#going-postal — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #going-postal, aggregated by home.social.
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It's International Safety Pin Day! What is name of the pin-themed magazine of which Stanley Howler is the editor?
"See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a pin."
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The Unfranked Man
James Farley Post Office Building, New YorkGoing Postal by Terry Pratchett.
Corgi, 2005 (2004).‘Yes, well, you know what we used to say: you do have to be mad to work here!’ said the Worshipful Master.
Chapter FiveThe phrase which inspired the title of this novel refers to a distressing period in the US postal service when certain disgruntled postal workers were involved in mass shootings of colleagues and the public: ‘going postal’ meant resorting to extreme violence to express resentment, frustration or mental disturbance, though now it’s casually used as the equivalent of ‘going mad’ in a social situation.
In Pratchett’s hands the phrase becomes a way to focus his anger through critiquing a number of societal ills – the decimation of public services, for example, and corporate greed – while using his trademark humour not only to satirise corruption but also to portray those who might otherwise appear to be social inadequates instead of as individuals worthy of respect and admiration.
But our attention is focused on Moist Von Lipwig, a petty fraudster in his twenties (“I’m Moist!”) who is offered, by Lord Vetinari no less, a chance to redeem himself as the newly appointed Postmaster in Ankh-Morpork. The question we ask ourselves is, will – echoing Herodotus and the inscription on New York’s 1914 Post Office – neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop him fulfilling his brief?
Royal West of England Academy © C A LovegroveAs usual in the Discworld the plot is twisty and witty – and there’s even a kitty involved – but it basically boils down to the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. Lipwig’s nemesis turns out to be Reacher Gilt, the apotheosis of every asset-stripper you can think of, a pirate of the high ds (that’s Ankh-Morpork dollars to you). Not only is he visually and punnily a compound of Edward Teach alias Blackbeard and Long John Silver but he has a mercenary cockatoo which screeches the percentage equivalent of “Pieces of eight!”
Reacher has control of the Discworld’s equivalent of the internet, a web of semaphore communication towers with Tump Tower at its centre. And in common with many such men he has pared the system to the bone, reducing efficiency and endangering lives while ignoring the principle which our conman Lipwig belatedly comes to recognise, the proposition that profit needs “to spread around the whole of society.”
Pratchett expertly keeps the story bubbling over, with an initiation ritual for Lipwig as the Unfranked Man, the surprising revival of the moribund institution, and a crisis almost precisely at the two-thirds mark. There’s a love interest for Lipwig, the chain-smoking Adora Bella Dearheart (who seems to embody the enterprise of Amelia Earhart and the intellectual shrewdness of Ada Lovelace), but though he’s infatuated with her we wonder if she comes to be merely fond of him. There are also the remnant post office workers Tolliver Groat and Stanley Howler, golems galore, a banshee, and a pair of tough coachmen whose forenames curiously echo the late Victorian writer Henry James. In fact, this in many ways is a 19th-century novel, with prefatory chapter synopses and a paucity of Pratchett’s otherwise familiar footnotes.
For me, athwart the serious messages Pratchett embeds in his stories are the quiet in-jokes that the former regional reporter fits in. Take as just one example the god Blind Io, which seems to puzzle many fans on Pratchett forums: just south of Bristol is the wonderfully named river Blind Yeo which whenever we drove over it we’d cry “Yeo-oh!” When working for Bristol’s Western Daily Press Pratchett would’ve crossed over the same bridge many a time, and the name will have stuck in his memory just as it still does in ours. This ranks as merely one of the many instances of the author “funning around” amidst engineered catastrophes and grocer’s apostrophes and sly literary references to Tolkien, Rowling and others.
And it turns out that neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night – nor indeed fire and malice – can stop letters and words getting through in Discworld, thanks to the Unfranked Man.
Read for Kristen of WeBeReading,com’s #MarchMagics and as March’s title for Adam of RoofBeamReader’s #TBRyear10 Challenge. First posted 28th March 2023 and then for #MarchMagics2026.
#TBRyear10 #comicFantasy #Discworld #GoingPostal #MarchMagics #MarchMagics2026 #TerryPratchett -
Today I am a Mail Server. Physically in a post room sorting items of physical mail.
I won't take the piss out of Exchange ever again 😂🤦♂️
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Love this article about America’s forgotten Post Office murals. Gorgeous work!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/post-office-murals“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
Sound familiar, #TerryPratchett fans? 😁
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It's World Letter Writing Day!
What is the famous saying of the postal service of Ankh-Morpork and what should you never ask them about?
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CW: #GoingPostal
Global Postal Services Curb US-Bound Parcels as De Minimis Ends Next Week
https://ground.news/article/global-postal-services-curb-us-bound-parcels-as-de-minimis-ends-next-week_62a905?utm_source=mobile-app&utm_medium=newsroom-share -
why is this book so much funnier than I remember it??? #amReading #GoingPostal #discworld
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Going Postal: The Legacy Foretold 2025 Review
Overall: 5/5 -Will You Sign My Petition?
https://sometimesigetbored.co.uk/going-postal-the-legacy-foretold-2025-review/
#CineMastodon #Documentary #GoingPostal #Movie #Movies #NowWatching #Postal #Review
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@feorlen @larand *More* things #GoingPostal!
@bhawthorne I'm just following on from a recent short conversation about USPS tracking data.
In my head there were more zip codes in the tracking data for a shipment a couple of years ago, and it seemed to make sense of the movements between facilities in the same cities.
But I now see how silly I was thinking any of this is sensible. :)
https://infosec.exchange/@bhawthorne/114164042412775162 -
I was always rather proud of the fact that a letter I posted at 5.30pm in Dublin would 99% of the time reach a village in West Cork in the next morning's post. What happened? #AnPost #GoingPostal
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On the day a #criminal is sworn in to the highest office in the US, I give you a quote from #TerryPratchett’s #GoingPostal.
“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
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Fabulous evening: a bookshop team outing with my chums to see the always excellent Strawmoddie's crew Pratchett play at the Pleasance, now something of a #Hogswatch tradition.
#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #theatre #photography #photographie #books #livres #play #stage #Discworld #GoingPostal #TerryPratchett #Pleasance #PleasanceTheatre
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The new Going Postal audiobook read by Richard Coyle is superb. 😊
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I need some good entertainment in my life right now. So I’ve started listening to the recently released audiobook edition of Going Postal by Terry Pratchett.
It’s narrated by Richard Coyle, who played Moist von Lipwig in the TV adaptation of Going Postal. You might know him as Geoff in Coupling.
Additional voices by Bill Nighy and Peter Serafinowicz.
Going Postal is my favourite Discworld book.
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Just booked a bookshop outting for a bunch of us to see Strawmoddie's production of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal at the Pleasance this December (their productions are now regulars at our @cymerafestival fest & hugely enjoyable).
In a nice coincidence, my chum's other half did the poster art!
#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #theatre #play #TerryPratchett #books #livres #bookstodon #PleasanceTheatre #GoingPostal
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What was Moist doing when he was thinking this?
“Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.”
#Discworld #DiscworldConvention #DiscworldQuotes
#GoingPostal #TerryPratchett -
CW: questioning ecological validity of voter id
in the forthcoming #london mayoral and assembly elections i am #goingpostal - i can still submit my ballot at the polling station on polling day, but i will not have to participate in the voter id requirement (older persons bus pass=yes; young person's bus pass=no)
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with #london elections coming, and all the current worries about photo id voter suppression, i'm finally #goingpostal. the form to do so was a gov.uk webform, so usability is #a11ty good! i will not however be mailing my #postalvote, but instead dropping it off at the station on polling day. this is allowed, and means you still get the physical sensation of joining in, quite possibly without the photo id requirement (voter impersonation is known to be v rare)
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A federal judge in Florida on Friday ruled that a U.S. law that bars people from possessing firearms in post offices is unconstitutional, citing a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2022 that expanded gun rights.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump in Tampa, reached that conclusion in dismissing part of an indictment charging a postal worker with illegally possessing a gun in a federal facility.
The decision marked the latest court decision declaring a gun restriction unconstitutional following the conservative-majority Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling in 👉New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.👈
That ruling proclaimed for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
It also established a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
#guncontrol #A2 #goingpostal
#historicaltradition #deathbygun
#rebalancethecourt
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ban-guns-post-offices-is-unconstitutional-us-judge-rules-2024-01-13/ -
@dwcon 😀 An easy one "Wyrd Sisters" & in my early appearance as a part time fictional character in #GoingPostal I served a nice strong cup of Tea to Moist Von Lipwig an other #Discworld related Tea item is Ronnie Soak provided fresh Yak butter for Sweepers Tea in Thief of Time IIRC Tea has made a few other appearances in the books but for when it is world coffee day remember Mr Vimes Love in a Boat coffee😜
