twelve and a half percent ..... twelve and a half percent

Those who man the clacks work hard passing the messages up and down the line. They may fall prey to a kind of madness in which they believe they can fly. Sometimes it is no accident that someone falls.

Convicted conman Albert Spangler is in the condemned cell at the Tanty. His hanging goes to plan - Vetinari`s plan. Within an inch of his life is applied to the length of rope used. He wakes up in Vetinari`s office under his real name of Moist von Lipwig, and offered the job of postmaster. Either that or never be seen again; literally. Moist accepts thinking that he could make his get-away, but he is assigned a golem, Mr Pump, as his probation officer. Mr Pump can track him to the ends of Discworld.

The Going Postal DVD special edition featured stamp designs of the major characters of the film.

The actual post office building is in disrepair and inhabited by pigeons. Even some letters from the motto across the building are missing, It now reads NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THEIR DUTY. Moist meets ancient junior postman Tolliver Groat and apprentice postman Stanley Howler. Groat is a believer in his own potions and nostrums. Stanley is shy and an avid collector of pins. .

The Post Office building on the first halfpenny stamp shows the motto minusthe missing letters

The Merchants Guild two pence from the Year of the
Reversed Ptarmigan shows Mr Parker at work, celebrating his appointment as Grand Master of the guild

They spend each day rigidly following the post office regulations - apart from actually delivering the mail. Letters lie many feet deep in much of the building. To gain Stanley`s trust Moist visits Daves Pin Exchange, purchases the holy grail of pin collectors and pretends to have found it in the street. On his way back he delivers one letter he happens to have picked up. It is addressed to Mr A. Parker, the greengrocer, and has SWALK written on the back.
Groat has been renting out the old pigeon lofts on the roof to three young gentlemen. They discuss woodpeckers

        
Daves Pin Emporium soon branched out into stamps as well.  Mr Groat and Stanley on the their stamps from the   Moist meets the staff from the
He sold tenpenny lucky dips for collectors to sort through in the              DVD packaging artwork               Post Office Reformation special issue.
hope of the odd rarity                                                                                                                        
Vetinari has not been happy with how the Grand Trunk clacks is being operated; too many breakdowns and long outages. In preparation for a meeting with the chairman, Reacher Gilt, and major financiers Drumknott has prepared piles of files. Vetinari wonders whether there has been a conspiracy to inflate the rates. Was John Deerheart murdered? Of course the innovators of the clacks were checked out by financiers, but somehow they bought up the Grand Trunk at a fraction of its worth. Gilt is careful over his appearance. Long dark hair, flamboyant clothes, an eyepatch and a parrot on his shoulder all add up to a pirate look. Clacks speed is down, and there was a recent three day outage. Crispin Horsefly looks to be the weak link of the financiers.
                                            
The Grand Trunk three pence stamp used on a    Reacher Gilt as he is shown on the      Drumknott at work was a recipient          .
series of hand-delivered clacks messages     DVD package stamp                                     of one of the Tiny Posts.          .
Moist finds out that the four previous postmasters died within a week of starting the job, all in odd circumstances, and unsettlingly recently. He finds that the mass of letters is not only talking to him, but also they seem to create illusions of the past when the post office was in its prime when huge chandeliers hung in the main hall above a statue of a winged messenger. They could create the illusion of a floor where none existed. Groat calls in the surviving old postmen, and they put Moist through a secret (or rather forgotten) society initiation ritual before he earns his winged gold hat. Moist has Mr Pump organise a gold suit to go with it.  They start delivering some of the old mail, but Moist realises they need extra dog-proof postmen and calls on the Golem Trust. He learns something about how the golems think of themselves, hires four of them, and falls for Adora Belle Dearheart.
.                                               
The Widow`s Mite half farthing stamps were a   The Winged God AMPO special issue        Adora Belle Dearheart and Moist von Lipwig,
fundraising issue or the Golem Trust.          was a free gift in the Stanley Howler            resplendent in his golden hat and suit,
 They came in booklets of eight stamps which     Stamp Journal.                                      from the DVD packaging.                             .
were only available for Journal subscribers      .                              ..                                                  ..                             .

Groat then shows him the B.S. Johnson letter sorting engine. Johnson has rounded pi down to a round 3 for all the curved parts, so that when working it bent space-time to fit. It was sorting letters that had yet to be written. It was even suggested the universe could be destroyed if turned off. A brave postmaster took a blunt instrument to it and it has remained silent since.
Moist takes the team to the shops and points out the sign over Hugo`s hair salon. It is made from the missing letters from the AMPO motto. A few threats and they are soon returned to their proper place.
B.S.Johnson and his postal sorting engine from
the Great Inventors stamp. It was originally
conceived as an organ.

The Half-pence stamp from the Year of the Happy Goose
has the letters in the motto replaced.

Clacks tower 181 receives a message coded GNU. G to send on, N for not to be logged, and U meaning return to sender at the and of the line. It simply states John Dearheart. No clacks operator would remove that message from the line. He will live on forever in the clacks overhead.

Some of the early designs for the original definitives issued in the Year of the Prawn, and a very early sketch for the $1 Tower of Art stamp.
These were featured on the History of Discworld Stamps poster.

Horsefry is found viciously and mysteriously killed, shortly after meeting with Gilt when he presents Gilt with ledgers of the true transactions that went on. Gilt is told by Mr Pony, the chief engineer, that the clacks is heading for disaster. All the best operatives have left, they are understaffed, and that removing the Hour of the Dead when no messages were sent so that routine maintenance could be done, was the root of all the problems. To get the clacks working as it should would take nine months downtime. Gilt is not worried; he can get the financiers to invest even more while siphoning most of it off.

Mr Antimony Parker is overjoyed. After 50 years he will marry his childhood sweetheart; they are both now widowed.
He calls by to give Moist a wedding invitation as thanks for finally delivering that letter

nterviewed by Sacharissa Cripslock for The Times, Moist publicises the new stamps. He also emphasises the advantages of a letter over the clacks, which merely has a speed advantage - when it is actually working. When the clacks grinds to a halt again the next day Moist immediately introduces a service to Sto Lat for 10p a letter. Within the hour he is riding Hobson`s most notorious horse, Boris,  with a full mail bag. Joseph Camels, the mayor of Sto Lat, is impressed to the point of suggesting stamps for the town showing Queen Keli. Moist fills another bag, charging 11p this time.

Moist departs on Boris with the mail.      A letter from Joseph Camels to one of his business      Queen Keli did indeed appear on the      ‘
From the Reformation special issue   contacts was in the mail bag for the return journey.       first stamp issue from Sto Lat.          .

Teemer & Spools deliver more of the stamps. The $1 sheets on close inspection have some anomalies. You can just see a man falling off the tower on some of the stamps and on others there is a splash in the water below. Mr Spools puts it down to magic induced from featuring the University building. Stanley has been studying the other stamps and noticed that Vetinari has greying hair on some of the penny stamps. There is a rumour in the city that the Patrician dyes his hair black.
In order to expand the service the post office needs the cooperation of the mail coach service currently being run just for passenger traffic by the Upwright Brothers. Moist points out the brothers do not actually own their coaches, they just merely took control when the post office ceased to function. All Moist needs is for them to carry mail bags and so they eventually reach an agreement.
Moist receives a mysterious note. It says the the clacks to Pseudopolis will go down at 9am next day, and is from The Smoking Gnu.

One of the Falling Man and the Splashsports from the original issues of the first $1 Tower
of Art stamps. More variations on the theme appeared later. All were LBE only finds.

              
       The Eminence Gris issues of the grey-haired Penny Patricianwere LBE only finds.
       The Mailcoach Penny stamps came in a booklet of six.
       The Smoking Gnu produced 12 unofficial, street-art inspired stamps based on the Penny Patrician.

Moist has asked Adora out for a meal. She suggested La Foie Herveux, the most exclusive in restaurant in the city. So he fakes a letter from Gilt to secure a table. They meet at the Mended Drum, where Adora tells Moist that her father started the clacks, but was cheated out of everything by Gilt. Her brother John was working on a better clacks before he was killed. At the restaurant they are eating when Gilt walks in and Moist`s deception is apparent. However Gilt is clever enough to save it for later. Upon meeting both Moist and Gilt get the true measure of each other.
Then it is apparent that the post office is on fire. Gilt has hired Mr Gryle, a wild banshee, to kill Moist. Gryle has started the fire and attacked Groat by mistake, but Stanley has hit him with a bag of pins. Moist arrives and enters saving Stanley and Groat, and goes back for Mr Tiddles, the post office cat. He encounters the wounded banshee and knocks him into the sorting engine. Mr Pump and the other Golems arrives and help Moist and Tiddles out before extinguishing the fire.

               The Mended Drum is perhaps the most famous pub    Mr Tiddles, the postal office cat with OCD,  Mr Gryle flies above the blazing
               in Ankh-Morpork and is worthy of inclusion in a           was celebrated on a stamp in the Year         post office on the third stamp from the
               stamp issue.                                                            of the Second Inception.                             Post Office Reformation issue.

When the clacks fails the next morning right on time Moist takes the chance to prove the post office is not beaten, even if the building is in ruins. He announces a special rate to Pseudopolis of 3 pence that day. Any clacks messages held by the Grand Trunk up will be carried for free! This causes a small riot when the company refuses to return them to customers.
Rebuilding the post office will cost more than the city can afford though. Moist visits the temples of Blind Io, Offler, and  Anoia , with all the appropriate offerings, delivering messages for help and deliverance. He then fakes a revelation and heads for the fields outside the city where he digs down and finds $150,000 - his stash from his previous existence. Vetinari, canny as ever, suggests that a donation is made to each temple, and he will hold onto the rest but cover the rebuilding of the post office.

The $1 Clacks stamp for Pseudopolis, with the misspelling of Pseudopolis.
A reprint with a correction was printed in lilac

 
The first letter from the Pseudopolis series (from butcher       A few Discworld gods have appeared on stamps. These show Blind Io, Offler the
Gerhardt Sock) has a hastily hand re-valued 10p stamp,         Crocodile god, and Anoia the goddess of things that get stuck in Kitchen drawers.
such was the demand for the special rate offered by the
AMPO that day. This series was only available via the
Green Cabbage
Trading Scheme.

Stanley has lost his love for pins, all his energy is now in the stamps, so Moist promotes him to Head of Stamps. Stanley shows him his idea of a cabbage themed stamp with brassica based ink and gum.
Moist reckons its time for a showdown with Gilt. He challenges him to a race to get a message to Genua. It is at least two weeks by coach but less than two hours by clacks. Despite this the public belief in Moist is so high that bookmakers make him 10:1 on favourite to win. The post office staff alone have $1,200 on him to win.
Moist confesses to Adora that he was the conman who caused her to lose her job at the Sto Lat Cabbage Growers Bank. She is somewhat satisfied with his honesty and suggests he goes to the roof of the post office for guidance. Here he meets Mad Al, Sane Alex and Undecided Adrian, the Smoking Gnu. They are crackers who can get into the Grand Trunk and reek havoc. They know the key combinations in a message that will cause the clacks mechanisms to fail. The woodpecker can set up resonances that can bring a tower down. They will help Moist in his challenge, and the old wizarding tower on the Sto Plains is where they can intercept and replace the Grand Trunk`s messaging.

The brassica themed Skunk Stamp was more of a weapon than a stamp. It could cause        The Smoking Gnu stamps included a Woodpecker version.
bystanders to break wind involuntarily. Only a handful have ever appeared.

The stamp booklet cover of the Smokin Gnu

The clacks tower on the Sto Plains is shown
on the Sport stamp of the Year of the Complicated
Monkey Cabbage Fields fifty pence stamp.

Ridcully of the University is chosen to ensure fair play, and he picks a book, Big Directory of Varying Dimensions by Haruspex to be the material sent to Genua. Moist makes a show of tearing out a handful of pages for the Grand Trunk to send, and the mail coach will take the rest. An omniscope link with an Unseen lecturer in Genua, Devious Collarbone, is set up. Moist spends the afternoon going through the Dearheart papers, and when the contest starts he joins the mailcoach. However on the Sto Plains he is dropped off at the old wizarding tower where the Smoking Gnu are waiting. Here he tells them he has a change of plan. The woodpecker would destroy the towers but he only needs to defeat Reacher Gilt.
From their tower the Gnu are able stop the clacks transmission from Ankh-Morpork, and send Moist`s new message. The big crowd in the city can see and hear Collarbone as he starts reading Who will listen to the dead? followed by a series of charges of fraud, embezelment, murder and so on against the company. Vetinari orders all company directors to help in enquiries, and seizes all the documents with any connection with the Grand Trunk.

Moist boards the Genua Express on the last Post Office reformation stamp.

Gilt has gone missing, Vetinari is able to put the Grand Trunk into public hands, while Moist suggests it should be reurned to the Dearheart family. The Patrician has been able to work out how the message was sent but is prepared to accept that the dead do indeed live on in the clacks messages.
Reacher Gilt is found and brought back. He turns down the post of Governor of the Bank, an exits through a door that hides a very deep pit.

The 10th Anniversary of Discworld Stamps was marked
by a sheet of 10 Penny Moists in different colours.
Each was embellished with metallic gold printing