We’d been doing ‘cold opens’ from Episode 1, although the first three episodes definitely were a little more planned in that regard. By Episode 4, and the ‘can of Coke’ cold open (the show open was cold, I fear the Coke by this point was disappointingly tepid), we’d moved into something more akin to winging it—which led directly to Episode 5’s delightful foray into biscuit culture.

Episode 6 opened with me blowing my nose. We’d pressed record on the PodTrak P4, but in my head we hadn’t actually started, so I blew my nose. Using a handkerchief. Which I always have on my person. Ben spotted it and immediately decided to make that our cold open. I went with it, and suddenly I’m reminiscing about childhood memories of wearing knotted handkerchiefs in Sikh temples. Which, I think, did work pretty well.

What also worked very well was our list. I didn’t think I’d be able to top Episode 5’s list, but “10 things every teacher needs in their classroom and essential supplies they can’t do without”—as per the advice of a stationery provider—really took us to places that were beyond farcical. If we laughed uncontrollably in the previous episode, then we really were hysterical in this one.

Episode 6 was recorded before the podcast went live, but I didn’t edit it until much later, so I had no idea how good it would be. I really like this one—possibly even more than its immediate predecessor, which I also loved.

I knew Episode 5 would be good as soon as we stopped recording, but I was less certain about this one at the time. It was the first episode we recorded during term time, meaning we were unable to record during the day. Working Monday to Friday meant my availability on weekends was somewhat curtailed by being a parent and, frankly, a chauffeur to my two daughters.

In the end, we recorded this on a Saturday evening and we were both pretty exhausted. This led to a slightly different energy, and it took a lot longer to record than previous efforts. The final edit is something we’re both very happy with, but quite a lot of stuff ended up on the cutting room floor—and it’s probably best all round if that is never revisited.

Which brings us to the postcard. I really like the postcard, but it’s obviously a departure from our previous theme of Reading-based postcards. I claim in the episode that all the remaining postcards in the Reading Museum gift shop were too tasteful, but I don’t actually know that to be the case. I just don’t get the chance to go into town as often as all that. However, I can access an online retailer easily enough, so I bought a job lot of ‘art’ postcards from Amazon.

I do think a picture of two cats wearing boxing gloves is intrinsically funny, and you can hear that in my reaction on the episode. Ben clearly does not like the direction we’ve gone in, and most of our conversation about it is on the aforementioned cutting room floor. Robust discussions about the merits of the available postcards would continue for a few more episodes after this…