Oh What A Time... - #101 Diarists (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Grab your quill, a notebook and some candlelight, as this week we’re looking at some of the finest diarists history has to offer. We’ve got Einstein! We’ve got Anna Dostoevskaya along with Sofia Tolstaya and the diaries they wrote on their husbands. And no episode on diarists would be complete without the man himself, Samuel Pepys.And this week we’re consumed with: when did shame begin? Was it over a failure to get some decent berries for dinner? Did ancient man once forget to wipe his bum? Please send us your theories: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonder ECA. That's audible.com slash wonder ECA that's audible.com slash wonder ECA hello and welcome to Oh What A Time and I don't think anyone cares about the numbering system as much as I do but nonetheless you may have spotted this is an episode 100 we've got something special planned for episode 100 but it's not ready yet so we're calling this episode 101 just Just make your peace with it. Enjoy episode 101. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the podcast that asks, what was life really like in the time before shame? I'm thinking about this because I'm currently reading

a history of ancient Britain and the historian is very funny because occasionally he will meet an expert who will make, I don't know, like the kind of bow and arrow that sort of a Neolithic person would have used thousands of years ago. And you know, it's a fairly straight history of ancient Britain and then they'd be like can I go to Orkney to meet David who will make me a bow and arrow in exactly the same way it would have been made 5,000 years ago. He shows me

how to do it and I try to use it and I realized that my soft pathetic historian hands can't pull the bow back properly and I can't shoot and I realise actually I know nothing. I'm just a historian and I'm pathetic. And I'm like, when did we start thinking like this? Yeah. Surely when we were hunter gatherers, we weren't like, oh God, Tony's so much better at picking berries than me. He's always getting berries and I'm last to get the berries. Angela's found nuts from somewhere and I haven't found a nut since yesterday, so I can't look after my kids. But thankfully there's only 12 of us and we're living in a communal way,

so my kids will be fine. But I'm the worst tent-a-gatherer there is. And even that nut yesterday wasn't a nut, it was a pebble. And now everyone's calling me Pebble Boy. Yeah, we've all lost our tooth because of the bloody pebbles I've made everyone eat. I'm pathetic, I'm the worst. Yeah. It's an interesting question about shame because my daughter's recently got interested in when was

the first human. She started asking about the evolution of humans. And I wonder when the first, whether it was Neanderthals or Australopithecus, what was the first proto-human to actually feel shame? Like, was it everyone, the ape-like man sat around in a circle and one does a bit of a trump, a fart, and there's a moment of shame? When would that first shame have been? What would it have been? Yeah. Maybe you hadn't wiped your bum properly. I think religion probably upped the ante, shame-wise. Good shout.

To be honest, I think there's a lot of associated guilt and an idea of how you should be living your life, etc. etc. which is linked to a lot of religious practice. I don't know if this is too vague a topic for Daryl Leeworthy, our fantastic historian. Could we do an episode on shame? Yeah, who had the most shame in history? Before, say, the advent of agriculture and staying in the same place and the advent of trade when we were just nomadic hunter-gatherers, were we feeling embarrassed? Yep. But this is an interesting way to start this episode because we're talking about diarists today and I'll be talking about Samuel Peep's later

in this episode. I don't know if you've ever read Samuel Peep's diaries but it is very real. It is very raw. Man oh man does he have like no he writes things in his diaries which of course have been published all over the world that you just would you'd never imagine telling anyone. Pooping, farting, weeing, everything. This is a question I was going to ask you both. Have either of you ever kept a diary? I have three diaries that never went further than the third of Jan. I have a couple of diaries that never went further than the first of Jan. Tom, have you ever been a diarist? No, I haven't. Although, so this isn't a diary at all, but I have a Google doc where I note down things

that happen that might be useful for scripted things that I'm writing or whatever. So it's not a diary, but there is a place where I keep things in my life that feel notable and feel interesting and feel, yeah. So some of those things are like, this happened this day. Crane, I'm in the VAR booth now. Challenge. Did you not have a regular column

as a diary of a single man? I did, yes. When I was the dating columnist for Cosmopolitan, I did. But that was a monthly paid for diary. VAR confirmed. That never doesn't sound like a lie. Sex and the single guy. That's the funniest.

It's the oddest. When I was a single man dating columnist. What about this, Ellis? How do you like this? Sex and the Single Guy. That's the funniest, it's the oddest. When there was a single man dating columnist. What about this, Ellis? How do you like this? I won the award for the UK's best dating columnist. You didn't, did you? I did, yeah. The dating awards. That's a lie. VAR.

Not a lie at all. Is that true? My column won UK Dating Column of the Year. So I was the best dating columnist in Britain. What? Sorry. Let's get the trophy out. Come on. What award ceremony is this? The UK Dating Awards. The Pulitzers?

It's a genuine award. I did win that award. Is there a physical award? The Nobel Prize for Dating Columnists. There's a physical award. I have a trophy somewhere. I'm not sure where it is. What was that, El? The Nobel Prize for dating columnists. They do peace literature dating columnists. This guy's finding stuff out that none of us knew.

Yeah, exactly. My dream is wooing Putin into a peace agreement so I can use my dating skills. What's funny is my iPhone Note history goes back to about 2014. Right. And I very rarely delete iPhone Notes. So if I was to go back to them, I think that would remind me of stuff. Certainly what I was doing at the time. The closest I've come to a diary is I used to keep a gig diary when I first started doing stand up as a record of the gig I was doing, how the material had gone, whether I wanted to do that material again, etc. What I needed changing. And it actually became sort of self-flagellating exercise of shame in my mid-twenties, because what worried me about writing a diary when I was a teenager or a kid was,

how truthful are you? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Who is this for? Am I going to show this to anyone? What if it gets found? If it gets found, what do I say? Am I lying? Am I writing for an audience?

How embarrassing will it be? That's a great question, isn't it? Who is it for? And then I should think, well, who is it for? Because if I'm writing this for my future self, does that change what I'm writing? If it's journaling, which is quite popular now, from what I gather with journaling, you're meant to be like totally honest and almost stream of consciousness just out it comes onto the page. Which is what I think, my feeling is what a diary probably should be. It should probably be a private thing, which has some kind of whatever the phrase, not cathartic, but whatever phrase

would be applicable. It has a use to you in terms of channeling and understanding the stuff you're going through, I suppose. It's funny because Michael Palin's diaries, I've got them somewhere, and it's like Michael Palin's diaries 68 to 80 or something. And in the foreword, I think John Cleese says Michael is one of history's greatest chatters, but what I didn't realise was that we would be having these fantastic conversations and he would go upstairs and note it all down. Right, okay. Because I didn't realise he was keeping the diary. And what's lovely about that is that those are the Python years. He was talking about

writing Monty Python, he was talking about writing the films. He was a lover of comedy and a comedy historian. It's absolutely fascinating. And those gig diaries are actually very interesting. I used to read them out on the Radio X Show with John because he found them so hilarious because The gigs you do are so varied and are often so difficult and your material often isn't good enough And you're a very nervous anxious performer and you're inexperienced. So it's very funny What I found terrifying was because I was in my mid 20s. I was I was a grown man. I was an adult I had a job. Yeah, and yet I don't really recognize. And I didn't think I'd changed very much since I was 25, but you've changed loads. And you're no cleverer than you were then.

You're no funnier naturally. It's just you don't know how to do the thing you're trying to do. So there are actually quite interesting documents of a time and Izzy's got them as well. She found hers last week actually. And her diary entries from 2003 are hilarious, because there's gig number six,

and it's gone really badly, and she's like, no, you are good enough to do this. You must keep doing this. Now it's been her job for 20 plus years. But the thing with writing a diary is, if, for instance, you were going to be critical of a friend, it's quite a big thing to write, because then 10 years later, do you show the friend or

what do they think if they read it? So I'm glad Samuel Pepys wrote a diary, but that used to cripple me, which also I remember being given a diary for Christmas when I was about nine or ten and thinking oh that's a really good idea. It was like January the third, Mum wanted me to go to town but I didn't want to go so I didn't go. It's not quite the Great Fire of London is it? It's not very much in this. My six-year-old son has a diary we bought for him which has a little lock and key on it, which he quite liked. He'd write his little things and then he'd lock it away. But of course, as his life and the and he's six,

the key has now been lost. So he can't get into his own diary. So this has suddenly become this source of unbelievable frustration. He was getting into it, now he can't get into it anymore. Can you pick the lock? We cannot, how would I pick a lock, Al? I'd go to Timpsons.

I can smash the lock. Yeah. But I cannot pick the lock, El? I don't go to Timpsons. I can smash the lock. Yeah. But I cannot pick the lock. No. Yeah, El, you're not dealing with a cat burger. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Very good question. So this is going to be an interesting episode, I think. I'm really kind of looking forward to this one. Later, I'm going to be talking about, well, it's fascinating. It's the work of, it's a hugely important diary basically, a diary keeper in Russia, in the world of Russian literature, but not the person you would think. Someone who is close by to one of the Russian great writers. It's fascinating actually. What are you guys talking about later?

I'll be talking later about what I consider to be one of the most famous diarists ever, of course Samuel Pepys, writing about a very specific period, 1660 to 1669, probably the most eventful 10 years of history in the entirety of British history. So yeah, Samuel Pepys a bit later. And we'll be doing some correspondence now, but after the correspondence I will be kicking off this week's episode by talking about Albert Einstein's diaries. But Tom, we've got some emails. We have, as always, some fantastic emails. Right, Al, this is an email which should be of interest to you because it refers to something that you

can visit from your home in Crystal Palace. It is within reach of where you live. Okay. Benjamin Chambers has got in contact to say, Dear lads, after enjoying your recent tree based transmission, and in particular, your hymn to the mighty Sequoia. Now we did an episode on trees very recently. One of the things I talked about was the history of the American Sequoia and the fascination that grew around them, these huge trees and how they went on tour and people go and visit them.

You could go and watch Big Tree Live as we described it. Ben has said here, I thought you might like to know, I had no idea about this, it's fascinating, that you may not have to travel too far to see one up close. While a number have been planted in the UK, perhaps the most oddly located one is to be found opposite the southbound platform of New Crossgate Station. What? Legend has it it was planted by a green-fingered signalman in the 1980s while still only young for a mighty redwood is already big enough to be

seen from a fair distance. Kind regards Ben. Now I'm gonna send this picture around our group now and you can see indeed there we go sent round. Oh wow. Indeed next to the train platform at New Crossgate there is indeed a huge Sequoia tree, which will get bigger and bigger by the day, no doubt. That's… What do you do about that? I mean, do you just let it turn into a giant redwood outside No Crossgate Station or do you have to deal with that? Yes. That's a good question. That's going to be something for Lewisham Council.

In 500 years to have to deal with. Surely the roots are going to be a problem as well, pushing underneath the tree. I'm now starting to worry about this. I can see this causing problems now. It's a lovely tree, but is it in the right place? But I could go and visit the Sequoia and then go for a pint at the Amersham Arms, which is home to an excellent comedy night where Tom and I have performed. Yeah.

I mean, that sounds ideal. Whenever I- It's a genuinely lovely day. Whenever I think of the Amersham Arms, there's been a comedy night there for years and years. I did that gig 16 or 17 years ago. And I really liked the pub, but it's a very famous music venue in South London as well.

And Men's Wear were a very curious band because they became famous by impressing journalists for looking great and being in the right place in Camden before they'd written any songs and before they'd released a record. Really? So I think they might've even been on the front cover of The NME before, you know, before they'd released anything. And famously they were a kind of,

they were a thing that journalists told punters that we were gonna all love and then that they ended up on top of the pops and all this kind of stuff. Because they look great, they all look great. But by the time they came to do in their first gig, which was at the Amish Mams, there was such enormous interest in menswear. Because music fans had been told that they were gonna be the next big thing.

That they played the room at the Amish Mams where Tom and I performed comedy. And there was hundreds of people there to the extent that someone took a shit in the corner because they couldn't get to the toilet. What? No. It's in the John Harris book about Britpop. The Last Party, Blair, Britpop and the End of New Labour, whatever the books call it. It's a very, very good book about the 90s by John Harris who now writes for The Guardian, who was at the enemy at the time. Imagine not being able to get to the toilet because there's so many people excited to see menswear.

They think, oh, fuck it, I'm just going to go to the toilet in the corner. I'll tell you what, actually, one book we should do for our book reviews for subscribers is How Not to Run a Nightclub by Peter Hook. Have you read that? Oh, fantastic. Yeah, yeah. There's a bit in that where they build the VIP section in the Hacienda, but it's nowhere near a toilet. So the only way people could go to the toilet is they kept a Hellman's bucket of mayonnaise, empty bucket, up in the VIP, and you'd basically have to do business in that because it was too far from the toilets. You'd have to go down into the clubs of people,

everyone just in the VIP just weeing and booing into a big Hellman's bucket. That's the one famous scene I remember. That's remarkable. That's so funny. I love like factory records and Asienda because it was just, you know, no contracts and all that kind of stuff. No one knows what they're doing.

No one knows what they're doing but the records are great. The idea of Blue Monday, I think it cost 10 pence didn't the records do, it cost 10p more to make than they could sell it for. And it became the biggest selling, it's a global thing. It cost them so much money. Millions! That's funny and thankfully we are taking that amateurish attitude into this podcast because we've been doing it for a couple of years now. We've lost an absolute fortune. Every listener costs us 15p. Yeah.

For some reason I owe Chris Skull £25,000. I don't know how that happened. It just has. I've had to swap my toilet out for a bucket of Helmand's mayonnaise. Yeah. But you know, it's has. And I've had to swap my toilet out for a bucket of Helmand's mayonnaise. Yeah. There we are. But you know, it's a life we've chosen. So Ben, thank you very much for getting in contact with the show.

That is something I genuinely think Ellis will visit. And also, he's ended his email. This is a nice little touch. Kind tree guards instead of regards. Oh! It's a nice bit of business. It's a nice bit of business. That's a mark of the kind of listener we are.

Exactly. It's that little touch, that cherry on the cake that makes it extra tasty. If you want to get in contact with the show, there are many, many, many ways to do it. And here's how. Alright, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at owattertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at owattertimepod. Now clear off.

Okay, so let's get cracking with this week's episode about diaries. Now, the most famous scientist, certainly of our lifetimes, I would say is probably Stephen Hawking, isn't it? He's one of our most famous global public intellectuals. But in the 1920s, it would have been Einstein. So in 1922, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics. It was awarded for 1921 He won the Nobel Prize for Physics. He was awarded for 1921. And that was when his general theory of relativity

was proven correct. He received a notification while staying in Shanghai. Now, he was a big deal, Einstein. And the general theory of relativity made him very, very famous. But up to that point, he'd seldom traveled, barely, barely really. He'd been to the Netherlands and to France. But his fame brought him invitations to travel the world, and so in the 20s and 30s

that's exactly what he did. Now on each journey he kept a diary or a travel journal, and their very recent publication has revealed a really interesting different side to, this was probably the 20th century's greatest genius. Now in the autumn of 1922, Einstein set off from Marseille for the Far East, stopping off in Hong Kong, Singapore, mainland China, Japan, Sri Lanka, the Levant, and finally a three week sojourn in Spain on the return leg.

Now his journals were written with a view to sharing with his family, which I think is quite sweet. It's quite a sweet sort of reason for writing a diary, isn't it? Good to know your audience. To remember time with his family, is that what it was? It was to share with his family. To share with his family. Okay, yes, he was travelling alone. Because he was travelling alone, because he's the world's most in-demand physicist, and he said to himself, okay, I might not go to these places ever again, so I'm going to keep a journal so I can share it with my family. So they're very, very candid about his experiences and they're more like letters home than sort of aides memoir for his later life. Monday, hair's out of control again,

don't know what to do with it. Tuesday, decided not to bother with the hair. It's probably quite good for the brand. Lost yet another comb in it. He's also, he's still I think most people's idea of a genius, Einstein. Absolutely. Imagine being so bright that people use your name as sort of slang, sort of, all right Einstein, imagine that. All right Ellis. Yeah, 100 years on. It's like if you're ever reading a book amongst lads, oh, hey, Shakespeare. Hey, Shakespeare.

There's a couple of names that everyone knows. Chuck and Einstein over there. Do you think in 100 years, if someone's having an important meeting and their underpants fall out of their trousers, they'll go, all right, Crane? Like in the same way, do you think you'll have that indelible mark on history in the way Einstein did?

All right, here he is. Tom Crane. Who do you think you are, Tom Crane? Now, at this stage of his life, Einstein was in his early 40s. He wasn't quite the worldly figure he'd become. And he wrote instantaneous reactions to these places that are, obviously it was a different time in retrospect, unbecoming. okay? Especially as someone who famously reacted so violently against American racism. So he became an ardent anti-racist, he was a friend of Paul Robeson, and he was a member of the National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. And yet, in the early 20s, he was a different sort of person. So take his view of China for instance, a peculiar herd-like nation with a people more like automatons. He said worse things of the Sri Lankans and the Egyptians, especially in the busy Docklands of Port Said where he found the screaming and gesticulating to be too much for him. He liked Japan, of Japan, though he was warm and embracing. He believed that the Japanese were unostentatious, decent, and altogether very appealing. He did add though, that their pure souls as nowhere else, one has to love and admire this

country because he journeyed through Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima by this point. So that's one of the dangers of reading private diaries, or certainly private diaries that are composed without a view to the Impostor Man's publication. I always think this, when the Beatles were in Hamburg and John Lennon was going out with Cynthia Lennon, he would write her love letters from Hamburg and he's like you know 18. I think she sold these about 25 years ago. I remember reading them and they were rubbish. And they were really soppy and crap. And at the end of them would be, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, John. And you're like, come on mate, what?

John Lennon? One of the 20th century's greatest icons and songwriters. Was he trying to hit a word count? But obviously he didn't think that people would have an interest in these letters. 56 years ago. Of course, of course. I'd be absolutely mortified if any of that stuck out. Of course, any text you've ever sent in a relationship which is a little bit sort of, you know, lovey-dovey. Everyone uses language which is in a relationship. That's what happens, isn't it? Especially early doors. Also, especially in the early throws relationship. My texts to Izzy now are so administrative.

Yeah, it becomes increasingly functional. Oh, it's just 100% functional. And that function is large. functional. I mean... And that function is large. Can you imagine if John Lennon had had Facebook? Those early Facebook posts would have been about what he would have said. It would have really damaged the mysterious nature of John Lennon. Katlyn Moranrock, a good piece about this in The Times quite recently, was she'd gone back and read her early Facebook statuses. And she's like, they are mortifying. Just before he went solo, it'd be in a band, but it's complicated. Yeah.

This bit of Facebook technology. Facebook stuff. Yeah. Now, this is where- John has tagged himself at the cavern with Paul and Ringo and George. John has marked himself safe of Jerry and the pacemakers. Now, to reconcile the two versions of Einstein, we've got to remember that obviously like any human being, he changed his mind.

And we must also remember that he was forced into exile by the Nazis. He became a refugee in the United States and had first hand experience of what it was to suffer, you know, xenophobia and racism. Now he was swamped by the pressures of fame and celebrity and at times he was bored of the circumstances into which he was thrust and he was ashamed of being a tourist. So he found a reception held at the German Embassy in Tokyo to be boring and stuffy. He wrote of being very much ashamed of myself and being complicit in such despicable treatment of human beings when he rode around Colombo in a rickshaw. I couldn't change anything he lamented but like

all tourists Einstein's diaries record a high level of culture shock which must have been even more extreme in the 1920s so it's about being an accomplished musician and violinist. Einstein didn't really like Japanese singing he wrote it was entirely incomprehensible. He even didn't like the fact that he had to sit on the floor rather than a chair. Did he speak Japanese? No. That might be your main issue there. Exactly and he found it uncomfortable.

A few years later Einstein voyaged to South America and again his diary entries are very candid. He preferred Uruguay to Brazil and both of those places to Argentina. He does seem to have enjoyed his time in Montevideo recording a postcard style entry in his diary. Uruguay, happy little country. It's not really charming in nature with a pleasantly warm humid climate. Also with model social institutions. It's very liberal. State completely separated from church. Imagine sending that to your kids. That's a fun thing to write in your diary diary isn't it? Yeah, it's nice. How's it going dad? Yes, good liberal. State completely separated from church.

I imagine that on the back of a postcard having a great... Hey, iBoys having a great time in Argentina. If you're interested, the state is separated from the church and I was met with genuine cordiality like seldom before my life. There I encountered love of my own soil without any kind of megalomania. Lots of love, Albert, Dad. But yes, going kitesurfing this afternoon. It was, he thought, a lot like Switzerland. So as for Brazil, that brought out the weather

watcher in him as he wrote in his visit to Rio de Janeiro, sky overcast and light rain, nevertheless a majestic impression of the bizarre giant cliffs, the botanical garden, indeed the plant world in general, surpasses the dreams of the 1001 nights. Everything lives and thrives, so to speak, under one's very eyes. The miscellany of people in the streets is delightful. He confessed to being enchanted by Rio. Later Diaries detailed visits to New York, Havana, the Panama Canal, Honduras, California. He's so well travelled. Yeah, mad, isn't he? All off the back of one equation. Come on mate, we can all come up with equations. E equals MC cubed, there you go.

Where's my trip to Havana? So as I said, you know, Panama Canal, Enduras, California, by then he could barely move without being swamped by well-wishers and supporters. Oh really? Wow. So his refuge was being in the cabin with his wife Elsa. And he wrote in his diary, how will this end? Imagine being swamped by well-wishers because he came up with a general theory of relativity.

Yeah. Different time. I think it's one of the greatest, it's not really an invention is it, it's a discovery. You don't really get discoveries that are that crisp and like holistic. He discovered something that even now, like a hundred years later, is still proving correct. Whereas everything else is slightly iterative. It's a big mind blowing discovery. Tim Berners-Lee came up with the World Wide Web.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is, and gave it to humanity. Now if he got 0.1 of a penny every time someone made a Google search or used the internet, he would be a trillionaire. Yeah. Yeah. But no, he's not famous. So no one is going up to him in WH Smiths at Victoria Station, slapping him on the back and saying, thanks for the internet, mate. I absolutely love it.

Well, I would argue that Einstein, if he doesn't want to get bothered, once again, he's not helping himself with his look. He needs to tone down the look. If you want to go on a train or a cruise ship and not get bothered, you can't have the most recognisable hair in the world. Yeah. Paul McCartney used to go on public transport in disguise because he liked eavesdropping. Exactly. That's all Einstein needed was a hat. Cut it short, buy a hat. Cut it shortly.

That's all you need to do. Buy some sunning. You just look like you've done a hat sonneting. Baseball cap, dark pair of glasses, shave the tash off. Next. And if Art Garfunkel is listening to this, or Carlos Valderrama, the same applies to you guys. You can't complain, OK? Art Garfunkel, mate, you can't complain. Exactly. You brought this on yourself. You grew this on yourself.

Now, the answer in the 1930s was apparent to Einstein. He prepared for his trip to Britain in 1931. He started his diary early, unusual for him, commenting on the spring weather in Berlin that April and he loved Oxford. An absolute paradise, he thought, compared to the anxieties of late Weimar Germany where you had running street battles, the unstoppable rise of the Nazis, their unmistakable slogan, make Germany great again. But he did notice in Oxford that everyone had a uniform. He noticed and he took a sarcastic swipe at the band of tuxedo-clad brethren

who filed into the dining hall at Christchurch College. Now, as an observer of life between the wars, Einstein obviously is very valuable, not only because his diaries provide a commentary on what was happening, but also because they're so candid. So they show this genius, great mind at work, and how he was adapting and learning how to adapt to new situations,

and how his European preconceptions were challenged by encounters with the rest of the world. Now, they were published posthumously, so I don't know how he would have felt about them being published, but they are very, very interesting, nevertheless. That is absolutely fascinating. Bill, can you imagine if we became

such successful history podcasters that 100 years after we died, our WhatsApp groups were all published? I hope not. WhatsApp Archaeology. Thank God for end-to-end encryption is all I can say. The Oh What A Time WhatsApp group published. Chris Skull to all. Should we do an episode maybe on historic doors? I don't know, is there anything in that? Can I just check, are we recording at 9.30 AM this morning? Can we make it 9.40, sorry?

Just a bit of a nightmare on the school run, sorry. Biggest selling coffee table book of 2082 or whatever it is. So that's the end of part one of Diarists. If you want part two immediately, just like that, straight in your ears. You can become an Oh What A Time full-timer where for £4.99 a month you'll get all the shows ad-free, you get first dibs on live tickets, you also get two bonus episodes a month which only subscribers get to listen to, and the whole back catalogue of all of

our subscriber-only episodes. There's so many brilliant episodes that we just love recording, they're only available to subscribers. For £4.99 a month you can jump into that pool and swim around and enjoy it all. Do do that. It's a bargain, it's a bargain. We will see you either way for part two shortly. Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. And before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.