Off Air... with Jane and Fi - A delicious puddle of unashamed oestrogen (with Tuppence Middleton)

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Jane is angry at the world because it isn't her birthday... but it is Fi's. They talk more class nonsense, the etymology of "napkin" and Screwfix spam. Plus, Fi is speaks to actress Tuppence Middleton about her memoir 'Scorpions'. The next book club pick has been announced! 'Eight Months on Ghazzah Street' is by Hilary Mantel. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everybody hopes to come through the badder times, the worse of times. Yeah, and I've still got a flaky left foot and a massive mortgage. It's not all good, love. Thank God for that. I was beginning to feel really angry. Right. OK. As you're listening to me, Daisy, Apple's iPhone disassembly robot, is dismantling an iPhone into lots of recyclable parts. That's how Apple recovers more materials than conventional recycling methods.

Thanks, Daisy. There's more to iPhone. ["The New York Times"] Welcome. Welcome to Thursday's Off Air, which is going to be, what is it going to be a delicious puddle of unashamed oestrogen or what passes for it in our systems, certainly in mine. Happy birthday. Thank you.

I think we're both on synthetic oestrogen. I have to say it's working for me. It's certainly working for me. How long can you take HRT4? Does anybody know? Or are we the first generation who are going to try and plough on through? Good question. We've got lots of medics who listen. I will say that I have asked some very, very esteemed medical women about this and at least one has told me she'll be on it until the day she dies. So there you go.

But I know it's not for everybody. Neither of us has ever said that, have we? No. So I understand. And it takes a while to find the right kind of level and then your estrogen levels change and you can't find the right level again, which is where I am at the moment. Okay. Can I say that you've you seem very well balanced? Well that's kind. I'm not sometimes, am I?

Moving on. Yes. I do have to, it's, I mean, I'm, you know, people will completely understand this. It just, you can feel the seesaw going a bit sometimes, can't you? You can a bit. I mean, I have to say though, at the moment,

the world is contriving to make middle-aged women with liberal sensibilities just feel a bit twitchy anyway. Well, it is difficult to find your equilibrium and I just... For strong men to have achieved such an apparently easy victory I'm finding quite hard to digest. Yeah it's not easy is it? No because the crimes are there, they're well documented, they're very apparent, the damage has been done and is being done. So that does feel quite weird. But I think what we have to remember, Jane, is there's another side to every story. And, you know, people

who are angered and affected, you know, we can just be angry from a distance. That's very different. When you're affected by everything that's going on, whether or not that's in the Donbass or Venezuela or Washington DC or Kabul, you know, your reaction will be different and it might be more charged. But we are getting emails from listeners in the States who are just telling us about their little ways of fighting back, so please keep them coming. But we know, by the way, that hundreds of millions of people voted for Donald Trump. We can never stop acknowledging that. We need to. But equally, I feel that it's OK and it's always going to be OK.

In fact, it's absolutely paramount importance that we keep calling out the lunacy. Because otherwise, we're just going to, it's just absolutely unthinkable. No, definitely. And you know, as we're, you know, some people are experiencing in this country, what you vote for may then feel like it's changed. And you know, you definitely have to be able to say that in a democracy. And for one very bad decision, there might be further down the line a good decision. We get all of those things, but you're right. there shouldn't be a feeling that you can't call things out in the moment, whatever side of the divide you're on as well.

Yeah, I mean I just, I really am quite perturbed by how that unelected, genius, stroke, clearly very odd man, being at that so-called cabinet meeting. Eat on Musk, yeah. I can't, you know, this is just crazy. And as we've said before, if that were President Kamala Harris, who had a kind of pet genius that she took along to every meeting, you can imagine what men would say about that. What people would say about it, not just men. I think if a woman stood on stage at a convention and wielded a chainsaw. She would never be allowed to appear in public again.

They come on with the people in the white coats and drag her off, wouldn't they? Anyway, how many weeks are we into this now? Anyway, today's the day that Sakir Starmer goes to Washington and starts to sort it out. We're only 12 or 13 weeks, aren't we? It's not even that. Anyway, so, yes, can we just talk sitting room all out? Yes, but briefly, I just want, I mean, let's just, let's take it a little bit light, but with a controversial message, I think, from Philippa.

I'm not too keen on rice, she says. I don't understand that. How can you not be keen on rice? She's allowed to have her taste opinion. Is it the mouth feel? I don't know. She just doesn't like rice. She's allowed to have her taste opinion. Is it the mouth feel? I don't know. It just doesn't like rice.

I'm not too keen on rice, says Philippa. I regularly serve my curry with a baked sweet potato. Honestly, it's great, delicious and healthy. Give it a go, Jane. I can't, Philippa. I'm sorry, I just can't. I don't like sweet potatoes. The idea of a baked one.

Anyway, no, won't be happening in my house or any house I ever pop into. Right, move on. Good to know. Here comes Liz in East Sussex, but not yesterday's Liz from Sussex. So you have at least two of this particular market segment. It's good to clear up that small detail. Your chat on yesterday's offer about sitting rooms or lounges made me smile. It's prompted me to email you a first for me. Welcome aboard. Liz, thank you. I mean, you've obviously bided your time. That's all right. Yeah. It's okay.

Chip in when you feel ready. That tele-offy, you're in a very tele-offy mood today. Well, it's because it's your birthday and I'm essentially just angry. It's not mine. I used to ruin my sister's birthday every year. I bet you did. Alison and I are going to run away together later on in life. We've got a lot to discuss. Just be nice. I'd watch that documentary.

And there are other people in the world apart from Jane, Susan, Garvey. No, not really. Yes, there are. We always had a sitting room at home, but when I was quite small, I started to notice that friends' families talked about the lounge. I asked my mother what the difference was between a sitting room and a lounge and she replied, houses have sitting rooms, pubs have lounges. She denied this later in life but the imprint is there and like Jane, I've been conscious of the distinction ever since.

I now work in a stately home with an upstairs drawing room and a downstairs drawing room, something for us all to aspire to. Well, Liz, you've won at life, haven't you? Who needs two drawing rooms? And the original occupants of the Stately Home, would they have entertained their really posh guests upstairs or downstairs? I don't know. Upstairs, surely. Well, the placement of rooms in a Stately Home was all about the light, wasn't it? Oh, was it? I don't know, go on.

Which is why there would be quite a lot of first and second floor drawing rooms because they would catch the most of the light for most of the day. So, you know, you would have a brighter view of the sunset, wouldn't you, if you were higher up? I thought about that. And the morning room, you know, is where you went for the daylight in the morning times and you worked your way around the house according to where the sun was. And for some women that is what they did. Hang on, how have I lived this long without knowing that?

Well, maybe because you don't want other people in the world. It's not true. I'd let some people share my house. Actually, I'm not really sure about that. And so for women who were stuck at home because they did need daylight as well to do the things that they were expected to do, which if you were, you know, the posh women in a stately home was to... Not a lot.

Well, do correspondence and embroidery. And you'd have to move from room to room to seek out the daylight. And very cruel for the, you know, the workers downstairs who were just lumped with you know permanent kind of fag of dawn or dusk. Well that did crop up when I was talking to Ellie Griffiths, one of my favourite writers a couple of weeks ago, and she was saying that in Victorian times you would eat what poorer people would eat earlier in the day because they needed to be able to see what they were eating Whereas if you could afford candles and so therefore you were likely to have a few quid you were a bit posher You could eat much later in the day. Yeah, so I but I mean I'm a big fan of being able to see what I'm eating and

The idea of having to eat before it got dark which meant I wouldn't be able to see what I was imbibing If you can imbibe food or is that just drink? I'd never thought about that before either. Isn't it fascinating? Social history is just fascinating. It is. But also Liz thank you very much indeed for getting in touch with us and you would be able to tell us much more about the upstairs drawing room and the downstairs drawing room and I think we would very much like to hear a little bit more. I'm going to... Can you do an effective beep at the right point when I read out Fiona's... I know what's coming, yeah. We weren't allowed to say any of the French

derivative words such as... and I didn't put these things together, Fiona. The French derivative words such as toilet, lounge, serviette or settee by my very class-conscious mother and this is so deeply ingrained in me that I struggle to accept these words now. A friend's mother told her as a child, I'd rather you said pfff than toilet, which definitely held in our house where my mother passed on her talent for swearing like a trooper very effectively. John Betjeman described all this class nonsense brilliantly in his poems. Thank you very much for that, Fiona. I just hadn't put the French derivative thing. Another thing I had not really thought of. I serve, obviously, that looks French. What's

the word we should say? Napkin. Napkin. So napkin. Where does that come from? That's odd, isn't it? What a funny little word. Yeah, let's find the etymology of that. It's got a little sleep and a relative. Speed dar Suzy Dent. Yeah, come on Suzy. We know you listen. Toilette lounge. So what does lounge mean in the French? We need to ask Guy Guy, don't we? Oh yeah. Well, he's not here for very long. I know, he's not here for very long. Who's he going to work for?

He's going to a failing broadcaster. I don't mean that's about the BBC. Oh, you've just said it. I love many elements of the BBC. They're in a bit of a do-dar at the moment, aren't they? I'm afraid not enough questions were asked there. It would seem. Anyway, good luck to him.

And let's get... Oh didn't, oh, doesn't it again, lounge I hadn't thought of as being French. Would you mind just looking up? Hannah's still here. She's still awake. Just about. Just look up lounge. Anyway, all of these things furnish us with more information because it is fascinating stuff. Right. Let's bring in Sue who finds herself in Colwyn Bay in North Wales. I've been meaning to email for a few weeks now in response to Jane's query about why a London Underground station is named the way it is. Well that was because I was wondering why High Street

Kensington isn't Kensington High Street. Yeah but then it's not just the station that's called High Street Kensington. People refer to the shopping area as High Street Ken. Yeah. Why? It doesn't, no other part of the UK is that used as far as I'm aware. Don't understand it. Don't understand how it started. Anyway, I wondered whether a woman called Sidi Holloway would be a good future guest. I wondered whether a woman called Siddy Holloway would be a good future guest. Siddy is, I believe, of Icelandic heritage and she now co-presents the TV series Secrets of the London Underground. She's so informative about London's wonderful underground network and I read that she adopted the surname Holloway from that underground station in North London. Perhaps you could ask her why Barron's Court station

doesn't have an apostrophe, but Earl's Court does. Sue says she likes the live radio programme and the podcast. Well, a double whammy for us. Sue, thank you very much. Colwyn Bay is a rather, used to be a beautiful grand Victorian resort, still rather nice down there on the North Wales coast. I think you're a lucky woman.

Hannah, do you have any news? Yes, okay, thank you. Thank you. The English word lounge has origins in French, specifically from the word, salonger, meaning to lounge about. Well, it's typical of the French, isn't it? Thank you very much. Lounge about. I think we do quite well lounging in this country as well. We just don't have such effective terms for it. Well, because the other one is the chaise longue. The chaise longue, yeah. Which means a long chair. Presumably.

Yes, and I think for a whole new generation, the fantastic wet leg have managed to turn the chaise longue into something that you never ever want to be seen on. Their song is brilliant about it, isn't it? All day long on the Shayslong, on the Shayslong. Oh, is that their song? Right, Sarah from Cheltenham. I've just been laughing out loud watching you both on the YouTube in the Art of the Interview, Phoebing Roy Plumley and Jane being Princess Margaret. Can we just say, to honour that segment of the stage show with the art of the interview

in speech marks, I mean I think there's a possibility of more shows isn't there and I think we need to, I think you need to expand your offering there. I'm not going to explain it, you had to be there and it would be lovely if we do future shows. I'm not sure we'd be able to see Princess Margaret again, but you did surprise me in your ability to carry it off. Well, I think there's a... you've hinted that there's an overlap. There is a princess within me, I think. There is.

Bursting to come out. So Sarah says, I didn't make it to London to see you but was so glad to come across this snippet from one of your evenings. I have to confess I didn't even realise that it had gone up on anything. But Sarah says, I finished listening to Eight Months on Gaza Street at the weekend on Audible, really enjoyed it. I've never read any of the historical Hilary Mantel books, thinking they'd be a bit heavy. But this was very good.

I look forward to the discussions next week. I've emailed you a few times but not for a while and have been lucky enough to have a couple of readouts. I'm the unfortunate person who had a spam email sent regarding furthering my member by 186%, which did amuse you both. It's amusing us again now. It's just such a specific amount. Why not go the whole 200? I mean, you know, treat yourself and other people, presumably. I just think that they would have had more luck with that spam if they'd just aimed a bit lower. I just think for most people, 186% enlargement is too much. I think you might be right.

I haven't checked my spam for a while. I do love it. I get a lot of stuff that ends up in spam from Screwfix. Do you? So, I think I must have once bought something from Screwfix, who hasn't? They're never gonna let you go. And obviously my filters take one look and think,

well, we're not giving that to her. It's going straight to the spam box. What is it? Yeah, I think whatever. So is there a storage facility somewhere in the world? That is being powered in order to keep your spam alive, which is why you should clear your emails, love. So I do delete my spam.

Yeah, that's good. It's a little hobby. I could do it on... I'm going... I'm taking my chances with Avanti West again this Saturday, so I should have plenty of spare time. You should, yeah. So actually there are some quite good gizmos that you can download that just do it all for you. Oh really? Yeah, I sent one through all of my email. Unfortunately I ticked the box where it took out all duplicate emails and actually just quite a lot of people have to send things

twice and it respond very quickly. It did take out all of them. So now people won't get a response at all. But I'm also thinking of just shutting that email account down, deleting the whole lot, because it's just so hard to see through the spam. I've obviously ticked some things that mean it doesn't go into spam. You know, I've replied once and then you reply for hundreds of years. And I'm not on such a delayed train service every other weekend that I've got time to do it, Jane. No. Don't sound so well, Wiri. You're only, what is it now? Fifty-six.

It's nothing. As I know, it's absolutely nothing. I went for a swim this morning, Jane. I'm going to San Pompous for a moment. People can spool forward if they want to. And I did 25 lengths up and down. Should I make a noise for this? The lovely pool. No, and I just thought I'm so grateful for all of the stuff in life. You know, the kids are lovely, you're all right. Works going well. Works going well. Mum's doing okay. Yeah, you see. Yep. That's so bad, is it? The late in life love treat. He keeps okay. Yeah, you see. Not so bad, is it? The latent love treat. He keeps delivering. Yeah, well he's just a nice man, actually.

That's good. And I did think, yeah, recognise all of this for a moment. That's not pompous. Everybody can come back on board now. She stopped. She stopped now. No, no, but... But you know when sometimes, you know, some points in life are so dark and you just think,

really? Everyone says you're going to get out of this and just think maybe I won't actually maybe I'll be the person who doesn't and so I think when it is all right it's okay to say it. In fact we should say it. Yeah but there's something weird about saying that isn't it because you do think you need to preface it by saying you know I'm not gloating or boasting or whatever but... Well we had that lovely email earlier in the week from the listener who just said, look, I just want to say I'm in a happy place. I've got a pizza in the oven. Life's pretty sweet.

I'm just, I don't, nobody wants me or needs me for 48 hours. I can just look after myself and I'm feeling good about it. You're right. It's not, don't feel, no, I think we should say it because that's, you're not harming people who are going through a tough time by Owning the fact that things are pretty good at the moment. Are you no? No gosh? No and Nobody hopes to come through the badder badder times the worse of times Yeah, and I've still got flaky left foot in a massive mortgage. It's not all good I was beginning to feel really angry right, okay

good love. Thank god for that I was beginning to feel really angry. Right, okay. This is Susan who is in Brant Rock, and I think we've heard from Susan before, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, she reminds us. I'm listening to your podcast and you and the other Jane Jane are lamenting the lack of cohesive opposition to Trump and I get that. It does seem to be slow coming together and certainly our leaders, the Harris's, the Obamas, the Clintons etc and there are many more I could name do seem to be much too silent. Well I don't know is it that are they still being silent or we just not being told what they're saying? I kind of feel that if Commoner Harris had come out and said anything we would have been told about it wouldn't we and I don't think that's happened so far.

Well there was a bit of a Democrat convention wasn't there a couple of weeks ago but nothing seems to really headline out of that. I saw her getting an award I think last weekend. Anyway look, Susan reminds us that tomorrow Friday is the day of economic protest. All of those people participating are not going to buy anything on Friday February the 28th. Do share this with your listeners and anyone who'd like to join. Just don't purchase anything from any American company or online entity. It would be very much appreciated. Thank you, says Susan.

Well, we mentioned it yesterday. We've mentioned it again. Look, I mean, who knows? It might influence somebody to do something. Our guest on the podcast yesterday was Anthony Scaramucci. And it was, we nearly didn't get him, then we did just about get him. But during the pretty brief time he spent with us on the podcast, which you would have heard yesterday, if you listen, he just said, look, Donald Trump is unwell. And I wonder how often? Yeah, I mean, it's obviously... I don't know whether he's unwell, I'm not a doctor.

But I do need people like Scaramucci to be around to actually suggest that possibility. And just, because if it were a woman, we know it would have been said way, way before now by a multitude of people. So I know Scaramucci himself wouldn't claim to be perfect but I'm glad, I'm for one, I'm glad he exists. Yeah it was a really good interview.

But it wasn't long enough was it? No we only had about eight minutes with him but he did really deliver and he knows Donald Trump. Obviously you could say that he's got an axe to grind. Oh of course he has, he'd say that himself. He didn't last long in the White House but but he was actually quite happy to go, wasn't he? Oh yeah, he's a wealthy man and a successful one and he's now discovered a whole new podcast land as well. Yeah, but I'm with you. I'm fascinated to hear more from the people who really have been alongside Donald Trump and witnessed what he does with his days and all of that.

And sometimes it can seem that there's clarity and madness, you know, if you go all the way back to Cassandra. Yeah. So, can't have it both ways. This one comes in from Samantha, who just wanted to forward us her five accomplishments that I sent to comrade Elon. I don't work for the federal government but I didn't want to be left out.

What a busy week it was, says Samantha. Number one, Monday I pulled all my boxes out of my crawl space. I was concerned there would be damp or mould but you'll be pleased to hear it was all dry. On Tuesday, Samantha visited the nephrologist because she's been studied for her rare gene HLRCC for decades. This is a kidney specialist on Wednesday. Samantha wiped down kitchen cabinets with orange oil. She said it was quite a process. I'm not sure the results were worth it. Thursday she had some passport pictures done. And Friday she met with community members to bring more inclusive arts programmes to her small town. Happy Monday. Life in America is terrifying but the people are rising and Trump's popularity falls each day. That is

Samantha's opinion. And one of her friends sent this to Elon, dear manager, and this is the five things. Number one, I drank a whisky drink. Number two, I drank a vodka drink. Number three, I drank a lager drink. Number four, I drank a cider drink. Number five, I sang the songs that remind me of the good times, I sang the songs that remind me of the good times. I sang the songs that remind me of the better times. Is that Chumbawumba? I get knocked down and I get up again. The underrated Chumbawumba.

Actually, they're not underrated. I think they were rated and that is an all-time classic. Well done. Now, can we say thank you to all of the people who told us about ironing boards? Oh, yes. Go on, what is the answer? Why are young men and sometimes young women spotted on trains with ironing boards? The answer is because they're squaddies and they have to take with them their own equipment on their uniforms. So these would have been bright young men going to one of the barracks up on the northeast East coast. So, answered. Question answered.

Thank you to everybody who pointed out our idiocy. Now, we're still getting emails about the interview that we did earlier in the week with Peter Thornton. Now, just in case anybody missed it, just to outline what that, he was a lovely older chap, what was he talking about? So his book is called The Later Years and it's a handbook to all of the things that you should do ahead of dying. Simple as that. Which we're all going to do. Yes. Thank you. And okay, you might think, well, that's unglamorous and very dull and sounds a bit depressing.

It might be all of those things. It's also bloody important. And I've got a copy of that book and I'm hanging on to it. I really am because I think there's some really good advice in there. This is from Jenny who says, When my dad died in 2014, we found a simple Word document on his computer which listed all his pension, insurance, bank information with phone numbers. He didn't tell us he'd done it, but thank God we found it as it made the process of informing everybody so much easier.

So I have now set up a Google spreadsheet with every detail I can think of on it which I share online with my adult children so they have everything they need when I die. It's a working document so very easy to keep up to date. I'm really glad you talked about lasting power of attorney as well. I was an attorney for my mum, I hadn't thought about it for myself but when my husband had a heart attack at the age of 49 and was in a coma for a month and we didn't know how severe his brain injury would be, I was suddenly in the situation of wishing we had sorted it out. I had four weeks of not being able to access anything under his name, couldn't even get

the credit card company to tell me what the bill was because on that account I wasn't the main card holder. Imagine if he'd remained in that coma. I would have spent years trying to gain access through the Court of Protection. You're absolutely right Jenny, this is such a complicated business. It was a valuable lesson learnt, she said. And we did have our power of attorney documents the week he came out of hospital online. As you're listening to me, Daisy, Apple's iPhone disassembly robot, is dismantling an iPhone into lots of recyclable parts.

That's how Apple recovers more materials than conventional recycling methods. Thanks Daisy. There's more to iPhone. or just be responsible and top up your retirement fund. Plus, move any other eligible account and we'll give you a 1% match. Minimum $15,000 transfer. Register by March 15th. Additional terms apply. Learn more at wealthsimple.com slash match.

Through the government website, you don't need a solicitor. Okay, her husband, by the way, is fully recovered, apart from having a shocking memory problem. Well, I husband by the way is fully recovered, apart from having a shocking memory problem. Well, I'm glad he's, he's alright Jenny and best of luck to you both. By the way, growing up we sat on a couch in the lounge, the lounge has stuck but I now have a sofa. Well done. And you've moved on in life. Yes.

Do you know what, the more you read and hear stories about people dealing with difficult circumstances when partners and loved ones become impaired or when partners and loved ones die, you realize it's just such a bad system. And so Peter Thornton's book at least makes it clear what you need to do to make that bad system the least worst thing for your loved ones. Yeah. And I thought, oh gosh, this is a bit of a meaty book. It's 300 pages long, there's going to be too much in it. But honestly, you can read it cover to cover and not want to put it down. It's just

really useful. Or just keep it because the time will come. Obviously, if you're dead, you won't be able to read it. Yeah, I mean, I'd read it now, Jane, and just put it all in place. Don't wait and think that's, you know, that will happen in the next decade. Do your own death admin or at least do as much of it as you can. This one is just a cheery one before we get to the guest today. It's about popping in.

And it's from Jenny in Cheltenham. We always welcome listeners from Cheltenham. No, we do because if you're if you're abroad you may not realize that Cheltenham I would say you can make a case for Cheltenham being absolutely tickety-boo. I think it's very much the first floor drawing room of the western country. It is indeed. Your segment about popping in reminded me of an incident some 40 odd years ago. I was a mum of two, had a five year old and a baby. So I'd done the morning run of dropping the child off at school, the baby was up, the breakfast remains were in the kitchen, nappies were soaking in a bucket. Those are the olden days

when we used the terry nappies. I hadn't had time to look in a mirror, never mind think about make-up. There was a ring on the doorbell at 9.30am. I went into the hall and threw the frosted glass front door. Oh yes, I saw the outline of a friend. My heart sank. This friend and I had very different lifestyles. She lived in the posh part of town. She had an au pair, a lady to help at home. We'd met at the gym on the sunbeds, both stark naked, so we literally took each other at face value and just got on. She had similar aged children to mine. Anyway, I opened the door and my friend stood there, immaculate, in a yellow coat dress, hair done, makeup on, earrings in. I said, come in, but you'll have to take me as I am.

I've never forgotten her words. She said, Jenny, I come to see you because you're my friend. I don't see anything else. Isn't that lovely? That is actually lovely and Jenny says we're still friends 42 years later so I am all for popping in. Well good on you Cheltenham, a place where popping in is a welcome thing to do. Yes I might just ruthlessly pop in over the weekend, bothering some of my neighbours, hoping to catch them unawares. Well, let us know how that one goes. I think, do you remember the, I think she was the Daily Mail journalist, Linda Lee Potter, well she was the Daily Mail. I certainly do. Yeah, she used to do interviews and one of

the things she did, I think I've got this right, it was her, she's no longer with us, she used to go to the interviewers, the interviewees' home, I think it's probably more uncommon these days, but interviews would be done back in the day in somebody's home, and she would just arrive about 40 minutes or half an hour early. Just to catch them. Just hoping that she'd catch the real them and she'd do the kind of oh I must have got the time wrong but she just wanted to see them in their colors get the measure of them classy or a little bit a little bit dastardly all right so tuppence middleton is a

versatile and successful young actress you might recognize her from Downton Abbey. You might have seen her play Elizabeth Taylor on stage in The Motive and The Queue. Perhaps you know her from the Netflix sci-fi drama Sensate. But what you probably don't know about her is that for a lot of her life she's suffered from severe OCD. She's written about it in a book called Scorpions, which opens like this. My mind is full of scorpions, devious, nimble little beasts that have occupied my head for the best part of thirty years. A cerebral itch impossible to scratch. Small armoured bodies scuttle along an intricate web of neural pathways, disturbing the delicate

flow of logical thought. Tempered chaos in perpetual motion. It's a brilliant book, both frightening and enlightening. Tuppence came in to see us here at Times Towers and I started our conversation by asking her to tell me more about the significance of the scorpion to her. I think for me it always held this symbolism of being something which was slightly sinister, sort of non-benevolent presence. And for me OCD always felt like a very sort of crawling, needling, insidious sort of presence in my brain and it sort of mimicked the way that the thoughts shifted direction and moved

and surprised you. And I think there's something slightly dangerous about the idea of a scorpion. Very dangerous, yes, and the fact that it can just flick its tail and kill you. It is a very malevolent creature. Can you explain to people, and let's start with the really hard stuff, what a very bad day with OCD was like for you. Yes, at a period where it was at its worst, it was taking me a really long time to leave the house. I would have to check various appliances in my kitchen. I would be checking the front door and that would mean pressing cooker knobs on my front door to a count of eight.

Lots of mental counting routines, counting from one to eight whilst looking at corners, whilst looking at objects, not trusting my eyes that things were off. One of the things that drove a lot of these compulsions or behaviors was the fear of getting sick, particularly catching an illness that would make me vomit. So I suppose emetophobia, which is a fear of vomiting,

was the thing that was driving most of the compulsions. But it was also, at certain points in my life, you know, physical anxiety symptoms, panic attacks, and just avoidance behaviour. So avoiding certain situations or people because I thought they might make me ill, becoming obsessed that I had certain diseases and and googling those symptoms and insomnia kind of coming out of that obsessive thought cycle as well. So it was a sort of combination of those things.

You describe in such detail and actually really horrendous clarity for the reader what is going through your mind in certain situations. There was one journey that you described where I so felt for you Tuppence you're on a plane and there's a bloke what would have been six seats away from you who starts being sick and you can't get off the plane and for you you need to know why he's being sick, don't you? You couldn't just accept that's a bloke who's got travel sickness. Yeah. Can you talk us through what happened on that journey? Well, I've always been anxious about travelling, particularly on planes,

because, you know, not so much for the idea that it could, you know, crash into the ocean and all of those things. Of course, that's worrying. But it was more that I was going to sit next to someone and be trapped in a seat where someone is vomiting next to me. And that's not vomiting from travel sickness. That's the idea that I can catch something contagious. And for me, whenever someone tells me that they are sick,

I don't believe that it's the reason that they're telling me. So if they say they're drunk or they've been drunk or they have a hangover or it's maybe food poisoning, I sort of, I need the hard evidence to see that it's not something that I can catch. And so this man started vomiting, which is the thing I'm always looking out for on flights. I'm always sort of mentally scanning people

for signs of illness. And it was about two and a half hours of him vomiting every 20 minutes minutes I would say and it sort of triggered a flight long panic attack where I couldn't really escape and I wrapped my scarf around my head to try and avoid breathing as much as I could which sounds completely illogical because that's not possible but my whole body was shaking, I was sort of bargaining in my head, okay if I do this when I get off the plane then maybe that means I won't get sick or if I if I promise to do this certain thing then this this will be the outcome and there's a lot of that kind

of bargaining in OCD with yourself or with the scorpions as I refer to it. I mean above all else it just sounds exhausting to try and live in a world that does have danger in it, that does pose consequences of actions, all of that type of stuff. I mean it is remarkable that we know you for being this lively presence on our screen who doesn't seem to be impeded by what is going on in your head. How do you manage that? How have you managed that? I think it's sort of affected me in varying ways over the years. I think it was at its sort of peak in my early to mid-20s and throughout my late teens. But as I've gotten older, I think there's been various treatments which I found really helpful. When the physical symptoms of anxiety became too much and I was having panic attacks,

then I was prescribed antidepressants, which is something often prescribed for OCD. And that really helped get a control on those physical symptoms and give me a bit of clarity of mind to start doing talking therapy, which was the thing that made the biggest difference for me in the end. Something that's often the first port of call for OCD sufferers and very successful is cognitive behavioral therapy, which I had gone through a course of in my early 20s. And whether it was because I wasn't ready for it at that time or I was approaching it in the wrong way, I mean, I talk about it in the book. But that didn't work for me at that point.

But it's something I would definitely explore again in the future if I was to get a worse kind of flare up. You also talk about where it started for you, which was just a very difficult phase in your childhood where you were ill and couldn't get better. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, so I had had a sort of particularly bad vomiting bug one Christmas and then a few weeks later I started to get what felt like quite vague symptoms like extreme tiredness, constant nausea, I lost a lot of body weight because I was sort of avoiding eating because I was so worried about being sick and I was taken to lots of different specialists and

eventually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome or ME. And that lasted for a few months and I missed quite a lot of school. And I think that was the start of this sort of phobia of being sick because I was constantly nauseous and had no resolution for it and that went on for so long and then I recovered from that and it was a few months after that that the symptoms of OCD started and I started to avoid these situations and avoid getting sick and started counting and bargaining with myself that if I do this thing then I can avoid catching an illness or any harm coming to my family or something bad happening in my house. Do you think that you got the right type of care for your ME?

I mean, we now know so much more about ME and so many parents of teenagers, young people who suffer from it and suffer as themselves really feel that it has been an extraordinarily tough ride for them. A very unrecognized illness. Yeah. Do you think that too? Absolutely, and I think in some ways, I think there are actually, I've since kind of realized that there is a link between the two things, although they're not sure what that is. I think both of those conditions are vastly under-researched and sort of there's a frustratingly vague, I guess, diagnostic criteria.

You know, you're often passed from pillar to post because people don't really know what it is. I think people don't take it seriously, as can often happen with OCD as well, but that it's sort of seen as, oh well, just, you know, just get up and get on with it. You know, you're just tired or you're just... And it's actually, it can be really debilitating. And the thing that we were told, which I think people are often told now, is that there's no way to know how long it will last. I think with children and younger people, it tends to be a shorter lived thing.

Whereas if it kind of has its onset in adulthood, then it can be much more unclear what the sort of prognosis is. You just don't know when it's going to end and for us that was the difficult thing. We were told, well, this could be a lifelong condition and we don't know when she's going to get better, but you just have to manage it. Do you think it, for you, was your mind's way of coping with that lack of control in your body? So the medical profession couldn't say,

this is what you're suffering from, this is what you need to do, this will make you better. So your mind kind of goes to a place where you're trying to protect yourself all the time. You try and control it. But potentially it's so hard to know because even when I've spoken to specialists about this, it's still not really known where OCD comes from.

I think it is probably a combination of environmental and genetic factors. I think, you know, it is a bit of nature, a bit of nurture, a bit of adjusting to your situation, your surroundings, but also there tends to be a sort of genetic link. It tends to run in families to some degree. So I think the difficult thing is a lot of it is guesswork. You know, why did it start? Why me?

Why am I thinking this way? Why can everyone else get on with their day and not think the way that I can? You know, I think that's a hard thing to come to terms with for other people is that lots of people relate to these thoughts. No one likes to be sick, it's unpleasant. No one, everyone understands what it is to worry, oh did I leave the straighteners on? Did I, you know, did I lock

the door? There are degrees of it which everyone understands, it's just when it starts to impede the general functioning of your life and it starts to occupy your thoughts to an unhealthy degree that it becomes something you should pay more attention to. So how do we find you here today where you can do a performance in front of lots of people in a play like The Motive and The Cue, where the audience is coughing, it's burbling around, somebody might be sick. How can you cope with that?

Yeah, for me it's not so much the audience because there is quite a distance there. It's more about having open conversations with your co-stars. I'm about to start a play called The Years, which is running at the Harold Pinter in the West End. And it's five women playing the same woman based on Ania Ngo's The Years. And you're working very close contact with people. And so, you know, there might be a point where you...

Not in this play particularly, but where you have to kiss someone, or you have to be very close to them, or you have to share a drink that they're drinking. And those things are things I will have to have conversations about. You know, this is something that makes me anxious, and that I've done in the past with co-stars. Oh, can you please let me know if, you know, someone in your family has been sick or if you have been sick and just give me some advanced warning so that I can sort

of manage my, the way I kind of navigate around that. But it used to happen a lot more in my early twenties when I had lots of roles where I was playing the love interest and that came up a lot more to, you know, be in very close contact with people. So that was something I felt less able to talk about at the time. But now I think I'm much more adept at having those conversations. And what about motherhood? Because vomiting is just such a huge part of the baby years and the early years. Yes, I mean, this is something that having spoken to people,

I've had so many messages since talking about OCD from mothers and from people who want to be mothers but are too scared to get pregnant because morning sickness is something that they fear or that they fear their children getting ill. And that was something that I worried about certainly. I didn't get morning sickness. I was very lucky in that respect. But of course, my daughter gets sick and has been sick

and I have a very patient understanding partner who helps me with that. But it is, you know, I have these, I have a box in my house, which is, you know, has rubber gloves and masks, which I stockpiled after COVID and bottles of bleach and things that I have a sort of preparation kit for because I'm so worried about when that moment comes.

But it's something that I have to face and having found ways to cope with it as I get older, I'm trying to navigate that because I also am so scared to pass on those behaviors to my daughter. And interestingly, the majority of messages I've received about OCD has been from mothers worrying about their daughters at about the same age I was when I was diagnosed. So 11 or 12, starting to see some of these symptoms, in particular emetophobia and these sort of obsessive bargaining tools that they're using. So it seems that it's very common onset age just before puberty and especially common

in women. Is it better that we're all talking about this more or is it sometimes worse because at a very tender and vulnerable age you can actually give a child the information that they can then use and the template they can use to wrap their anxiety up in? Well, I think it's a really, it's a difficult thing because I write at the beginning of my book that something I was definitely prone to doing was adopting other people's rituals. When I heard, oh, this is the routine I do, I would think, well, why am I not doing that? That's keeping them safe against something. So I should be also performing this ritual or doing this compulsion. So I think there is a balance in, you know, being able to read about it and to see yourself in those examples, but recognizing that adding more sort of rituals to your own coping mechanisms

is not the way to go. But I think it is more helpful to talk about it. I think it's one of those things where until you hear someone talking about it, which is what I certainly part of the reason for writing the book was that I hadn't heard someone talk about it in a very open and honest way, which wasn't statistical. And I think when I was that age, that would have really helped me to think until you recognize it, until someone points something out, a behavior out, you don't know that everyone isn't thinking the same way that you do. So you just assume, oh, that's everyone does this.

Everyone has to touch this thing eight times. Everyone thinks these thoughts. And if they don't and they're starting to become troublesome, then I think it's good to do something about it. Will you write some more? Because one of the most remarkable things about the book is your prose. I mean, it's really, really beautiful writing. Oh, thank you. Well, I'd always wanted to write.

I've adapted a book as a film script and I'd always wanted to write prose. And for me, I suppose this was a really great place to start because it felt so personal but yeah I've started working on an idea for a novel I think so I'm kind of yeah I suppose it's become a bit of a gateway drug. Like Carrie Ongs I think it would be absolutely brilliant. Real pleasure to meet you thank you very much indeed. Thanks for having me. Tuppence Middleton and her book is called Scorpions. It's one of those books that maybe you are a bit afraid

to read, but it is so beautifully written. Her prose is extraordinary and as a very clear insight into the mind of somebody struggling with OCD, I think it's a bit of a revelation actually. I've read some of it, I confess not all of it. She's a brilliant writer. She's a very, very good writer. And she is going to try and turn her hand to a bit of further writing as well because she has really enjoyed the process of it. But it's a really revealing insight, good on her for writing it. Yeah,

so it's called Scorpions by Tuppence Middleton. Thank you very much for engaging this week and there'll be more geopolitical turmoil and your lovely emails and us just wittering on Monday to Thursday of next week. Disengage now everybody. Jane O'Fee at Times.Radio, it's still your birthday and I'm still cross about it. It's still your birthday and I'm still cross-bred. Stop raining on my parade. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday,

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