Oh What A Time... - [BONUS EP] #144 All Quiet on the Western Front

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

We're on our annual two-week summer break, but don't worry! Please enjoy these subscriber episodes from last summer while we're away!From September 2025, this is..It's another subscriber special and this time, Tom has been reading Erich Maria Remarque's harrowing 1928 semi-biographical novel on the First World War: All Quiet on the Western Front.Elsewhere, Elis and Chris have realised Tom doesn't quite know how to coherently explain the concept of time. If you know anyone else who struggles, please let us know via our hotline: [e-mail] if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You 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 x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, Whatter Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the O Watertime Group chat. Plus, if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate

where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Watertime. And welcome to Oh, what a time. And on the subject of time, Tom, you're a little bit late this evening. And while you were late, Ellis and I had a moment to discuss how you deal with time, specifically how you refer to it. Right. We agreed we would meet at 9.15.

Why do I feel like I'm part of an intervention? No, hang on. It is so weird what you do and you haven't realised it. We're about to let you know in front of the listeners. In front of seven and a half million. Yes. Okay. What have I done? We said 9.15. You said, sorry, I thought it was 9.30. And then you text saying, I think I'm going to be more like 35 minutes past.

Yes. What's wrong with that? 35 minutes past. That is not a known way. That's 252. Or 935. It's not 35 minutes past. And we've looked back. You're always doing it. You're such. Oh, excuse me, lads. Sorry, I'm running a. a bit later. I'll be with you at 50 minutes to 10. I would say, I might say, I know, maybe that's too late. I would say passed up until 38 past, 39 past, 40 past. No, I wouldn't say 40 past. So 39 past to be interested is the cutoff point. That is the latest pass that I do. Absolute madness. Well, let me answer me this question. Did you know what time I was referring to?

But you would also, I actually had to work it out. Oh, well, that's fun, isn't it? Because you also say things like, yeah, 15 past. It's quarter past. Do I say 15 past? And, you know, it's about 40 minutes to, what, 9.20? Yeah, it's about 40 minutes to 10. Just to be clear, before I turned up on this, on this record,

you guys were just sort of, were slagging me off. And a real sort of character assassination. Well, you'd done it? I went 35 past. I thought he's done this before. We went through the WhatsApp. I do do that. Why do I do that?

I don't know. I suppose it's nice to have a theme. Were you taught to tell the time by someone who had English as a third language? I love as well that you did try and explain your system, which is that you think it's a certain amount of minutes passed until it's about 38, 39, but you cut off it's about 40. No, 39 pass is the latest, I would refer to something being passed.

After that, we are embracing the idea of something being on its way towards something. Yeah, then I'm definitely going 22. No way. Five past, ten past, quarter pass. 20 past, 25 past, 25, 2, 22, quarter to 10, 252 on the hour. That is it.

If someone said to me 31 minutes past, I would think psychopath. Half past is your limit. 100%. 100%. And you round down to half past. Or if you're talking to someone who's someone who doesn't like the rum dig up and the round dig down.

You say it's 9.31. Okay. 31 past sounds absolutely bad. Do what it sounds like? It sounds like the kind of thing that would give spies away. If they're running late. If it's a spy that's bad at timekeeping. Yeah.

It's the kind of thing that would... This is a scene at the end of the Great Escape where he has to give his papers. And they hear his accent. Yeah, and they hear his accent. Yeah. And then they realised that he's an escape POW and they open fire. That's the thing.

In wartime, if you're airdropped, bizarrely, into an English-speaking country, that will give you away. Yeah. Well, luckily for me, I'm not a spy. Or are you? All it gives away is that I'm an English eccentric, and I'm fine about that. Or are you a shit spy? Now, I'd like to tell you that this intervention is going to change the way I approach that, but it's not going to. It's going to be 35 past 36.

past 37 path. It's something you're going to have to deal with, I'm afraid. Yeah, well, the awful thing is, it's going to be something that your kids will have to deal with. So yet again, on whatever's replaced podcasting in 25 years' time, someone will be absolutely hammering your boys. And they'll be like, who taught you to teach the, to tell the time, my dad. He thinks, I should say, 39 minutes past. My son actually, he's half past seven or seven and a half, as other people say. That's what I say age was. All right, then shall we have a little bit of correspondence? Oh, yes, please.

Sue Northcott has been on, and she lives in Pontodawi. Oh, lovely, yeah, yeah, in Swansea Valley. Some great rugby players from Swansea Valley. And a lovely art centre, which was, when I first did it, I'd seen my favourite band perform there. And when they'd walked on, I remember thinking, they must be millionaires. And then I did a show there.

I just started there about 20 years later. and I love the Ponte d'Oerie Art Centre but the dressing room really is a dressing room with a kettle and a lining board and I thought oh okay maybe maybe that's all break even they've probably still got a mortgage

I met Tony Ben at Ponteaui Art Centre did you? You've met Tony Ben yeah how's this never come up I've met Tony Ben more than once but the last time I went to see him speak at the Ponteaui Art Centre and I saw Gorkies I've Got It Monkey there I did gigs there I saw Robbred

I think I saw Stuart Lee there once on his first come back tour after he'd not done stand-up for years. I saw Rob Bride in there. Not bad, not bad. Great town. Where did you support Rob Biden on Robbredon on tour? At the Aberdeer Coliseum.

Great name for a theatre. And am I right in thinking that his parents told you off a swearing? Someone reminded me of this. I think it might have been John or Nellis and John. Yeah, his lovely mum and dad told me off for swearing and I have never wanted the earth to swallow me up more. There's something about upsetting Welsh parents, but it's a particular kind of wounding feeling

that you just get you right in the soul. But is it true you've never sworn since? Yeah, I will not swear. It's good. I mean, like, I could upset a cockney parent. By not swearing. I haven't even got round to Sue at Pontadawie's email. She says,

Hi, I was listening to episode 96 earlier when you talked about sell-by dates and warnings about nuclear waste. 19 minutes 20 in, or 40 seconds to 20 minutes. I heard, what is the most universal sign of danger if you were to construct one? It just so happened that I was listening at 3pm, and my phone exploded with the government's emergency alert test. Talk about superb timing. Sue in Ponte d'Arwe.

Yeah, that is now, for Generation Alpha, the most universal sign of danger. a text message urgently from the government. I was watching telly and thought aliens had attacked Britain. And I have not known panic like it in my life. Rob Beckett was doing a matinee show and everyone's phone went off at the same time in the theatre. Really? And it's a really...

Do you remember the emergency ring is much harder than a normal ring and much scary? So imagine that time's 2000. Did you really forget that it was coming? Did it catch you by surprise? Yeah, it caught me by surprise. Even though I knew that morning it was coming. When I got the original text, I thought it was a scam text.

Okay. Because I've been getting a lot of scum texts on the moment. I was like, oh, God. They don't even pretend it to be the bloody government now, looking out for my safety. So I just ignored it, didn't think it would happen, and then, yeah, at the flight of my life. So there you go. That was Sue in Pontadarie. Would you like, we've just announced our Patreon.

We're recording this on Tuesday night. The Patreon launched yesterday. And one of the benefits we said we would give to a listener who signed up to the all-timer tier is that we would riff on their name and postulate where in history they might have found themselves. I've got a name for you now. Thank you to Luke Chanel, who recently just signed up and became an all-what-time, All-Timer. Luke Chanel, guys.

Yes. Some on the powers. Well, Luke Chanel, I would say he's definitely French. Yeah, absolutely. But is he a goody? Or is he a baddie? The problem is, if you place Luke Chanel in the French Revolution, it doesn't matter if he's a goodie or a baddie.

He likely does end up on the guillotine. Just to be clear, is this how all of our listener stories are going to end? It's Steve Grape's. Well, if we place him in France in the house of him. He's going to end up on the guillotine. Linda Smith. Okay, that's the guillotine, obviously. Steve Grape's RIP.

I'm thinking very well-dressed man, obviously, for obvious reasons. I'm thinking France, I am. I'm thinking probably 17th century, big royal house, long sort of train. You know, behind him as he walks around on his clothing, a lot of silk. That's what I'm imagining.

What are you thinking? No, I'm thinking early 60s post-modernist super cinema. He's kind of, yeah. Yeah, he's walking around with a little. Super 8 camera. He's walking on the Chondalise sort of meeting like sort of the movers and shakers,

the hipsters of the Parisian scene. The police approach him so you can't film this. Off he goes, guillotine. Straight on the guillotine. Yeah. And also give me the camera.

The cameras on the guillotine as well. The lens caps been chopped off. Give me the film. That's going on as well. The film's in two pieces. What's that? It's Gravestone. You've got it ready.

Pop that on the guillotine. In that way that. He fancies a bit of toast. You can't find a bread knife. Bread goes on the guillotine. When they slice his camera with the guillotine, you know how they used to say that sort of eyes would blink, the head's eyes would blink,

and they were worried that the sort of the head was still alive for a few seconds after, the camera will keep filming for a few crucial seconds after the guillotine has come down. Two more frames. Two more shots. One of the sky, one of a basket. it.

So thank you, Luke, for signing up to the new one time all time of tier. I'm sorry that our first listener has been put to death. That really does not feel like something we should sustain. I'm not sure how much of an sort of enticing thing that is for new Patreon people that we'll put you to death live on the podcast. But I'll tell you, I'll tell you what, though. He lived a good life. Oh boy, did he?

And Tilly got guillotine for trying to film on the Shonsalise in the 60s. Well, well done. Well done for your make-believe life. Spread the word to other potential protect trainers. And if they're interested in signing up, we too will put them to the sword live on the pod. And that's to know what a time podcast, promise. So if you want to get in touch with the show with maybe, you know, for old time sake, maybe there's a one-day time machine you want to share with us. Maybe you've got a historical relative who did great things in the dusty old past.

Whatever it is. What job could you have done? Oh, that's nice. And also, what thing that you like doing now would you not do if you went back in the, if you went back in time in our feature, but could you be asked? Exactly. Any of the above, here's how you get in contact. All right, you horrible luck.

Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh what a time.com. and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What a Time Pod Now clear off So on the Patreon only episodes for our subscribers Our good Our most favoured listeners Our most favourite people

The subscribers We often do book and film reviews And I mean we've It's always an accrued an eclectic thing. And Tom Crane this week has chosen something that... It's actually a novel I read last year that I think is absolutely fantastic. And Tom's read it very recently,

so I'm really looking forward to hearing his thoughts on this book. Tom, what novel have you chosen? So recently that I actually finished it about an hour and 20 minutes ago. Wow. Okay. Or 20 past, which is fine. Yeah. Which is genuinely fine.

40 minutes to. 40 minutes too exactly it's all quiet on the western front which i would say is one of the genuinely one of the best books i've ever read yes it's fantastic a fantastic novel um just for the context of what this book is it is a semi autobiographical novel which i actually didn't realize this until i researched it afterwards i assumed it was a work of fiction completely but it's semi autobiographical by someone called eric maria rema who's a german veteran of world War I and essentially it describes the horror, the mental trauma of trench warfare, mainly trench warfare during World War I. A lot of people believe it's like the greatest war novel of all time. I'm a lot alone in feeling this is a fantastic novel. This really is a celebrated piece. Interestingly, it was published in November, December 1928 and initially in newspapers, It was serialised in a newspaper in Germany in late January 1929.

And then the book and its sequel, The Road Back, were among books banned and burned by the Nazis in Germany. I did not know that. Yeah. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Gave such a sort of awful view of war and the idea of fighting for your country and the horror of it that the Nazis burned it. It sold two and a half million copies in 22 languages in its first 18 months in print. And still today it is regarded.

is one of the most important works on War of All Time and it is fantastic. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Have you read it, Chris, by the way? Have you read this book? I haven't read it, but I have seen the film. Okay, well, that's half the battle. There are three films.

Yeah, I saw the Netflix 2021, I think it was. Oh, okay, the recently, yeah, because it was one in about 1979, I think, and there was one in 1930? Yeah. And they all won big awards, didn't they? All those films are quite well respected. Yes.

And it's, the thing I found so interesting about it was when I did my English A level, I was given a list of books by my brilliant English teacher. It was the Waterstones Commission. It was the 100 greatest or most influential novels of the 20th century. And it comes in it in number 74. So I set about trying to finish them all. Really? And yeah, yeah, yeah. So I tried to, you know, I tried to tick them all off.

Yeah. So I read it years ago and then I read it again last year because it's very readable and it's very short. So it's sort of perfect for a commute or something. It's not like a big 600-page project. It's, you know, it's not an intimidatingly large novel. And the thing that struck me so much, I don't know how, is that if you are roughly outraged, and the three of us were in our 40s,

we grew up with a lot of wartime stuff. So our grandparents had often fought in the war, or, you know, they remembered the war very vividly. Well, my dad had been in the blitz. So my dad was of an age where he remembers the doodle bugs, he was evacuated to the countryside. So even from my dad, I had very vivid descriptions of the war. Okay, so even more poignant for you and more evocative. And also the thing with the Second World War, there was just an awful lot of war films on the telly and stuff like that.

It was kind of always in the background a little bit. I know, Sunday afternoons, Channel 4. It was just non-stop submarines and great escape. Yeah. And the thing with those films and those books And those documentaries, some great fated documentaries, they're always told from a British or an American perspective. And this is the first thing I'd ever read from a German perspective

And obviously it's World War I run than World War II. And the thing I found amazing in, when I reread it last year, was the Germans are quite jealous of the British kits and their food. Yes. Which, well, I'd always thought that we were on the back foot and that our food was crap and everyone was suffering and the Germans, they were well fed and they had great equipment

and it was difficult to fight against this sort of perfect war mongering machine. But actually they're really jealous of what the British Tommy's got to eat. It's remarkable, isn't it? Everyone's suffering there. Well, so much so well that they would brave no man's land

to crawl across and try and steal supplies from the British trenches. I've done some research into this. The German trench food in World World War I initially included, this is what I had to begin with, fresh meat, potatoes and bread, but as the war just went from bad to worse, it devolved into a meagre diet of bread made with potato starch or sawdust. They started making bread with sawdust. This is what the German troops were using, a lot of turnip bread, which doesn't, I can't think of a more disgusting sounding food, I mean, there's certain things you think, oh, that's a hipster bread. I can imagine that on a shelf in an East London bakery, but turnip bread just feels too

sort of agricultural and real. By contrast, by 1918, the British were sending over 67 million pounds, 30 million kilograms of meat to the Western Front each month. So at the time where Germans were eating sawdust bread, we were still getting meat and supplies sent over to British troops. A lot of it can, admittedly, but the British. troops were eating so much better than the Germans. And there's a bit in the book where they describe

trying to go across and trying to pilfer supplies from the trench braving the machine guns and all that of no man's value, which is mind-blowing, isn't it? And also, the thing that's so powerful, which I don't think I fully engaged with or appreciated the first time I read it, is it four friends from the same village. they all regard themselves as effectively a lost generation

because they're like the 30-year-olds who are fighting and have been conscripted. They remember what normal life is like. So they're trying to imagine that. And they want to go back to that and they see this as a blip and an aberration. There are youngsters who might not get to fight. This is all we've known as adults

and it's completely messed us up and we will never recover from this. Because he, I think, I think From what I remember, the three or four mates from the same village in Germany were conscripted at sort of 16 or 17. That's all they've known. And so they can't go back to Normandy. And there's a bit, isn't there a bit where he goes back to visit his mum

and he gets to stay in his home village for a bit when he's on leave? Well, Elle, actually, that is a bit that I've picked out, which I can read to you now, which gives you the sense of the power and quality of the writing in this book. It's just unbelievable. This is what he says about returning home for leave. I really imagine that leave would be different. A year ago, it actually was different. I suppose I'm the one who has changed in the meantime. A great gulf has opened up between then and now, and I didn't know then what war was really like. We had only been in quiet sectors, and now I can see that I have become

a little more brittle without realizing it. I can't come to terms with things here anymore. It's another world. Some people ask questions, others don't, and you can see that they are pleased with themselves are not asking. Quite often they even say with an understanding look on their faces that it's impossible to talk about it at all. And they make a big thing of it. A little bit later, he talks about watching people going to work back in the village that he grew up when he went back for the two weeks. He says here, when I take a look at them in their rooms and their offices and their jobs, I find it all irresistibly attractive. And I want to be part of it too and forget the war. But at the same time, it repulses me. It's so restricted. How can that fill a whole life? It

deserve to be smashed to bits. How can things be like that when shrapnel is whizzing over the trenches out there and the very lights are going up? The wounded are being dragged back on tarpaulins and the lads are taking cover in the trenches. These people here are different, a kind I can't really understand by envy and despise. So it's this idea of returning back home to normal life and it's just not making sense to you anymore. And possibly never making sense again. Absolutely. And that's a big theme of the 20th century as a whole, isn't it? Because Because, you know, born on the 4th of July, there's that scene where the Vietnam veterans come back and, you know, it feels like society's moved on a little bit. This is something that happens again and again in the 20th century.

Yes. And it's almost like this is the first time because they've been up until the First World War such a long period of peace, which is because it's basically the Battle of Waterloo up until the First World War there was peace for almost 100 years, right? So no one knew the reality of war. They only knew the glory of it. And it took us, I feel like, the whole 20th century to remind ourselves that it's awful. I interviewed John McCarthy once, who was held hostage, famously held hostage in Lebanon in the 1980s. Spent four years in captivity. And he was in the same cell as Brian Keenan.

And John McCarthy wrote an amazing book about it. And Brian Keenan's book is regarded as a total classic, like it's an extraordinary book by the human spirit. but I remember listening to an interview with Brian Keenan before I met John McCarthy he was an amazing individual he's so positive considering what happened to him and Brian Keenan said that when he was released what he couldn't get used to was that

suddenly people had started drinking beer in bottles he'd never seen that before and cars had a fifth gear because when he'd been held hostage all cars had four gears and the fifth gear came in during his four years in captivity. Like when Brooks

gets out in Shawshank and it's like the world's completely changed. The world got yourself in a big damn hurry. Just talking about the importance of supplies in warfare, it's a bit similar.

I got on a flight with a family to Alicante a couple of years ago and it was delayed by 45 minutes and you know when you go through security they make you empty all your water bottles

out, I'd forgotten to refill them and the fact the plane was on the waiting on the runway wait delayed and my two-year-old at the time was like I'm really thirsty I had nothing yeah I said to they didn't even have any water on the plane and that's 45 minutes delay an hour delay on a runway in alacanti give me a war zone you should yeah you should have said to him hey you could be it's sword us and

turn it bread so mind your neckin shut up for a point L do you remember why I was pulled into security at Belfast Airport by people with guns. Do you remember that? I'm interested to know how much you remember my days as a stand-up. No, what happened? I don't remember this. I was going through security at Belfast Airport. Had you done the Queen's Hall gig, the off-the-curb one?

I had done that, yes. And I was actually arriving at Belfast Airport, and in front of me going through security was a dog in a sombrero. And I took a photo of the dog in the sombrero. and Belfar International Security thought that I was taking a photo of the security equipment and scammers and I was taken into a room by people with guns and they said, why were you photographing our security equipment

and I had to say, the sentence, I wasn't, I was taking a photo of a dog in a sombrero to a man with a gun. Did you open with that? Because that would have been my opening line. Yeah. I then had to get a photo out and flick through my photo to find the picture of a dog in a sombrero

for these two allegory people with their machine guns. Do they believe? Well, they must have believed you because you've been released. Well, the photo evidence was there. There was a dog in a sombrero. If this was one of your sitcoms, Tom,

you'd go to your phone and there wouldn't be a picture of a dog in a sombrero. You would have missed him out of the frame. And you'd be looking in your deleted photos. It's not there either. There's loads of photos of me posing in the mirror to see if I've lost weight. my pants.

I promise it's in there somewhere. Please. But while you're looking, have I lost me? No, no, no. Flick back to me. Flip back to me. Yeah, keep going, keep going. That one there.

That's me at my heaviest. That's me at my lowest ebb. You mentioned, Elle, about that fact that there were all these war films when we were growing up. That's absolutely true. And the fact that we had relations who were still alive and probably had some involvement in the war. that had such an impact on me

that I was genuinely scared about the idea of conscription growing up. It was a thing that really worried me. The idea of being helplessly as these young men were on whatever side it was finding yourselves on the front line. It used to scare me so much. Exactly the same. I had incredibly mild asthma as a kid.

To the extent that the GP wouldn't give me an inhaler because he didn't think a hand or did one because it was so mild. And then we moved towns, and the new GP was like, well, if he's got a cold, he can have an inhaler, if he gets some leaf from it. And when he gave me that inhaler, I remember thinking, surely this gets me out of conscription.

Holding this up at the recruitment centre. They can't send an asthmutic to the front line. You'd be there. They're going to need someone in the back office. Yeah. Surely. Surely this suggests I should be more of a plan. role pushing those

little toy soldiers around on a big map. I'll be logistics, would I? Or morale. But you're right, that chapter where he goes back home is a fascinating one. It's also, you'd assume it would be the fear of returning back to the front line, but actually in a weird

way, he's become so used to the horror of the front line. It almost makes more sense to him by that point. So it's kind of, he's always waiting to get back there again, which is despite it being the most horrific thing possible. It's also when you read the descriptions of injured men and injured animals as well, horses that have been injured by shrapnel and stuff,

it's so visceral the way you writes about injury and pain. Absolutely. When you realise that it's semi-autobiographical, there's no way he'd have been able to write that effectively without having experienced it firsthand, and it really does. it makes it a very, very powerful book. There is a passage in there where it talks about the feeling

of being out in no man's land and more to point the safety that the earth itself provides to you as a soldier, which I think is some of the most remarkable writing I've ever read. And I've picked it out here and I'll read it to you, but it really captures sort of cowering for your life,

the fear of it all. But it says here, for me, the front is as sinister as a whirlpool. Even when you're a long way from its centre, out in calm waters, you can still feel its suction, pulling you towards it, slowly, inextrably, meeting little resistance. And this is a bit that really hit me. But the power to defend ourselves flows back into us out of the earth and out of the air. And most of all, it flows out of the earth. The earth is more important to the soldier than anybody else. When he presses himself to the earth

long and violently, when he urges himself deep into it with his face and with his limbs under fire and with the fear of death upon him, then the earth is his only friend, his brother, his mother, He groans out in terror and screams into its silence and safety. The earth absorbs it all and gives him another 10 seconds of life, 10 seconds to run, then takes hold of him again sometimes forever. Earth, earth, earth, with your ridges and holes and hollows into which a man could throw himself where a man can hide. Earth in the agony of terror, the explosion of annihilation in the death roar of the shellburst,

you gave us that massive resurgence of reconquered life. He can write, to be fair, can he? Oh, yeah. Well, the bit that really stayed with me is they've got such a pragmatic approach to pain and a completely unsentimental approach to possessions. So when Franz Kemritch is shot in the leg and his injured leg has to be amputated,

they're all desperate to get his boots. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then eventually his mother visits Paul, his friend and Paul lies to her and says that he, died instantly and painlessly. And he knows that that is just simply not true.

But the way that they're, even with friends of theirs from school, they're not going to waste any of their equipment. Yeah. Like, you know, you mean an awful lot to me, Tom. You mean an awful lot to me. Chris, if we were at war, I wouldn't be able to wear your trainers. If you'd had your head blown off, I would be like,

okay, I'll leave that, actually. Or I would keep them as a lovely keepsake. But if you're, if you're, if you're, If you're a podcasting microphone... Yeah, well, that's true. They'd be too big. If your podcast in mic was free... You in clown shoes,

lolloping around no man's land. Yeah. You've got a couple of nice jackets, but again, they'd be too big. But then, I think Wall would probably change your perception of what is, you know, okay to use. That is what it is.

I mean, I think in time, you'd come to think, oh, wait a second, I will put his A-Max on, and then you think, why was he wearing air-max on? Yeah. I don't know, but... You could get away. I think with the court

that's too big, I think it is difficult to comfortably walk in shoes that are far too big or far too small. I worked with a hippie in a cafe once and he walked to work

with a very old gate and a strange sort of shuffle. I thought he'd had like a football injury or something. I said, what's wrong with you then? And he said, oh, I just found these shoes in the street and I'd really like them. And I said, right, do they fit?

And he said, no, God, no, they're far too big. I'm like, oh, okay. No, God, no. Isn't the reuse of clothing like quite a big seat? It's certainly in the film, I think, early on, when they get their issue uniforms, some of them are from dead soldiers. Is that in the book? Yes.

That is true. Yeah. Wow. There's also a section where they are, reefly given new clothing, bright new boots and pristine fatigues, because some of the top brass are coming to visit. And then as soon as the top brawomen, brass have left again, the Kaiser, I think it is actually, that clothing is removed again and they

returned back to what they were wearing. And what is most horrific really about what they were wearing is what was living in that clothing. They were riddled with lice. This is one of the major issues of trench warfare in World War I is that you're riddled with lice. Here's a passage from that. It says, it's a nuisance trying to kill every single louse when you've got hundreds of them. The beasts are hard and it gets to be a bore when you're forever pinching them between your nails. So Charlton, who's one of the characters, has rigged up a boot polish lid hanging on a piece of wire over a burning candle end. You just have to toss the lice into this little frying pan. There's a sharp crack and that's it.

We're sitting around shirts on our knees, stripped to the waist, in the warm air, our fingers working in the lice. High has a particularly splendid species of louse. They have a red cross on their heads. And because of that, he maintains he brought them back from the military hospital in Tohut, where he claims they were the person. property of a senior staff surgeon. But they're constantly picking the lice off them. And there's a really interesting scene as well. Yes, I remember that.

It basically touches on this idea of what is normal in the battlefield and how you become painfully aware of yourself when you leave that situation. And that is when the main character gets injured and he ends up on a medical train, taking him out to a hospital. all. And he's in the fatigues he's been wearing for, you know, a year and he's riddled with lice. And the nurse is trying to get him to lie down on a bed in the train, which has pristine white sheets. And he really doesn't want to do it. He becomes so self-conscious about leaving his life over this, you know, pristine carriage. He basically has to be forced into it

by the medical staff because he suddenly becomes so aware of himself in a way that you just tolerate it because everyone else around you is and because of the horror of the situation of being in the trenches. I hadn't thought of the less that would fuck me off. It's basically, do you think it's where they got the idea for I'm a celebrity getting me out of here? The starvation. Yeah.

The jungle louse. Exactly. Well, also the rats is the other thing, Chris. There were enormous rats because of the corpses and the waste in the trenches, it led to an infestation of rats. So basically killing them, became like a sport, but it was just impossible. There was just so many that you just, they end up just tolerating the fact that they'd be

crawling around as you're trying to sleep, they'd be on your face and all this sort of stuff. I'm obsessed with this. Did you see, it was a picture of it in the Guardian newspaper, the mega rat in Normanby in Middlesbrough? No, what's this? Is this the one that trained the turtle? Splinter. He's wearing a waistcoat and can do kung fu.

I've read about this guy. I mean, I don't know if there was a bin. crisis or something. I mean this, I would say it's bigger than most suburban dogs. What? What do I need to type in? Mega rat.

Guardian Norman B rat. Where was this rat? The T-side mega-rat. Is it this? The T-side. That's it. The T-sides megarad. And the great global rat crisis of 2025. Look, I'll... Have you sent you around on the group?

I'll forward this to you now. Oh my God. I've just seen a picture of it in a bag. It's like a... Yeah, that is a good-sized dog. Do I want to see this? What? That's like a Russian's hat. It's massive.

Look at the size of that thing. It's like an otter. It is like an otter. I had to do a double take when I saw a picture of it, said Stephen Martin, a Conservative councillor on Redcar and Cleveland Council. You could tell about the size of the bag that it's not a normal size. It's the size of a cat. There's a description here.

By the way, it says it's about the length of the... carry-on luggage people might be wheeling onto a flight just for anyone at home we're trying to picture it so it's the size of carry-on luggage what a strange way of naming the size of a rat it's the size of a carry-on luggage yeah you have to play extra on easy jet to take that rat on with you that is bonkers i don't want to live in a world where rats are that big no i hate rats and I find them really, really unsettling. Yeah. I think mice are quite sweet,

but there is something so eerie about rats. Yes. Well, there's a part in All Quiet on the Western Front where the soldiers actively lay down food, turn off the lights, full silent, and wait for all the rats to come, and then just start hitting them with their shoes and start killing them.

And with the ends of their rifles and all this sort of stuff. And this is the sort of thing. And this is the sort of thing that would happen to try and deal with the infestation that was happening. Yeah. Just reminds me, I saw a documentary once about the kind of the end of civilization on Easter Island. And one of the leading theories is it was an out-of-control rat population. Really? The rats just basically ate everything.

Ate palm nuts. They prevented palm tree reproduction. And it like basically destroyed the forest. and the whole island just got overrun with rats at the expense of the human population. Doesn't that sound like an absolute nightmare? Well, tell you who it reminds me or Chris, is it Selkirk?

Remember we talked about it in the past? The guy who got a shipwrecked. Oh, yeah. And then I think he trained wild cats to deal with the... He trained wild feral cats. He domesticated them basically by feeding them. And then they were protecting his living quarters from rats. And I think about him all the time.

and very occasionally, very occasionally my cats bring in rats and I have to think to myself, be more Alexander self-cook. He could cope with this. These rats are fine. Don't start thinking for one second about a mega rat. For, just to give an idea of the size of the trenches and the warfare there in World War I, I've done some research into this.

This blew my mind. There were 2,490 kilometers of trench lines dug during World War I. That's nearly two and a half thousand kilometers of trench. Isn't that unbelievable? Yeah. I'd love to do a World War I tour. Yeah. Because you can still see the shell holes, can you can still see the essence of

Man's Land where some of the trenches were. It'd be absolutely fascinating. These trenches, by the way, they weren't dug in a straight line. they were all dug zigzag. Do you know why that it is? For a point, why do you think they were dug zigzag? No. I do know zigzag.

It's, is it to stop the wind going through them? No. It's actually far darker than that. It was if an enemy got into the trench so they couldn't fire down in a straight line. The zigzag pattern also stopped shrapnel being able to fly down the entire trench. But rather than shrapnel and...

Enemy soldiers getting into your trench. There's one part of this book that I think I find the most scary. Can I guess? Yes. Can I guess? Is it getting run over by a tank? It is. Yes.

That is exactly it. In the film, this was perhaps the most shocking scene I've ever seen in a film. Yeah. Where someone gets, I think he watches his may get run over by a tank. And the bloke just pops. Yes. And I was like, what was this? this scene? It was such a shocking scene that I was like, that had to have been in the book.

So, yeah. Why does he get run over in the first place? Does he not, oh, I suppose they haven't invented the green cross code in 1918, have they? Often it's a situation where you'd be stuck out in no man's land in one of the shallow holes that have been left from explosions or, you know, artillery fire, which where you would hide and then the tanks would approach and you'd basically be trapped. This is how he's written about it. Tanks, which used to be the objects, they're ridicule, they become a major weapon. They come rolling forward in a long line, heavily armoured, and they embody the horror of war for us more than anything else. We cannot see the gun batteries are bombarding us, and the oncoming wave of enemy attackers are human beings just like we are,

but tanks are machines, and their caterpillar tracks run on as endlessly as the war itself. They spell out annihilation when they roll without feeling into the shell holes, that's what I'm referring to there, and then climb out again inextrably. A fleet of roaring fire, spitting ironclads in vulnerable steel beasts that crush the dead and the wounded. Before these, we shrivel down to our thin skins in the face of their colossal force. Our arms are like straws and our hand grenades are like matches. That's such a powerful image. Our arms are like straws and our hand grenades are like matches.

The just the complete powerlessness to these huge things that a lot of people wouldn't really have seen in the flesh. If you're new to the front, it would just be a concept, wouldn't it? You might something you'd heard word of, but you'd never have seen. seen the power of these things. And there you are a 17 year old lad, fresh from school, and that's coming towards you. I would be lying there, pletching my inhaler. Waving it like a white flag. Waving it, saying, come on me. I had extremely mild asthma as a kid. It ain't easy, being wheezy. Give me a tail. Yeah, absolutely. But there's so many moments like this.

It's an incredible story about, you know, human relationships, all this sort of stuff, but just the horror of it all. It's just unbelievable what these people had to live through. It discusses a generation that's destroyed by the war that haven't necessarily been injured or killed. They've just been mentally destroyed by it. And, you know, there's enough evidence of that in how messed up and volatile and chaotic the 20s and 30s were. Because you had this completely traumatised generation. of men.

Yeah. And so that obviously led to extremism. I mean, Germany and Italy are probably the best examples. But I've read a lot of books about the 20th century more generally. So if you read things like Dark Continent or post-war, the ramifications of World War I, it leaves such a long shadow. And I'd never read about it from the German perspective before. And also I'd never read such a poetic but powerful first.

turned account of what it was like to fight in World War I. Absolutely. And it's not a difficult book to read, and it's not a long book. It's actually, it's very, very accessible. But I was so glad I read it. But it is a difficult read. It's got really, really challenging themes in it, and it doesn't hold back. I mean, some passages are harrowing.

I mean, there's no two ways about it. And I think, I've not seen any of the film film adaptations, but I'm assuming that, from what Chris has said, they are the same. But it's an amazing piece of work. really important novel. I think the last thing I'll read to you from this book, you talk about how harrowing it is, I think is, this is almost the most heartbreaking bit, which is at the very end of the war and the hope that you might get out the other side, it's within touching distance, but you're still there on the battlefield. It says, summer 1918, never has more been suffered in

silence as in the moment when we set off for the front. The wild and urgent rumors of an armistice and peace have surfaced again. They disturb the heart and make setting out harder than ever. Summer 1918. Never has life at the front being more bitter and more full of horror than we are under fire when the pallid faces are pressed into the mud and the fists are clenched and your whole being is saying, no, no, no, not now, not now at the very last minute. Summer 1918, a wind of hope sweeping over the burnt out fields, a raging fever of impatience, of disappointment, the most agonising terror of death, the impossible question, why? Why? Why? Why? don't they stop and why are there all these rumors about it ending? And that that's almost the most

painful bit is that moment at the end of the war when it's completely within reach but they're still trapped in this situation of you know bombs and tanks and war and you realize by that point how pointless it all is. They know the war is lost. It's done and it's just yet more life being lost for the sake of those final few days basically. Can I drop a spoiler alert in? If you don't want to know the ending, please turn off now. Yes. But Tom, he dies right at the end of the war, doesn't he?

He dies with literally minutes left. Yes. That's right. That's what happens in the film. That's why I found so shocking. I thought you were going to say, spoiler. Britain wins World War I. And am I right, Tom, in saying Britain wins both World Wars and the World Cup?

And the work. No, the twist is it was all a dream. He was actually a teenager in the 80s. Oh, nice. Yeah, an asphatic teenager. And he wakes up by his ghetto blaster on a basketball court. No, it's, yeah, it's just horrific. And it is that fact, as you say, that the story starts.

These are just friends in a school who have been convinced essentially by their teachers and by older people. about the importance of doing your bit for your country and the honour of war and all this sort of stuff and it's just heartbreaking in so many ways and it's an amazing book I think it's really incredible book it's a few books of this sort of length that really stopped with me

of mice and men, one of them and this I think is in terms of like shorter reads that have just really left an incredible impression I would completely recommend this all quite on the Western Front It really is a book for history and one that will be remembered forever, I'm sure, and it's just fantastic. Brilliant.

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May I just remind you a second ago were waving around your asthma inhaler on the back. Exactly. So I'm basically, I'm looking for excuses. Have you got any good ones? Send them in. Hello at ohatime.com.

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