Tales From the Drum

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Tales From the Drum
Presentation
Hosted byThe Medieval Gnome
Production
Audio formatmp3
No. of seasons11
No. of episodes206
Publication
Original release19 April 2019 – 20 November 2021
ProviderMedieval Gnome Productions
Related showsThe GEM Show
Websitehttps://mindkindle.net

Publisher Description

On the first, second, and third Friday of every month, it’s Tales From the Drum — the Mended Drum, that is. We also bring you three-minute long mini-episodes, cleverly entitled Pratchips (like potato chips, see?) every Monday-Thursday. All of these are (usually) about the places, spaces, races, and other words that end in aces of the Discworld, that pizza-shaped place (but no anchovies) that rides through space on the backs of the massive elephants Tubul, Berilia, Jerakeen and Great T’Phon, which themselves stand atop the 10,000 mile-long world Turtle, A’Tuin. (According to the dwarfs, there was once a Fifth Elephant, which slipped of A’Tuin’s carapace and crashed into the Disc. But the dwarfs can be funny that way.) Obviously, a place such as this could exist only every normal curve must have its outliers, where the fabric of reality is thin, and magic is an everyday—well, reality. Of course, it was actually the late Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE, who created the Discworld. He chronicled those places, spaces, etc. in 41 Discworld novels. In 500 years, he will probably be the only 20th-century author who is still being read. Seriously. He was that good. He was also incredibly prolific. In a span of 32 years, he wrote 70 books. They’ve sold northward of 50 million copies, last I saw. He was knighted in 2008 by Queen Elizabeth II. Sir Terry passed away in 2015 from a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. GNU Terry Pratchett. If you don’t understand that, you can find out about it in Going Postal. Also, il miglior fabbro. That’s from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” But you knew that. Thanks for listening — and mind how you go! GNU Terry Pratchett

Further Information

Format

  • Typical episodes were just under 20 minutes long, and close with a Discworld trivia question.
  • The podcast was released in seasons of ten episodes, most using a relatively loose theme. There was often little or no break between seasons.
  • Most seasons had at least one bonus episode, usually featuring Randy talking about non-Discworld subjects (which he sometimes referred to as "birdwalking") or commenting on a previous episode. There was a plan for these to be exclusive to Patreon subscribers, but this doesn't seem to have been the case.
  • Two series of related episodes also popped up in the same podcast feed:
    • The Portal's Pratchett Passages, or P^3 for short, are readings from Discworld books. Episodes vary from 14 to 36 minutes long.[1]
    • Pratchips are mini-episodes, usually under 3 minutes long, describing very specific bits of Discworld lore, like a single creature, character or location. According to the first episode, these were inspired by "an Australian heavyweight in podcasting/broadcasting" who predicted very short episodes would be the future of podcasts.[2]

Trivia

  • This podcast has gone by many names. It was originally The Discworld Portal until September 2020. It was briefly The Mystery Portal, then Ponder's Wizardly Portal, before settling on The Witches and Wizards Portal for a few seasons, though the second anniversary episode (during season nine) mentions the name The Modern Fantasy Portal. In October 2021, at the start of season 11, it changed name to Tales From the Drum. Randy's commentary in the first episode of season seven indicates he was asked to stop calling the podcast "The Discworld Portal", presumably by the Pratchett estate, though he refers only to a request from "the Gods in Dunmanifestin", contacting him via Ponder Stibbons. This blog post and episode notes for seasons ten and eleven suggest the other name changes may have been partly motivated by copyright concerns too, though changing from The Wizards and Witches Portal to Tales from the Drum was a move to find something Discworld fans would recognise.
  • Host Randy has two tortoiseshell cats, or "torties", named Holly and Ivy; the mindkindle.net website has no fewer than three pages dedicated to them, including plenty of photos. (You're welcome.)
  • As of mid-2022, the podcast seems to have mostly vanished; mindekindle.net is still there, but the show has disappeared from its podcast host Buzzsprout, and the Facebook, Patreon and Discord communities all seem to be deactivated or deleted. Only the YouTube channel remains, but it only has four of the full episodes and half a dozen compilations of the short "Pratchips" ones. At least some episodes appear to be cached on Spotify, but since the main RSS feed is unavailable that seems like a temporary situation. As a result we've currently listed the show as unavailable.

Hosts

  • The Medieval Gnome (Randy Paulin) - host, editor and producer of all episodes. According to his Podchaser bio, a retired teacher and an historian, avid gamer, cat lover, and Terry Pratchett fanatic from Moscow, Idaho.

Episodes

Seasons and Mini-series

This podcast is divided into more seasons than most, often with a theme. This table summarises information on each season.

#[3] Title Start date End date Episodes Bonus Episodes Theme
1 The Discworld Portal 2019-04-19 2019-06-21 10 1 An introduction to the Discworld
2 The Discworld Portal 2019-06-29 2019-08-30 10 1 Belief and the metaphysics of the Discworld
3 The Discworld Portal 2019-09-13 2019-11-16 10[4] 2 Witches and Wizards
4 The Discworld Portal 2019-12-06 2020-02-07 10 1 Societies, cultures and education systems of the Disc
5 The Discworld Portal 2020-03-06 2020-05-08 10 1 Villains of the Discworld
- The Portal's Pratchett Passages 2020-04-05 2020-08-06 10 - Readings from Discworld books
6 The Discworld Portal 2020-06-05 2020-08-07 10 - Characters (often drawing from L-Space wiki content)
7 Ponder's Wizardly Portal[5] 2020-09-11 2020-12-09 10 4 No specific theme
8 The Witches and Wizards Portal 2020-12-25 2021-02-26 10 1 No specific theme
9 The Witches and Wizards Portal 2021-03-19 2021-06-18 10 1 Alphabet Soup (a Discworld A-Z)
10 The Witches and Wizards Portal 2021-07-02 2021-10-01 10 1 Granny and Nanny
- Pratchips 2021-07-06 2021-11-11[6] 76 - ~3 minute snippets of Discworld lore
11 Tales From the Drum 2021-10-15 2021-11-20[7] 4 - No specific theme

Episode List

The table below indexes episodes of the main podcast. They are listed by default in release order, and use the podcast's own season (S) and episode (E) numbering scheme where possible. We've added overall episode numbers, and retained an External links column for this show, just in case it returns to life.

# S E Episode Title Date Book/Subject Guest(s) Episode link[8]
1 1 1 "Welcome to Ankh-Morpork" 2019-04-19 Introduction None N/A
2 1 2 "Characters" 2019-04-30 Mustrum Ridcully; the Bursar; the Librarian; Sam Vimes None N/A
3 1 3 "Mrs Whitlow" 2019-05-08 Mrs Whitlow None N/A
4 1 4 "Monsters! Monsters!" 2019-05-11 Monsters of the Discworld None N/A
5 1 5 "Big Pictures" 2019-05-16 The Discworld, The Colour of Magic None N/A
6 1 6 "The Thickness of a Dream" 2019-05-24 Reading order; Nanny Ogg; Granny Weatherwax; various Discworld sub-series None N/A
7 1 7 "This Mortal Coil" 2019-06-02 Death; The Colour of Magic None N/A
8 1 8 "All in the Family" 2019-06-08 Death; Susan; Mort None N/A
9 1 9 "Love and Death (with apologies to Woody Allen)" 2019-06-15 Death; Mort None N/A
10 1 10 ""You're just a piece of cheese."" 2019-06-21 Death of Rats; Susan None N/A
11 1 - "Not the Discworld, exactly" 2019-06-21 Behind the scenes bonus episode None N/A
12 2 1 "Discworld, The" 2019-06-29 Geography and natural history of the Discworld None N/A
13 2 2 "It only encourages 'em" 2019-07-06 Belief on the Discworld, especially about elves None N/A
14 2 3 "Oh Brutha" 2019-07-12 The Great God Om and his prophets and priests None N/A
15 2 4 "The Turtle Moves" 2019-07-20 More on Om and Omnianism None N/A
16 2 5 "Really Unbelievable" 2019-07-26 Nuggan and other beliefs of the Discworld None N/A
17 2 6 "It's a Living/It's a Live!" 2019-08-02 "Life force" on the Disc None N/A
18 2 7 "Birdwalking" 2019-08-09 Variety of topics, inc. goblins and narrative causality None N/A
19 2 8 "Narratively Speaking" 2019-08-16 Narrative causality None N/A
20 2 9 "Genius, by Jingo!" 2019-08-23 Plot, character and theme in Jingo None N/A
21 2 - "Not the Discworld, exactly II (also?)" 2019-08-23 The host and his cats None N/A
22 2 10 "So Long and Thanks for all the...Quantum?" 2019-08-30 Quantum and the trousers of time in Jingo None N/A
23 3 1 "Witches 11, Wizards 9" 2019-09-13 Witches and Wizards None N/A
24 3 -[4] "This Just In, Sports Fans" 2019-09-15 An update on the scores (number of books) from the previous episode None N/A
25 3 2[4] "A Little Touch of Granny in the Night" 2019-09-20 Granny Weatherwax None N/A
26 3 3 "When shall we.... two meet again?" 2019-09-27 Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg None N/A
27 3 4 "I was Aching this morning, and I'll still be Aching tonight" 2019-10-06 Tiffany Aching None N/A
28 3 6 "Veni, Vimesy, Vetinari" 2019-10-11 The relationship between Sam Vimes and Vetinari (listener request) None N/A
29 3 7 "Rincewind and Ridcully: Alpha and Omega (sort of)" 2019-10-19 Rincewind and Mustrum Ridcully None N/A
30 3 8 "The Likeability Fallibility" 2019-10-25 The change in Terry's handling of the wizards None N/A
31 3 9[4] "Boo!" 2019-10-28 Dr. Terry Armstrong, Tolkien and Pratchett, bloopers None N/A
32 3 10 "Pondering Ridcully" 2019-11-01 Ponder Stibbons and Mustrum Ridcully None N/A
33 3 11 "That's an Order!" 2019-11-08 The evolution of wizardry None N/A
34[4] 3 12 "The Ego of Wizards and the Pride of Witches" 2019-11-16 As per title, also future of the podcast None N/A
35 4 1 "Life in Ankh-Morpork" 2019-12-06 Ankh-Morpork's institutions None N/A
36 4 - "Welcome back to Ankh-Morpork, Myra L’Auditrice" 2019-12-10 10,000 plays bonus episode; walking tour of Ankh-Morpork[9] None N/A
37 4 2 "World and Mirror of Worlds" 2019-12-13 Discworld geography, compared to Roundworld None N/A
38 4 3 ""You Better Watch Out"" 2019-12-20 Hogswatch and the Hogfather None N/A
38 4 4 "Naughty or Nice" 2019-12-27 Susan and Death and the events of Hogfather None N/A
39 4 5 "(Not) The Muntab Question" 2020-01-04 The Agatean Empire and Borogravia as dysfunctional societies None N/A
40 4 6 "Making (More) Money" 2020-01-10 Economies and business of the Discworld None N/A
41 4 7 "Harry King and the Coming of the Age of Steam" 2020-01-17 Harry King; Raising Steam None N/A
42 4 8 "Peeled Nuts, Treacle Mines and Big Cabbage" 2020-01-24 Social Clubs, economies outside Ankh-Morpork None N/A
43 4 9 "Empathy, Ecdysiasts, Footnotes and Housekeeping" 2020-01-31 H.L. Menken, Terry's use of footnotes None N/A
44 4 10 "The Watch, Drugs, and Largesse" 2020-02-07 The laws and ordnances of Ankh-Morpork; future of the show None N/A
45 5 1 "Heroes, Villains and Mrs Whitlow" 2020-03-06 The new format of the show ("housekeeping") Mrs. Whitlow N/A
46 5 2 "Heroes and Villains Pt. 2" 2020-03-13 The nature of villainy, and Reacher Gilt None N/A
47 5 -[10] "The Three R's" 2020-03-17 "Some readings and random recollections" None N/A
48 5 3 "From the Sublime to the Ridiculous" 2020-03-20 Lady Margalotta and Cosmo Lavish None N/A
49 5 4 "Deep Down and Graggy" 2020-03-27 Ardent and the grag dwarfs None N/A
50 5 5 "No Foolin'" 2020-04-03 The Fool's Guild; introducing the Portal's Pratchett Passages None N/A
51 5 6 "Dios and Vorbis" 2020-04-10 Dios and Vorbis None N/A
52 5 7 "Thanks for (A Year's Worth of) Listening!" 2020-04-17 First anniversary episode; stats and congratulatory messages None N/A
53 5 8 "She'll Be Right" 2020-04-24 Fourecks; villains vs antagonists None N/A
54 5 428[11] "GNU Terry Pratchett" 2020-04-28 A very literal GNU on Terry's birthday None N/A
55 5 9 "Oh, those bad, bad, bad, bad.... bad guys?" 2020-05-01 Unknown None N/A
56 5 10 "Pun Siam Sand" 2020-05-08 Anagrams, Imp and Susan None N/A
57 6 1 "Altogether Now" 2020-06-05 "Ankh-Morporkians who live on the shadier side of the street" None N/A
58 6 2 "First Transmissions, and a Trio of Undead" 2020-06-12 The High Energy Magic Building, and undead characters None N/A
59 6 3 "A Dwarf and his Wolf... and a Few Guilds" 2020-06-19 Lesser-known Guilds; Carrot and Angua None N/A
60 6 4 "Let's Do the Time Warp Again" 2020-06-26 Possibly Night Watch and/or time travel? None N/A
61 6 5 "Below Stairs" 2020-07-03 The hired help at UU, and Windle Poons None N/A
62 6 6 "Death, the Auditors and Bissonomy. Bissonomy???" 2020-07-10 Death and other supernatural entities Sacharissa Cripslock (Kitty) N/A
63 6 7 "Witches and Workers" 2020-07-17 Minor characters (and birds) from Lancre None N/A
64 6 8 "I was Aching this morning, and I'll still be Aching tonight"[12] 2020-07-24 Tiffany Aching None N/A
65 6 9 "Growing Up Crafty" 2020-07-31 Tiffany Aching None N/A
66 6 10 "With a Little Help from Her Friends" 2020-08-07 Tiffany's allies and friends None N/A
67 7 1 "At last, season 7!" 2020-09-11 The name change; movie references in Moving Pictures None N/A
68 7 2 "What's in a Name?" 2020-09-18 Names in Discworld, and of the show None N/A
69 7 - "As Above, So Below (or something like that)" 2020-09-20 The Circle Sea region None N/A
70 7 3 "Voices" 2020-09-25 Voices from the Disc None N/A
71 7 - "The Amber Chronicles" 2020-09-30 Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber None N/A
72 7 4 "Relatively Creative" 2020-10-02 Creativity on the Disc None N/A
73 7 5 "Ye Gods and Little Fishes!" 2020-10-09 Fantasy fiction and gods None N/A
74 7 6 "Institutionalized" 2020-10-16 The Watch and Unseen University None N/A
75 7 7 "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!" 2020-10-23 Weather on the Disc None N/A
76 7 8 "Non Temetis Messor" 2020-10-30 "A special guest" Death N/A
77 7 9 "Dueling Dynamic Duos" 2020-11-06 Nanny and Granny and Fred and Nobby None N/A
78 7 10 "Special Forces" 2020-11-13 "Special" members of the Watch None N/A
79 - - "bloopers!" 2020-11-26 "89 episodes' worth" of out-takes[13] None N/A
80 - - "Tis the Season" 2020-12-09 Special holiday episode None N/A
81 8 1 "You Better Watch Out!" 2020-12-25 Hogfather None N/A
82 8 2 "Happy GNU Year!" 2021-01-02 The history of the new year; young Discworld protagonists None N/A
83 8 3 "Show Some Character!" 2021-01-08 Overlooked Discworld characters None N/A
84 8 4 "CNN Presents: Lord Havelock Vetinari" 2021-01-15 Profile of Lord Vetinari from the "Clacks News Network" None N/A
85 8 5 "I Can See Middle Earth From Here" 2021-01-22 Middle-Earth through the lens of Discworld None N/A
86 8 6 "Mistress Weatherwax" 2021-01-29 Granny speaks via the "Clacks News Network"[14] "Granny Weatherwax" (Susan Alexander) Spotify
87 8 - "What do you read, my lord?" 2021-01-30 A "birdwalk" about writing and punctuation None N/A
88 8 7 "Nevertheless" 2021-02-05 Human gullibility and paranoia None N/A
89 8 8 "4x2 = 7+1 = 100?" 2021-02-12 "Strange maths" None N/A
90 8 9 "100 Shows: 100 Minutes" 2021-02-19 Counting Discworld books, and a celebration of 100 episodes None N/A
91 8 10 "The Spell of Ankh-Morpork" 2021-02-26 Ankh-Morpork news and smells None N/A
92 9 1 "Alphabet Soup"[15] 2021-03-19 Selected entries from Turtle Recall, A-B None N/A
93 9 2 "Acceptable Grades" 2021-03-26 Selected Turtle Recall entries, B-C None N/A
94 9 -[16] "Bonus Bio-Historical Soul Music" 2021-03-27 Randy's own history with Pratchett None N/A
95 9 3 "Gee, Ed!" 2021-04-03 Granny answers questions from listeners; Selected Turtle Recall entries, D-E "Granny Weatherwax" (Susan Alexander) N/A
96 9 4 "Them Ol' Consonants" 2021-04-09 Selected Turtle Recall entries, E-H None N/A
97 9 5 "Two Years On" 2021-04-16 Second anniversary and future plans; selected Turtle Recall entries, G-L None N/A
98 9 6 "Mmmm..... no" 2021-05-14 Selected Turtle Recall entries, M-O None N/A
99 9 7 "No S PQR" 2021-05-21 Selected Turtle Recall entries, P-R None N/A
100 9 8 "Vimes, Vetinari, et al." 2021-06-04 Selected Turtle Recall entries, S-V None N/A
101 9 9 "New SUV, Stu?" 2021-06-11 Selected Turtle Recall entries, S-V None N/A
102 9 -[17] "Technical Difficulties" 2021-06-18 Brief episode explaining likely delay None N/A
103 9 10 "Watch it, Weatherwax!" 2021-06-18 Selected Turtle Recall entries, W-Z None N/A
104 10 1 "On the Road with Nanny and Granny-- special guest appearance by Mistress Weaherwax (S10E1)!"[18] 2021-07-02 History of the portal; Granny answers listener questions; Witches Abroad and Maskerade "Granny Weatherwax" (Susan Alexander) N/A
105 10 2 "Sending E-mail and Going Postal (S10E2)" 2021-07-09 Selected Turtle Recall entries, W-Z None N/A
106 10 3 "Evolution, Discworld Style (Season 10 Episode 3)" 2021-07-18 Selected Turtle Recall entries, W-Z None N/A
117 11 4 "Encore! Encore!"[7] 2021-11-20 A general introduction to Ankh-Morpork None N/A

More to be added.

Mini-Series

The Portal's Pratchett Passages

This table indexes episodes of this side project, released as part of the main feed. Season and episode numbers are given as provided in the podcast feed.

# S E Episode Title Date Source Book(s) Episode link[8]
1 5 101 "The Portal's Pratchett Passages" 2020-04-05 Unknown N/A
2 5 102 "P Cubed v1.n2" 2020-04-08 Small Gods, Pyramids N/A
3 - - "The Portal’s Pratchett Passages v1.n3" 2020-04-21 The L-Space Wiki, The Colour of Magic N/A
4 - - "PPP V1n4" 2020-05-22 Possibly Interesting Times N/A
5 - - "PPP V1n5" 2020-06-02 Possibly Unseen Academicals N/A
6 101 6 "PPP V1n6 (You Otto Chreik: It's the Truth)" 2020-06-23 The Truth N/A
7 101 7 "PPP v1n7 Postcards from the Ogg" 2020-06-29 Probably Nanny's postcards from Witches Abroad N/A
8 - 101 "PPP v1.n8 Bony Knees" 2020-07-11 Soul Music N/A
9 6 109 "The Portal's Pratchett Passages v1n9: Perennial Favorites" 2020-07-20 Early descriptions of Detritus (probably Moving Pictures and Men at Arms) N/A
10 6 102 "PPP v1 n10 Soul Brothers" 2020-04-05 Soul Music (featuring Fred and Nobby) N/A

Pratchips

To be added

Footnotes

  1. These P^3 episodes might constitute a breach of copyright, as they present extracts without commentary or review. We're not experts, though.
  2. We're pretty sure that's a reference to this interview with Jaime Chaux, Head of Digital at Commercial Radio Australia, from 28 June 2021 - about a week before the first Pratchips episode.
  3. The season number, if part of the main podcast.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 The episode numbering goes a bit haywire during season three; for example, two bonus episodes are also given a regular number, one or two full episodes have no number, and there's no episode five. Episode descriptions mention the number of episodes, which agree with our tally, so we've just presented them mostly as they were. This footnote appears where we've made a few tweaks.
  5. Was known for one episode by the placeholder name "The Mystery Portal".
  6. Date of last published Pratchips episode
  7. 7.0 7.1 Last published podcast episode; this was a repeat of the first season four episode, "Life in Ankh-Morpork".
  8. 8.0 8.1 Episodes are no longer available, except for a small number that were re-published to YouTube.
  9. The episode description says the walking tour is the one described in The Compleat Ankh-Morpork.
  10. This episode is marked as number 31.
  11. This episode was 13 seconds long, and seems to have been literally just Randy saying Terry's name and the details of his birth and death. The episode number refers to Terry's birthday - the 28th of April.
  12. Not a typo; this episode revisits the title and theme from season 3 episode 4.
  13. This bloopers reel is marked as episode 1 of season 78, presumably to show it comes in between seasons 7 and 8. The count of 89 episodes matches our count if the Portal's Pratchett Passages episodes are included. (This and the following episode are counted under season 7 for the purposes of our season summary table.)
  14. Granny is explicitly placed as speaking just after Maskerade, and speaks about becoming a witch, dealing with Death, Borrowing and headology.
  15. Identified by Randy as episode 102, which tallies with our count if you include the 10 PPP episodes.
  16. Bonus episode; numbered 101, identified in audio as episode 105. Neither tallies with our count.
  17. Labelled episode 10, but seems intended to be a bonus episode.
  18. From this point regular episodes have season and episode numbers in the title, to differentiate them from the PratChips mini-episodes. Season ten episodes are noticeably longer than previous seasons, most around 35 minutes long instead of 20.