Off Air... with Jane and Fi - 1000-mile journey - with Michael Palin

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Jane and Fi talk to comedian, writer, actor, presenter, and seasoned traveller Sir Michael Palin about his 1000 mile journey down the River Tigris. His journey took him from Turkey and through Iraq, and has been documented in his new book. 'Into Iraq' is available now.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Emma SherryTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Off Air with me Jane Garvey. That was very unfair because I was out of the room. I'm Jane Garvey and she's still Fee Glover. I just wanted to get something. It's the way you say it. Okay, how are you? I think we're a bit, can we be honest? We're a bit tetchy Tuesday. It was tetchy Tuesday in the office. There was a bit of a, it was one of those, you know when you walk into a space and, well, there was just a bit of, just one of those. Anyway, things have gone on, obviously not involving either of us, actually. Yeah, I felt it too. I think they've been a bit of, just one of those. Anyway, things have gone on, obviously, not involving either of us, actually. Yeah, I felt it too.

I think they've been a bit of a kerfuffle. Interesting. Yeah. We're too new to be able to ask anybody what's going on, aren't we? That's office life, though, isn't it? I mean, I've never worked anywhere where there weren't kerfuffles. And back in the day, sometimes the atmosphere at various places I've worked could be verging on the poisonous,

if so-and-so wasn't happy with the way somebody else had manhandled the printer or just occupied it for too long, that sort of thing. There's a lot of that going on. We just had feathers and petals strewn our way in all of the offices I've worked in. Normally. If you do want to contribute with your own office-tetchiness, you can do so.

Jane and Fee at times.radio good idea because there are or particularly staff rooms i imagine as well oh my goodness we used to have a smoking room back in the day at the first london radio station i worked at and that tells you how long ago it was and it was just dens of iniquity why well that always suggests that people who smoke are more interesting than lifelong non-smokers, and I refuse to believe that. Oh, okay. Open to discussion. No, there's nothing particularly interesting about smokers, but

I think it's just the time that you spend. I think some smokers think they're more interesting. Yes, but also it's the time that you spend not actually doing anything, so you do have to vaguely make conversation. But they're terrible things, smoking rooms. I look back on them and just think, really? Really? The fact that people could smoke on the underground,

smoke in restaurants, I mean, it's just the top deck of the bus. Oh, my good God. Can you imagine? But I'm back to my thing about staff rooms. I was always, you know, when you were at school and you used to sometimes take something to the staff room. Did you ever do that? I sometimes was in a position of very minor authority and I'd have to go and deliver something to the staff room. Do you ever do that? I sometimes was in a position of very minor authority

and I'd have to go and deliver something to the staff room. What would it be? Oh, I don't know. A book, something of that nature. And you'd knock on the door and it would always be a very adult and intriguing world because you'd see the... Oh, you'd have a sly glance.

Yeah, the games mistress would be sitting on the arm of the chair occupied by the chemistry teacher and you'd think oh hello what's going on there did your school have a staff room that had kind of normal sitting room furniture in it i think there was a sofa and i mean i didn't go in regularly i wasn't actually a member of staff i should say um no there was sort of those low chairs. The sort of chairs now I'd struggle to get out of, to be perfectly honest. But I always remember thinking it was very, very odd, you know, in a school where every single chair and table and desk was the same,

that there was this room that had soft furnishings in it. It seemed ever so wrong. Well, if you've ever been in a staff room and it's been a special place for you, perhaps it's where you met the love of your life. Let us know. But they should have soft furnishings. By the way, the PE teacher did marry the chemistry teacher. Oh. Yeah.

I know, we were scandalised. Partly, I think, because we thought all the teachers were about 84. But also, I think probably we shouldn't throw too many stones. Have you ever met and married someone at work, Jane? Oh, shut up. So have I.

OK, now. Right, come on. Let's just do something. Our guest today was such a nice man, wasn't he? And sometimes people live up to expectations. Not always, in my experience, but sometimes. And it was Michael Palin today. How would you describe Michael Palin?

Well, I think he genuinely deserves the title of National Treasure. You and I don't necessarily find his comedy, his early comedy, the funniest comedy on the planet. Well, we didn't actually get on to Monty Python, but we did agree earlier in the day that neither of us found any of it remotely funny, except I said, I thought in the life of Brian, I'm not sure whether you got to work but that bit about the Judean people's front and the people's front of Judea did make me laugh. Yeah that might have a tiny

bit of merit but a lot of it I think I laughed at because I felt that I was with people who found it funny and I should and then you look back and you just think no I never found that funny at all. Well I want, you know at the cinema where it's all coming back to me now when they show a short film before the feature film those are the days yeah and i used to go to the cinema all the time as a kid because there wasn't a great deal to do and i loved going

to the crosby classic um and there was a short film a monty python film called gateway to balum and i've seen that have you seen i had no idea that it was supposed to be funny. I thought that somebody had just made a feature film, a short film, an instructional film, about a part of London that was worth exploring. Do you know what, Jane? I sat through it. It was about 15 minutes long. I didn't crack a smile even.

No idea. You have missed a rare opportunity in your life to genuinely belly laugh at people from the South. Oh, well, I did miss miss it you're quite right i just mystified tonight i'll go back and find that pour yourself a nice glass of something and chortle your way through okay anyway look michael yes michael palin was here today he was in to talk about a book and a travel series that he has done. The travel series is three documentaries on Channel 5 and the book is all about Iraq.

And he takes a trip down one of the rivers in Iraq, the Euphrates, and meets so many interesting people. It wasn't the Euphrates. Which was it? The Tigris. He takes a trip down the Tigris. I really enjoyed doing that. I know, you got it in front of me. It wasn't the Euphrates. He took a trip down the length of the

River Tigris from Turkey all the way through Iraq. And he's just got a way about him, hasn't he? So when he meets people, he manages to get them to be themselves, actually, and just tell you interesting things. Yeah, he's a very, very genuine and rather lovely gentleman. And we started by asking him where he started his journey and why. Well, why was a combination of reasons. One is that being with a team to North Korea, and we built up a good bond between us, a very good team. They got some very good footage. And we all felt a sense of achievement at going to somewhere

that most people didn't go to and asking questions, which is really what travel's all about. I think going to the same places with the same people each time is not quite what I want to do. So we broke out with North Korea. Where else can we go that people don't want to go to? And, you know, that's a bit flippant, but Iraq came fairly top of the list.

But more seriously, I felt here's a country which for the last 20 or 30 years has just had bad news coming out. Violence, killings, wars, civil wars, awful, awful sort of tortures and stuff. And I wanted to know how a country like that has survived all that time. Because people have to, you know, families have to be brought up, children have to go to school. You know, people have got to get on with life. So I wanted to find out how Iraq had survived the awfulness, real awfulness, and also the other side of it was the irony

of the fact that the world's first cities and the first civilisations in the world were created in Iraq. So its history is 4,000 or 5,000 years old. So it is the crucible of human life, isn't it? And some of the buildings there, I mean, I confess my ignorance, I didn't realise Babylon was in Iraq. No, well, it is, I can assure you that. That's one thing I do know.

Yeah, no, Babylon's in Iraq. A lot of the places in the Bible are in Iraq. You know, the Garden of Eden is in Iraq. And rather disappointing that was too. There was a little sign saying, this is the site of the Garden of Eden is in Iraq and rather disappointing that was too there was little signs saying this is the site of the Garden of Eden and there was a tree which is a tree not the actual tree the knowledge of good and evil but it's the second it's the son of that tree and it's just in a concrete plinth somewhere and when we went to the site of the Garden of Eden they have a little gift shop there and on the on the shelf were four Santa Clauses sitting there

and I thought, this is bizarre. This is a cultural mix I'm not ready for. You couldn't buy any temptation? No, no. Temptation was off me. Yeah, we'll talk about women actually in Iraq in a couple of moments' time. And you met people who had incredible hope

and optimism and positivity but i do notice in the book that uh that you do make sure that the reader knows that you know that's not the kind of you know the go-to for everybody it is still a country really scarred by what happened to it well it's it's a partly militarized country still you know everywhere you go there are roadblocks you go miles, there may be three roadblocks with armed police will stop you and want to see your passes. And when they see your passes, they ignore them and put you in a side sort of parking space

for half an hour and off you go again. So there's very much the feeling that the war could start again, is still going on. And yet, you know, even in the midst of war there's tremendous resilience and optimism and the one thing that really struck me was meeting children young children when I was in the old city of Mosul which is a beautiful part of of a beautiful once beautiful city which has actually been blown to pieces and this is just piles of rubble yet in amongst those children suddenly appeared.

And they weren't sort of angry children. They weren't resentful. They didn't want my pity or my tears. They just wanted to welcome me and say, we're OK. We've dealt with this. Come and see my mum. There's one house still existing there. We can get you some food and things like that.

And I was very, very moved by that because I was, in my rather condescending way, thinking I must come there and pat them on the head and say how sorry I am. They were patting me on the head, saying, come on, don't be so soft. Yeah, excellent. Stop weeping.

Had they met many foreigners before or any? Apart from, I suspect, military. Not many. Military and I suppose there were NGOs had been there from various charitable groups. And we saw one group going by, and they were rather sort of being taken through and nodding as if they were being given a lesson on what had happened.

Whereas with us, and we've got a brilliant cameraman and a sound man, we just went in amongst the place and just said, well, let's see what happens. And I wanted to speak to the people themselves, not to look at a form which says this is what happened to them. And now it's often the case that Britain has a part to play in countries like Iraq. And the creation of the state of Iraq was a British creation, wasn't it?

Yes, it was. I mean, it was the end of the Ottoman Empire and the First World War. There was a lot of land ruled by the Ottomans that had to be divided up. And the British and the French, being the statesmen of the time, they were the ones who carved it up.

And the French took Syria and the British took Iraq and immediately set about trying to find oil, which was really why it was so important to get miles and miles of empty desert, was because there might be oil under there. And, of course, they discovered the oil. And then Iraq was virtually run by the oil companies and being stalled a king and he got murdered.

And so it went on and then Saddam Hussein popped up. A friend of the British at the beginning, one has to remember these things. History is not absolutely absolutely sort of clear set of logical progressions at all. And Saddam Hussein's really evil vanity is still all over Iraq, isn't it? I wondered why so many of his palaces haven't been destroyed, haven't been knocked down. I mean, they're ghastly in their splendour, aren't they? Yeah, I mean, a lot of them have been very severely damaged. There aren't many that are intact.

And I don't think anyone knows quite what to do with them. I mean, they had to put them out of action by sort of blasting the walls and all that, making sure militia groups couldn't use them to fire outside. But they're not absolutely flattened. Yeah, but they're in such beautiful places, aren't they, looking out over the Freighties? They're in Tikrit, which is one of the saddest places I've been to, because that was his hometown.

And he just built palaces not just for himself but for his friends. You know, oh, look at your palace. And they're all looking over the river there. And we met this militia group there who were rather stern people, a sheer militia group, and we said we'd like to see inside some of the palaces, see what was left. And they said, no, we don't want you to do that. We want you to tell the story of a massacre that happened.

And they said, no, we don't want you to do that. We want you to tell the story of a massacre that happened. And indeed, by the river there, something which I'd forgotten all about, there were some sheer cadets, about 1,700 of them, were massacred by a sunny group in 2014, just shot and pushed into the river. So, I mean, you know, that's a wrap for you.

It takes your breath away. One moment you see that, the next moment you're in a quite comfortable hotel. Very strange. Fi mentioned the women, or rather, actually, as you point out in the book yourself, the absence of women in the public space in Iraq. You do seek out women, I should say, and you interview at least a couple during the series of the programmes. But it's very hard to be able to do that in that culture, it would seem.

It is very difficult. I mean, you've got to find women who are taking a bit of a risk in wanting to be independent, perhaps not wearing the veil, whatever, wanting to go into business, wanting to go into politics. Generally speaking, women are kept out of the way. And the most extraordinary example of that was we went to see a farmer and he told us about the dreadful drought out there. But he was a lovely man, took us back to his house

and his sons were both doctors, a quite educated family. Beautiful spread on the floor. It did look lovely. It was terrific. We all sat there. A lot of food though, Michael, if I may say so. I hope that didn't go to waste. Did you take it away in some Tupperware boxes? It looked lovely. It was terrific. We all sat there. A lot of food, though, Michael. If I may say so. I hope that didn't go to waste.

Did you take it away in some Tupperware boxes? I left that to the director to decide what to do. They always like to do close-ups of the food at the end. But, I mean, the great thing was that it was a wonderful meal and we said to the farmer, you know, please, who made this meal? And he said, my daughter, my wife and my daughter-in-law. And we said, well, we'd really like to thank them because this is terrific.

May we thank them? And he said, yes. And that was it. We never saw them. Right. They were never introduced to us at all. And I thought that was kind of odd. There was no fear there or anything like that.

They were quite an educated family. But even there, there was an embarrassment about the women, perhaps because we were a film crew or something like that, meeting foreigners. And did you have to go as an all-male crew? No, I don't think we were an all-male crew, but I don't think that was a condition of it. There's quite a nice atmosphere in Iraq,

being able to speak your mind. And having been to North Korea for three weeks, that was rather a wonderful relief. And there were, you know, in Baghdad, there were these poets on the banks of the Tigris River doing sort of satirical poems for a crowd of young men. I was surprised about that, that that is perfectly allowed. Yes, and we talked to one or two people,

including our very cosmopolitan fixer, and they were unanimous in saying the government is absolutely rubbish. And they were able to say that. No one came and arrested them or anything. And was it that lovely fixer who made the point about how much he had been annoyed at the anti-war demonstrations in the UK? He had been like, no, stop it. You know, you don't understand.

We want to be liberated. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to make an assumption about your politics at all, Michael, but were you, did you have anti-war sentiments yourself? I am full of anti-war sentiments. I can't think of a point of war at all. But I know that's rather vague and simplistic. But of course I was against it.

But then when you meet a lovely guy like that who is thoughtful and intelligent, it's really important, isn't it, to understand a different perspective? Yes, I think so. But I think there are ways and ways of dealing with what Saddam represented. You don't necessarily have to have a full-scale invasion.

And this was the problem. If you get rid of Saddam, okay, that would be fine and neat and tidy. Everything would have settled down. But to invade the country and then have to rebuild the country, which you didn't understand in any shape or form, that seems to me the real problem about that war. It was what happened afterwards, not the removal of Saddam Hussein. And Saddam Hussein was without doubt a very nasty piece of work.

That is Michael Palin, of course, speaking to us a little earlier today. And you can hear the rest of our chat in a moment. Michael Palin was our guest this afternoon. We continued our conversation asking how he feels about travelling the world now because of that difficult balance between climate change and expanding our horizons. Well, I'm afraid I would say, well, it is a circle I can square because that's what I can do. And I've been able to perhaps inform people about the world and other countries

and what they think and their expectations by being actually able to go to those countries. I mean, if I could go by ship, but even then, you know, ships are fairly poisonous to the atmosphere as well. I think there's no question that when you travel, you're going to be using up a bit of carbon. But I think in my particular case, I feel it's really important to go to the country itself

if you really want to find out what's going on. It's always very different to what you hear from the media back home. And is the style of travel show, the traditional style of travel show, which is done by venerable white chaps, is that still OK? Venerable white chaps. She said, gazing with reverence at a Venerable White Chap. I'll take the Venerable bit, that's fine. Well, I think anybody who's

got anything to say about the world should be considered to say their piece. And if they can deliver good ideas, good opinions, good insights about the world, whoever they are, man, woman, child, whatever, race, child, whatever, race, colour, they should be able to do it and should be encouraged to do it. I think it is important to have a range of opinions and deliberately

go out for that. I think the most important thing is to get people who are good, who know what they're talking about. I'm afraid I just don't think getting in people for the sake of whatever their view might be. Their current popularity, yes. Yeah, well, you know, you've got to know your stuff, I think. But I watched some of your revisits of your travels

around the world in 80 days that you did during the lockdown. It was us watching you watching you. Very meta. Yeah, very meta, yes. But I sense that there was a tiny bit of reticence from you sometimes about the places you've been to and the things that you'd seen and said. Well, my reticence is always because I know that I'm not an expert.

I don't like to be seen as an expert. You're a 79-year-old white man. You can run for president. Yeah. Your category is expert. I can walk for president. Well, stagger for president. I can run, actually.

I'm reasonably quite fit. I've avoided politics and not regretted that. Sorry, what was the question? Whether you were reticent when you watched your earlier work back about anything, about a change in times or a change in tone. Yeah, I think, again, I just feel you've got to be very, very careful in making judgments, instant judgments, especially about countries and the way the world is.

Things will change, you know, drastically or even change just, you know, in a few months. The emphasis will change, you know, drastically, or even change just, you know, in a few months, the emphasis will change. I mean, you'll get something like the war in Ukraine, which is a massive change. But at the same time, you've got climate change, which is, you know, having different manifestations as we go by each year.

But I think we'll just be very careful of saying, well, if we do this, that will happen. If we do this, it'll make it all better. And I feel I'm still discovering, and that's what travelling is about for me, is satisfying a curiosity, not being an expert who knows his stuff and trying to tell the rest of the world what to do.

Now, I'm glad you're fit now, and you clearly are fit and well at the moment, which is great. I got here. Yes, indeed. But when you put it to the family that the trip to iraq was looming how did that go down not well no not well can't say i'm surprised i mean my wife's terrific really she's always been very keen on me going away for long periods of time to remote parts of the world it's a sign of her love for me i suppose

but north korea was the first one that took a bit of a batter for me, I suppose. But North Korea was the first one. That took a bit of a battering. And Iraq too. North Korea, I think, was slightly worse because so little was known about North Korea. And even though we went at a time when there was a rapprochement, people went there and some people didn't come out again. So there was the feeling that no one would know anything

about what happened when you went into Korea, whereas in Iraq people know where you are all the time. It's a bit like going into a Western country in a way. Yes, I mean, of all the places you've been in the world, was North Korea by some margin the worst? Well, worst in what way? If you could imagine, or could you possibly imagine carving out in any way a half-decent life there?

Possibly. Really? How? Just possibly. Well, you would have to stop reading the books you like reading. You would have to stop listening to the music you like, necessarily. You'd stop listening to radio and TV and have a very, very limited mix of things you could see. If one wanted that life, I wouldn't at all.

I'm quite the opposite. I'm a sort of sucker for information from all quarters. But I can see that some people may see it as a kind of the ultimate retreat where you'd have to think very little. Everything's done for you. It's reasonably comfortable. There's no litter in North Korea at all. You know, if you just wanted to be on your own and be out of it

and turn your back on the noisy world outside, yes, I could see you could like it. And it takes away the choice of even a haircut, doesn't it, for men? I mean, that is quite something. Do most Iraqis want more people to come and visit Iraq? Yeah, I think they, I'm sure they do. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I think they... I'm sure they do, yes, absolutely. Yeah, and be good for business. It's something that, you know, they feel, I think, that they've been sort of rejected by the world for a long time and people have turned their back on Iraq, so obviously, yes.

But there is, in almost every country I went to, even, dare I say, in North Korea in some ways, there is an urge to welcome people. If you approach with the right attitude, you haven't got a gun and you haven't got an opinion that you want to have and you haven't got a Bible, then you'd probably be welcomed. And certainly people in Iraq welcomed us.

They didn't, oddly enough, didn't blame us for all the terrible things that have happened, which they could well have done. They really didn't? It never came up? Well, no. I mean, this could be. We weren't there for a long time. They may be trying to be nice to us. But, I mean, the general feeling was that they knew

that the problem was within Iraq itself. It's a country of so many different tribes, groups, religions. They know that. They know it's not a perfect country and it's never really worked. So I suppose you could blame the British for lumping it all together in the first place. But I think they see the problems there as their own problems, which they have to sort out. Thank you very much. Presumably with their oil, I mean, obviously I know oil is in itself difficult, but they could be a hugely successful prosperous place yeah absolutely and a lot of

iraqis will tell you that i mean we went to a school with super children i mean really very very clever bright lots of energy and yet the buildings they were in were sort of falling apart you know and these are a lot of them are taking sort of science as education and yet the actual facilities the laboratories just weren't there at all i mean they were such bright buttons weren't they really amazing they're terrific yeah yeah and is when you think back to that journey what is the most kind of mesmerizing memory that comes to you of all of the places that you visited well I think it was probably going up that tower, the minaret in Samara. It was a beautiful building and I had to do something

which I wasn't prepared for at all, which was to walk up the building which has no fencing on the side, just on the inside. So you're looking out over it. I have suffered from vertigo. I managed to go up this 200-foot building, stand on the top with no fence around at all,

and suddenly was able to stand there without quaking. I don't know why that happened. Michael Palin talking to us about his 1,000-mile journey from Turkey through to Iraq along the River Tigris, which he's documented in his new book, Into Iraq. But honestly, we can't say often enough, those docs on Channel 5, on My5 now, are really worth having a look at.

And I think as well, his North Korea shows are also still there. So have a look at those too, because I can't think of a more pitiful set of circumstances than finding yourself a citizen of North Korea, I have to say. But Michael said he thought he might be able to make a life there, which I was I was surprised by but his reasoning was interesting because he was basically saying it's a place that if you wanted all of the difficulty of choice to be taken away from you then you would have a

contented life under that regime and I mean I've never been there so I'm not qualified to make that judgment I think there's an awful lot of poverty and deprivation and starvation so that may not work but I see the point that he was trying to make but it would be difficult to go from this society to that society and I don't know feel that you haven't lost something we have had emails and this is a worrying one from Nancy in northern Wisconsin, USA. I'm glad you made that distinction clear because, Nancy, we don't really want emails from southern Wisconsin. Thank you very much. So keep them northern if you don't mind.

Dear Jane and Fee, after some searching around on the net, I finally found you. Turns out I had misheard the title of your programme now on Times Radio. My Yankee ears heard affair with Jane and Fee, not off-air with Jane and Fee. Looking forward to listening on a regular basis, less corporate restriction and a bit more snark. We'll do our best to up the snark quotient.

It shouldn't be difficult, let's face it. I'll fill myself up with it tonight. Come into work with an extra special brew tomorrow. Julie says, still loving you both on your new programme, so enjoying hearing women of my age commenting on the news. And it is like listening to friends. Wonderful hearing Jane call out Sir Gavin Williamson's

disgraceful text to a female work colleague with the gravitas it deserves. Yes, the taxpayer pays his salary. Go girls. You did have a little bit of a... It wasn't a ticking was a it was a straight faced conversation with the manager this morning who said that you were just on the right side when discussing Sir Gavin just just about um yes let's move on to Em who says thank you for five

wonderful years on our podcast fortunately that's gone's gone now, but we're here now. And listen, life changes. We all have to make adaptations and we have done. Anyway, M continues, my wife and I, as a same-sex couple, I feel compelled to disclose that she did the hard work of pregnancy, had twins in February 2020. Impeccable timing. Oh, my, that must have been tough.

And obviously we had far less external help than we might have hoped for during the first year. It was really hard, but it could have been worse. Blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. You sound like me. The podcast became my Friday night treat. It was usually deployed to get me through another evening of endless cleaning up after the newborn babies crawling around babies, toddlers. Anyway, it was a joy to have you both take off the edge of the insult of another Friday night slog. I'm happy to report that the Monday to Thursday podcast edition is serving much the same purpose, but meted out through the week. I hope you're becoming less exhausted by the new environment, are comfortable with your respective toilet stall choices and are enjoying yourselves.

Thank you, Em, and the very best to you, to your wife, and indeed to the twins. That is such bad timing to have twins in the February of 2020. What were people thinking? Crazy. Well, well done for just getting through it. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I was a little troubled the other day

because we did enter the ladies' toilet together and you went to a stall too close to my favourite stall, so I had to go to a different stall. Yes, it's all gone wrong already. It is difficult. I mean, there is something very weird about humans and our loo habits, isn't there? That we just, we do get into a little routine.

And if we're honest, we like to stick to it. And why that is, I simply, well, it was like the bog roll bandits during lockdowns. You know, the obsession with acquiring toilet paper. It's the same sort of scatocological nonsense, isn't it, really? Yeah. One day I'd quite like to see what's still in your basement. I think probably it's in triple figures, isn't it? Well, when the authorities do get in there, you can say,

well, she kept herself to herself. She was very quiet. No one would have suspected a thing. She was always very polite. Actually, no, they wouldn't say that about you at all. So if you'd like to get in touch, you really don't have to send us kind of thankful emails at all. You can just tell us about your lives,

funny things that you've come across in the day. We would welcome the distraction. Jane and Fi at times.radio. Yeah, just anything you'd like us to riff about, actually, or something that's occurred to you that you don't believe anybody else would be interested in, but based on past experience, you think we might like. Yeah, that's quite a wide category as well.

Because you do know the sorts, I mean, scabs took up weeks on end. There was dead foxes. We've talked, I mean, hair down plug holes. We've talked about a lot of stuff. And it is the chuff of life, as we all know. jaydentimes, jaydentimes, no, all know. Jane and Times. Jane and Times. No. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio.

And our guest tomorrow is the woman they call the voice of Gen Z, Florence Given. I'm genuinely a little bit nervous about doing that interview. I don't really know what Gen Z is about. And I don't really know. I think she's quite fiery, isn't she? I'm a little bit trepidatious. She's very spirited and she has every right to be and we're looking forward to

meeting her tomorrow. You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can. Monday to Thursday, three to five on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon.

Goodbye.