EPISODE 66: Truth Puddle
Strangers on a Bench
Tom Rosenthal
4.8 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ 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 : 'Looking At The Storm' by Elanor Moss
Stream it here : https://ffm.to/lookingatthestorm
Listen to all the end songs featured on the podcast (so far) on one handy playlist :
https://ffm.to/soabendsongs
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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? |
| 0:09.0 | 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? Do you have a favourite day of the week? |
| 0:49.3 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:51.8 | Friday, traditionally. So traditional of you? Yeah, yeah. Friday. Traditionally. |
| 0:55.0 | So traditional of you? |
| 0:56.4 | Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's kind of... |
| 0:59.4 | It could be surprise stuff going from Friday onwards, |
| 1:03.8 | whereas Monday to Friday feels quite predictable. |
| 1:08.0 | Friday onwards? A complete surprise? |
| 1:10.6 | It has possibilities. |
| 1:12.2 | I like it. |
| 1:13.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.7 | When was the last Friday that became a surprise? |
| 1:18.4 | It's not necessarily like an event, but it's just that more unusual things happen. |
| 1:24.4 | I might meet people like you or I might have space, a mental space to be more |
| 1:31.0 | open to people and so I might have conversations or I might get invited somewhere. I think everything |
| 1:36.4 | surprises me really. I'm really up for. What does that mean? Everything surprises you. I just don't |
| 1:42.2 | know what to expect. I'm open to the idea of things not really being predictable. |
| 1:47.9 | This is interesting. Yeah. I would say most people are not like that. Would you agree? |
... |
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