Greg Jenner

Exact opposite problem.

Their fear was that women would gossip on the phones and men couldn't do business, Catherine.

I mean, Ewan, actually, the operators, they had the power to just end a call, right?

They could say, sorry, someone needs a line.

Yes, they could indeed.

Yes.

I believe so.

The operators would be able to hear what was happening, right?

So they would interject into your conversation.

Just going back to those anxieties, Catherine, just very quickly.

I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?

We once again have a lot of anxieties about the phone, about etiquette, about how it's changing young people, et cetera, et cetera.

It's interesting how new technologies scare us.

And in France, the great fear is that women are having literally oral sex on the phone.

That is the big number one concern is that women will cheat on their husbands on the phone.

That's a peak French concern.

I love that.

By the Edwardian era, by the early 1900s, Johan, is the novelty of the phone wearing off or is it an exponential uptake?

more and more of the country are getting hooked up through telephone networks.

And, I mean, by the 1920s, 40% of American houses had a telephone, which is remarkable in the 1920s.