EPISODE 40: A Seal Called Noon

Strangers on a Bench

Tom Rosenthal

Documentary, Bench, Random, Society & Culture, Park, Strangers, Conversation

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.

This is what happened!

Produced by Tom Rosenthal

Edited by Rose De Larrabeiti

Mixed by Mike Woolley

Theme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton

Incidental music by Maddie Ashman

End song: 'A Seal Called Noon' by Alice Boyd

Stream it here: https://ffm.to/asealcallednoon

Listen to all end songs featured on the podcast (so far) on one handy playlist:

https://ffm.to/soabendsongs

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Instagram: @strangersonabench

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, sorry to bother you.
0:05.0	Can I ask you a slightly odd question?
0:08.0	I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a bench
0:14.0	where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes.
0:19.0	Are you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? Is there a day of the week that you favour?
0:47.4	I quite like Sundays.
0:49.4	Sundays are quite relaxed, yeah.
0:52.8	What is your kind of ideal Sunday?
0:54.8	My ideal Sunday.
0:55.8	Lived on this funny earth.
0:57.6	On this funny earth.
0:59.6	Usually I'm in London on a Sunday.
1:01.8	I have friends who work in a market, so I go see them.
1:06.1	But before that, I go to a 12-step meeting in the mornings, chatting with people.
1:10.5	And then I go to the market,
1:12.1	have free food, get free come to you, socialise, and then I might head off either home
1:18.6	or wherever I'm staying in that day. So yeah, it's just a day filled with speaking to people
1:24.1	I enjoy being around. That sounds very nice. Do you feel like you don't do that enough?
1:29.3	I mean, is that kind of why, yeah?
1:32.3	I like my own company a lot, yeah.
1:35.3	I tend to just be with myself a lot more than with other people.
1:40.3	So yeah, it's nice to just have a day where I see lots of people and then...
	...

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