Near the beginning of Episode 12, Ben makes a point of stating his intention not to interrupt me during recording. It is perhaps no surprise that the ensuing 48 minutes are notably full of Ben’s interruptions. I think it is, therefore, to my immense credit that I manage to circle back to the majority of my anecdotes to at least offer myself some sort of closure.

As always, we seem to be preoccupied with snacks and nostalgia, and indeed they go hand in hand for much of the episode. Amazingly, we do manage to talk about education at times. It still counts, even if the analysis into the use of lollipop sticks in the classroom is a segue from a conversation about actual lollipops.

With the half-term holiday firmly a distant memory, we’re back to recording in Ben’s bedroom for this one and also back to the Saturday night schedule. The undercurrent of mania that accompanies the exhaustion of that particular setup probably comes through, but we were a touch more efficient than normal and most of what we recorded does make it into the final edit.

There were a couple of bits we had to curtail; some additional sweetshop anecdotes and the bit where I teach Ben how to sound like an actual football fan didn’t make the cut, but they may well be the kind of thing that makes an extended bonus edition should there ever be any interest in such a venture. The final edit is better for the cuts, but, unlike other recent recordings, there’s nothing too horrendous left on the cutting room floor.

For the second week in a row there is no list as such, but the emails I found in my junk mail offering “podcast opportunities” were a genuine treasure trove of delights. We’d prefer actual listener contributions, and I’m sure they’ll come, but these faceless corporate emails pretending to take an interest in our show were more than able to compensate for the time being.

Episode 12 is, to date, our longest episode and was one of the most fun to make. Hopefully, that does come across to listeners.

We didn’t even argue about the postcard for this one. The picture of the rocket ship actually links pretty well to the posh rocket lolly that Ben opens the show with, as well as giving me an opportunity to correct last weeks’ gaffe when I claimed that Titan was a moon of Jupiter, when really it is a moon of Saturn. You know we’re on form when ‘postcard bit’ works…