The Bystander Effect

Rob Bell:
This week, we tackle the bystander effect.

Jono Hey:
If something's going wrong, or if somebody's hurt, or something's happening, and there are a lot of other people around, then individually, we're less likely to help than if we were the only people around.

It's always something that makes me a little uneasy.

It forces a decision on you when you are quite happy not having to decide anything.

Rob Bell:
I'd gone down, I'd fainted.

People must have seen me, right?

Because I was upright, and then bang, it must have made a crash and a bang.

And when I came around, I went back to my eyelids.

Tom Pellereau:
Were there many people around?

Rob Bell:
Yes, it was a full train.

Tom Pellereau:
And your head was literally, was it between the doors, being kind of sort of the Simpsons?

Rob Bell:
It was that, but it doesn't happen quite as fast as that.

The one girl who was sat right next to me, because I was on my hands and knees, she looked down at me, she goes, have you been drinking?

And I'm like, no, I think I've just fainted.

Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations, The Podcast, where there's no entrance exam or dress code to get in, nor do you have to impress anyone by scoring a hat trick for the development squad on a cold Tuesday night.

Nope, we have an open door, open window, open hole in the roof policy, and security on the gates, rubbish anyway.

You can literally just walk straight in.

There's no joining fee, no monthly payment, and you can leave whenever you like.

Though it'd be great if you did stay around.

We talk about the world and the stuff in it, so you don't have to.

I'm Rob Bell, and keeping us all in check is the creator of Sketchplanations, Jono Hey.

And working tonight on the code check is the indomitable inventor, Tom Pellereau.

Tom Pellereau:
Good evening.

You say anyone can leave.

We can't.

As soon as you press record, Jono and I can't actually leave the session.

Did you know that?

The leave session goes.

So, technically, we can't leave, but there you go.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like how that's...

You obviously know that because you've tried.

Tom Pellereau:
I've had enough of this.

Jono Hey:
That's why I leave.

Make it through the intro.

Rob Bell:
Do you remember that?

Do you remember when getting in somewhere was like a genuine concern on a night out, probably?

It's usually a nightclub, wasn't it, or a bar somewhere?

Jono Hey:
I do.

It was a long time ago.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I don't feel like I have those kind of...

that kind of anxiety or concerns these days.

Like, what, you're not gonna let me in?

Brilliant.

I'm going home early then.

Lovely.

Jono Hey:
It's for getting out in time for the train back.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But when you're at the coat check trying to get your coat back, come on!

Oh, that last train's going!

And Tommy, it wouldn't surprise me if you've done this, perhaps more than Jono and I, perhaps when you've tried to blag your way into an event or a different area of an event or a bar or something, or somewhere that you're not supposed to be.

I would see you successfully blagging that better than Jono and I.

Tom Pellereau:
I just tend to walk in and just say, oh, hi, hi, evening, and just carry on.

Jono Hey:
I was still at Baldwin, like a black t-shirt saying, security on the back.

Rob Bell:
Very good.

Jono Hey:
Getting you in a lot of places, I think.

Rob Bell:
Or a high vis jacket and a clipboard.

Jono Hey:
That's right.

Carry a tool belt or something.

Rob Bell:
I quite enjoy the pretence that you'll sometimes go to.

And there was an example I thought of earlier.

So a mutual friend of ours, Dan and I, we're doing a race down in Cornwall.

And you had different allocated time slots for when you were going to start the race, just so they could manage the flow of people through different, I think it was through very much the start of the race, because there was a bit of a bottleneck, so they needed to manage the flow.

But Dan and I wanted to get the race done so that we could, the World Cup was on at the time, so we could finish and watch England playing Sweden, I think, in the World Cup.

And so we tried to blag it into an earlier start time, and the start times were, you were identified by having different coloured wristbands that they're giving you.

And so as you're kind of going through the gate where they're checking it, you're going to this pretentive like, oh yeah, it's up here, it's up my sleeve, so I can't quite get it, but I'm moving along with everybody now, I'm kind of showing you that I'm trying.

I'm trying, yeah, I'm with these guys.

This whole charade that you put on, quite fun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, straight through, because they don't care.

Jono Hey:
Nobody really cares.

Do you want to go in?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, of course.

You want to start the race earlier than you should?

Yeah, carry on.

Rob Bell:
Sometimes I find myself doing it if I'm caught short for a wee or something out and about in town, and you're going past a hotel and you think, oh, I'm just going to go in and use the toilets on the ground floor there.

But I go into this big, right, you need to make sure you look confident, that you know where the toilets are when you go in, that you're a guest here.

So you just go in and walk down some corridor, and they're like, oh, God, this is it.

I better try the other way.

Again, nobody cares, right?

Nobody cares.

But Tommy, as I said, I could see you just not caring at all on those kind of things.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Bell:
Not in a bad way.

I'd say it as a positive, I think.

Tom Pellereau:
I wish I could remember stories.

Rob Bell:
Do you know what it is?

I think it's about not sweating the small stuff, and you just being, oh, I haven't got time for this, so just tell me where the toilets are, please.

No, I'm not a guest here.

Tom Pellereau:
Usually, if you're just nice to people, and you sort of give the opinion that you should be where you should be, it's all fine.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
A colleague of mine did a negotiation course, and the first assignment was to get three no's.

So you have to go to some place and just ask for something which is sufficiently outrageous that you get a no.

And I actually haven't tried it, but, funnily enough, you know, a number of people said it was quite hard to get no, they asked for things that they thought they wouldn't get.

And you know, like, can we get a table at this restaurant?

We haven't got a booking or I don't know whatever it was, you know, can I get a free drink for my friend?

And people generally say yes.

But we don't like getting no's normally.

And so I guess the thing was to get used to getting no's.

But yeah, Tom, you're very good at that.

Tom Pellereau:
I do remember a time where I didn't get away with it.

And that was a flight to skiing this boxing day with my wife and my family.

And it turned out that my wife's passport only had six weeks left on it and you need 12 weeks, no, two weeks and you need eight weeks or something.

It was right at the last minute.

And I was like, no, there must be something I can do to try and help this situation.

But the lady was absolutely not having it at all.

And she was doing her job very professionally and properly and she would not let us on despite.

Did you try to flame it?

Jono Hey:
It's just down my sleeve.

Just get down.

Just with those guys.

Tom Pellereau:
Hidden underneath my thumb.

Yeah, there's no flame there.

I think you've just misread that.

It says 2026, not now.

Yeah.

My wife is so organized as well.

And so that was pretty tricky for us and her.

Rob Bell:
Well, at least that's quite good.

You've got that in your back pocket now, just for the next time that you're not quite as organized as you think you should have been, or your wife thinks you should have been.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, the rest of the family couldn't believe that I had the right documentation and she didn't.

Right?

Sorry.

Rob Bell:
I think we all still find that quite hard to believe, Tom.

Tom Pellereau:
Are you sure you've got it the right way around, Tom?

Rob Bell:
I think Sarah's taken a really big hit for you in this story.

Tom Pellereau:
Come on.

Just say it was me.

Yeah, I have left my passport behind at Eurostar before that was a bit of a bang.

Moving on, shall we?

Rob Bell:
Well, there is no VIP area here at Sketchplanations, The Podcast, no laughable velvet rope or private room segregating a couple of tables off in the corner.

Everyone's a big kahuna here.

So make yourself comfortable and we'll get on with the podcast.

Tom Pellereau:
An alarm telling me to record the podcast.

Surely that's a bit late.

Rob Bell:
15 minutes late.

Jono Hey:
Maybe make that 8.15.

Tom Pellereau:
Maybe change that.

Rob Bell:
What were you saying about Sarah normally being really organized and new?

Were you?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

I might change that to...

Jono Hey:
He was here, wasn't he?

Rob Bell:
This week, we tackle the hypothesis of the bystander effect, a social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in the presence of other people.

Now, having actually just said that out loud, I appreciate that it possibly makes this episode sound a bit more bleak than it's intended to be, but I promise you this discussion won't all be about somber scenarios and victims.

We're gonna explore it in a much wider sense.

But before we do, a quick reminder that the sketch we're talking about this episode should be up on your podcast player screens right now for you to share in mine and Tommy's enjoyment of Jono's handiwork.

And if for whatever reason it's not there, just follow the link in the podcast description down below and it'll take you to the sketch at sketchplanations.com.

Also, a massive thank you for your correspondence with us since last week.

We'll be going through some of those at the end of this podcast and do please keep them coming in.

We really enjoy hearing from the wider podcast family and you can get in touch with us via e-mail and the address is hello at sketchplanations.com.

Thank you, Tommy.

Right then, first up, Jono, as we get on to the sketch, can I, before we go any further, take a guess as to what the location depicted in this sketch is based on?

And can I take a punt that it's Waterloo Station in London?

Jono Hey:
That's very good.

Rob Bell:
Is it?

Jono Hey:
It is Waterloo Station.

That's exactly it.

Rob Bell:
Can you see it, Tommy?

Mm, mm, with the billboards above.

Tom Pellereau:
The way you go, the ticket machines.

Rob Bell:
Good.

Now that we've established that, Jono, can you talk us through the bystander effect as you understand it and how you've represented it in your sketch?

Jono Hey:
So the bystander effect is essentially this situation, which we can all probably relate to in some respects, which is that if something's going wrong or if somebody's hurt or something's happening and there are a lot of other people around, then individually we're less likely to help than if we were the only people around or if there were fewer people around.

And so the scenario in the sketch was somebody in Waterloo Station, exactly right, Rob, who's a lady who's on the floor.

She's obviously not feeling well.

She's got a little red squiggle above her head.

And there's this sort of sense, which I wrote at the top, which is like someone really ought to check that she's okay.

But there's loads of people in the station.

And I guess everybody is sort of thinking this was the idea of the sketch that somebody else ought to go check if she's okay, but probably not you is the idea.

I mean, I don't know if you read much into it, but I think I heard of The Bystander Effect a long time ago, again, when I was reading The Tipping Point from Malcolm Gladwell.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And he discusses, I think it got coined after a murder of a lady in New York called Kitty Genovese.

And the headline-

Rob Bell:
Yeah, that's the one I read, yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, the headline in the paper the next day was 37 who saw the murder didn't call the police.

And so since then, there's been a lot of other studies around the bystander effect and it is, it does seem to be a thing that if there are more people around, then we're individually less likely to help.

Rob Bell:
Can you guys think of times when you've experienced that or that you've witnessed it on either end of it, either being a bystander yourself and not being sure whether to step in or whether you, something's happened to you and actually you could have, would have quite liked people to step in but they didn't.

Tom Pellereau:
But what have you got to step up?

Rob Bell:
The king of meta, tell me.

Tom Pellereau:
I can think of a very practical and classic example that actually happened in work very recently, which is where a load of people get emailed about something.

You know, something goes wrong on the website because we've sold out of product, which is a great, you know, on Friday night, a big influencer did a thing about one of our products and we sold out literally on every platform that stocks it within a few hours.

But some people managed to buy from a location where actually they sold out of stock.

So this week on Monday, we're trying to work out what, you know, what to do with those poor customers that have managed to buy and we've sold out and that sort of thing.

And the kind of email goes out to about eight different people, you know, and they're called, what was it Jono, in your example, someone, anyone, no one and that.

And yet, and then it comes to Tuesday morning and it's like, well, who, who's actually like, what's happening with this?

And it's like, because it got emailed to 10 people, I think everyone went, well, it's not quite me, it's them and it's that because it's a problem that falls right in the middle because there's a warehouse, there's a website, there's Amazon, there's Shopify, like it's no one, and actually probably the person whose specific job she went to, she was on a half day sort of thing.

So she may be emailed out saying, and I think we can probably all relate to that of when there's a group email with no set, please Jono, can you do this?

Or Rob, can you do this?

It's very-

Rob Bell:
How effective that one name is.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, and so I think we can probably all relate to that sort of situation where all of us read an email and go, yeah, someone else will.

Rob Bell:
So that is a kind of virtual example of everybody just looking around at each other going, yeah, but by email.

People reading it and going, it's probably not me.

Looking around.

Tom Pellereau:
And then looking at the next email.

Rob Bell:
But that's gone to those people over there as well.

I can see on the CC.

So yes, they'll probably pick that up.

Jono Hey:
That time when you're in a group and you're like, we should really fix a date to meet again.

Rob Bell:
That's the prime example.

Jono Hey:
Anyone could put out some dates right now.

Somebody probably will, any moment.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Okay.

Tom Pellereau:
I must say, we do have a number of friends who often do really step up, you know.

Yeah.

And Pete are both brilliant.

And Pete's done it, I think, this week, last week, where he stepped up and said, we should meet for Christmas, shouldn't we?

We haven't done it for ages.

And here is a poll with some dates.

Whereas if that had been anyone else, it would have all been like, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

You're right.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I feel like the bystander effect, it's always something that makes me maybe like a little uneasy.

It's like it forces a decision on you when you were quite happy not having to decide anything.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Fortunately, I was thinking through and I don't think I've had any serious scenarios where I've had to run in and call the police or somebody's been drowning or something like that.

I just haven't had those, thank goodness.

I have had times where I think, I don't know, if you walk past a homeless person and they might be asleep or they might be drunk or they might be, you're not quite sure how they are.

And I think those kind of things, you're, I always struggle a bit.

You're like, should we stop and check?

You know, nobody else is stopping and checking.

That doesn't matter.

But I think they're okay.

Are they okay?

And you have that sort of question in your mind and it's hard, I feel, and you know, and individually, like, you know, you're never in a position where you're like, oh, I want to drop everything and stop and intervene in this scenario right now.

So it's a difficult one.

I always, yeah, always feel a bit uneasy, you know, to make those decisions just on your regular day.

Rob Bell:
Is it a trait of a kind of more Western culture, do you think, where it's almost polite not to, well, just to keep yourself to yourself, really, is it just to kind of socially accept it and polite just to keep yourself to yourself and get on with your day?

Tom Pellereau:
Good question.

I don't know about Western culture.

I think urban culture.

Rob Bell:
Oh, good.

Yeah, that's a better, thank you.

That's a much better definition.

Tom Pellereau:
In the Tube, I grew up in the countryside and I will never forget the first time I'd come into London and you'd be on the Tube and you'd just feel like you'd be chatting and no one.

Then as you become a commuter yourself, you then get into the, no, no one talks on the Tube.

No matter how you've got your face an inch from somebody else's, it's just how it becomes.

So maybe urban versus rural is an aspect.

Rob Bell:
For me, it's something about avoiding drama because I'm quite happy just avoiding drama in my life.

I think typically I'll just assume that whatever the situation is, it will probably sort itself out and it won't end up being too serious because that is the norm for everyday life.

We don't see emergency scenarios very often, right?

So when they do happen, it's a bit of a shock and you don't really know what to do and you're not expecting it.

Whereas, every day things are just happening and everything's probably just all right because we're conditioned to that, I think, one way or another.

I think I can count definitely on one hand the number of times I've called out emergency services.

Maybe on one finger.

I can't even think of it.

Tom Pellereau:
That was because you told the person to go that way on the slope.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
All right.

Rob Bell:
We're back to that.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Do you know, I had something happened to me on a train once where I fainted on the train.

I don't remember it because I fainted, but I remember feeling quite like something was happening, sat in my seat like, oh, I don't feel very well here.

I don't know what's happening.

So I thought I'd get up and go into the vestibule at the end of the carriage and get a bit of fresh air.

I got up out of my seat, started walking down the aisle and then the next thing I remember was my head was getting hit by the automatic door because I'd gone down, I'd fainted.

People must have seen me, right?

Because I was upright and then bang, it must have made a crash and a bang.

And when I came around, no one was around me, no one, I went back to the eyelet.

Tom Pellereau:
Were there many people around?

Rob Bell:
Yes, it was a full train.

It was a full train.

Tom Pellereau:
And your head was literally, was it between the doors being kind of...

Rob Bell:
It was that, yeah.

Sort of the Simpsons.

It was that.

I mean, it doesn't happen quite as fast as that.

But I woke because the door hit on my head.

And I was just on my hands and knees, kind of getting up.

Oh, what's happened there?

And the one girl who was sat at the end of the carriage, she was right there, right next to me, because I was on my hands and knees.

She looked down at me and she goes, have you been drinking?

No, I think I've just fainted.

Tom Pellereau:
All right.

Rob Bell:
I think I would have probably valued a bit more help.

I was fine.

But I think I just would have valued it.

I was a bit surprised by that, I think.

Jono Hey:
Would you say pour a bottle of water over somebody's head?

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I don't know.

What was I expecting from people?

I don't know.

I don't know.

And maybe people didn't see it.

I don't know, because I don't know exactly what happened, but that was a bit of a surprise.

Yeah.

And then the other time when I, and this is going to turn into, ooh, I was a hero, step two.

You remember this one.

But it's not really, this one's actually, this is actually, I don't know if I include this.

Is this why you chose this?

Yeah, because I've got, I've got so many stories.

It's not the time I was swimming along.

This is not a nice story.

So whether I use it or not, I don't know.

But I was cycling, I was cycling in London once and a cat ran out and I watched it get squashed by a car, but it wasn't dead and it was in, but it was in absolute trouble and there was only one way for it.

But no one was stopping and doing anything to get this dying cat out of the middle of the road.

And I was on my bike, so I stopped.

And I went over to the cat and some, some guy pulled up in his car, goes, stamp on his head, just put it out of his misery, stamp on his head.

I don't want to do that.

So I picked it up and I moved it to the side of the road and then it kind of died in my hands.

But it was like, well, no one else is going to do anything about this.

I'm here and I really kind of care about what's going on here.

I'm going to do something, but I mean, it wasn't much.

I didn't save the cat's life, but I just felt like something has to happen here.

I did feel like there was a lot of pressure on me as the person who had done something or was doing something.

Tom Pellereau:
Were you the closest to it when it happened?

Rob Bell:
Well, I was on my bike, so it was easier to stop rather than hold up traffic and get out of a car.

Anyway, it's a bit of a gruesome story, but...

Jono Hey:
What was the pressure for?

The pressure whether you're doing it right?

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Doing the right thing?

Rob Bell:
Yeah, like what are you going to do now?

You're just outside the road.

What are you going to do now?

It's dying.

I could put it out of its misery, but I really don't want to do that.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, you can see why you might hope that somebody else might jump in and deal with the situation.

Rob Bell:
CPR, I've got it, vet.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I was thinking if I'm on a plane, if you ever get there, is there a doctor on board?

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
Technically, I'm a doctor.

Tom Pellereau:
Dr.

Jono Hey.

Jono Hey:
The person next to me, he's a doctor.

Tom Pellereau:
Doctor of innovation.

Rob Bell:
What we need here is to design a better...

Jono Hey:
Hopefully, that doesn't happen.

Rob Bell:
But when there are more people present around a situation, does it create a diffusion of responsibility?

Tom Pellereau:
Possibly.

You and I have been watching the cricket or trying to enjoy the World Cup cricket recently.

One of the thoughts about why we didn't do so well is because we almost had too many batsmen in our team.

We had seven, eight, nine batsmen many times in our teams.

There's a theory that there was just a kind of, well, if I'm out the next goal, we've got so many batsmen in my team, it doesn't matter.

Whereas a team like South Africa who went in with only five batsmen and literally the batsmen after that really are not, they're very much bowlers.

The pressure is really on those five to make sure they score, so there's not that diffusion of responsibility.

I'm not sure it's correct, but it certainly does think, yeah, maybe that is a theory.

Bess says, well, it doesn't really matter if I get out because there's seven more guys coming through.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
A friend of mine, I think I've mentioned this before, Robbie, said, well, playing football, if you're defending and somebody's trying to come towards you and you're tackling them, he says it's easier if you're one person tackling them than if you're two.

Obviously, it should be harder to get past two people, but he says if there's two people, you're sort of like, oh, have you got it?

Rob Bell:
I got it.

You got it.

Jono Hey:
He'll get it.

Yeah.

And actually do a worse job.

Rob Bell:
That's really interesting.

I hadn't thought about this in the context of sport at all, but you're right.

Jono Hey:
I mean, I think it is.

And it's funny that you talked about the bystander effect this week, because I only recently, as you say, Tom, did that poem.

And I mentioned it in the description for the sketch, because it reminded me of it, which was The Whose Job Is It poem.

Rob Bell:
It is a classic.

Jono Hey:
Is it all right if I read it?

Read it really quick.

Rob Bell:
Let's go do it.

Go for it.

It's brilliant.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

It's also known as the Responsibility poem.

So this is a story about four people named everybody, somebody, anybody and nobody.

There was an important job to be done and everybody was asked to do it.

Everybody was sure somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was everybody's job.

Everybody thought anybody could do it, but nobody realized that everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did what anybody could have done.

It just totally reminds me of that when you're like, I hope somebody else takes responsibility.

It reminds me of our discussion in the accountability ladder.

Taking accountability for something and going, you know what, I'm going to do that.

Like in that poem I mentioned about if there's litter in the street.

Normally, I would pick up litter in the street, but there's definitely situations where there may be, maybe there's a lot of litter, or maybe everybody's walking past this bag that's floating by.

So maybe it's okay to walk past it, of course, it's not.

And then you pick up the bag, and then maybe everybody's looking at you, where's he going to do with the bag?

So even little things.

I think about little things like, oh, it's stuffy on a train, and I hope somebody will open the window.

And it's a bit disruptive to sort of stand up and walk down the dead thing, excuse me.

Do you mind if I open the window?

You know, you'd much rather all just sit there, quietly reading your book.

Rob Bell:
Overheating.

Jono Hey:
Drawing attention to yourself.

Yeah.

So, you know, standing up and doing that, I think, is taking responsibility.

Tom Pellereau:
I find there's also often an opportunity when you first come into a situation to make a change potentially.

But then once you've been in there for a certain amount of time, you kind of almost get trapped in it, and then you start thinking about it too much, and then you just sort of slightly drive yourself mad.

Whereas when you come into a situation, and there is that, oh, it's quite stuffy.

Like it's almost, the next person that comes in might actually open that window.

Whereas the other 20 people who've been in there for five minutes came, God, it's really stuffy in here, won't get the inertia to stand up and actually do something about it.

Rob Bell:
That's a good point, yeah.

The bystander inertia, I think that is probably a valid thing to mention, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
But the accountability ladder, Jono, well done for bringing that up, because it is all, you know, it's our responsibility.

And are you being, what is it, passive or aggressive?

That's not the right term, is it?

Rob Bell:
Very active, accountable, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
And to try to always live your life being accountable.

Rob Bell:
So Tommy, you mentioned earlier about bystander effect in the office with regards to the email.

And looking into this, I started reading about other examples of the bystander effect in the workplace because of hierarchical issues and a culture of hierarchy where maybe junior members of a team or junior employees, because of hierarchy, even though they might have seen something going wrong or had a suggestion to make about how to do things differently to a more senior person, actually are reluctant to say anything because of that respect that they are offering to more senior people.

And so a great idea might be missed or a mistake might be missed.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, a hierarchy or status roles where you think you fit in.

Like, is it your place to go and fix this?

Or is it, you know, because will it reflect on you?

And if you jump in and try and do something, but it's the wrong thing, what will people think?

I think about that like, you know, like I like to think that if I really needed to, I would obviously do it, but like pulling a fire alarm or stopping a train or like, you know, you think somebody's in trouble in the swimming pool.

Do you stop and scream and shout to everybody and everybody stops, you know, that kind of thing.

And you sort of hope that probably it's not a fire and that person is all right in the swimming pool, but like making a massive fuss and drawing all that attention.

Rob Bell:
This is what I was referring to earlier about avoiding drama for the need of it just being drama, because you're like, oh, but what if it isn't?

I've called out the emergency services for no reason.

God, that would be terrible.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, that would be terrible.

I tell you what, having been a personality, having been sort of up on screen and people recognize me, I do find sometimes that gives me license to take charge in certain situations.

Rob, I don't know if you get that at all.

Whereas, he was on The Apprentice, obviously he's going to step forward and lead this task and all that.

And it's almost like I'm accepted as being a leader in some situations because of that, whereas other people who are much better than me at leading it would be like, oh, we'll let him do it.

And it's less embarrassing for me to do it almost because I feel like I can use the apprentice persona as the leader of this task, whereas no one else is stepping forward.

Rob Bell:
I mean, I could only maybe offer up examples of that are very much non-emergency or non-critical situations where, you know, someone needs to say something publicly, like, yes, everyone shut up.

Someone's got something to say here.

I'm okay to do that.

I don't mind doing that.

I don't mind getting a room of people to shut up if that's what's needed, because something's about to start.

Or if something, yeah, if something just needs to be said in a room.

So in the very non-emergency world of public speaking, I'm okay with that.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
I'm very good at it.

Rob Bell:
Or, you know, but I meant, like, impromptu public speaking, because just, yes, like, something needs to happen here, right?

There's a group of people.

It's all rowdy.

And either they need to be ushered through to the next room, or has anybody lost a phone, because we've got it here, but people are just kind of whispering it to the people next to them.

Yeah, I'm okay to do that.

Tom Pellereau:
For the school, I'm always asked to, like, lead the auction or read out the winners or that sort of stuff.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

And do you know what, Tommy?

The world needs more heroes like us.

Jono Hey:
Making a difference.

Rob Bell:
Making a real difference.

Oh, my God.

Talking about those, I mentioned cultural issues earlier on.

I read up about how a national culture's role in cockpit hierarchies in planes has potentially caused problems before.

So this is something Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in his book Outliers.

He wrote a chapter on it called The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes.

So a number of Korean air, there were a number of Korean air disaster in the 90s, and they were investigated quite heavily afterwards for trying to find evidence of junior pilots being reluctant to stand up or to voice concerns over landing operations or whatever it might be to the captain, more senior captain who was in charge at the time.

And within the culture of these pilots flying for Korean air, it was just unheard of that as a more junior pilot, you'd suggest that the more senior pilot might be getting something wrong or they might want to try going around again.

Yeah, Malcolm Gladwell.

So I've got a quote from Malcolm Gladwell about this, saying that Korean air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world for a period at the end of the 1990s.

And when we think of airline crashes, we think, oh, they must have had old planes or they must have had badly trained pilots.

No, says Malcolm.

What they were struggling with was cultural legacy.

But Korean culture in this instance is deeply hierarchical.

Tom Pellereau:
That's what's amazing about aviation and the authorities that kind of take that international learning and kind of put it across the whole lot.

Right.

The aviation is just so safe because of the learnings from situations like that, where they actually unpick it and understand what happened and make changes.

Jono Hey:
Aviation is safer than crossing the road, taking the bus these days.

It's amazing.

Tom Pellereau:
Because it's an international thing.

It's like important that lessons learned in Korea get to Ireland, but all around the globe to help the whole thing.

I think there's a lot of other industries that could benefit from international learnings more.

Jono Hey:
Imagine if I was in Waterloo there, and somebody was hurt, just like in the picture and there's loads of people around, but all the people are children and I'm the only adult.

I would assume that, okay, I'm going to step up and definitely going to help here.

Whereas if there's loads of adults around, maybe some of those things around status and am I doing the right thing?

Do other people here know better than me?

Could other people do a better job than me?

One of these other people will step up.

And so there is a bit of like, I think status and what you think of others and how you think you'll be perceived by others if you were to step in.

Whereas if they're all children, of course, you just do it.

Yeah, I think without question.

So like, yeah, that maybe the airline thing is like, you take that that feeling, but then you put it really specifically in that context.

Rob Bell:
So it's really interesting that you mentioned there about almost like your limitations at like, could other people do a better job here than me?

As like, so what can I offer?

Because in some of the research that I know that you reference in your sketch, Jono, and this is research that was done in 1968 by John Darley and Bibh Latane, some social psychologists.

They carried out a number of experiments, so controlled experiments with staged emergencies and looking at how people went over to help them.

And I think that's where a lot of the, I think this is one of the first, or the first piece of research into the bystander effect.

And so their results showed that 70% of participants helped out when they're on their own, but only 40% helped out when they were with a friend or another stranger.

But what I really enjoyed reading further about this research was the supposed cognitive process that most of us go through when witnessing an incident or an emergency or something like that.

And there were five stages to it.

The first was to notice, actually notice that something is happening.

Secondly, is to interpret the situation.

Is it an emergency or not?

Third was assessing the degree of responsibility that you feel individually.

Then going on to determine the form of assistance that you can offer.

And then finally, it was implementing the action of what it is you've decided that you can offer.

I thought it was really interesting breaking that down as to what most of us will go through in one of these situations, whether that's a conscious process or probably not conscious process.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, can really relate to all of those steps.

Is that something wrong?

Noticing something, deciding if it's worth really thinking about.

Rob Bell:
Intervening, yeah.

Jono Hey:
Worth intervening, deciding whether it's on you to do it or whether maybe there are some officials here anyway because it's a sports event or whatever and it's their job to do it and somebody will be along.

And then thinking, well, actually, can I do anything?

Because obviously maybe that doesn't help at all if you can't actually do anything useful.

Yeah, really, really interesting thinking through that.

Tom Pellereau:
And I must admit, sometimes when I fall or trip or something like that, I sort of just hope no one notices.

So actually, like, you're fine.

So you sort of don't want anyone to come to your aid, if you know what I mean.

And I think sometimes there's a pride aspect with when you get older as well, in the fact that you might have fallen, you're more likely to fall as you get older.

But there's a real, like, I'm not that old, I'm fine.

I'm just sort of getting up.

And maybe it looks like they could really do with help.

And maybe they actually could do with an arm up.

But that would almost damage their pride more than just that hope that no one saw what happened, so to speak.

Jono Hey:
It reminds me of a lot, and I remember the situation, I did a little project, a little homework project on once.

And it was about, like, offering your seat for people, like on the bus or the train.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And you have, you go through all of those steps.

So you've got a seat.

And maybe there's another seat somewhere, but it's hard to get to or something.

And you see somebody and you're like, are they old, are they struggling?

Am I the best person to offer them a seat?

Is somebody else gonna offer them a seat?

If I offer them a seat, how will they take that?

Do they want me to offer them a seat or not?

And I think, in the UK, we did quite well with the things like the baby on board badges.

Yeah.

Because it, and I remember in my assignment, it was before that, I remember thinking there was like some, as it coming on, you might want some way to signal that you would or you wouldn't like a seat.

But I think that's what the baby on board does is it goes, this person would value a seat and you won't be offending them if you offer them a seat.

Because occasionally I've done that, stood up, would you like a seat?

No, no, I'm fine.

How old do you think I am?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
That kind of thing.

And so, but, you know, you see all of that stuff going through your head as to whether or not you're, I find it quite stressful.

Public transport.

Rob Bell:
Again, I think that, I think a lot of that is cultural though.

You know, some other cultures, might not have, there might not be that kind of defiance of, oh, I need help.

Yeah, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Other cultures might be more accepting of, yes, I am older.

You should give me your seat.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
But can you imagine that, the opposite, like walking on, someone give me your seat, please.

I mean, I guess you have to do that.

I mean, I've seen mums-to-be do that.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
It's probably not an easy thing to do.

Rob Bell:
No.

Agreed.

Jono Hey:
Can I point out, when you were talking about the research, I thought you were going to mention, because one of the bits I do mention in the research was, I think, a really nice study, which was one based on CCTV footage of real incidents.

Rob Bell:
Good.

Yes.

I'm glad you're going to talk about this.

So in my view, this is kind of what we talked about previously in research is theoretical staged experiments, whereas now what you're about to talk about is real life.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

I mean, that was a great way to assess this.

So they had CCTV footage of real things that had happened in UK, Netherlands and South Africa, I think.

Rob Bell:
That was it.

Jono Hey:
And they essentially assessed, like not whether or not someone was likely to help, but they would, if there were more people, were you, as someone who was in trouble, more likely to get help from somebody at all?

And what they found, which is in a reassuring situation, was that, I think, in nine out of ten public conflicts, at least one person came to help, which is reassuring, that, you know, although lots of people might be standing around going, I hope that somebody goes to help, if there are more people, you probably will get help as an individual.

Rob Bell:
Which, logically, if you just think of it at base levels, well, that makes sense, yeah.

There are more people here, so you're more likely to get...

But it does kind of contrast what the theoretical research hypothesises.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, with the background of the bystander effect, you can see why they went to look into it.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Well, and I remember, obviously, I did hear about this when I read Gladwell a long time ago, but I do distinctly remember, and I can't remember who it was, somebody telling me, because they were in a vehicle accident.

And I think it was a professor in a class I was taking.

And it wasn't about this at all.

But they said, the other people in the other car might have been hurt.

They were hurt.

And what they did was point at somebody and said, you call the police and call an ambulance right now.

And it's so easy in those situations to assume that somebody is going to call an ambulance.

So you said like, that's why I think there wasn't a lecture about this at all.

But they said, I'm telling you this, because it might save your life one day.

If you're in trouble, point, select somebody and say, well, you're giving them responsibility to make the call.

Even if they can't do it, they will find somebody to do it.

Tom Pellereau:
And in my example earlier in the work context, don't email everybody, someone and whoever.

Write it to Richard or Jenny or Susan, and maybe write it privately without, and quite often I don't put lots of people underneath.

You're just like, I'm writing this to you, and I know that if I write it just to you, then there is an obligation there.

As opposed to if you write it to lots of people, often it won't happen at all.

Rob Bell:
And if you want to meet up with your friends, be the person who puts out at least two or three dates, and get something started rather than the, oh yeah, we should get a date in the diary.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Oh, good, solid learnings.

Tom Pellereau:
I can't wait till AI sort that out, I really can't.

And you just go, AI, can you look at our diaries and give us some dates?

It's going to be brilliant.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, but sometimes you avoid giving a date because you're like, yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
But also, obviously, you've got to train the AI to be like, if I say it when I'm in the content, when I'm with Rob, you know, obviously, you know, carefully.

Rob Bell:
Let's push this down the road a bit.

Jono Hey:
I booked another meeting with that person and you don't want to meet.

Stop doing this, AI.

Rob Bell:
I knew this would be the death of me.

Jono Hey:
Rob's on the phone having a fake conversation.

Tom Pellereau:
And the phone goes, Rob, who are you talking to?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, no, I do.

I was thinking about, as I was thinking about the bystander, I was thinking, I admire people who are the ones who, you know, step up in those public situations.

And it might be just putting up dates for a meeting, but it also might be like, you know, somebody's passing out on the train, like yourself, Rob, and who are the ones who step up and say, is there a doctor around or, you know, say, we need to get some help?

Could someone get some help?

Yeah, and actually sit down and do it.

And I do admire those people, aspire to be that as much as possible.

Rob Bell:
And this comes down to leadership, right?

And a good friend of mine is a fireman and very senior paramedic.

And I mean, he goes out to some incredible incidents that are very much not everyday life.

So, you know, some nasty accidents.

And I met up with him a few weeks ago.

And I was just asking him, so I'm always really interested about what he does.

And he was just talking very casually, just telling me how he turned up to this one incident.

And there were a lot of injured people there.

And as the most senior person there, he knew that as he was getting there in the car, he knew that, right, when I get out here, I need to take ownership, take responsibility, and lead this situation, because there are a lot of more junior paramedics here who might be quite flustered.

So I know what I'm about to see is gonna be quite shocking to me, but I need to get over that and start directing people and show confidence and take responsibility.

And he said it was a really conscious process that he went through in the car before getting out and doing that.

But he knew immediately that a lot of people there really benefited from that, benefited from someone saying, yep, I'm in charge.

This is how we're doing things.

Jono Hey:
Reminds me of all the children in Waterloo Station, you see.

He was arriving and took charge.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

It's Jono in Waterloo Station, surrounded by some reason by 200 kids.

You're just running around screaming.

Tom Pellereau:
And maybe that's a, like, there are people who are incredible at taking leadership roles in situations, but also it is something that any of us can do.

So we could all be in this situation tomorrow, tonight, whoever knows, hopefully never, but we can all be the leader that the situation needs us to be.

Rob Bell:
So what's the takeaway from this, based on what you've just said there, Tommy?

I mean, do we all need to just be on the lookout a bit more for times when we should be stepping up and taking leadership rather than kind of living a slightly more passive life?

Tom Pellereau:
Always.

It's that accountability ladder.

Always be accountable.

Always be holding yourself to be doing the best that you can do in this moment.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I mean, I think we're all one community, right?

And so we all play a part in everything working well.

And just like you said, like you wish that where you pass out in the train, that somebody will come and help you.

You have to do that in reverse.

And if anything, you see something that can be better.

You have to step up and do it.

I think it's probably it's not easy.

I was thinking a really a milder example.

Actually, one of my more shared sketches was Ask The Question At Talks.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's kind of a dumb example.

But yeah, it's like, you know, you're sat there in the room and you have the idea that everybody in the audience doesn't probably know what the speaker has said, but nobody's asking.

So you take it upon you, ask that question, and you know, ask that stupid question.

Obviously, that's a small one, but you want it to happen in situations big and small.

If everybody was doing this, then we could, you know, that poem wouldn't be a thing, would it?

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I'll tell you what, then.

So two, two bits of homework this week, guys.

One, be more aware, be ready to be noticing stuff and ready to step up.

And I'd love it if we all tried to go out and get three nos as well and come back and compare how well or how badly that went.

Jono Hey:
Go get a free milkshake at McDonald's.

Rob Bell:
Just don't get punched.

Otherwise you will be looking out for bystanders needing to come and help you.

Jono Hey:
Come and help you.

I'm not helping him.

He's an idiot.

Rob Bell:
Just ask for a free milkshake.

Any other business on the bystander effect?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, could I borrow your car tomorrow?

Rob Bell:
Is that possible?

What?

Are you trying to leverage something that we're talking about?

Jono Hey:
I'm sure it's fine if you borrow Rob's car, Tom.

Tom Pellereau:
I've got to go and get it, though.

Hang on, that doesn't work.

Rob Bell:
I'm not going to say no, but I'm going to make it really difficult.

Jono Hey:
Be like you said with the public speaking, like, you know, you can get the room to quiet down.

There are times where you're like, you know that this needs to be done.

You know that you could do it.

But you're like, please, can somebody else just do it for once?

I've been doing it all this time or I led the last 10.

Can somebody else, please?

I'm not stepping in because somebody else has to now.

I don't know.

Rob Bell:
Do you know a good example, actually?

Right.

Can someone volunteer to take minutes for this meeting, please?

Heads down.

Heads down at your notes.

Jono Hey:
Did he say something?

Rob Bell:
I didn't.

I'll go on mute and pretend like someone's talking to you off the camera in a Zoom call.

Jono Hey:
You can pick up your pen off the floor.

I've got a phone call.

Rob Bell:
But you know that it's going to come around to you at some point, right?

If this is like a monthly meeting or whatever.

Jono Hey:
How many minutes have I managed to avoid taking?

Tom Pellereau:
Although being the minute taker is usually pretty beneficial because you can decide basically what happened.

Jono Hey:
We all decided, do you want to get an extra milkshake?

We get to reuse Rob's car.

He said it's fine.

Rob Bell:
And then when you put the minutes out to be confirmed, you go, yeah, if you could all just look at this, that'd be great.

No one will.

Yeah, someone will pick that up.

Yeah, somebody will check it.

Jono Hey:
Do you actually have that feeling with terms and conditions and privacy?

Not.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Privacy policies, to some degree, with large companies.

You're kind of like, well, if there's something wrong in here, we'd heard somebody would have said so.

But it's not me.

Like, am I going to be the one calling out Apple's terms of service for their next operating system improvement?

You know, you just go, I think somebody will do that.

Rob Bell:
But you're right.

It's that you, at that point where you can just scroll through and hit accept, you are absolutely handing over all responsibility for what's in that to somebody else, someone, somebody somewhere.

Jono Hey:
Taylor Swift took on Apple Music, right?

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
But that's an amazing example of not by standing.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
And I'm actually always a lot of respect for people who like, depending if you care about it, like other ones who organize the petitions.

It's so easy to go, oh, I can't believe they're doing that.

Somebody should really let them know that we don't think this is a good idea.

But somebody has to do that.

So respect to the people who do.

Rob Bell:
All right, then.

I'm gonna call proceedings on the Bystander Effect episode to a close.

Thank you all very much for listening.

And as a likely lone bystander to this podcast in your present vicinity, as we've just discussed, there's nobody else here right now but you.

So you need to take some form of social responsibility.

And I'm gonna suggest that you do that by adhering to the academic research and take action.

By giving us a five-star rating or by telling your friends and family about the podcast or by getting in touch about your experiences with the bystander effect by emailing us on hello at sketchplanations.com so we can go through that next week.

We'll be back in just a tick with last week's correspondence, but for now, go well and stay well.

Cheerio.

And it's Jono and I back to go through some listener comments and listener messages that have been sent in.

Not specifically related to human risk, but James has sent us a message via the website, sketchplanations.com/podcast, saying, hi Jono and team.

I wanted to say hi, how much I love Sketchplanations.

We all do.

But he's been trying to remember the syndrome slash law slash rule when a project launches, and we're all giddy and it builds traction.

Then it gets bogged down in detail, lacks progress, and it's no longer fun and becomes a chore.

I know there's the trough of disillusionment, but it's more when a project becomes complex and just hard.

Have you come across this syndrome slash law slash rule, or did I just dream it?

Jono, what do we think on this?

Because you have touched on so many different aspects of your professional life through your Sketchplanations.

Do you recognize something in James' message here?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, good question.

You know what, I recognize loads, but as to James, whether there's the particular one you're thinking about, I'm not sure.

The one that you mentioned about trough of disillusionment, I did do a sketch of, and that's always, it is a really good one, which is something called the Gartner Hype Cycle, which is about the evolution of expectations of new technologies.

And you have essentially like a trigger where there's a new technology comes in, and then everybody, there's what's called peak of inflated expectations, and everybody's really excited about this.

And then as you go along a bit, you go away, like down again to the trough of disillusionment, and then it goes back up across the slope of enlightenment and the plateau of productivity, which if you think about it, is quite similar to what happened with AI in the sense that people talked about AI.

There's another sketch with the long nose of innovation a long time ago.

And people were jotting down.

Rob Bell:
I'm just jotting down all these sketches that Jono mentioned, because I will include them in the list of comments, so you can click on them and have a little look if you want.

Sorry, carry on.

Jono Hey:
It's that idea that people were really excited about the prospect of what this is going to be able to do when we get computers churning off all this stuff.

And then it turned out to be really hard.

And you could get them beating people at chess, but you couldn't get them to do useful things.

And then since then, we've come up a long, slow road.

And now they're really useful, obviously.

So anyway, that's the Trophies of Disillusionment, which I'm sure James already knows.

There's also, I was thinking, I've got a few others which have this basic pattern, right?

And there's a really popular one, which I really like, called the Learning Pit, which is, as you would imagine, about the challenges for learners learning.

So you're like, okay, brilliant, I'm accepting this challenge, I'm excited about it.

And then basically you slide into this pit where you go, this is much harder than I thought.

I don't really get it.

And then you have the sort of a realisation where you're like, oh, wait a second, I can make progress on this.

And then you get to the point at the top.

So you come out the pit on the other side a bit higher, which is also very similar.

Rob Bell:
And that's really important to, well, I get, not important necessarily.

It could be really helpful to understand and acknowledge as both a learner and a teacher, right?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

That, you know, there might be a lot of enthusiasm.

And actually, usually it's like we overestimate how easy something is going to be at the start.

And it turns out to be a lot harder than we expected, and which is why people are going to end up in this pit and you have to help them out of it.

Rob Bell:
Does that also link to optimism bias?

Jono Hey:
Yes, it also links to, it's a sketch, which I actually did for the book, but never, it didn't make it in from a space requirement, which is something really popular, well-known phenomena called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which also has that same pattern in like the classic, sort of somewhat contrived chart that people draw about it, which is this, if you know a bit, you have this what's got a peak of Mount Stupid, and you're like, oh yeah, I can do this, this is gonna be easy, and then you get stuck into it, and then it drops down into like the Valley of Despair or something before coming out, as you actually figure out how to do it.

And so that's another one which follows this, the same kind of pattern, peak trough and so on.

We used to do, when we did projects consulting in the States, we used to have a chart that we show clients at the beginning of a project called the Project Roller Coaster, which is exactly the same as you have this kick off, you're already excited and then it sort of, the rubber meets the road and it gets quite hard.

Rob Bell:
It gets hard, yeah.

Jono Hey:
And you're like, okay, how are we going to do this?

And you will pull out, but yeah, that roller coaster sort of metaphor definitely, definitely keeps coming around.

Rob Bell:
I'm laughing somewhat because in researching topics before we come online and record an episode about it, my first port of call is obviously the sketch and anything that you've linked to or referenced in your captions under the sketches.

And so I'll go off and do a bit of reading.

And typically I reckon I'll probably read five, six, seven different articles or websites about it.

And I come away and I feel at that point, I feel on top of the world, but I feel like I'm on top of Everest.

But yeah, in reality, I am at the peak of Mount Stupid because I feel like I know loads about this.

I've read six or seven online articles.

I haven't written any of that or researched it.

I've just read some stuff.

That was what's making me giggle there.

I think the peak of Mount Stupid is somewhere I inhabit quite a lot in my professional and personal life.

Yeah, yeah.

Jono Hey:
And it's a challenge because it's so easy to get drawn into like, okay, now I get it.

I can do this.

I'm dangerous.

And the more that people learn about it, you might actually become more humble that you find it is more complex than you originally thought.

And so those people are often apt to not underestimate, but undersell how much they know about a topic because they realize how complex it is as opposed to people who only know a little and shout about, which has some challenges in places like politics and stuff like that.

Yes.

Rob Bell:
But you know, the air is thin up there and you get a bit giddy.

Jono Hey:
You do indeed.

You do indeed.

Remember, I've mentioned it before, but one of my favorite laws was Hofstadter's Law, which is it always takes longer than you expect, even when you account for Hofstadter's Law.

Rob Bell:
I love that.

Jono Hey:
And I think that's one, this when you're in the pit, in the bottom, is when you're realizing the full extent of Hofstadter's Law.

Rob Bell:
Oh, there we go, what a round the world tour.

Jono Hey:
Except I haven't answered James' question.

Sorry about that, James.

Rob Bell:
No, but hopefully we've given James enough sketches to go into and maybe, you know, climb his way up, his own way up to the top of Mount St.

Or maybe he's very well-versed in all of this already.

We don't know.

Let us know, James.

Jono Hey:
Can I share also, I was thinking back to the human risk episode with Christian Hummer.

I just want to put a plug out there for you.

Christian mentioned it very, very briefly, sort of offhandedly about the ways people make silly mistakes.

And he talked about this lawyer who went on a Zoom conference with a cat filter on.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And I do remember hearing about it at the time.

And I looked at it back in the pandemic days when all the legal stuff was going online.

Everything was on Zoom.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
You should type in like lawyer, cat filter and just watch the little video of it.

It's about a minute, but it made me laugh again.

It's really good.

Rob Bell:
I will also include that in the, I will include the link to that in listener comments for this episode.

Jono, thank you.

I think we'll leave it there for now.

Guys, keep your comments and messages and questions.

This has turned into a question time for Jono.

Keep all of your correspondents coming in.

We'd love to hear from you and thanks again for listening.

We'll see you next time.

Bye for now.

Music on this podcast series is provided by the wonderfully talented and incredibly charming Franc Cinelli.

And you can find loads more tracks at frankcinelli.com.