I was recently talking to a friend who’d been listening to my Drabbletober podcast (oh, hey, I have a podcast, did I mention? It had daily microfiction episodes every day in October, and will have bonus oddments if you stay subscribed.)

His main complaint was that I made the intro section 26 seconds long. Did I? I hadn’t even realised. Why on earth was he timing how long it takes me to play a few chords, introduce the episode, and tell you who I am?

If you’re a regular podcast listener, the answer may be obvious: your standard podcast player comes equipped with a “skip” button which skips forwards 30 seconds. So, when he skipped the intro, he also missed the very beginning of the actual story and, as a result, had to define a custom skip button - just for my podcast - that skipped forwards 26 seconds.

I am honoured, naturally. But also a bit bewildered. Because I listen to plenty of podcasts that have formulaic or repetitive sections and I never skip them. I find them welcoming, and comforting. Maybe I was led astray at an impressionable age by the “are you sitting comfortably?” and “today we’re going through the round window” of late-70s media, but I bloody love a good bit of repetition.

I’m always pleased to hear that the Elves are sitting round a table with their four favourite facts. I am not ready for an episode of The Modern Mann until Ollie has said “let’s go”. Frankly, Roman Mars moved his offices to “beautiful, uptown, Oakland, CA” - and thus changed his outro - several years ago, and I’m still not over it. Set up a bit of audio-furniture somewhere in your podcast, which you repeat every episode, and I’ll love you for it.

I like repetition in written fiction, too. The rather dated Just So Stories were a favourite with me as a kid. A story can easily get me on-side just by borrowing a device from one of those stories - something which is employed excellently by Seanan McGuire’s How the Maine Coon Cat Learned to Love the Sea. Someone mentioned Kate Atkinson’s brilliant Emotionally Weird the other day, and my first thought was the line that comes up over and over again, the way one character describes the cast of the book: we are as jumbled as a box of biscuits.

Do I love all forms of repetition? Of course not (and those podcasts that play the same custom ad at you three times in one episode drive me up the wall, too). The “repeat until funny” formula of many sitcoms largely leaves me cold. I would say “no one wants to hear the same thing too many times” - but I guess the devil is in the detail of how many times constitutes too many.

But, y’know, that’s why podcast players have skip buttons. I’ll just carry on not using mine.

(The link to the Seanan McGuire story goes to a free-to-read version in Uncanny magazine, and you really should follow it, especially if you like Just So Stories. Or cats.)

(If the subject line is bugging you… it’s a misquote of Hot Chip.)