Our recording of #Pratchat83 was delayed at the last minute, so our discussion of The Ankh-Morpork Archives and The Discworld Almanak will have to wait until later in the month – hopefully around the 25th February. But subscriber Molokov suggested it might be fun to discuss some of the other, less book-like Discworld merchandise available, so in this shorter bonus episode, Ben does just that!

We’d love to hear about your favourite merch, official or fan-made! Drop us a line and/or a photograph using the hashtag #PratchatMerch on social media, via email, or chat to us via our subscriber Discord.

The merch Ben mentions this episode from the Discworld Emporium includes the Ankh-Morpork Doodle Map, Terry Pratchett’s Hat silver pin badge; Death’s Omega cloak pin; the Band with Rocks In tour T-shirt; the plushie Greebo and rat-onna-stick; beermats of pubs and brands; and the dried frog pills box.

It’s not as easy to link to individual items at Discworld.com, but things Ben mentioned from there include various pins and badges; rare collectible pins; shopper bags; acrylic beanies; and the Great A’Tuin golf umbrella. The Anoia tea towel Ben liked was also from the Emporium, not Discworld.com, though they have tea towels too. He forgot to mention Discworld.com’s notebooks – the Unseen University and Assassin’s Guild ones are especially good. And their T-shirts aren’t as “subtle” as he remembered, though their socks are certainly a bit less subtle than the Emporium’s.

The episode title is a reference to a specific scene in Mel Brooks’ 1987 Star Wars parody Spaceballs.

We’ll be back in late February with #Pratchat83, discussing The Ankh-Morpork Archives Volume I and Volume II, and The Discworld Almanak. If you’re very quick you could still get a question in about those! In March we’re commemorating the tenth anniversary of Terry’s death by discussing his thoughts on dying from “Shaking Hands with Death”, the Richard Dimbleby lecture he gave (with help from Tony Robinson) in 2010. It’s most readily available in A Slip of the Keyboard, but you can also watch the original speech on YouTube. It gets pretty heavy, but we’ll approach this discussion with empathy and kindness. Get your questions for that one in using the hashtag #Pratchat84.

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