Episode 7 was significant in that it was the first episode we recorded post-launch. In fact, we recorded it a good two weeks after the first three episodes dropped. By the time we actually donned the headphones and switched on the mics, we’d had a fair bit of feedback.

We knew people were listening, and quite a few were interacting with us on social media. Because of this, we thought it would be reasonable to ditch the segment where we make fun of educational guidance and instead read out some of the comments we’d received on Instagram and other platforms.

I suppose the education link is still there, in that it’s pretty clear a lot of students were interacting with us and claiming to listen to the show—although, mainly, I think they were just listening to the clips we’d put out on the various platforms.

It seems to work as an episode. It was another Saturday night recording session, so we had no idea if we’d actually captured anything usable. We were a little pessimistic about what we might find on the SD card nestled inside the PodTrak P4, but the end results are right up there with most of our previous episodes, and there are some pretty funny bits in the final edit.

The main talking point for the listeners who spoke to us afterward was the cold open, in which Ben describes taking frozen sandwiches to school in the 1980s. My wife remains fixated by this and continues to bring it up with me to this day.

The postcard remained a bone of contention, and I almost deliberately went for the ‘Groovy Baby’ one just to wind Ben up a bit. Although it is a truly terrible postcard, I think it more than fills the MO for the ‘postcard bit’ of the show.

We managed to negotiate this part of the show without too much incident for Episode 7. Episode 8, however, was an entirely different story…