Tales from the Drum

The title of this week’s episode may be a bit obscure, but you’ll puzzle it out. 

        Also, this season we’re doing what I am calling a challenge rather than a contest. Call it what you will, everyone’s invited to play. It works like this:

        The challenge is basically the same as the game of Twenty Questions. Your goal is to figure out what person, place or thing is being sought, by means of asking questions. I’ll give hints as I think they’re needed. And you definitely need a hint to start you off. It’s not a place or thing. Yup, it’s a member of a sentient species on the Disc.

        You have two tries per week (via email). That gives you 18 tries, Close as you’re gonna come. I’ll reply right away, so you won’t have to wonder if you were right. If you are on the Discord server, you may have four tries there. I’m trying to give you a little incentive to join the Discord server, if you haven’t already. On the Discord server you’ll also be able to see the questions of other listeners, as well as my (yes/no) response. That can help a bit with the process of elimination 

        And, because someone’s gonna ask: If you do email and Discord, you can indeed have six tries per week. 

        For purposes of this challenge, “person” includes all sapient species. “Things” include plants and animals. Places include places—although remember, a bit of a couple of different books takes place in somewhere other than the Disc. 

        As soon as a correct question/guess/answer is submitted, I will announce the winner on the next show. 

        The winner will get a custom episode. Others have told me they really enjoy these. You get to designate the content (within reason). It really is custom.

        Also, just a reminder: if you’ve never emailed me before, when you do (for whatever reason) I’ll send you a copy of the legendary Clacks episode, which can be found absolutely nowhere else. 

        Come join our Discord community, Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions! Just go to the main Discord page and enter “Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions.” Alternatively, you can use this link: https://discord.gg/45JxBKUYuA. Btw, it costs nothing to join the server, and there’s a lot of exclusive content on there.

You can also pop onto our Patreon page if you’re in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions (or just want to see some more exclusive content). There’s also patron-only content there. Here’s the URL. 

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true

The Turtle Moves

GNU Terry Pratchett

This season we’re returning to a themed season. The theme for the season is alphabet soup, and what that means is we’re going to explore the people, places and things of the Disc—based on the first letter of each thing, and in—wait for it—alphabetical order.

        Also, this season we’re doing what I am calling a challenge rather than a contest. Call it what you will, everyone’s invited to play. It works like this:

        The challenge is basically the same as the game of Twenty Questions. Your goal is to figure out what person, place or thing is being sought, by means of asking questions. I’ll give hints as I think they’re needed. And you definitely need a hint to start you off. It’s not a place or thing. Yup, it’s a member of a sentient species on the Disc.

        You have two tries per week (via email). That gives you 18 tries, Close as you’re gonna come to 20 if you do email-only. I’ll reply right away to email tries, so you won’t have to wonder if you were right. If you are on the Discord server, you may have four tries there. I’m trying to give you a little incentive to join the Discord server, if you haven’t already. On the Discord server you’ll also be able to see the questions of other listeners, as well as my (yes/no) response. That can help a bit with the process of elimination 

        And, because someone’s gonna ask: If you do email and Discord, you can indeed have six tries per week. 

        For purposes of this challenge, “person” includes all sapient species. “Things” include plants and animals. Places include places—although remember, a bit of a couple of different books takes place in somewhere other than the Disc. 

        As soon as a correct question/guess/answer is submitted, I will announce the winner on the next show. 

        The winner will get a custom episode. Others have told me they really enjoy these. You get to designate the content (within reason). It really is custom.

        Also, just a reminder: if you’ve never emailed me before, when you do (for whatever reason) I’ll send you a copy of the legendary Clacks episode, which can be found absolutely nowhere else. 

        Come join our Discord community, Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions! Just go to the main Discord page and enter “Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions.” Alternatively, you can use this link: https://discord.gg/45JxBKUYuA. Btw, it costs nothing to join the server, and there’s a lot of exclusive content on there.

You can also pop onto our Patreon page if you’re in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions (or just want to see some more exclusive content). There’s also patron-only content there. Here’s the URL. 

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true

Episode 103

GNU Terry Pratchett

De Chelonian Mobile

Sorry, that should have been smell. We spend our time in Ankh-Morpork in this final episode of season 7+1, though, checking out some news courtesy of the Ankh-Morpork Times, and considering the smell of that great city, that of its most odoriferous citizen, Foul Ole Ron, as well as taking a brief look at Ron's crew-- The Canting Crew, that is.

The Portal will be down for maintenance until March 19th, at which time we will commence Season Nine.

Meanwhile, come join our Discord community, Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions!

You can pop onto our Patreon page if you’re in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions. 

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true

GNU Terry Pratchett

De Chelonian Mobile

This larger-than-life (or at least longer-than-usual) episode celebrates 100 episodes of the Portal on Buzzsprout with 100 minutes of, well, the Portal. We count up the Discworld novels from 1 to 41, hear a bit about Gnomic Process, and present a conversation with our executive producer, Holly Golightly.

With a 1000 elephants!!!!

          No, sorry, that’s not right. I don’t know how Dibbler got in here again. 

Come join our Discord community, Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions!

You can pop onto our Patreon page if you’re in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions. 

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true

GNU Terry Pratchett

De Chelonian Mobile

Some strange maths for the Lunar New Year (of the Ox). 

Come join our Discord community, Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions!

You can pop onto our Patreon page if you’re in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions. 

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true

GNU Terry Pratchett

De Chelonian Mobile

We have some fun with human foibles (as well as those of other sentient species this week, especially people’s gullibility and, as Sir Terry called it, “low-grade paranoia.” 

This week’s trivia question is, “What is Big Mad Drongo’s real name?” 

Come join our Discord community, Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions!

You can pop onto our Patreon page if you’re in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions. 

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true

GNU Terry Pratchett

De Chelonian Mobile

A birdwalk with the Gnome… and, if you haven’t listened to the Portal enough to encounter the word birdwalk, you can think of it as a “one thing leads to another” moment…. Or, often, string of moments. Or string of punctation. Which leads me to one last thing—Sir Terry’s comment about Carrot’s ballistic approach to punctuation. I’m experiencing that currently, reading as I am Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (I’m currently on volume two). His barrages of comments and semicolons, and his penchant for writing sentences that are slightly longer than… a really long thing are making the reading a real challenge. Not to mention the plethora of Roman names, and archaic names of cities and regions. And, I’m reading a free electronic version from the Guggenheim Project, and there are some problems with dropped or misplaced phrases, doubtless from the process used to transfer the work into an electronic format.

Birdwalk! Birdwalk!!!! Hahahaha!!!!

GNU Terry Pratchett

De Chelonian Mobile

We’re fortunate to be able to bring you, through the medium of the CNN (the Clacks News Network) and with the assistance of Ponder Stibbons and Lao Tze, the inimitable Mistress Esmerelda “Granny” Weatherwax.

What more need we say? 

This week’s question for the Season 8 contest is: “Who was Galder Weatherwax, what was his relationship to Granny Weatherwax, and how did he meet his end?”  

Remember to support the work of Medieval Gnome Productions, which produces The GEM Show in addition to the Portal, by sending a one-time PayPal donation to [email protected], or by visiting our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true. [email protected] is also the place to send your answers to the quiz questions. 

We are deeply grateful to Susan Alexander for providing the voice of Granny for this episode. A thousand thank you’s, Susan!

GNU Terry Pratchett

The Turtle Moves 

A gnomic look at Middle Earth through the lens of the Discworld, featuring a gastronomic metaphor. 

We’re also pleased to announce that we will have Granny Weatherwax with us via the Dearheart/Cheik Clacks News Network, as it is formally known. In addition, we have contracted with The Ankh Morpork Times to re-broadcast shows they produce for the Disc’s CNN. 

This week’s question for the Season 8 contest is: “Who retrieved the One Ring from the Great River (Anduin)?” 

Remember to support the work of Medieval Gnome Productions, which produces The GEM Show in addition to the Portal, by sending a one-time PayPal donation to [email protected], or by visiting our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true.

GNU Terry Pratchett

The Turtle Moves 

We are pleased to be able to bring you a re-broadcast of the Clacks News Networks “Ankh-Morpork Personalities” feature, this time spotlighting the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. 

          We are also proud to be able to say that Medieval Gnome Productions was able to provide some unique information from the Roundworld for the CNN production.

          This week’s question for the Season 8 contest is: “What does Susan Sto Helit keep in the bottom right drawer of her desk at The Frout Academy for Inquiring Minds?” 

Remember to support the work of Medieval Gnome Productions, which produces The GEM Show in addition to the Portal, by sending a one-time PayPal donation to [email protected], or by visiting our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=true.

GNU Terry Pratchett

The Turtle Moves