We recorded episode 13 immediately off the back of episode 12, which is abundantly clear as we begin the episode by cracking open and talking about the Aldi ‘Red Thunder’ drinks that I clearly mention in episode 12 as being things I had purchased on the way to the recording.
Ben’s diatribe on sugar-free drinks is pretty much off the cuff, which gives him a few minutes of uninterrupted airtime to rant. I join in with an observation about fast food outlets, but what does not make the edit is my attempt to round it off with what I thought was a pithy commentary on how you only feel like eating a KFC until you actually eat a KFC, which had to be cut because of Ben’s constant interruptions. Indeed, there are several minutes on the cutting room floor of me reprimanding him for this and a rare apology from Ben as we both conclude that while my joke might not have been all that funny, none of his interruptions were any funnier.
What does remain in the final edit, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that all of Ben’s contributions are just one mindless stream of consciousness, is the fact that he retells the same anecdote about never having taken a packed lunch to work that he told in episode 5. Which I delight in pointing out to him.
The conversation around diets (Ben’s shockingly appalling diet and my own questionable food intake) somehow actually does bring us around to talking about the school we work in, albeit the free Friday breakfast we get and our disinterest in the condiments that our friend Rob routinely brings to the table. Though we concede that our indifference to his condiments might well be reciprocated in his apathy towards our podcast, which leads us to recognise that one of our other mutual friends has actively told us he doesn’t listen and refuses to listen. Thankfully other people do. It’s pretty clear if this show was dependent on the goodwill of friends and family it would have no audience whatsoever…
The list I chose is absolutely terrible. I liked the idea of doing a more generic ‘non-teacher’ list of the sort of ‘clickbait’ variety that is ubiquitous on the internet, and one about being a child of the 1980s seemed like a fun idea. I had actually found a brilliant, UK-specific list, but was in such a rush to leave the house in order to try and be able to fit in the recording of two episodes, that I just printed off the first one I could find that day, which was also nowhere near as good as the one I’d found previously. As it turns out, we do seem to make the best of it and though the list itself does not engender the bouts of uncontrollable laughter we’ve had in other episodes, it was evocative enough that we end up discussing quite a lot of 80s memories between us.
The postcard once again does not bring an antagonistic reaction from Ben, who at that point in the episode is unaware of the ‘1980s’ direction I’m trying to push the show in for the list. He is one for nostalgia though and the image of the cassette tape does bring out some natural reminiscing from him which fits both what is to come and also chimes well with some of the references we’ve already dropped by this point, some (not all) of which did make the edit. In fact a simple image of a cassette tape leads to an impromptu stroll down the memory lane of the music collections of our youth, which Ben is only too happy to recreate in his own inimitable style. In fact, though considerably less musically minded than my co-presenter, even I lean into the mic a couple of times to offer up a few bars of the songs that defined my youth.