many times throughout her life. They have a romance which each experiences in a different order. The film adaptation from 2007 starred Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, but was not a success. Stephen Moffat is currently writing a new television series adaptation for HBO.
Posted in: Episode Notes Tagged: Ben McKenzie, Bigmac, Elizabeth Flux, Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny Maxwell, Kirsty, sci-fi, time travel, Will Kostakis, Wobbler, Yo-Less, Younger Readers
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