#183 BIG Companies and ELIS RAN THE HACKNEY HALF (Part 1)

Oh What A Time...

Pop! Pop!

Comedy, History, Education

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2026

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

This week we’re looking at commercial entities that went bigger than their wildest dreams. We’ve got for you: Japanese consumer electronics firm Casio, how did Cadbury make that chocolate money and lastly, how Andrew Carnegie acquired insane wealth and then, incredibly, went about giving it away!

And isn’t the world a better place for mass sporting events? AND IS THE WORLD TALKING ENOUGH ABOUT ELIS RUNNING THE HACKNEY HALF? Do let us know: hello@ohwhatatime.com

And from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but 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:

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Join us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatime

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Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).

Chris, Elis and Tom x

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, what a time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free,
0:06.4	plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access
0:11.9	to live show tickets and access to the Oh Water Time group chat. Plus, if you become an Oh Water
0:16.9	Time All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in
0:21.7	history you might have popped up for all your options you can go to patreon.com forward slash
0:27.1	oh what a time hello and welcome to Oh What a Time, the history podcast that asked the question, was life really better before the age of mass sports participation events?
0:48.6	For example, the London Marathon, for example, the Hackney Half, which I ran on Sunday. Where do you live, Tom? I live in Hackney. Of course are coming out to support me. I've only known you for 22 years. Well, Elle, can I shock you? You claim you run it. Well, I did watch the Hackney half. I did. I went to the top of my road with my kids and watched. And I did not see Mr Ellis-Jane's coming past. I present to the court, is this all talk, Your Honor. Do you know what the problem is? He was going too fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the guy who everyone thinks when it claims to have done it in an hour and six. I actually did it an hour and four. I was about two minutes ahead of him. They were still putting out the finishing cones when you got. Yeah, I might have been a bit early for you, Tom.
1:29.7	There was a man who ran past dressed as a jar of peanut butter who had quite large thighs, which could have been new, but I have no idea what he looked like. No, no, no. That absolute bastard overtook me, I hated him. Did he really? No, no, but I, they were, being overtaken by someone in fancy dress is a humiliation that had never happened to me before.
1:47.4	When I ran the mirror. but I being overtaken by someone in fancy dress is a humiliation that has never happened to me before.
1:47.4	When I ran the marathon in 2011, the London marathon,
1:50.9	four hours, 20 or something, let's not go on about it.
1:53.9	But when I was training about, when I was training for that,
1:56.0	I was living in Chelsea.
1:57.0	And frequently when I was running around like Battersea Park,
1:59.6	I would be overtaken by a man with one leg.
2:02.7	Was his other leg on a scooter?
2:04.7	He was very fast.
2:06.5	As a sort of general runner, my times are nowhere near the Olympic Walkers.
2:12.6	Yeah.
2:13.1	An Olympic Walker will be able to do a mile about two minutes faster than me.
2:17.0	You're like, wow, what?
2:18.4	With that weird sort of gate they have. But yeah, it was an amazing event. I loved every second.
	...

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