We recorded episode 18 immediately off the back of episode 17, on the last day of term. Well, not immediately—we did check with the site team whether they actually wanted us to leave at this point and, while they clearly did want to see the back of us, they did graciously acknowledge that the site would be open for a few more hours.

So we returned to my office and ploughed on with episodes 18 and 19.

I’m glad we did. As well as helping us get ahead on the production process, which hopefully will pay dividends as we look to develop the show over the summer, we were clearly in pretty good form.

I was aware in advance that this episode would go out on my eldest daughter’s eighth birthday, so that seemed as good a cold open as any, but it yielded some pretty good segues and the one about Swansea leisure centre was, in particular, pretty evocative of memories for both of us. Mostly good, although we do briefly reference a darker memory for me without really explaining it. I’m not sure it’ll ever come up on the show, because it is pretty dark, and actually happened the last time I went to Swansea Leisure Centre at the age of 17, when I was assaulted on the way back to the train station by a local thug. To this day I don’t know what his motivation was, but it was a harrowing experience that’s stuck with me for many years. The memories we talk about in the show are more focused on waterslides and wave machines, and those are really the memories of Swansea Leisure Centre that remain the most prevalent in my reminiscences. And they were genuinely great moments in my childhood.

When we get to the list, that’s also a great one. An absolute nonsense of a list of possible summer jobs for teachers. As I said in the last post, we’re thinking of moving away from lists now the show is a bit more established, but if I come across lists like this one, there will always be a place for them.

The postcard is a strange one, in that we both quite liked it. A rarity, I’ll concede, but the agreement on the show is real, although the audible frustration you can hear earlier on in the show when Ben can’t follow my narrative is also all too real.

Incidentally, apropos of nothing, I reference the comedian Daniel Kitson. The reason for this is we went to see him the preceding Monday, but as we don’t discuss that in the show, it might seem an odd thing for me to say.

Daniel Kitson was excellent though. This episode may not hit those heights, but I think it’s one I’ll enjoy re-listening to in the future. Hopefully other people will too.