What’s the time? - Marcus Brigstocke, Leon Lobo, Louise Devoy
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Robin Ince and Brian Cox wind up at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich – arguably the centre of time – to uncoil the mysteries of what time is and how on Earth (…and on moon) we keep track of it. Taking the time to join them are comedian Marcus Brigstocke, curator of the Royal Observatory Louise Devoy, and Head of the National Timing Centre Leon Lobo.
From ancient Egyptian knuckle counting to sun dials, quartz oscillators and atomic clocks, the panel turns back time to discover how we measured and kept it throughout history. Together, they dial into why Greenwich has become such an important place for time and how time is synchronised and sold across the globe. They explore the flaws and future of accurate astronomical and atomic timekeeping, and Marcus blames the ‘leap second’ for his fry-up failures.
Producer: Olivia Jani Series Producer: Melanie Brown Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem A BBC Studios Production
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Welcome to Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:07.5 | New episodes are released weekly, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:10.3 | But if you're in the UK, you can listen to every episode a week early, first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:15.8 | Hello, I'm Brian Cox. |
| 0:17.1 | And I am What Remains of Robin Ince. |
| 0:19.1 | That's the nature of entropy, sadly. |
| 0:20.9 | This is the Infinite Monkey Cage from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, |
| 0:25.1 | and that is why, of course, the show will be beginning with the Pips. |
| 0:34.5 | For legal reasons, we can't play the last PIP |
| 0:38.4 | because apparently it scares the Radio 4 news reader |
| 0:42.2 | who thinks they've forgotten to do the news and be ready for it. |
| 0:45.1 | That last tone activates Gladys Knight. |
| 0:48.9 | See, I think it might end up just being... |
| 0:50.9 | I knew this would happen. |
| 0:52.1 | The Pips was written by these two sisters in America in the late 1930s, like Happy Birthday. |
| 0:59.0 | And if you play the whole Pits, it runs, oh my God, the BBC's got to pay 500 pounds to their estate now. |
| 1:04.3 | Now, today's Monkey Cage is about time. |
| 1:07.5 | Because the show has been recorded at the Greenwich Observatory in its 350th year. |
| 1:12.2 | In 1675, King Charles II signed a royal warrant for an observatory to improve navigation at seas, |
| 1:18.7 | and the building was designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hook. You've never sounded more like |
| 1:23.5 | Simon Sharma than you do now, and that worries me because I think you're going to branch out, |
... |
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