Tales From the Drum
| Tales From the Drum | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Presentation | |
| Hosted by | The Medieval Gnome |
| Production | |
| Audio format | mp3 |
| No. of seasons | 11 |
| No. of episodes | 206 |
| Publication | |
| Original release | 19 April 2019 – 20 November 2021 |
| Provider | Medieval Gnome Productions |
| Related shows | The GEM Show |
| Website | https://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 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 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
- ↑ These P^3 episodes might constitute a breach of copyright, as they present extracts without commentary or review. We're not experts, though.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ The season number, if part of the main podcast.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Was known for one episode by the placeholder name "The Mystery Portal".
- ↑ Date of last published Pratchips episode
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Last published podcast episode; this was a repeat of the first season four episode, "Life in Ankh-Morpork".
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Episodes are no longer available, except for a small number that were re-published to YouTube.
- ↑ The episode description says the walking tour is the one described in The Compleat Ankh-Morpork.
- ↑ This episode is marked as number 31.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Not a typo; this episode revisits the title and theme from season 3 episode 4.
- ↑ 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.)
- ↑ Granny is explicitly placed as speaking just after Maskerade, and speaks about becoming a witch, dealing with Death, Borrowing and headology.