Oh What A Time... - #69 Your Letters - September 2024 (Bonus Episode!)

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

OWAT returns properly on Monday 29th September 2025, so to fill the gap over the next couple of weeks we're dropping a few old subscriber episodes onto the feed.And today we have a Your Letters episode from September 2024. In this, we’ll hear from listeners with astounding relatives, we’ll ponder how awful a stag-do in Sparta may have been, plus we hear of the most practical one day time machines, possibly ever.If you fancy sending us a letter, you can do so via the medium of the future, email: [e-mail] 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).

Hello and welcome to Oh What a Time. We are on a summer break right now. We return on Monday the 29th of September. Look forward to that. But to keep you occupied, right now we've got an old subscriber special. This is number 69, your letters from September 2024. If you want to become a subscriber, you get two bonus episodes every month. And this month, that includes a special episode on Stonehenge, plus another one to come. To sign up, go to ohwatertime.com and enjoy this ahead of us returning next week. Hello and welcome to This is a subscriber special And this is the show that ponders the question Was Life Harder in a pre-Ubly time We should briefly explain what Ubley is I'm staying in a Should we say

Not the most Swish Hotel. I've been handed it. I've got a yoghurt from the buffet. It's an Ublee yogurt. It's a make of yogurt I've never heard of before. It's a taste of yogurt. I've never heard of before. Chris and I and Ellis have been discussing this

yogurt, Ubley, that none of us have ever heard of, and I'm currently holding up. Well, it's actually, you're not giving its full title. It's actually an Ublee thick and creamy. There are so many words on it. These are the words on the label. Ubley life, thick and creamy, smooth

So there's a lot going on there. You live in an Ubley life. You never told us about the life bit. It's a lifestyle choice, the Ubly Life. I'm always, if I stay in a budget hotel, and I don't mind a budget hotel, there's a me about the anonymity of a budget hotel, which I actually quite like.

I like the idea that I can just die and no one would know. And there's not even enough of a turnover of you people coming to this hotel. You'd probably be right, you'd lay there for about fortnight. Yeah, I'd be like a Danish bodbody. I'd be like Toll and Man. They'd find me in about 4,000 years. Preserved in Ublee.

Yeah. Premier in Man. With film four still running on the TV because it doesn't have Netflix. It doesn't have Disney. So that's your best option at watching anything decent, film four. Which you've had to flick through up and down on the channels,

not through a guide. Yeah. His body was discovered with loads of little hand soaps. Yeah. Incredible. They think he was in his early 40s. His last meal, they've analysed the contents of his stomach. His last meal was ubley, which was so he'd been living an ubley life, thick and creamy.

The soft skill on his hand suggests that maybe he was a podcaster or maybe he worked in audio. Whenever you're at the breakfast buffet, if it's a brand of something that you've never heard. of. That for me is when alarm bells start. I don't know, maybe there's lots of ubley life fans out there. Maybe we're wrong. Email us on hello or what a time. Have you ever seen a pot of ubley in the wild? And do you take a photo of you yourself with that ubley.

You can't just say you're living the ubley life and not prove it. Because it's so easy, I think we can all agree. We'll have met people who claim they're living the ubly life, but they've got nothing to back it up. You need to have a photo with the part of Ubley, Ubley life, thick and creamy, and a copy of that day's newspaper. That's the thing they say about people on social media is that they look like they're living the Ubley life,

but the reality is often very different. That's what's so difficult about social media because obviously it leads to a lot of mental health problems because people are sat there on their phone and saying, well, he's living an Ubley life, she's living an Ubley life, he's living an obli life thick and creamy. Why can I live an obli life for concluding me? Because I've never seen it sold anywhere.

In 2,000 years when people dig up premiere in man, then they'll be saying again, he was living an Ubley life. Why did we have it so good 2,000 years ago? And a final point on Ubley, if anyone from Ubley is listening. I'm actually quite enjoying this yoghurt. So you can send me some Mubli if you want.

I'll happily eat it. Stop trying to use this podcast to live an Ubly life. That's not what it's about. It's about history. So this Ubly yogurt has actually got me thinking about something That I'm This is sort of an initial talking point

I am I don't know if you're like this But when I'm I'm filming at the moment I'm knackered I'm really really tired at the moment I'm so the days are so long I'm just knacket Yeah

And I if I'm having a stressful day Will reward myself With nice food in the evening Yeah So I might treat myself to a pizza or I might, often a takeaway is basically the thing I do. If I'm knacket, I will reward myself with. Do you do that at all?

Is food a thing that you reward yourself with or not? Do you not have that relationship with food? Yeah. Yeah. To an extent, absolutely. I think I reward myself by going on my phone terribly if I'm tired. Do you? Okay.

Yeah. If I've been working hard, I think I'm just going to not do anything. But that plays into the same thought process that I've been having is simply living in sort of of medieval Britain. It's what I was thinking about. I was trying to go to sleep last night. When you've had a hard day and you're rewarding yourself with a turnip or staring at the fire. That's like your two options after a bad day.

Like you've got nothing. There's no iPhone. What are you doing? You can go outside and look at the stars for a bit. Go back into your cold house. What can you do? Also, you're almost certainly illiterate. Yeah.

You can't even read a book. So you can't even read a book. no celli no radio no podcasts no oobly no books so what are you doing let's say

you've just come in from the field you've worked till day you've got back to your mud hut let's suppose you live far enough from any tick conurbation

you're not near an inn so you can't go for a drink you're one of those people who live out in the fields in medieval Britain what are you doing with your evening I think I don't know

what would I do go with sailing Bless you I'd probably bless my orchard Is that what you call it? I'm trying to ensure a good harvest For the year to come It's also really dark in there

You've probably got two candles Maybe giving a little bit of light Can I be really torquetry And rude for a minute I would masturbate Tom There's nothing left is there I can't read The most ancient of rewards

I can't watch telly If you do that too much You definitely can't read If the rumours is to believe Can't eat oobly Thick and creamy If that's what you're doing I'm definitely

I'm not risking eating an oobly around your house I don't even 90% sure It is an oobly Ellis Ellis with the parchment of the maid By candlelight

In the middle of the orchard Unless they were really Maybe they were really into mindfulness Maybe they were okay With the simple Sort of just sat there Listening to the You know the fire flicker away

And maybe maybe there was, maybe it was a better life. Well, yeah, because you'd almost certainly be physically very tired. So what would you, you'd just be having to lay down on some hate? Yeah. Well, this is one thing I was thinking about. It's obviously quite a bit of effort to light a fire, get a fire going. And maybe candles are expensive.

There will be evenings where you're just so tired from working in the field, whatever you've been doing, you'd think, I can't be bothered to light a fire. Yeah, yeah. So your evening is just, I'm just going to sit in the dark. Fuck. Like, you really are alone with your thoughts. Maybe you're just, but there's also, maybe you're exhausted after a really hard day as well because you've been filling the soil and doing whatever, you know, it's proper work. Maybe you're knacket. So maybe about nine o'clock you're looking to go to sleep anyway. So let's say you get home from work from seven. You've probably got two hour when you know, basically, I think before you need to go to bed. They definitely went to bed. Might as well. Yeah, they weren't, they weren't on their phones at midnight. Also, it was freezing as well. So you need to get in bed for whatever little warmth there might be available in the room. But yeah. But anyway, my point is, God, they wouldn't be too. taking the mick out of ubley, would they?

They'd have absolutely killed for an obli. In a weird way, I do think that that is what an ubley life is, just alone in the dark. I don't think an obli is particularly high-end lifestyle. I think you need to go back 5,000 years and find a peasant by the orchard, and that would be an ubley life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're almost certainly illiterate, you might. You're almost certainly illiterate, no telly, no radio.

no podcasts, no phones, no internet, no reading. There's a off chance you can play a music instrument. If you could afford one, probably can't afford one, most people. You might be singing songs to yourself. You can't read the Bible. Yep. So you're just, you're lying there. That song one, I think you basically, you and your partner would have to basically act as the radio.

So you'd have to say, would you like to hear a song? What do links? There was a little folk song there. It's been passed down via the oral tradition. Some two to three hundred years old is about harvest. It's another one about harvest. There'll be news coming up at half past the hour, news related to harvest. It's very harvest-based here.

Let's go to Clive with the traffic. There is none. Thank you, Clive. You're listening to The Walk Time. show. That's pre-drive. Listen now. I've just noticed something on the side of the packet. It says it, in our dairy at the foot of the Mendip Hills, we only use simple, honest ingredients. We are very happy people. We think you can taste it in our products.

So it's a it's a, it's a mendip-based company. And do you know what? I'm actually, I'm generally getting into this yogget. It's actually a very nice yog. So, well done Ubley. We jest, but you make good yog. So, I think, I think, I think Ubley is part of the Yo Valley family. Is it? Okay. And I do, I do, I do try. trust to your valley with your life that is up there with tom hanks for me in terms of things or organizations i trust the most so today's show is a your letters special basically you guys send us so much good stuff that we feel bad that we only get get through a small portion of it at the top of our normal shows so today as a subscriber special we're going to be going through some of your

wonderful subscriber emails so shall we kick off you guys happy should we get going Oh, yes, please. Anything else you want to say about Ubley, you're happy to really crack in now. We think we've covered that, haven't we? I think we've totally covered Oobli. But do we establish the flavour, sorry. Does it have a flavour?

This is a sort of light strawberry. Half a strawberry. That's what I'd say. Does it actually say light strawberry? No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't need to say it. It's so clearly light strawberry. Oh, it does actually know.

Yeah, there we are. It's got a little strawberry on the top. So light straw free. So email number one, this is from Josh N. Thank you, Josh N, for getting in contact with the show. Josh N says, and this is really interesting, actually. Hello, all, I'm referencing your spies episode here with your talk of codes and such. Now, a while ago, we did an episode entirely on spying, didn't we?

And I think one of the things that came up was the way that they pass information around and where they concealed the truth of what they were talking about. And Josh has said here, I thought I would share a bit of knowledge from the Armed Forces reference codes as a Welshman from Pembrokeshire who has served in the army. You need to tell me where in Pembrokeshire, Josh.

There's no specificity, unfortunately. That's too vague. Oh, for God's sake, Josh. That's a classic military, isn't it? You keep things vague, keep yourself safe. They can't track you down. As a Welshman, Pembrokeshire, who has served in the armed,

army, I actually have a bit of knowledge on the subject, finally. Oh, well, love. When messages, this is amazing, when messages need to be sent as a matter of urgency, but also need to be sent securely across open channels, the more Celtic inclined of regiments, Royal Welsh, Welsh, Welsh, Guards, Scots and such, have been known to use Welsh or Gaelic due to their relatively small number of speakers and being almost totally unknown in the regions the regiments found themselves in. The benefits over code are that the messages need no time to be coded and decoded, and could be passed with no prep whatsoever.

Did you know about this, Elle? So in some regiments in the army... I mean, the Welsh rugby team always used to do their line-up course in much. Oh, there we are. That's a slightly less pressure situation, though, isn't it? Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, what, when you're trying to win the Grand Slam in Paris? Yeah, whatever.

This habit, says Josh, started during the early use of radios and may have been used earlier. It was irregularly used during World War II. too, but often enough, it was noted down in regimental records. Even more amazing is it was used as recently as a Bosnia conflict, but it was specifically not used in the

Falklands. Guess why L? Well, because it's a British because of the Falklands... Oh, not because of Patagonia, because of Welsh speakers in Patagonia. Yes. Due to risk the enemy having Welsh speakers of their own due to the Welsh areas of South America. So that's why they didn't risk it.

In modern times, it's fallen out of use due to more sophisticated radio equipment and the use of more complex code. And he says, obviously, I can't go into that bit. Well, he is, that's proper military. Come on, Josh. Yeah, give us a good. Spill the secrets on the army.

This is a subscriber special, mate. People pay $4.99 a month, Josh, and they expect to know the inner working to the British military. Yeah. Come on, Josh. Anyway, thank you for having an amazing podcast, guys. It's really enjoyable to listen to on my travel's regards, Josh. And that's interesting.

So, so few people spoke these particular languages that they were just confident, Well, don't worry about code. Well, in those areas, that's the thing. In those areas, exactly, yeah. You know, if you're fighting in the Middle East, for instance, you might, you know, those, the people you're fighting might well have learned English, French, Spanish, Portuguese. But it's unlikely, although I know I'm friends with a Spanish lady. Well, she would regard herself as Basque, and she's very interested in minority languages.

Okay. She speaks fluent Welsh, and she speaks eight languages fluently. get buying another two, I think. Or seven fluently, you get by in another three, and one of those is Welsh. And who Welsh is as good as mine, it's incredible. Wow. But it's unlikely that, you know,

because in the army you'd be learning, you'd be, you know, translators and would be trying to learn languages that are very widely spoken, wouldn't they? Yeah, absolutely. But, ah, that's very interesting. I think you would assume as well that English was the language of the British Army.

Yes, yeah, that is true. But that, yeah, so that is still, that was until recently still used as a tactic. If I was multilingual and they introduced conscription, Army translator would be quite a good job, I think. Oh, that's a good one. I've thought about that. I think Eric Hobsbom did this,

the historian doing the Second World War. I think he was a translator. But don't you therefore, like, you're not good with guns, but you're in the same place where guns are necessary? Do you know what I mean? Oh, you're at the back, aren't you on the radio? You're at the back? You think you're at the back?

It's a bit like being a medic. Like, I'm sure I'd want to be a medic. Oh, no, no, no, no. Let me present a situation for you then. Global affairs continue to spiral in the alarming way they are at the moment. Yeah. It's a year away. And the British government go, okay, heads up, guys.

Not just to us, by the way. They just give us a heads up on this. They tell the nation, conscription is probably kicking in about a year. You've got a year to sort of, you know, market yourself as a certain thing for the army. What are you going for? How are you going to make this a more manageable three-year horror? Right.

Can I learn... You've got a year. You can do what you want. Russian, for instance, in a year. Are you going to defect? Is that your plan? Cut to you stood next to Putin on the news. It does seem a bit fatalistic.

How is hell preparing? He's learning Russian. How weird would that be? Us still doing this podcast and that doesn't bode well, does it? He's looking at Airbnb's in Red Square. Ellis is defectedly still doing this podcast. It'd be quite weird for the listeners. I like the show, but on the other hand, he's hand in hand with a dictator.

I would think to myself, can I become so unwell in the next year that they look at me and go, we don't want this guy in the army? Can I physically let myself go to seed? Licking the pavement. Oh, yeah. It works. The works. Pants on his head.

Yeah. Pencils up his nostrils. Not a single pot of Ubley will pass my lips. I'm going for war artist, but specifically in a sort of landscape, long-distance style. So you're at the back. My art is not in the battlefield, is more capturing the magnitude of the battlefield from quite a distance. Yeah, vibes. Yeah, real expressionist.

You're the British Army's vibes artist. A hint of an explosion very far on the horizon. Exactly. What about you, Chris? Well, I've been looking at, you know, those drone pilots, that's a bit like a video game, isn't it? The videification, video gamification of war. And you're into your tech, you've got one of those sort of 360 cameras, you know how to turn the camera on in your iPhone. Yeah. And in that, in that scenario, presumably you're, you're far away from the front there, essentially playing a little video game. That's a, that's a gig. Do I always think about in more like terrible jobs, the Battle of Waterloo, you?

still had drummers. Yeah. So, like, the guys are, like, charging forward and you're just the guy on the drum. Yeah. While everyone's got, like, grape shot is firing through the ranks. Maniacs. Yeah. much for that email, Josh. It's genuinely fascinating. So there you go. The use of Welsh and Celtic

languages as a way of code. Next email. This one is from Darren. Darren says this. Very different tone to this email, by the way. Good day. I'm still fairly new to the podcast and I'm working through your older episodes. On the dinner party's episode, you started off by talking about stagdos and people being chained to a lamp post. This reminded me of a stagdo I went on 15 years ago. So, we're a relatively modest group of lads. The stag had known most people for a very long time, and I describe everyone in attendance, other than maybe one other person as being pretty reasonable

and not particularly outlandish. We weren't card-carrying members of the Banta Brigade, is what you described. I like the sound of the stagg, do you so far. You're happy? You're in? This is good. After some careful thought, the stag show chose Brighton as his preferred destination.

As his groomsmen, we made the plan, and in the time-honoured tradition, we drove down, checked them to the hotel, hit the pubs around lunchtime. You're still in? This sounds quite good, doesn't it? Okay. Okay. In slight contrast, my pretty reasonable claim earlier in the email, by the third pub, someone had whipped the stag's trousers down in the pub, inviting cheers and laughs. And whilst the stag was understandably quick to hoist his jeans back up, he wasn't quite quick enough. Quick enough for what, you might ask? Well, what this juvenile trick had revealed was a slither of

gaffer tape protruding from the top of his boxer shorts. Gaffer tape? Yeah. He hoped briefly, that nobody had spotted this, but alas, it was noticed, and then the question started. This is amazing. My friend, let's call him Adam, because that's his name. It's good stuff. Denied any knowledge of the Gaffer Tate, as one might expect. But questions continued until such time that answers being less than forthcoming, the genes were dropped again.

More hilarity, but far more interest this time, too. And there was confirmation. Gaffer Tate was leading to and from his undercarriage. Okay, more questions followed, but a little sense was often. Here's where I'm hoping you can help. The bare facts of this are, the stag, fearing that he would be chained to railings lamppost or another immovable object later in the day, had actually shoved a packing knife into his sock, which no amount of trowels dropping would ever reveal,

but also had taped his entire genitalia in the gaffer tape. His reason, so that if he were tied to a railings and stripped off, it might somehow preserve some dignity. What? Oh my God. And the packing knife might set him free. But he won't be able to piss. Yeah, how's that?

Also, I mean, I'm assuming he's got pubic hair. Taking that off is going to be horrendous. Well, Darren comes on to this. Many years have passed, and we've speculated since about the Wisdom of his plan, and for the life of me, I'm still unable to find a single benefit for the following reasons. One, gaffer taping your junk adds no size to it, a small package wrapped in gaffer tape still looks small, possibly smaller, if anything, your dignity is not protected. Two, in the event that anyone would have been so inclined to strip him naked, and I confirm

that was not the agenda, gaffer tape would not necessarily have stopped them. I think that's a fair point. Three, the best case scenario for him would have been that nobody would try and strip him naked at all, which leaves him with a precarious task of removing the gaffer tape later. He conceded he'd not shaved either, making this task much more difficult than it need be. Oh, my God. I have a checklist, but presumably carrying the packing life, would constitute carrying an offensive weapon and might therefore be in a crime. Yeah.

You'd never get into a club. Exactly. Five, if nobody tried anything, he has to wear gaffer tape around his knickers all day, and I'm not sure how he accounted for going to the toilet. I think he'd built a flap. Oh, there you are, at least, but I'm not totally sure on this point either.

Either way, very annoying, sweaty, uncomfortable, and likely a source of chafing. At some point later in the day, he disposed to the gaffirate and the knife after many assurances. So that's the, yeah, he ends by saying this, I passed this conundrum over to you for consideration. Was there any sense in any of this madness?

And why exactly do I have the sense that Tom will have done the same thing? Kind of regards, Darren. I loved everyone on my stag two, and so I was never concerned that anything bad like that was going to happen. Yes. Admittedly, I was in my 40s on my stag two. Maybe it would have been different. But even the ones I went on in my 20s, we weren't doing that kind of thing.

Not even Welsh, mate. I would say Welsh guys would be at the end of that crazy spectrum. Yes, but I wasn't friends with those Welsh guys. Okay. I was well aware of, I knew they were. Yeah. And I had the stories. I just wasn't going on those stags, thankfully.

Conversely, I imagine most stag-doos at Skull goes on are like that. And that would be considered quite tame if he was chained to a lampo. He loves it. Well, one thing that did make me think of was like the toilet issue. I went on a stag do once where the whole stagg-dang about. 25 blokes were all dressed up, like the Jamaican bobsleigh team, in onesies, like the Jamaican bobsleigh wandsies from Cool Runnings. Great idea.

Yeah, everyone took a picture, really funny, great, we're all dressed up like Cool Runnings. And then one of us went to go to the toilet and was like, they zipped up from the back. And it was a complete onesie. So after like three beers, you realise you've got to almost completely strip off to go for a week. And then 25 blokes like drinking all night. So we're all in the toilet like stripping. being off and then like we all go into a nightclub like we're constantly like and then when it

goes up and on like that you do that three times they were cheaply made the zips coming off like the outfits are shredded you're in the middle of hamburg like like people the outfits are just falling apart because you're taking them off and on so often and then by so the end of the night it looked like you know like a bomber had gone off like a cartoon it was just all the outfits were completely shredded what was the reaction as you were walking around from pub to Were people loving it? Were they enjoying it? Yeah, they're loving it. Cool Runnings is a film that everybody loves. But also, it's one of those things. When people have made the effort to dress in that kind of daft way, people actually respond very positively to it in my experience.

Yeah. They're like, yeah, these guys are a laugh. I'm just Google. I was intrigued as to when the stag do started. It says here, the stag party can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. It says, well, modern parties aren't too far away with, like, crackout, stagwetting. It was in Sparta, where the night before a wedding was a celebration of a man by his military comrade. So they'd enjoy a feast and toast to the end of his youth and continued commitment to the cause. So that's why, and that's why it's called the last night of freedom. So it was literally the night before your wedding traditionally in Sparta in ancient Greece.

A stagdo in Sparta. That's going to be no amount of gaffeta. is going to... Oh my God. Can you imagine? That would be intense. Like just, not only like Sparta, like they're going to make,

they're going to really mess you up, but also like we've said before, that Spartan pub is going to be kicking off every night. Yeah. And they're all experts at fighting as well. There was a point on my stag dude, you were both there, where I said around about 11 o'clock,

I'm going to move on to bottles now. And everyone was like, yeah, fine. The idea of me, In Sparta, going, I think I'm finding the pint's a bit much. I'm going to move on to bottles. In Sparta. They'd behead me on the spot. My dad talks about all the stag dudes that my dad went on.

He said they all happened the night before the way. This was like the 70s and 80s. Yeah, my dad's stag was the night before. My dad said he went on a stag in, like, I don't know, east London in the 70s where the groom got, they like changed, not changed him, they handcuffed him to like a tree. or something like that

and went to the pub for a few hours and then picked him up about one in the morning and then dropped him home. There was a thing that did seem to be a bit of a trend

towards really stitching up the stag so that is not enjoyable for them. But that trend sort of faded away, it seemed. And also a friend of mine,

his dad, his stag, he got married in Swansea and his stack was the night before and he said as the bride walked down the aisle,

he was swaying because he was still pissed and he was he was basically he was trying his best to not vomit because he was like just got to get through this here we go and then I can have a sit down

and hair of the dark it's the fact it was the night before is what I find so crazy so I grew up in bath and my friend's dad went to a stag do where and this was a thing that would often happen and was the night before as well where the stags drunkenly shoved

the groom onto a train just heading up north to Scotland. Oh my God. And then the guy was out cold and just woke up and missed the wedding, like, did not make it back to the West Country for the wedding. Oh my God. Oh my. Can you imagine

what your fiancé would see? Because she's not your wife. Yeah. What your family would say? Oh my God. My mother was very placid. Would have gone absolutely ballistic if I don't know.

Carlisle Also, I'm guessing Tom, in the pre-mobile era definitely in the pre-mobile this would have been in the 80s, yeah, yeah.

So he'd have been scrubbling around in his pocket looking for change and a phone box and a working phone box. The moment that I think about most

is the moment when he would have opened his eyes and realized where he was and the impossibility of getting back. That he was in the

late district. You know people are gathering at a church. Oh my God. Man, I'm nauseating. That is terrible, isn't it? But if he could get his hands on a lovely pot of ubley,

I'm sure it would take his mind off it. I actually, this is good. I think the worst time for a staggedo outside of Sparta was probably about 1978 in the west of England. Do you know what you've done? I reckon once I'd realised I definitely couldn't get back, there's no mobile, so you can't have a conversation, you're going to have a snatched minute-long conversation

before the Pips on a phone box at most to explain to the bride to be to your fiancé that you can't get back and that she needs to tell the whole family that you're stuck in, you know, late Windermere or wherever it's you've ended up. Then, I think to myself, I'm just going to have a nice day.

Buy a pot of Ubley. Live the Ubley life. Live the Ubley life. Come back at my leisure. I've missed the wedding. That's going to have to be rearranged. That's done. There's no point trying to get a taxi

and, you know, you're too far away. So, yeah, I'd do a bit of sightsy. Tell everyone at the, just have a nice day, just have a party at the wedding. Just say, enjoy the day. The food's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Margaret and I will sort it out at a later date. We'll get married in a registry office. Exactly. We'll get that sorted. Yeah, yeah. I'll go and have a look at Lake Windermere. And we'll look back at this in a couple of days, maybe three days, and we'll laugh.

We will laugh. I will laugh. We'll be glad. anything. Oh, that would laugh. Right. Our next email, which is a far more historical bent, is from Rob J. He emails and says, hello, lads and greetings from America. Love and overseas listener. America, I've heard say of this great place. First off, let me just say that it all made my working day easier and funnier. I email you about a strange relative. So I love it when people send it about this. So my strange relative comes to me through my

paternal great-grandfather, a man by the name of Blakely Goff. When I was running down his family line, I came back to England, and no surprises there, and I kept digging. And I soon found out that my 14th great-grandfather was a man by the name of Stephen Jubb Goff. Stephen was a well-known fire and brimstone Puritan teacher in England of the mid-1500s. What is even more important is that one of Stephen's sons, William, praying William Goff, as he was known by his contemporaries, that is, you're known as Praying William. It's like a blues name, isn't it?

I'm preying William Goff. Yeah, it really is. Thanks for coming to see me tonight. It's not the coolest nickname, is it? Praying William. It's not skateboard steam, whatever. Welcome to the stage. Preeing Tamwit.

Green. Yeah, I think he could work. No, I think it's cool. Praying William Goff, as he was known by his contemporaries, was a parliamentarian during the wars of the three kingdoms, a signer of the execution warrant of Charles I. So, wow. Yeah, it's pretty cool, isn't it? And a cousin by marriage to Oliver Cromwell.

Check this out. These are great links. Well done, John. Connected. After the collapse of the Cromwell government, and just before the Stewart Restoration, William and his father-in-law hot-footed it to Massachusetts Bay Colony in America one day before warrants for their arrest. That's a great escape, isn't it? Whoa. Because that's obviously death. Yeah. They then hid out in a place called the judge's cave and what is now known as New Haven,

Connecticut. He died in 1679 and he's buried in Hadley, Massachusetts. All the best. Josh. Wow. So he signed up the execution warrant of Charles I first, cousin by marriage to Oliver Cromwell, and escaped England one day before a warrant for his arrest, went back to America. Also, a very early migrant to America. Yes. Yeah. You know, they say it never turned up to a party too early. Yeah. Like you've turned up. You're going to be turning up to America.

There is nothing there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1679. You'd be like, where's the foot locker? Where's Times Square? Foot Locker. Where's Blockbuster? Where's Blockbuster?

Yeah. I heard you've got Adidas gazelles in crazy colours in America. Where's the foot locker? I've got a list. I've got a list of tourist destinations I need to hit and they're all 300 years away. Yeah. Times Square is quite plain It's such a

Just a notice board It's also such a long journey For that nothing as well But then how much was knocking around anywhere To be almost back then Most places you went It was just really You know

Stephen Jubber like as well Great little Ademptum to the name Do you think that's why Carrey you just touched on there That's why there wasn't much tourism In the past It kind of got invented in the 60s

because there was nothing anywhere. You couldn't go anywhere to say anything because there was nothing. It was either too far away or there was nothing there when you got there. I think the means and the distance are probably crucial, really. There probably was a spiritual adventure, but people didn't have any concept really of tourism. You wouldn't have any concept of places you could really travel to. Definitely not in a way that it would be for pleasure or joy.

It would simply be, you know, for the accumulation of wealth and for the expansion of kingdoms. That's why people travelled, isn't it? Yeah, and it was the change in the world of work, isn't it, as well, that allowed people time off and weekends off and holiday and annual leave and all that kind of thing, which is still, relatively speaking, a very new invention. How do you think you're doing with landing in Connecticut and 1679? Are you kind of, how are you approaching things?

Are you throwing yourself into the community? I think you're going straight Ray Mears' survival, just go straight into the forest, knock up a little camp for yourself and live out your days before the inevitable bear attack. But what's there? Is there a conurbition there already established? Yes, so there was. New Haven, it's now New Haven in Connecticut.

Yes, it says here that he went to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. So there obviously was some kind of life and gathering there. Am I right in saying that's the Puritans? Yes. So that is not a laugh. Yeah, absolutely. A group of people from throughout history, not a laugh, the Puritans. No, okay, I'm getting the Bible out. New Haven was one of the first

planned cities in the US, a year after it's founded by English Puritans in 1638. So it did exist then, yeah. Eight streets were laid out in a four-by-four grid, creating the nine square plan. Ah. So, there is stuff there. Is there a foot locker? But is it enough stuff to justify a six-month journey on a wooden boat? If it was founded by English Puritans, they were Protestants, weren't they? So I'd get the Bible out. I'd just be walking around sort of loudly criticizing Catholics.

And just hoping that they were like, this guy seems all right, actually. You wouldn't change that much from your life at the moment in that case. Right. Our next email is from George. Thank you for emailing in George. has two points in it. Hi guys, full-timer and big fan of the pod here. Great episodes. Had some really good laughs listening to it. Just a small correction which none of you picked up on. If you drilled through the centre of the earth, you mentioned you would end up in Australia.

What do you think his problem is with our suggestion? Is it not New Zealand? Yeah. Correct. Assuming you're recording from London, if you drilled through the very centre, you would in fact come out in New Zealand. There you go. Yeah. Okay. Well, That's fine. New Zealand's nice. I've always wanted to go to New Zealand, genuinely, as well. There you go. Just get digging. That's what I need to do. Get me a spade. Let's put aside a weekend.

Let's make it happen. If I told you there was opening a big slide from London to New Zealand, would you go on it? And I'll say it'll take you five out. It'd be basically like one of those big slides at an aqua park. I think it was slightly weird as, I'm sure you've asked me this before. Have I? This is something you think about a lot. This is one of Chris's main chat up lines.

I think about it a lot. Would you get on it? I think this is something. Why do I feel like I'm being so... I'm like 19 and I'm being hit on. I think you might have said this to me on the Dunstville at my wedding. El, out, out, out.

That was a weird bit in the wedding when the vicar said, does anyone here have any reason why these two should not get married? And Chris stood up and said, it's not actually to do that, but I do have a question. If they did a slide between London and New Zealand, would you go on it? Not now, Chris. The bride and groom could answer this or anyone in the congregation. The question is as follows.

To answer your question, Chris, I wouldn't, because my worry would be there would be some kind of blockage and that midway down I'm getting stuck. Probably in the middle bit, which is incredibly hot, so no, I wouldn't. I'd have to send a test subject through first and then they can call me at the other end. That's the very minimum. I'd be... concerned that it was going to go too fast. Yes, yeah, yeah.

And that's something bad was going to happen to me. I think we can assume that, Ellis, because it's a tube that's heading directly down. I can tell you how far you go. You're going to the speed of gravity. You're not sliding, you're just dropping through our tube, don't you? To New Zealand.

Like, how soft a landing is it? Imagine working there. So you're in Auckland or Christchurch or whatever is in New Zealand. And you're like, oh, yeah, there's a blight coming from, London now. There he is. Chris Sculligan. When you come out of the other air, are you

then shooting up into the air? Yes, you are, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. With some velocity, you imagine. So you'd need to pack a parachute as well. God, for that eventuality. It's actually quite a lot of thinking about, isn't there? I don't think I've told the story

in the pub before. About three, four years ago, I went to Dubai with the family. There's a, I think they called it the world's biggest aqua park there, water park. And I had really young kids at the time, so they couldn't go on any rides.

And it got to the end of the day, we've just been on the lazy river and fairly easy stuff. And I was like, can I just take myself off for 20 minutes? Go on a ride. Like, just on my own. Like, I've been in this huge water park. I haven't done anything. My wife is like, yeah, go on then. So I was like, well, I've got 20 minutes.

I'll go on the biggest ride. I'll go on, like, the scariest thing. And then you have to do this thing, you know, when you walk up the tower. And firstly, so all like families and stuff like that. And there's me on my own, like an absolute weird. Do, like with all the teenagers running past me. And so I was like, oh, there's a big tower there. I'll go up this big tower.

So I started walking up the tower. And then, you know, I was like, from the ground, it didn't look too big. And then I'm climbing this tower. I've probably been climbing at 10 minutes. I realize I am so high up here. Like the wind is like blowing round. And there's like, by now it's just like teenagers and quite like hard looking men at the top of this tower. And when I get there to the top of the right, it's called like Poseidon's Revenge or something like that.

And like, you get locked in a box. You ever seen this? I've never seen this like just UK water parks and the floor drops away they seal you in a tomb I think yeah it's called like

beside them and then I get to the top there's only like four people in front of me they seal you in this tomb and he goes like three two one you just hear a then like

then people disappear and anyway I realized I can't turn around and go back now I was with every it took all my strength not to turn around

because I would just like such a wimp in front of these complete strangers anyway gets to my turn and they seal me in. And then like three, two, my heart is pounding.

The floor drops away. And then this ride was like, it drops four stories before it turns into an actual. Yeah, it's like a four story drop. And then you go for a shark tank at the end. Wow. What do you mean?

It was terrifying. And so that is a small taste. So it's like a trapdoors, eh? Yeah. I've seen these. Yeah, yeah. My son's obsessed with watching these videos. I've never seen that.

It was terrifying. I had a really embarrassing situation. Did I tell you about what happened to me at Centre Parks with kids? When you guffered tipped up your cock and balls? Yeah, that one. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In case someone kicks me in the swimming pool. So I went to Centre Park last year with my wife and our two kids,

and there is a ride there called Cyclone or something like it's called Cyclone. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done it. You're talking to a cyclone survivor. And it's basically, it's the big slide in the centre park's pool. And I'm desperate to go, okay. Yeah, you've got to be pretty hard. My two-year-old, as he was then, couldn't go on Cyclone because he was a two-year-old. Yeah, not hard enough.

And my four-year-old, as he would have been then, couldn't go on it either. but I was desperate to go on Cyclone and after about I'm really, really brave yeah exactly I felt nothing they wired me up to one of those sort of monitors you have in a hospital

and there's no reading whatsoever Yeah, yeah, nothing, yeah Beep and I was like, I just want to go on cyclone and after about an hour and a half of saying can I go on cyclone Claire said that I'll just have the kids you go on cyclone

So I go and cue for cyclone After an hour and a half of nagging your wife I cue. Thanks, mum. I mean Claire. I mean love. So I get to Cyclone, okay? And there's this massive cue, huge cue.

So I join it, and I'm slowly going up this spiral staircase to Cyclone. It takes about 10 minutes. We come around the corner at the top, and there's this weighing scale thing. And they weigh you to check you're heavy enough to go on Cyclone. I go and stand on the weighing scale. And it's not heavy enough. I was like, oh, what's going? He said, but you're not heavy enough?

He said, no, because this isn't an individual ride. You go on it with your family. And then I notice that there are these floating devices you sit on with four seats. Now, I'm the only person on his own. At this point, I clock that every other group there is a family. So I'm not heavy enough to go on cyclone. And I'm queued for 10 minutes. I'm like, oh, what do I do?

This is so embarrassing. This kind woman puts her hands up with her two kids and goes, he can go on with us. It's fine. No, no, no. I'm sitting. I'm now getting into this inflatable circle thing with a woman, her two kids,

and it's me, a bloke they've never met before. You have to place your feet between the legs of the person directly opposite you. So this is why you're with your family, Because only in that situation would feel acceptable and not too weird to have your feet that close to someone. So my feet are between her legs and her feet between my thighs. We set off.

Off we go. I have no idea what's going to happen. They've done cyclone loads of times. It poodles around a bit. And then it hits this sheer drop and I lose my mind. I lose my mind. The kids are laughing, looking at me. And laughing directly in my face.

They can't believe how much this absolute loser is freaking out. Screaming. They're just pissing themselves laughing. We land at the bottom. And it's still one of the most embarrassing experiences in my life. The kids couldn't believe how scared I was. I heard him as they were walking off with their mum. He was really scared, wasn't he, mum?

And she was like, yeah, he was, yeah. But just awful, awful experience. Came back, saw Claire. I don't want to talk about. Bloody, I can't. One, I can't believe another family said you can get in with us. I would never offer. that to anyone

two I can't believe you did it three the touching feet thing reeks me out like a stranger's trotters right there at the middle of the ride that is so intimate

also you're wearing so little yeah absolutely yeah you've seen my swimming shorts are barely there oh there you go in your speedos touching feet

that is absolutely insane yeah too much okay let's crack on I wish they'd sort of sold photos at the end I can have on the fridge, just me and just a family that I've never met before. That's hilarious. What was the gap?

What was the gap between them offering you to ride with them and you accepting? Half a second. Yes. So, to be really specific, there was a couple of families who went on ahead of me, and I was just still stood on the weighing scales, not knowing what to do. Like a lost child. And also, you have to remember I've stood there alone in my swimming shorts as well, of course. All of it is just undignified.

Oh my God, that's so funny. Also, fittingly, just to finish George's email on this subject of swimming pools, George also adds, also to note, regarding the rumours you mentioned, it seems that certain rumours not only travelled the country, but also through time. I'm 28, I went to school in the early to mid-noughties, and we too were told that the waterslider at our local leisure world, razor blade, have been super glued inside them. Elle, you were right.

See, other people are believing it's to be true, inside by older kids and not to go down on them. Maybe the, sorry, super good inside by older kids and not to go down the slide. Maybe this was a scheme to keep the cues down. Love the pod. Keep it up, says George. So maybe you're right on that L. Incredible. Thank you, George. Absolutely incredible.

I am convinced to happen in Swansea, convinced. Yeah. So we will, well, we can do some further looking to that. Okay. A final email, I think. We'll wrap up the show with this one here. This is from Ben. Hello, chaps.

I've only recently started listening to your show and have thoroughly enjoyed working my way through the episodes. I didn't really think I had anything to contribute until I listened to episode 34 on health and fitness. It was a few episodes ago, but bear with me on that. When discussing the Keep Fit radio shows, somebody mentioned how nice it would be to are able to turn on a radio station and listen to a broadcast from that day, but from years before. Oh yeah, that was a really good idea at someone sent in. I love that idea. Yeah, it was your idea. It's such a good idea. This exists in a similar way via the BBC archive page on Instagram, which shows one clip per day.

of something broadcasts on that day in history. Now, I don't often go on Instagram, but by happy chance I opened it up, this is incredible this, did a bit of doom scrolling and came across the clip of the day. It was from Blue Peter in 1976 and featured a man walking around a car park backwards, training to break the world record.

Yes. For walking backwards. Also, for walking backwards, which was, if you said, 80 miles from Leeds to Kendall. I couldn't believe it when a second man popped up, also attempting this backwards walking challenge. And this man happened to be my dad. No.

The coincidence still amazes me. The archive could have shown any other BBC clip from any other day on that year. They could even have shown a different segment from that same Blue Peter show. And it's got me wondering, could you do an episode on amazing coincidences and history? Love the show, and I look forward to sending more outdated correspondence. How interesting must Ben's dad's life be that he has never mentioned he tried to break the world record for walking backwards? Yeah, you mention that as soon as your kids are able to speak

As soon as they've got a vocabulary of 15 to 20 words You're like, Daddy tried to break a world record Yeah And he was robbed by Norris McWurttons Because it's a bullseye of sort of things that kids are interested in Yeah, yeah, absolutely I'd be entering everyone run backwards as well I think I'd be crowbarring that into any conversation possible

Isn't that amazing though? You're probably wondering why I just entered this room backwards. Well, let me tell you. As soon as you've asked. See as you've asked. Seeing as he vast with your eyes, if not the words, it came out of your mouth. Your eyes are telling me something very different. Backwards running is really kicked off, is it?

As a sporting event. It feels that that's something the Olympics can introduce. Just running backwards. As fast as possible. There's fast, you know, fast walking is an event. that you occasionally see on the TV, isn't it? Speedwalking. But running backwards, feels like something...

Yeah, I'd have running backwards fast over walking. Yeah, I agree. I'd like to see that. The fastest someone could do 100 metres. I think walking is the most absurd Olympic sport. I reckon it'd be quite chaotic. A lot of people falling over. Explain to me, Ellis, how that isn't a good thing.

Well, if you put me in lanes, everyone's in lanes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Explain to me why someone would be watching that on telly, watching everyone fall over and wouldn't be thinking this is brilliant. Yeah, yeah. There's a slight

it's a knockout feel to it, I reckon. But, you know, they're all the British athletes to fund it by the lottery, taking it very seriously. Some guy, it turns of some guys wearing sunglasses

which let him see backwards and he's then thrown out Yes. The cheats, exactly. But 100 metre sprint backwards as fast as possible. Absolutely would watch that. I mean done for doping

because you're running backwards at an elite level. So that's an amazing coincidence. We will actually do one more. We'll chuck this one in just for fun because it's a classic subject. Why not end on this? It's a one-day time machine to close things up.

Charles in Warwick says, and I think this is actually a really good way to use the one-day time machine. Cue the jingle. It's the one-day time machine. It's the one-day time machine. It's the one-day time machine. It's the one-day time machine.

Hi, guys. I would use the one-day time machine right now to travel back 24 hours to locate where I left the side gate key that leads to our garden I have trades folk coming over in 30 minutes and have no way of letting them into the garden. An already

stressful situation has now become unbearable. I might come to regret not seeing the ancient wonders of the world in hindsight but for now I just need that key, Charles in Warwick. That would be so useful. When you eventually find the thing that you've lost, you lost ages

ago, it's such a a lovely feeling but also you think what was it doing there absolutely there was a fireplace in our bedroom because it's quite an old house and then they'd been bricked up so we reinstalled a fireplace when we moved in and uh we found like a library card from the 60s someone's old national insurance card oh cool they would have been looking for that for years and be like i cannot i just don't know where this library card is yeah and it was in the chimney it was in the chimney for 40 years right a friend of mine she was working a shift for the BBC really crazy hours,

often starting at 5 in the morning, or the afternoon shift ended at 10 at night, so her sleepers all over the place. She lost her keys. Couldn't find her keys for ages and ages and ages. Eventually found her keys in the fridge. She was like, why were my keys next to a lot of ham and coastal?

What was I thinking? Because it is the last place you look. Absolutely. And yeah, that would just be so useful. The one-day time machine to find up where you'd left things do you then need to live back through no because you can come back forward in time again it's not that you have to go back 24 hours and just wait to sort of get back to where you were no you can come back forward again so that could that be quite inefficient

if you're constantly yes yes okay i do need to find out where my keys are but this does mean i'm going to have to live that full day again yeah yeah i'd still be 18 because of the amount of things i'd still lose when i was at school well you still look it out i'd still be doing my levels do you know what i'd use a one-hour time machine and i'd have i'd have that lovely ubley yogurt again That's what I do. If I'm genuinely, if you're listening, send me some moodfully. Okay, guys, thank you so much for spending the last hour or so with us. And thank you so much for these brilliant emails.

Loved all of that. If you want to get in touch with the show, here's how you can do so. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oldwattime.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh, What a Time, Pod. Now, clear off. Thank you, subscribers.

The best kind of listener. Yeah, absolutely. The best people. Thank you for supporting the show. We're so grateful. We really are. And if you have any suggestions for subjects you'd like to talk about, please do and get in contact. We're aware we're a couple of things.

subscriber episodes behind. We will be catching up on those in the very, very near future. Thank you so much for your love and your support. We really do appreciate it. See you soon. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Bye. I'm going to be the I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to I'm

going to go to I'm going to be my and ...heed... ...you know...

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