Pod Insights You're Dead to Me Benedetta Carlini (Radio Edit) About this episode Greg Jenner is joined in 17th-century Italy by Professor Michelle Sauer and comedian Sophie Duker to learn about notorious nun Benedetta Carlini.
From the moment of her birth in 1590, Benedetta – whose name literally means ‘blessed’ – was dedicated to God’s service by her father. As a young girl, she joined a community of religious women, where in her twenties she began experiencing mystical visions. These culminated in a number of miraculous signs and occurrences, including the appearance of the stigmata on her body. But following a papal investigation, shocking secrets were revealed, including her sexual relationship with another nun. This episode charts her life, from the miracles that occurred during her childhood, through her time as a devout nun, and to her ultimate downfall at the hands of the papal investigator.
This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.
Hosted by: Greg Jenner
Research by: Hannah Campbell Hewson
Written by: Hannah Campbell Hewson, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner
Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner
Audio Producer: Steve Hankey
Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands
Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse
Executive Editor: James Cook
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Greg Jenner? This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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1:12 Greg Jenner? Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are whipping out our wimples and reciting our rosaries as we learn all about the scandalous 17th century nun Benedetta Carlini. And to help us, we have two very special guests. In history corner, she's the Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor in English at the University of North Dakota. She's a specialist in medieval studies, especially medieval religion, women's literature and queer theory, and she's the author of several books. It's Professor Michelle Sauer. Welcome, Michelle.
1:46 Speaker 04 Thanks so much, Greg. It's wonderful to be speaking with you today and to meet Sophie.
1:50 Greg Jenner? Yes, you're very lucky Sophie's very special. And in comedy corner, she is an award-winning comedian, writer and actor. As well as her fabulous stand-up shows, you will recognise her from TV's Eight Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown, Live at the Apollo, Frankie Boyle's New World Order, but of course you'll remember her from our back catalogue, including episodes on Atlantis and Ramsay's The Great. It's Sophie Duca. Welcome back, Sophie.
2:10 Speaker 05 Yay, special feels like an egg, but I'll take it.
2:12 Greg Jenner? No, no, it was meant to be positive.
2:15 Speaker 05 I'm very thrilled to be special and to be here and to be meeting Michelle Sauer.
2:19 Greg Jenner? What about Benedetta Carlini? Is this a name that rings any bells?
2:23 Speaker 05 Church bells. So, I don't know, I don't really know anything. That's not quite true. I think I've got the sense that she's some sort of queer icon, but I don't really know much about her. And I've already heard from your intro that she's a sexy nun.
2:40 Speaker 05 Wait, did you say that? Or did I? I was projecting. You didn't say that.
2:43 Greg Jenner? I didn't say that.
2:43 Speaker 05 You didn't say that. I projected. You said wimple and I was like, hot. That's what happened. How embarrassing.
2:52 Greg Jenner? It's fine. It's a fantastic insight into your mind there. Yeah, I think sexy nun is probably about fair, but we'll see. So, what do you know?
3:06 Greg Jenner? This is the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And you are promi- well, you're probably familiar with nun life, you know, from totally true documentaries like Sister Act and The Sound of Music. But you might be less familiar with a small mountain girl called Benedetta Carlini who rose to notoriety in 17th century Italy and then vanished from history until being rediscovered quite recently. But who was the real woman who, in quotes, pretended to be a mystic but was found to be a woman of ill repute? Professor Michelle, let's start with her family background. Who was Benedetta? Where was she born? When was she born? What was her family situation, please?
3:45 Speaker 04 Benedetta was born on January 20th, 1590, on the night of Saint Sebastian, in a small mountain village called Volano in Tuscany in Italy. She was the only child of Medea and Giuliana Carlini. Her father was the third richest man in Volano, so it was a well-off family.
4:07 Greg Jenner? Sophie, I know you speak French. Well, I'll test your Italian now. Do you know what Benedetta translates to in English?
4:12 Speaker 05 Is it like sexy egg?
4:18 Speaker 05 Benedetta, is it like blessed one?
4:21 Greg Jenner? Oh, yeah. Bang on.
4:23 Speaker 05 Yeah. Okay, she did Latin as well. All right.
4:28 Greg Jenner? Okay, so yes, blessed, Michelle. Blessed, why blessed? What was the naming reason for that?
4:34 Speaker 04 Her mother had a very difficult labour and at one point it seemed like both mother and child would die. So her father, who was both rich and devout, prayed to God desperately that they lived and in gratitude Benedetta was named Blessed and her father dedicated her to God and promised that she would become a nun.
4:56 Greg Jenner? What age does she start to sort of become nun-adjacent, Michelle?
5:01 Speaker 04 I mean, I think she's pretty nun-adjacent right from the start. By the time she was five years old, she was reciting the litany, saying the rosary on her own. She also experienced miracles as a young girl. She had a nightingale that followed her around, would sing on command, would occasionally sing the laws with her.
5:25 Greg Jenner? That's very Disney princess to have a bird on your shoulder singing along.
5:28 Speaker 05 A nightingale as well. You don't get those anymore. It's crows and pigeons.
5:34 Speaker 04 They're all over medieval literature, but you know, not in real life anymore. I mean, they exist, but.
5:39 Greg Jenner? Okay, so nightingale, good. Any bad animal appearances?
5:43 Speaker 04 There was a mysterious black dog that showed up and growled and slobbered and tried to drag her off and, you know, eventually it just sort of disappeared when she prayed. So that's obviously a demonic manifestation.
6:00 Greg Jenner? Okay, good. I'm enjoying this. This is, this is fun. Okay, so Sophie, how old do you think the Benedetta was when she was first entering the convent?
6:11 Speaker 05 Okay, so if she's like reciting litanies from five years old, I feel probably quite like a young entrant. I'm gonna go with lucky number 13.
6:22 Greg Jenner? That's a good guess. It's a little bit generous. It was nine.
6:26 Speaker 05 Oh, nine. Okay, classic age to take on a trade.
6:31 Greg Jenner? So what's the name of the community that Benedetta joined, Michelle?
6:35 Speaker 04 She was born in Valona, which is a small mountain village. And when it came time for her to join a convent, her father basically just took her down the hill to the next biggest city, which is Pesca. And in Pesca, there were three major convents. These convents were filled to the brim. In fact, they were overflowing. And the community that she joined is something called the Theotines. The Theotines were not actually in official order as of yet. When Benedetta joins, they are still an unofficial community, although they had been sanctioned by the church. A woman named Piera Pogne founded this community in 1590,
7:19 Speaker 04 the year that Benedetta was born. And she had applied to the Pope for permission to make this a formal community.
7:30 Speaker 05 It's like a start-up convent. It's not quite recognised yet. It's like a young, cool...
7:36 Greg Jenner? They're disrupting the sector. Yeah, they've gone to venture capitalists.
7:39 Speaker 05 Theotines are disrupting the sector of female monasteries.
7:44 Greg Jenner? Okay. But what else is going on in the convent, do you think, Sophie? If we are imagining Benedetta as a modern influencer, living her hashtag nun life, what kind of content are you expecting on the Gram?
7:55 Speaker 05 Okay, when you started talking about Benedetta, I really thought that she was like, had been a great TikTok baby, because it's all like, her dad's making her read these litany, she's got this little bird and stuff. Like, I feel like she would have been creating content from early.
8:07 Greg Jenner? Doing unboxing videos.
8:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, just being like, it's another rosary.
8:13 Speaker 05 Benedetta, I think like being like a pretty, clearly a pretty smart kid, I think she'd just be like reciting chunks of the Bible, singing stuff, maybe getting the bird involved.
8:22 Greg Jenner? Michelle, Sophie's painted quite a charming image there. Nun life was quite hard. Is that fair?
8:28 Speaker 04 It could be pretty hard, especially if you're one of, a lot of orders had something called lay sisters. They're the uneducated ones who did all the hard work, the cooking and the cleaning. Choir sisters were the ones who were educated and spent their time making silk and sewing and praying and singing.
8:50 Greg Jenner? We have a young nun, Benedetta. Her life is sort of on track to be fairly conventional. And then at 23, it changes. Michelle, why 23?
8:59 Speaker 04 Well, you know, we don't really know a lot about her between the ages of nine and 23. Presumably she's doing this conventional thing, except that we have one sort of indication that she is still special. Right away, when she first got to the convent at age nine, she had gone into the convent chapel and was praying in front of the Theatine's Madonna statue. When the Blessed Virgin Mary sort of manifested within this statue and leaned forward to kiss Benedetta. But she sort of panicked, freaked out, and then the statue fell as she ran
9:43 Speaker 04 off. But she didn't tell anybody about the almost kiss.
9:47 Speaker 05 None of my Virgin Mary statuettes have ever tried to pash on me, so that is feeling a bit slighted.
9:53 Greg Jenner? Another vision, Michelle, involves quite a sort of Eden-esque vibe?
10:00 Speaker 04 One was definitely Eden-esque. She was walking in a beautiful garden, full of fruits and flowers, many of which wouldn't be growing. At the time, a place in which she lived, there was a fountain full of scented water. These visions were both beautiful and reassuring because angels would also join her in them.
10:26 Greg Jenner? And she's also mountain climbing. So it is the sound of music. She's climbing every mountain, she's falling every stream, she's following her rainbow, and she's going to find her dream.
10:35 Speaker 05 That's beautiful. She's just a nun walking through the mountains, tripping her nut off. It's...
10:42 Greg Jenner? It's all very PG friendly so far, but then Benedetta's visions got quite heavy metal, Sophie.
10:47 Speaker 05 Oh.
10:48 Greg Jenner? We've got quite a quick mini quiz for you, actually. Which of these visions did Benedetta not claim to have experienced? So, five options, here we go.
10:56 Speaker 05 Okay.
10:57 Greg Jenner? One, she was pursued by handsome young men in iron chains with weapons. Two, Jesus ripped out her heart and she lived without a heart for three days. Three, an angel in a white robe, gold chain, long curly hair, named Splendetello, brought her a double-edged wand made of flowers and thorns. Four, she married Jesus. Five, an angel told her to go vegan. Which of those not true?
11:22 Speaker 05 I think she was told to go vegan. Jesus taking her heart is very poetic, but like, walking around without a heart for three days, it's relatable content. She's basically Charlie XCX. I think that Splendetello sounds a bit much.
11:39 Greg Jenner? Okay, you're rejecting Splendetello and his lovely curly hair and...
11:42 Speaker 05 I think he's modelled on you, Greg.
11:44 Greg Jenner? I would love to be Splendetello. I don't have the looks to pull it off. I've got the curly hair and nothing else. It's actually a trick question, Sophie. All five are true.
11:52 Speaker 05 Oh my god, wow!
11:55 Greg Jenner? Sorry, that's us being very mean there, but we thought maybe it would be fun to see if you could tell them apart. But no, yeah, she claims all five. So she claims her heart's ripped out for three days, she claims to be going vegan, marrying Jesus, Splendetello comes to her, offers her a double wand of flowers and thorns, and pursued by young men who attack her with weapons and chains. So, quite an array of visions here.
12:16 Speaker 05 Yeah.
12:17 Greg Jenner? Michelle, Benedetta also started to have the physical signs of holy interactions, what we might call stigmata.
12:24 Speaker 04 From about 1615 forward, she started experiencing intense pain over her entire body. The stigmata are representative wounds on an individual's body that are the same, they correspond with the wounds on Jesus Christ's body. So it would be the hands, the feet, the side wound, and in some extreme cases of stigmata, manifestation of the crown of thorns.
12:52 Greg Jenner? These are huge claims to be making. I suppose the obvious question is, were there others in the convent reporting similar things, Michelle? Is she alone in this?
13:01 Speaker 04 There are no other people in the convent who are reporting this. This is not a typical thing. The stigmata itself is considered an extreme gift that very few saints had ever received. The most famous of these would be Saint Francis of Assisi. And there were a few others that were accepted. Saint Catherine of Siena received the stigmata in her heart, and that was internal and not external. But other than that, it's not common at all.
13:33 Greg Jenner? So Benedetta's having these pretty powerful physical and visual visitations and visions. How do you think her fellow nuns were handling that at the dinner table?
13:46 Speaker 05 It feels like, especially if there's not other people doing it, if it's not part of the, you know, company culture to be having visions, then if you kind of state yourself out as having very disruptive and evocative visions, I feel like it'd probably get on a few of the nuns' tits.
14:01 Greg Jenner? The thing that's intriguing to me, Michelle, is the community sort of give Benedetta a kind of friend to play with, almost as a bit like, all right, look, you need someone to keep you company. And they give you a young woman called Bartolomay Acquavelli, is that right?
14:15 Speaker 04 That's right. With these violent visions, they were worried about her. So she gets her buddy.
14:20 Greg Jenner? Her buddy Bartolomay. And Benedetta now sort of steps it up. She starts preaching from the pulpits, which is a big no-no, isn't it? That's a man's job, right?
14:28 Speaker 04 Huge no-no.
14:30 Greg Jenner? Okay. And then in 1619, the other nuns elect her the abess of the nunnery, Michelle. So then she's not unpopular.
14:38 Speaker 05 Wow.
14:38 Speaker 04 She's not unpopular at all.
14:40 Greg Jenner? The following year, the community received its official papal permission to become a closed community, Sophie. Benedetta starts living her best life with her BFF Bartolomay, and of course Splendetello the Angel.
14:51 Speaker 05 Splendetello, can't forget him.
14:53 Greg Jenner? But that official stamp of authority then means presumably the church is then looking more closely at what's happening because suddenly the church authorities show up and go, hang on a second, what? There's a woman preaching, claiming mystic visions? We'd better check this out because we now get an official process of interrogation, Michelle?
15:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, she was starting to make the church nervous, right? Women with too much authority and too much pull, for one thing, made ecclesiastical powers nervous. But just in general, visions were looked at with suspicion more and more. They could be coming from the devil, especially when they involve such bodily sorts of visions.
15:37 Greg Jenner? Oh, so the fear here is that she is being visited by Satan, not by an angel?
15:42 Speaker 04 Yes.
15:43 Greg Jenner? Gotcha. Okay, so we get the Provost of Peshia, Stefano Cecchi, sort of showing up to physically examine the stigmata, the wounds, starts asking questions, Sophie, it's becoming a bit official. What do you think Bartolomayev does, Sophie, the sort of best friend who's been appointed?
16:01 Speaker 05 So like, they're like besties at this point. Is she like a waiting maid or are they just like companions?
16:05 Greg Jenner? Yeah, a bit of both, is it, Michelle?
16:07 Speaker 04 Yeah, she is there to, I guess, help out Benedetta, make sure that she's brought back to earth after her visions, that her body is cared for. If her heart's removed for three days, somebody has to take care of what's left behind.
16:27 Greg Jenner? And Bartolomayev says that she had to put the heart back in?
16:32 Speaker 05 Wow.
16:33 Speaker 04 Yes. She is a devoted companion. Not only does she confirm to this inquiry board, to the Provost of Peshia, that Benedetta did indeed, you know, exist three days without a heart while this exchange with Jesus was going on, but that she herself pushed it back into Benedetta's body.
16:56 Greg Jenner? Sophie, have you ever done that for a friend?
16:57 Speaker 05 Wow.
16:58 Greg Jenner? Have you ever?
16:58 Speaker 05 Have I ever pushed a heart back in?
17:00 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
17:01 Speaker 05 No, I've held the hair back while they've been sick, but I've never pushed the heart back into the body. I've never reversed Temple of Doom to a friend.
17:12 Greg Jenner? Okay, so Benedetta has a very loyal friend here and Bartolommea is going on the record saying, yes, the heart came out, I saw it, I put it back in. So that means Benedetta passes the first interrogation, the first investigation, but there will be another, because obviously we said that woman of ill repute is a phrase that gets used. Why does she pass the first test, but a second one is launched, Michelle? What does she do, Benedetta, that's more provocative, or claim to do?
17:38 Speaker 04 Benedetta dies, but then she comes back to life.
17:41 Speaker 05 Whoa.
17:44 Speaker 04 So 1621, she, you know, she's dead. And then Father Paolo Ricordate commanded her in a loud voice to arise. And she did.
17:59 Greg Jenner? That's all it needs, right? That's all you need. You just need someone. You just need a man to say, get up, come on, sort it out.
18:05 Speaker 05 And you're like, not dead anymore.
18:06 Greg Jenner? Not dead. Let's talk about the second investigation, because this time round, Sophie, it's not the local authorities who are sort of showing up to have an interrogation. The Pope has sent someone.
18:17 Speaker 05 The Pope!
18:18 Greg Jenner? Mr Pope himself. He sent a nuncio, which is an official figure, a sort of a bunch of officials showing up in 1622. They're there for several months. They're outsiders, right? They're not used to the community, they're not used to her. So they're a bit more interrogative. It doesn't go so well this time, Sophie. They're suspicious.
18:39 Speaker 05 Yeah, I'd be suspicious. I feel like Bartolommea sounds like a liability. I feel like she's adding like little embellishments, like, I, yeah, I saw the heart, I pushed it back in. Like, it feels like Benedetta's got quite a lot of charisma, but I'm not sure Bartolommea commands quite the same amount of reverence, no questions asked, as her friend does. So I feel like she's possibly not going to be the weak link in questioning.
19:05 Speaker 04 Where she really started losing people was continuing to preach from the pulpit. It was understandable, maybe, the first few times, because she was reporting what Jesus had said in these visions. But continuing to do that... Wanders into dangerous territory and and who would inspire someone to continually act in such a manner contrary to God, but the devil. So the local community starts turning against her and suggests that her parents had been possessed by devils. And then all of this sort of comes to a head when the nunzio comes to town. He is very suspicious
19:45 Speaker 04 of things like the heart exchange and the mystical marriage and especially stigmata.
19:51 Greg Jenner? And they find satanic signs and around the kind of the sort of the general locale of the nunnery. Michelle, what is the evidence gathered against Benedetta?
20:00 Speaker 04 The biggest sign of all of demonic, if not possession, association is that she didn't go vegan anymore. She started secretly eating meat. And in particular, she had a love of salami and mortadella. And I mean, I can't blame her. Mortadella is delicious. So.
20:27 Speaker 05 Wow, the nun who loves salami. It's not how I thought she would be described, but.
20:32 Greg Jenner? So, Michelle, is this, I'm slightly worried where we're going next, but are we going next into sort of, you know, demonic territory of, you know, naughty things?
20:41 Speaker 04 Not quite. Instead, we end up with Benedetta having sex not with the devil, but with her best friend, Bartolomea.
20:51 Speaker 05 No. What?
20:54 Greg Jenner? Sophie's back on board.
20:57 Speaker 05 What? Those two good friends?
21:01 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
21:02 Speaker 04 They were just roommates.
21:03 Speaker 05 The roommates, what?
21:05 Greg Jenner? More than that, Sophie, Benedetta is claiming that the angel Splendetello is making them do it.
21:11 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. Yeah, I've had that one as well. It's like, like, there's someone watching. He's got, like, curly hair.
21:20 Greg Jenner? Uh oh, yeah.
21:21 Speaker 05 Uh oh. Wow.
21:23 Greg Jenner? So, Michelle, I think the question I have to ask at this point now is, you know, we can all have a laugh about these sort of things. But actually, what's quite interesting is. There is a sort of moment in that testimony where Bartolomea sort of says she was sort of made to lie on her back, and that brings up ideas perhaps of coercion, perhaps of one person having more power than the other. So is this a standard, you know, typical lesbian relationship between two consenting women? Or do we have something more problematic here?
21:50 Speaker 04 I think that it is more problematic, but there's multiple levels of coercion, I think, going on here also. It's not just that Splendetello made them do it for his own benefit, but Benedetta claims that Splendetello really inhabits her body or takes over her body in certain ways, so that she herself is actually subject to coercion in a way to then make Bartolomea also go through with this.
22:27 Greg Jenner? Yeah, it's definitely a problematic relationship, but it's also problematic for us because it comes to us through the official testimony of nuncio, papal legates, and it's all, it's slightly refracted through. So the phrasing that is used in the official interrogation is called the immodest act. So what is the outcome of this investigation, Michelle, the second investigation from the Pope's man?
22:49 Speaker 04 So the final investigative visit was in November of 1623. There's no more evidence of stigmata or of a mystical wedding ring. Benedetta is no longer seeing visions. Splendetello has left her. Benedetta agrees that she had been deceived by the devil and lived very obediently under a new abbess. We don't really hear from her again, although the convent records basically indicate that she died when she was 71 years old, that she had been ill for 18 days. But this
23:34 Speaker 04 diary also reveals one interesting fact. She had been imprisoned in solitary confinement for 35 years. So it appears that her recantation and her reformation to live the good life under, you know, a new abbess was for naught.
23:53 Greg Jenner? Oh, Sophie, that's a bit of a vibe shift on the episode there, isn't it?
23:56 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's so sad!
23:58 Greg Jenner? Sorry.
23:59 Speaker 05 35 years.
24:02 Greg Jenner? Yeah. The Nuance Window.
24:10 Greg Jenner? Time now for the Nuance Window. This is the part of the show where Sophie and I set down our needles and sit in silent contemplation for two minutes while Professor Michelle takes to the pulpit to preach something that we need to know about Benedetta Carlini. So my stopwatch is ready. You have two minutes. Take it away, Professor Michelle.
24:27 Speaker 04 I really wanted to talk a little bit about medieval lesbians. In the introduction to her book, Immodest Acts, about Benedetta Carlini, Judith C. Brown says, "Had the material belonged to a later epoch, the sexual allegations against Benedetta would not have been all that rare." But what about medieval lesbians? Looking for medieval lesbians, one of the things about studying them is that it allows for participation in the creation of social and sexual histories and forefronts the female experience in a field that continues to be dominated by white, straight men. And even the term homosexual has been co-opted and used only to describe male same-sex encounters.
25:11 Speaker 04 So it's good, on the one hand, that we have Benedetta Carlini. Bad, of course, because of the situation. But good because the scant handful of documented lesbians are generally documented for being caught. Benedetta Carlini was on trial, oddly enough, mostly for preaching, and the Immodest Act came out. We can find medieval lesbians and joy in medieval lesbian activities in such places as mystic texts, where female saints called Jesus their mother, then suckle from his side as breastfeeding before crawling into the open vaginal-shaped wound.
25:51 Speaker 04 One such woman was Catherine of Siena. She describes climbing Christ's body that has been clearly transformed into a feminized creation as he possesses her and presses her to his breast and the opening there. We know that the Church of theologians were concerned about the possibilities of women being with other women in a sexual manner. Elred of Rovoe, who wrote a letter to his sister and Ankerus, cautioned her against teaching young women because she would clearly be enraptured by them and want to kiss them. Saint Augustine wrote a similar letter to his sister.
26:34 Speaker 04 So there are deep concerns about these women. Therefore, we know that they exist, that they're out there. And we really need to keep looking more completely into this history so that we don't foreclose the possibilities of a long history of women who loved other women.
26:57 Speaker 05 There's such a scant amount of evidence and testimony, but when it does pop up, it's really visceral. And like those images of like licking Jesus's heart, it's very intense and very lesbian. I think that, you know. I am, I am gonna go to a lesbian bar tonight and I am gonna ask the gathered congregation if anyone's ever asked to lick their heart, which I think is probably quite likely, given East London.
27:27 Greg Jenner? Thank you, Sophie. Thank you, Professor Michelle. Listener, if after today's episode you want more Juka in your ears, check out our episodes on Atlantis, Ramses the Great, Ashanti Ghana, and the Chevalier de Saint George. What a back catalogue. And if you've enjoyed hearing about the naughty nun, why not listen to our episode on the profane popes of the early medieval papacy. Those guys were, they were extra. Let's, let's just put it that way. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But all that's left for me to do is say a huge thank you to our guests. In history corner, we had the magnificent Professor Michelle Sauer from the University of North Dakota. Thank you, Michelle.
28:02 Speaker 04 Thank you.
28:03 Greg Jenner? Awesome. And in Comedy Corner, we had the sublime Sophie Dujca. Thank you, Sophie.
28:08 Speaker 05 Bless you, Greg. Bless you, Michelle.
28:12 Greg Jenner? Thank you very much. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we investigate more historical friendships, in inverted commas. But for now, I'm off to go and offer Saint and some of my salami. Bye.
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