Hello there and welcome to this special episode of My Time Capsule, the best of my time capsule

24, part one. I'm Mike Fenton-Stevens. I hope you knew that. And if you're listening to this podcast

for the first time, and you probably didn't know that, and treating this episode as a sort of

taster menu for the rest of it, then you've made a very good choice. In fact, you've gone

Michelin Star, because in this episode, I won't be asking one guest to tell me the five things from their life

for good and one bad that they would like to have in a time capsule, as I normally do.

I will be playing you a selection of extracts from some of the most interesting guests we've had this year.

But they're all interesting, Mike, I hear you shout.

Rather quietly. Well, yes, but if I played each of them to you in their entirety, it would take, well, a year probably.

If you're a regular listener, you'll know that each episode usually starts with a sort of chat with my guest, about what's going on in their life and how they are, etc.

A way to ease them into the

recording and relax them. And me too, to be honest, well, these chats often lead to quite

extraordinary conversations. So instead of picking actual items that each guest talked about,

I've generally gone for the bit that happens sort of before the episode officially begins.

As an example, this is my opening conversation with my very first guest of 2024, Ian Sterling,

a fantastic stand-up comedian, presenter, podcaster, and voice of Love Island.

And this is me talking to him about the strange world of voiceovers and why he might

have been called Four Eyes at school. So do they let you do Love Island from there? Yeah.

Yeah. They had no choice but to allow me to... The dream. That's the dream, isn't it?

I never leave my house ever again. No, ever.

The same as Dave Lamb, who does come dine with me.

Exactly, me and Dave.

...