Off Air... with Jane and Fi - A small boat with a flat bottom... (with Vassos Alexander)

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Boom! A knowledge chunk of joy is coming your way in this episode! Keep an eye out for that… Jamal and Fi also chat retirement, capes, murals, and banned words. Plus, Virgin Radio’s Vassos Alexander discusses his new book 'Swimmingly'. If you want to come and see us at Fringe by the Sea, you can buy tickets here: www.fringebythesea.com/fi-jane-and-judy-murray/And if you fancy sending us a postcard, the address is:Jane and FiTimes Radio, News UK1 London Bridge StreetLondonSE1 9GFIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] next book club pick has been announced! We’ll be reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession.Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I really always like the food up the mountains. I remember saying to somebody once that I really liked... Schnitzel. Yes, Schnitzel. Schnitzel, I love it. Schnitzel, Schnitzel, Rost-Roshty. And all of that. So it's basically just beige carbs as well, isn't it, with an awful lot of cheese. The Holt Renfrew Beauty Refresh offer is on now. Enjoy up to 20% off select beauty and grooming so that you can shop brands you love

and ones you've always wanted to try. July 10 to 13 in store and online. Terms and conditions apply. Happy shopping. Come see us online or at a Holt Renfrew store near you. This episode of Off Air is brought to you by Washington DC. The city? Yep, the one you by Washington DC. The city? Yep, the one and only. Washington DC is the city for sightseeing, museum going and even outdoor adventures.

It has got a variety of nightlife, dining, art and theatre with over a hundred free things to do. Why not take advantage of the city's green spaces like biking through America's oldest national park, Rock Creek Park. Or you could see a show in a living presidential memorial. Or try out your sea legs and go kayaking around the wharf. The list goes on and on. There's only one place you can do all of these things. There's only one DC. And this month in a special episode of the podcast, we're chatting to the Secretary

of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie G. B Bunch who looks after 17 museums in the city. Sounds like it's time to plan your DC getaway. Book your trip to DC by visiting dialaflight.com forward slash WDC. Oh my god. Do you not like it? So Jane has just put on a gold sequined visor. Disco Wednesday. So do you know what that says to me? Yeah. How often do you wear that as a genuine fashion accoutrement? Well it's not a fashion accoutrement. Oh, is that the picture? Wait, wait, at least let me pose. Okay, I don't wear it as a fashion accoutrement, I sometimes wear it for parties. Okay. I stole it off a boy about 15 years ago at his own birthday party. He was

wearing it and I borrowed it and he thought it looked better on me so I kept it. I did go on several dates with him so you know I thought it was fair I got the cap, visor. It's just to describe to you it's a gold sequin visor. Eve just took a surreptitious picture of me in which I probably had seven chins so wait until I'm posing properly we can do another one Eve. If I ever inherited a billion dollars and went to live in a secluded gated community in Florida and went mall walking to keep myself fit when I'm about 267. I want to borrow that. Okay, that's a definite deal. I like how much you've thought about that as a possible retirement plan though.

There are many, many possible retirement plans and And I can't sleep at night, which is often at the moment. I run through all of them. And that is one of my favourites. I think you'd be really happy. You can borrow it before then. Oh, no, no. Neither you nor Eve look particularly impressed with it when I just put it on.

No need. I can wait. It also matches. I've just noticed it matches my phone case. God, I am actually a 13-year-old've just noticed it matches my phone case. I am actually a 13 year old girl. So one of my other retirement fantasies, and none of these are ever going to happen at all, is to go and live in one of the beautiful alpine resorts.

I don't really know how to ski and I'm not very good at skiing and I don't really like skiing, so obviously the winters might be a little bit testing. But I really, I always like the food up the mountains. I remember saying to somebody once that I really liked... Schnitzel. Yes, schnitzel. Schpetzel, I love it. Schpetzel, schnitzel, and ordinals.

Roast, roast, roasty. And all of that. So it's basically just beige carbs as well, isn't it? With an awful lot of cheese poured into it. Macaroni cheese with extra bacon basically. Yeah, and all the raclette and all that kind of stuff, but I just think that would be absolutely great. But then in spring and summer, wouldn't that be just the most gorgeous, gorgeous place to be? Yodeling on flowers.

Yeah, really clean air and wonderful views and all of that. And that kind of turnaround of the seasons when you're in, because it happens in a seaside resort as well, doesn't it, that actually the town you're in takes on a completely different character throughout the year. I really like the idea of that. So if you could, if you've got anything in your dressing up box which we are finding out is wide and various kids that might suit that kind of alpine living. Yeah. Could we be wearing that tomorrow? If you've got... It's going to be hot for... I was going to say if you've got leather

leatherhosen. I was was gonna say... Maybe just photograph yourself at home. It's gonna be hot for that tomorrow. Yeah, it is. Here in London. Yeah, I know what you mean about the Alps. I would very much like to spend more time. I actually never go to the Alps in spring or summer. I only do the skiing bit and I do think I'm missing a trick there. But then I'm just so basic. I like to go to the beach in summer. Yeah, no, I do think I'm missing a trick there but then I'm just I'm just so basic I like to go to the beach in summer. Yeah no I do too but but just increasingly I'm in search of cooler and gentler climbs. A cool lake. Yes. Hiking boots. Can I just also before we start reading our emails talk about

you've both made a lot of commentary about my sartorial choices this week and I've had to defend, oh sorry I'm just, I'm sorry Eve, I'm not sitting close enough, I was relaxing. I had to defend my love for Brigitte Macron's wardrobe to you both and I would just like to say look at those pictures of her today in her blue cape dress in the Times. I would say her cape dress is far superior to Kate's cape dress. Brigitte's is like royal blue and slinky and Kate looks a little bit Game of Thrones. Sorry Kate. But also I am wearing my own cape today in the Times as well. So all three of us in a cape in the Times. So genuinely do you think the cape thing has come out of the fact that

we see quite a lot of Hollywood bucks spent on all of those Cape Crusader myths. I've been wearing capes for about a decade so it's not that's not where it came from for me. But they are everywhere. They are now. Cape dresses have become a thing. I've got a lovely white cape dress that I've been wearing for about six or seven years. But yeah, they've become a thing. I think part of it for some people is that it hides your upper arms. If you've got a cape sleeve over a dress or a jacket, it's sort of you've got your arms half out. But if you don't want to show your arms off, it's quite a good way of concealing a little bit of arm. Yeah, we shouldn't be afraid of our bingo wings though should we?

No! We shouldn't. We should clap heartily with them out. I say that as someone who, when my kids were younger, they used to play this game where they'd flap my bingo wings and we'd count seconds till they stopped and it actually made me do my first ever swimathon. So I say that, you know, I was trying to be brave about something that I've not been brave about in the past at all. And can I say, I'm gonna drop in a knowledge chunk here, thank you so much to all of the people who have corresponded about how artists get the perspective for their murals. So this one comes in from Charlotte, she says, I want to share this clip with you that explains the doodle grid,

which is the technique used by mural artists to plot out their artwork on a large scale. Worth noting that often artists work with others on large projects and a system like this gives everybody a guide to work from. Artists often stand back to assess their work or use cameras to keep track of progress. I'm not a mural artist myself, says Charlotte. The largest artwork I've completed was a tiny alcove in my friend's Airbnb in Deal. For this I sketched some outlines but was able to freestyle much of the work. Here's a reel I made whilst working on it. So I spent very many happy

minutes taking a look at that Charlotte and don't do down the tiny alcove in your friend's Airbnb and deal, my lovely. And also the doodle grid is fascinating. So you imagine a great big wall and the artist puts on loads of, I've watched two videos actually because somebody else sent in another suggestion. One where you just put letters, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all over your wall and then you take a photograph over your wall and then you take a photograph and you draw on that photograph the mural that you want to paint so then you can take it to that big perspective and another one... So you've got the photograph there and you just transfer it in a larger scale. So you know that you've got a little stroke going down from A to G and that will be somebody's eyebrow and another very similar version was just to use

dots of different colors so you can do exactly the same kind of pattern but it was really fascinating watching all of these videos but it did make me think actually that there's a terrible thing that happens now isn't there where I wouldn't have needed to ask anybody for that expertise because you could just pop it into chat gpt you could just pop it into google you know we wouldn't have needed to ask anybody for that expertise because you could just pop it into chat GPT, you could just pop it into Google. You know, we wouldn't have had all this correspondence, wouldn't have seen Charlotte's lovely Airbnb thingamajiggy what's it. Fran has sent in a fantastic picture of some work in Cleethorpes and we've had these amazing silo artists in Australia and I

suppose we all just need to play our part in that don't we? Just not automatically using the search tool because it makes curiosity quite dull doesn't it? And also it's nice to ask somebody a question so that they get to show their knowledge you know it's nice to have a conversation with someone and have them back and forth. Oh yeah, no, I know this. No, I know this. But also it's the end of the pub quiz mentality, isn't it? No longer is it a thing to actually, you know, be good at facts and knowledge.

No, you don't need to be. It's sort of like asking for directions, which I guess people don't do anymore either because they've all got Google Maps. Yeah, so how are you bumping into random strangers? Exactly. Where are those meet-cutes happening? Yeah. Can I just give a big up actually to Fran, who is the long-time listener, first-time emailer. Are we doing the jingle, Eve? Are we off the jingle?

We're off the jingle for the moment. Hillary, don't worry, the jingle will be back. Who had to email after hearing us talk about murals. She's a 33-year- old artist from Cleethorpes and her work is primarily watercolours but she has recently started painting murals. She starts by painting completely random doodles all over the wall and is using letters, numbers and symbols and then she does exactly what we've just been talking about. As a local artist I try to celebrate Grimsby and Cleethorpe through my work, as it often

gets bad press, but I love living here. The mural I've attached is my most recent, which has to do with Grimsby's history as the biggest fishing port in the world in the 50s and 60s. Wow. In the world, Jamal. That's extraordinary, isn't it? For a while it was a huge local industry industry and then many people lost their jobs during the cod wars. We often talk about the trawler men who went to sea for weeks in dangerous conditions.

Many men lost their lives, but the women also played a huge part during this time, keeping the homes running and taking care of their families, whilst wondering if their husbands or sons would return. The women would also braid the fishing nets to earn extra money for their families whilst wondering if their husbands or sons would return. The women would also braid the fishing nets to earn extra money for their families, so this is what's depicted in the painting. The men out at sea and the women at home braiding the nets. Absolutely blooming fantastic Fran. It's a really beautiful thing and thank you very much indeed for sending that in. And another one which comes in from Anne who is an Irish portrait

artist. She says, I don't do murals but I do love them. I just wanted to let you know the reason people paint murals at night and get the perspective right. Oh this is fascinating. Yeah, that's really interesting. Because they use a projector. Boom! Boom! Knowledge chunk of joy. Right? That's amazing, isn't it? God, I would love to see that in action. Really love to see that in action. I might go for a wander around my local neighbourhood at two in the morning.

Oh no, that'd be dangerous, I won't. Can you paint or draw at all? No. Me neither. No. No. No. No, no, no, no. So my sister's an artist and she's just brilliant and it was just so clear when we were growing up who had the talent and who didn't. So I never bothered to even try actually and I think that does happen quite a lot in families too doesn't it? Can you craft? I can craft very badly, very very badly, I love it but it's very very bad. I went through a phase of knitting and it was just when an awful lot of friends were having babies so I'd knit baby

grows. How many of them got worn? I did realise that there were quite a lot of very kind friends who did put their beautiful beautiful newborn babies in one of my disastrous baby grows just for a photograph and then they would never trouble them again. They were really bad, really bad. It's the thought that counts. I think they would have rather hoped that if they had a second child I did just think about it. Yeah, a second child. Can you craft?

I can't craft and I don't really enjoy it. I'm not a very patient person and I don't like doing things I'm not very good at. Actually skiing is one of the few things that I'm terrible at but I love. I just don't care that I'm very bad at it. I only learned when I was about 30 and so you're never going to be fearless. Obviously crafting is you know know, less fear inducing, but I just don't have the patience or the application. Maybe it's one of those things that I should do more of because it would be nice and meditative. But yeah, it's not a thing that I've ever been particularly into or good.

When I was young, sure, but no, as an adult, I've never really been a crafter. Lots of my friends are very good at crafting and it's just not a thing for me. Yeah, well it may come to you. Do you get that feeling that it might be something that you turn to later in life? Not entirely sure. No, I'm not sure either. No. I think there might be other things that fill my time. Thank you to everyone who has sent in their nominations for the band list, which is growing as

quickly as the playlist at the moment. Clare in Jersey says for the band list it is what it is, very good one yes, and Bless and she also nominates the overuse of bloody acronyms and gives me a virtual exclamation mark but thank you for the virtual one. She's also got some nominations for the playlist which I'm going to pass over because is Rosie compiling them today? So Rosie, she was in yesterday. Rosie came in even though she wasn't feeling particularly 100% and she has topped up the playlist and there are about 40 tracks on it now. It's a glorious glorious wonderful thing that playlist. Eclectic. It is eclectic. It zooms all over the place and it's got some real bangers in and then

some tracks that I haven't heard for years and some that I've never heard at all. It is really, really wonderful. So thank you to everyone who's contributed. You can just bung it in as a PS on the end of another email and we'll top it up every week. So don't worry if it doesn't appear kind of overnight but if you can circulate it and tell your friends then that would be a lovely thing too. Absolutely it's a collab. Susan nominates iconic for the band list so overused when they mean famous except unless you're talking about Brigitte Macron obviously I would maintain she is iconic. Alison this is a particularly overused word in newspapers so I agree agree with you. Unprecedented. Yeah. It's not unprecedented. We've seen it before.

It's just, you know, a little bit dramatic. The one I hate in all forms of journalism is surreal. And also because people say it's quite surreal. Well, I mean, it's either surreal or it's not. You can't have a qualifier with surreal. Unique. You can't. You're either one. Quite unique. Yeah, quite unique. And Liz sends us greetings and nominates Uptick.

Yeah, annoying. She says, can't we just say increase? It smacks of weird managerial English and just gets my goat. She also nominates Assist. When did it become wrong to ask for help rather than assistance? Good point. Maybe it's just a thing that's crept in where I work, says Liz. It drives me crazy and it needs to stop. It's unnecessarily obsequious language that only Jeeves stations and airports really need. She also nominates Defective, as in defective trains, a favourite of TFL.

I think the word they're looking for is broken, says Liz. Are we all, unless we're all in pre-89 Germany and the train is from East Berlin and trying to make a break for freedom to the West. And lastly, she nominates in order to. This stems from my own training at journalism college. No need for in order, just say to. I think that's so, so spot on. There are so many things when you go through that you can strike out half of a line of just completely superfluous words. So yes, I love that. I also have to make an apology while we're on things that are banned. I'd like to ban my own gabbering. This comes in from Pat, who says stop gabbering Jamal and she's making a point with an exclamation mark so she's

obviously very cross with me. Oh punchy. Jamal you sometimes become infuriatingly unintelligible especially when reading emails. Slow down and enunciate please. I would like to hear what you say. Well Pat I do apologize. I do sometimes, I think, hurry through emails to get to the really important and exciting bit because I feel that there's so many emails we want to read out and I know that Fee's got so many emails that she wants to read out so I apologise sometimes for galloping through them and I will take your point and enunciate properly, is if I were reading

for, you know, my school narrator's job which I often had, which would slow down, look at the audience. It is difficult in a podcast where it is chat, I think, to always get the pace right because it's a, we're talking normally normally we're absolutely having a conversation at a normal speed now aren't we and so I think it's completely understandable to go into emails at exactly that speed and actually one of the things that I've noticed in the radio world the on air world is that everybody is speaking so much faster than they used to if you went back just 10 years and especially at, let's all sit up now, the BBC, then you would notice that the pace of speaking is so slow. If you

go back to the 1950s, it's glacial. It's like they nodded off between sentences in the 1950s. You're absolutely right. And actually I do think I probably do it on Thursdays when I come in and speak to you and Jane about what's in the magazine because I just get really over excited about our chat. People often do. I get really over excited. I've got so much to say and usually no criticism but your last guest is usually run on a bit so I've got to kind of crunch what I want to be you know 11 minutes into about six and it's got a lot I want to say to you both all the time.

It is a difficult half hour, that one. I'll grant you that. We always run over on that half an hour, the live show, two till four, Times Radio available on the app. This week I'm doing it with Roy and Nika. So I'll ask her all about Brigitte and the various outfits she's had and the capes and all of that and we'll get some insider info on that. I also wanted to add my little Tuppaniesworth and this is via

a friend actually who I was having a chat with this morning. We hate annual leave. Oh I hate annual leave so much. You're not in the army. You're not in the services. And as she said, it's turned something that is our right to have and enjoy, which is a holiday, into only being relevant because it's within the corporate structure of the year. So I completely, completely agree. And to link back to an earlier email about acronyms, some people now say I was on AL. Again you're not coming back from war. It's ridonkulous a word that's not used enough. This comes in from Caroline now this is extraordinary and it's entitled please can your hive help. Dear Jane and

Fee I'm reaching out to you to see if any of your amazing hive bees can help. My dearest friend lost her husband in May and still isn't able to get a death certificate. We've tried every avenue we can think of or have been advised to pursue and we end up every time with a sorry we can't help. My friend's husband died at sea on a ferry in international waters on the way to the UK. A pathologist in her home town certified the cause of death and the local coroner provided an interim death certificate which allowed for the funeral to take place but not for financial matters to be sorted. The normal procedure would be to contact the seafarers registry in Cardiff

to get a death certificate which they normally are able to provide but this time are being blocked by the French. We've had an awful lot of advice and been sent on various goose chases and so as not to bore you with the full story I provide a list of places that have been contacted. Right here we go. Seafarers register, the French embassy, the British embassy, the foreign office, the commonwealth office in Brussels, the coroner's society of England and Wales, local pathologist who wrote the report, local coroner who issued the certificate, local registrar and ship's captain. If anyone has any ideas about how we can proceed further, please let me know.

My friend knows about the email and is looking for any help." Well Caroline, God, what a story. I mean, first of all, how absolutely awful fought your friend. That must have been such a shock and really, really difficult to handle, to then find yourself having to do all of this work for something that really should be simple.

And as anybody who knows, who's had to deal with the death of a loved one and then probate I mean you just you cannot do anything until you have the death certificate it's so vital and important to the process so what a nightmare I'm sure that somebody will be able to help and send us an email and if you can do it kind of as quick as you can we'll try and get it into the podcast tomorrow and try and be helpful about that. But most of all we just send lots of love because that is just such a

difficult situation to be in and it can't be the first time it's happened either so it's just really odd to not have a procedure in place. And that sense of hopelessness when you're just ground down by endless bureaucracy and chasing your tail. And to explain to so many strangers that someone you love's died. It's so difficult when that time comes for you. That just sounds like a really horrible, horrible situation to be in. So this is in praise of male nurses. It comes from Elisa. Kind Regards is her sign off. Following up

on your email from the listener who had a hysterectomy, I've now had four major operations in that department but my first experience was in the hospital that I'm sure Fee is familiar with following a miscarriage with severe complications. If it's the one that you think it is then I'm familiar with too and I really sympathise with your experience, Elisa. I have to say that the female doctor, the female nurses were really quite brutal towards me and the most care I received was from a male nurse who was the first to offer me some pain relief in the form of suppositories which I was too ill to insert. He did with such tenderness and care after all the other ways I've been treated by women. I cried I'm really sorry to say this. I'm a feminist

I'm a lesbian But I wanted other women to know that actually the sorts of men who go into nursing are probably the best ones on the planet And not to be self-conscious about their caring for you And that is a kind of PS after the kind regards It's the people who kick up a fuss who change the world, ain't that the truth? I really agree with you about that. I think the men who go into nursing, because actually there is just such a still such a really insane prejudice, particularly about men who are in maternity nursing and midwifery, that they must be people who really

do want to be dedicated to their patients and to their craft. And there is something very odd, I mean I was in that hospital, I'm pretty sure it is the same one, with one of my children afterwards when they were babies and it was a really difficult time actually as it always is if you're in there with a little one and you know you're full of anxiety and worry and stuff like that. I was lucky because I was only in there for about a week and we did okay and we came out the other side but some of the care that I witnessed being meted out to other women who were in such difficult positions, I mean it haunts me to this day. Brutal is a very good way of describing it and it's not, there's just no need, there's just no need. There was a kindness between all of us patients on the ward

which was noticeably, noticeably different to the level of kindness from some of the staff. Obviously not all of the staff but some of the staff is just like, gosh, really why are you here? This obviously, you don't like your job, you don't like being with women, they're often most vulnerable. Totally. Please don't, you know, really, maybe, I don't know, another branch of medicine or whatever the job would suit, but obviously that's not everybody. But Elisa, thank you for relating your experience. This comes in from Karen, retirement. Karen, long time listener, first-time emailer, the jingle's having a week off so just do it in your head I guess kids.

Karen says, interesting to hear your views on retirement. I worked long hours in local government for 30 years. I enjoyed it but Covid, menopause, losing some friends too young, aging parents and more all combined to persuade me that there was more to life than paid work. We're not wealthy but we've always been savers. Nonetheless we were surprised when we did the maths to find that we did have enough for the lifestyle we want. Brackets not hanging off the balcony of a puffing polluting behemoth. Cross ref our discussions of, what are they called? Cruises! Balcony sweets. Karen says I left work in August 2022 aged 58. Within six months, mum had broken her hip, dad had died, brother suffered a major injury.

I had to take on managing mum and brother's finances as well as practical help, all adding up to a full-time job. My brother died in March and my mum is sliding ever faster towards dementia. I'm so sorry to hear all of this Karen, it does sound an awful lot. And as Karen says, the long list of things I was looking forward to on retirement, including exploring alternative careers through volunteering, learning new skills and revisiting old ones remains untouched. But if I'd still been working, the last three years would have broken me. And there are thousands of us carers in similar or worse situations. To define purpose solely in terms of paid employment seems to me to be a failure of imagination.

And that's a reference to something I said about purpose yesterday. There are many ways of contributing to society without being paid for it. I'm still looking forward to tackling my retirement project list at some point in the future. Thank you, Karen, for that. And first of all, I'm so sorry to hear that the last three years have been such a long, long list of difficulties and challenges for you and the rest of your family. And yes, it does seem like a sort of blessing in disguise that you decided to retire when you did and you could be there for everyone but I have enormous sympathy for the fact that those first three years of your retirement in inverted commas don't look the way that you had envisaged them looking when you did the maths with your husband. They're very very lucky to have you and to have the time that you have

had to spare caring for them and looking after them and I really really do hope that you get to explore some of those alternative careers and all of the other things that you might want to do. And I just want to apologise if it sounded as if I was saying that paid employment was my definition of purpose. It's absolutely not. I sort of meant that I'm fortunate enough to have a job that I find personally fulfilling rather than sort of in terms of

financials. It's certainly more fulfilling personally than it is financially but I feel enormously grateful and very very lucky to have something that I enjoy doing and gives me a sense of personal purpose. So apologies if that wasn't clear but I am in awe of you for spending the last three years Karen, you know, really, really digging in and helping your family and I'm sure it's hugely appreciated. So I just wish you an interesting and exciting and possibly more relaxing next three years. But also, I mean, I hear your apology but I do think as well that everybody has a different idea and a different sense of their purpose

and where they find their fulfillment. And actually if you do find it truly through your work and paid work, you know, payment is, we shouldn't be ashamed to say this, payment is part of business. Yes, no, absolutely. Then I think that's okay, but it isn't the same for everybody at all. And also there's something to be said about our attitude towards the third age being so bent now by all of the other pressures that are on us, especially the caring pressures. Because for so many people, the gaps in the welfare state, the difficulties of carers

allowance, all of the things that we talk a lot about on the podcast, mean that your retirement may well be swamped by other people's needs and actually you know that you may well look back and a realize as our correspondent has that your vision of what your retirement was going to be has been overtaken by the reality of it and you may look back on even you know a pretty wearisome job with some sense of nostalgia and the paycheck as well. Because I think one of the weird things of living in the now is none of us can really work out what we will need for the future. Because actually, if we all lose the state pension, then that's the whole generation that's got to rejig its retirement potential and that kind of gilded age where you saved up and your investments meant something that seems to be trashed at a moment's notice by a

great big orange buffoon doing what he wants when he wants so sympathies all round. On a lighter note and Anne Anne please don't worry, I am going to show this to Jane Garvey. Oh yes, I put that to one side to save for her. No, it's too good, it's too good, it's got to come out now and then it can come out again, Anne. So this is something that Anne found in her favourite word puzzle. So Anne earned a Word Reveal bonus word of the day and the word is Garvey and in brackets there's the pronunciation Garvey. And Garvey's definition is this, a small boat with a flat bottom that has traditionally been used on the New Jersey coast.

Would you like an accent with that? New Jersey. Actually, it's New Joy-zee. New Joy-zee! New Joy-zee! New Joy-zee! And watershed since the 1700s. So I think that absolutely... Not consecutively! ...sums her up, really, doesn't it, apart from the New Jersey coast. I mean, if we just said off the Merseyside Riviera, it would would work wouldn't it? A small boat with a flat bottom that's traditionally been used on the Merseyside Riviera since the 1700s. Jane Garvey is back the week after next. We're actually both taking a break from the podcast

completely so it will just rest for a week but Jamelle Kerins is with me this week so we've got another day to go. I can't wait to see what you'll be wearing tomorrow. Do you want to do one more email then we'll dive into the guest and I've made a refer it was like a DJ link that you'll see what I mean in a minute. I would like to just read this wholly unnecessary apology out from Marie Louise or Marie Louise? Marie Louise. Dear Jane aka Jamal, Relief Jane etc. When I wrote in to express my delight at the auto transcribers mangling of your name to Jamal Kerins among other things I never imagined that you'd be saddled with it and that your actual friends would start calling you that. I'm

worried you'll be accused of cultural and possibly gender appropriation so please forgive me and insist on your right to reclaim your own lovely name. Marie-Louise you have no need to apologise, the fact that Jamal has stuck is a sense of enormous amusement to me and to my friends who have picked up on it and run with it and to be honest I've rarely, rarely in my whole life ever just been called Jane. It's something to do with Mulkerrans. People enjoy mangling it, turning it into all sorts of different names. And so I've very rarely just been Jane. So this is not new. And Jamal is, I mean, Fee used it earlier just casually as if it's now my actual name. So I think I'm stuck with it.

What's your middle name? Ellen. Ellen? E-double-L-E-N. Oh, that suits you. Yeah, Janie Ellen is what my family would call me. But I grew up up north, so lots of people up north thought it was Helen and that I just couldn't pronounce my H's.

Yeah, and you would be a J-E-M, a gem. A gem. Oh, she's a gem. Yeah. What's your middle name? Fiona Susanna Grace Glover, full name. Oh, look She's a gem. Yeah. Right. What's your middle name? Fiona Susanna Grace Glover.

Full name. Oh, look at that. So many names. I've got a confirmation name, which is Elizabeth. What? Yeah. What? We can pick up on that another day.

Okay. This is like Boys Who Are Chris and Mary. It is a little bit like that. Except not confusing gender-wise. I know, the Boys Who Are Chris and Mary. I enjoyed that enormously. Yeah, when you get confirmed you get another name. It's one of many things that I really, really will never understand about organized religion. now. Enjoy up to 20% off select beauty and grooming so that you can shop brands you love

and ones you've always wanted to try. July 10 to 13 in store and online. Terms and conditions apply. Happy shopping. Come see us online or at a Holt Renfrew store near you. Do you like a swim? A little dip in the pool on holiday? A splash at your local Lido? Well, this is how most of us do our swimming. But if you're Vassos Alexander, sports presenter on the Chris Evans Virgin Breakfast Show, it's simply not enough. He got the big swim bug and decided that he'd like to swim the English Channel, as many people have, and he felt it was within his range. Or was it? His open water swimming has taken him to Lake Tahoe, swimming

for eight hours a day. He's also swum across the bay in San Francisco. Yep, that's got sharks in it. And he's also front crawled his way across the Solent. It's all in a book called Swimmingly, which charts the ups and downs of his watery pursuits. And of course, the big question is simply why? I once had a cup of coffee with Sir Roger Bannister, the first human being to run a mile in under four minutes in 1954, I think I'm right in saying. This wasn't when I had a coffee, this is when he did the mile. Gosh, you're looking good. Yeah, and he said to me, I mean, first of all, he said that that's not his greatest achievement in his opinion, I disagree.

He said his subsequent medical research into like cures for cancer and stuff eclipses that. But he said what he tries to do with his life or tried to do with his life, we lost him a few years ago, was get out of his comfort zone every day if he can because then his comfort zone expands and he sort of grows as a person and that really excites me just the idea of sort of the nervous excitement like you get on the start line of the London Marathon say the idea that you don't know what's coming next but you know you're going to get tested I think that's great that sort, that really energises me. Okay, but what about all of the danger involved? And let me put this to you because it is referenced a couple of times in your book that swimming is different maybe to some of

the other sports because there is a danger of pushing yourself too far, there is a danger of drowning, there's a danger of what's in your environment, there is a huge danger now of ingesting stuff that will harm you when you swim. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes, but there is also a danger crossing the road here at London Bridge, you know, and I suppose you manage the danger. I didn't manage the swimming danger particularly well because I sort of tend to haphazard my way through life a little bit and that's easier done on a 150 mile running race than it is on a cross channel swim attempt. But, you know, I sort of know what I'm doing. I am quite a strong swimmer and, you know, and I think I know where the limits are and where

I'm becoming reckless and I try and stay just this side or maybe just the wrong side of that line but not far enough to really actually make it reckless. I am aware that I'm a dad and a husband and I have responsibilities. Yeah I did want to ask you at some point during the interview about the patience that your wife must have because actually you're an awful lot of your downtime is spent isn't it on sport. What is one up from Saint because I think that's where we'll find Caroline yeah um she's no she's really really patient but I again I try and sort of manage it so that, when I was training for the channel, I sort of peak training coincided with a summer holiday, a great sort of three week jaunt around the USA.

And for four of those days, I sort of disappeared to do pretty much all morning training, whether it was an Alcatraz swim in San Francisco, or I got up at four o'clock, two mornings running and swam for eight hours in Lake Tahoe. I mean that, by the way, swimming in Lake Tahoe, which is 99.994% pure, you can drink, I did drink it, you can just drink the water.

As the sun rose over the sort of surrounding mountains, it's a huge alpine lake, was just one of the great experiences of my life. And then, noon I was finished and I was back in our lodge and I was having lunch with the family and we were off on a hike in the afternoon. Okay, I don't want to be down on you and both of those last questions are kind of slightly down because actually reading the book you really come to understand the joy that all of this is bringing to you. Can we start with just a little bit about your childhood because you talk about this extraordinary, this lovely,

lovely childhood you had which introduced you to swimming and a natural kind of ability to be in water. We spent, my brother and I, every day of every, we were schooled here in the UK, but every day of every school holiday was spent on the island of Evia which is just off the mainland in Greece you drive to it over a bridge in the middle of nowhere in the house that my granddad massive man um built on his own by the sea and there was nothing to do except for swim and And we just, I didn't realize how it had sort of got into my soul until many years later,

I signed up for the first ludicrous event that I signed up for, which was an Ironman triathlon in Nottingham. And doing the swimming training, I thought I'd hate the swimming and I'd love the bike and I'd adore the running. But actually I didn't really much care for the bike, loved the running and loved the swimming equally. And then I remembered that oh it

must be it sort of got into my bones just being in the sea and the child. You feel so connected to nature and you still do and we're an island nation right and I think it's just it's in our soul as well in the UK. So the premise of the book is that you're gonna swim the channel and let's not give away the ending but it doesn't quite work out does it? No I got about as far as the welcome to Dover sign. It doesn't work out but you know I'm thrilled that it didn't because you know I've written mostly running books about oh you know here we go, I've bitten off more than I can chew here, will I finish? Oh yes I finish, you know and that's great you know and there's loads of people who've written books like that and they're great. But because it wasn't about me swimming the channel in the end, although whilst writing the book I thought it would be,

we had to do a sort of sharp left turn. Here, I wrote it here on the 14th floor after the breakfast show on Virgin Radio. It's a very creative place. Isn't it just? Isn't it just? I got to celebrate this wonderful world of open water swimming both at the elite level and the people who've done extraordinary things and groundbreaking things and world-changing things and at the level of, you know, my friend Marlena and the Teddington Blue Tits on a Sunday morning down by Teddington Lock in the River Thames. How, what was the biggest swim that you'd done before you decided that you were going to try to do the channel? The Solent, I think. I swam across the Solent sort of by accident. My friend Sam I thought was inviting me, we were having a run and I thought he'd invited me to join him at his house on the Isle of Wight but actually he was inviting me to swim to the Isle of Wight with him, which I did and I met a guy called Paul Parrish who puts on these swims for a spinal charity called Aspire. Fantastic guy, really inspiring and I thought, okay, well let's do it, let's swim to... and I loved it. I just, I got to the Isle of Wight and each of us had, there was only four of us,

and each of us had a kayaker. And I got there and I said, can we go back? Can you just... Because I was sort of away ahead of everyone else. I said, look, by the time they get here and they get on the boat, and they go, we'll be home. So let's just go back. And I offered to pay him a ludicrous amount of money to just kayak me back. And he rightly refused because he wanted to sort of stretch his arms but I realized at that point I might be hooked. Yeah, swimming the Solent, let's just dwell on that for a little bit, you do mention in

the book you know that at times you had this kind of bitter taste in your mouth which was the diesel from the ferries going past and all kinds of things. It's a really really busy tract of water So when you're in the water, how much sense do you have that there's a hovercraft over there, there's a ferry going to Shanklin over there, that there's busyness all around you. You're vulnerable, you're tiny in that stretch of water aren't you? Well on that particular swim I just relied on the kayaker to tell me if I had to stop for example, an oil tanker going past and seeing an oil tanker from a duck's eye view, it feels like

a country going by, massive things. And you do feel vulnerable in the water when you're swimming, but there's also something quite magical about the sort of sensory deprivation, you can't see anything you can't hear anything So it's just you and your thoughts and the stroke and the feel of the water against your skin and there's something I don't know quite magical and transcendent about that There are quite a lot of women who've done very long swims aren't there and you do say that everybody should have heard of Gertrude Eddall, Erdala, Erdala, sorry. I hadn't heard of her and I'm ashamed of that. I haven't heard of Lynne Cox either. There is quite a female thing of ultra swimming. Why is

that do you think? I really don't know. I think it's great. I was at the Great North Swim on the banks of Windermere a couple of weeks ago doing a talk on a stage and there was maybe, I don't know, four or five thousand people there and I said come on everybody, we're all swimmers. How many of you honestly have heard of Lynne Cox? Five or six hands, you know, went into the air. Lynne Cox swum from the USA to the USSR across the Bering Strait in freezing conditions in the 80s, having spent 11 years planning this and getting the permissions and the information she needed to do it, just to show that the two countries were actually really close together.

And within weeks Gorbachev and Reagan were signing the first Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, saying, if a young woman can swim between our countries then the least we can do is that. She basically thawed the cold war by dint of a two hour long swim across this insanely cold piece of water. I think that's brilliant. Gertrude Erdler showed the world and women in particular that women can do sport. It was sort of frowned upon in the 1920s when she decided that she wanted to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel, which at the time was the great world endurance feat. And not only did she do it, she did it in the face of lots of kind of male objection to the fact that she was even trying, I mean for goodness sake. And flying in the face of all of that, she did it, she accomplished it. And there's a great film,

by the way, I think it's Disney Plus called Young Woman in the Sea. I mean you're watching it and you're crying the whole time, it's so emotional and so uplifting. But she broke the record, she became the fifth person to, I think, swim the channel, breaking the record, which stood for 25 years. She was just an amazing human being. And then when she got back to New York, she was an American German immigrant, more people turned out for her Ticketate Parade than anybody has for any parade before or since. There were millions of people lining the street in New York. These are just such great stories, aren't they? And they do need to be amplified more. We can't let you go, Vassos, without

talking about swimming poo. There's a whole chapter in your book, chapter 21, dedicated to swimming poo, but it's such a serious issue and obviously we both work in this building and The Times has done some really fantastic campaigning work on all of the shit that's in our rivers and our sea. And that's the technical term, isn't it? I'm not being rude there. What are your thoughts on the people responsible for polluting the waters that you are trying to enjoy yourself in? Well, you used that word and I don't think I can use the words that are actually in my brain about them. But here's the thing.

The Times are absolutely leading the charge and have been for a couple of years on this. Several other organisations, the BBC, are doing some pretty good jobs. I'm a member of various campaigning groups, SOS, Whitstable, the Solar... Which stands for? Save our seas, I think. Whitstable, the solar... Which stands for? Save our seas I think, Whitstable yeah and then the solar campaign in Teddington. What Thames Water want to do in Teddington right it's almost funny if it wasn't so appalling is remove millions of litres of clean water from the Thames, cleanish, replace them with with poo, with sewage, saying that, oh that's how we're gonna, you know, stop you having hosepipe bands. Well just fix

the leaks. Anyway, the problem is, because the... so when I started, and it's only five, six years ago that I started open water swimming properly, people would sort of walk past on the towpath and say you're mad going in there because it's so cold. They don't say that anymore, they say you're mad going in there because it's so cold. They don't say that anymore, they say you're mad going in there because it's so polluted. So the perception is changing, actually the reality is improving. Here in London we've got a new super sewer which has helped, but it still has to be, you know, the Times have to continue the campaign, we have to continue our campaign, the local groups, Surfers Against Sewage, fantastic organisation. We've got to, you know, keep doing this, keep on at them and I think the

tide might be turning in our favour but only if we keep going and then in a few years time hopefully people won't think I can't get in the water because it's so bloody disgusting. I mean it is a really, really shocking thing isn't it? So we hear you on that. You are a sportsman through and through. So your day job, well, it's kind of your midnight through until normal hours job is on the Chris Evans breakfast show, doing all of the sports. So here comes your quick fire round.

Who will win Wimbledon this summer? Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic. Let's go with Novak Djokovic. I'd like Novak to win because I had lunch with him in New York once and he was very charming. What did he have to eat? He just turned plant-based so he was evangelical about it. How tedious. I know. How can you, you know, how do you know if someone's a vegan? They will tell

you. Well you can say the same thing about cold water swimmers. And marathon runners and I am all three things. Yes, okay. In the women's draw at Wimbledon? I think you have to look for Sabalenka. Yeah, she's the world number one. She's reached the final of the last three Grand Slams. Can we do it at all in the women's Euros? It's a very bad group to be in, I know, and we haven't got off to the best start. And we've lost to the Netherlands who we played this afternoon at 5-2 of the last three times we played them. So it doesn't look good.

OK. Christian Horner has departed from his job after saying, I think barely 48 hours ago, that he thought that the right people had faith in him to stay. What do you make of that? I was really surprised, because it sort of came from nowhere. I mean, not from nowhere. If it happened this time last year,

we wouldn't have been surprised, but it happened today. There were the allegations against him, which he was cleared of a year ago, and then it sort of looks like Max Verstappen is leaving Red Bull to join Mercedes. Has that happened in order to prevent that from happening at Red Bull? I don't know. It's still very fresh news. Do you get frustrated as a sports journalist that you are always watching from, albeit, quite a close sideline.

Is there a bit of you, given what we learn about you in your books, that actually just wanted to be the sports person themselves? I mean 100% yes, but also 100% no. Wimbledon, you know, when I was at the BBC, I think in all of sport, the greatest view is from the BBC's commentary box on Centre Court. You're just behind the server's arm. You really get a sense of the dual that is an elite tennis match. And it just felt like such a privilege to be able to bring that to life for people. So I was very happy in the seat that I was in and very privileged to be able to see all this elite sport up close and personal whilst being ever so slightly jealous.

Yes, there was a tiny bit there. The only other time that you and I have met in person, this is quite funny, it was at Celebrity Weakest Link and do you know what, there are many times in my life when I realise exactly who I am and the Celebrity Weakest Link was one of them. I don't have the competitive urge to really, really win. I just don't care, Passles. I do. Yeah, you do. And I did look across the podiums.

And also, I mean, how embarrassing, because I'm so short, I had to stand on a little steppy, upy chair behind the podium, and nothing says you're going to lose like that. But actually, you do. You and Rick Edwards, you absolutely had. You had that glint in your eye that it really meant something to you to win.

Well we don't, we did it for charity, actually we got paid a bit as well didn't we, but we did it for charity and the charity only gets the money if we win. Yes don't remind me, it's our failed charity. Well I didn't flip in win either, I just reached the final and Rick Edwards beat me. He is a phenomenal grade, isn't he? He is, he is. So I think there was a bit of that, but also, you know, as the parents at Barnes Primary will tell you, don't play me at dodgeball. Okay, right. Well, on that profound note, we'll leave it. Vasos Alexander, and I think Jane and Garvey and I have often mused that there are two types of people in the world.

One who enjoys personal bests, PBs, and one who will never know what a personal best is, that's us. So Vasos Alexander is a man who is really at ease with his PBs and his book is available now. There's lots to enjoy in it actually, even if you don't really like swimming, it's about pushing your body and it's about the limits and all of that. And some really good stories about the women who have swum enormous distances. And I was just struck by how much it seems to be the women doing that and not the men. I don't know what that's about.

Right, Jane Morecarons and I return tomorrow. Jane and Fee at Time Stop Radio is the email address. We are going to carry over our book club book until after. Obviously Jane Garvey and I get back from our holidays so we will be discussing Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hessian probably the first week in August but do get all of your thoughts about it in if you'd like to. Lovely. Great. Great. Bye. Can I just, a quick book recommendation, have you read Dream Count yet?

No. The New Chimamanda? Oh, it's so good. No, I haven't. I'm about a quarter of the way through and I'm just absolutely loving it. It's probably two, it's going to be far too well known for you to do it as Book Club books. I know you like to do things that are a little bit, you know, sort of off book, as it were.

Yeah, exactly that. But huge recommendation if anyone is looking for a great read. Lovely. This week in the sunshine. We love a recommendation. Thank you very much indeed. We'll talk at the same time tomorrow. Who knows what I'll be wearing. Promises, promises. 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, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll

understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler. This episode of Off Air is brought to you by Washington DC. The city? Yep, the one and only. Washington DC is the city for sightseeing, museum going and even outdoor adventures. It has got a variety of nightlife, dining, art and theatre with over a hundred free things

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Book your trip to DC by visiting dialaflight.com forward slash WDC. The Holt Renfrew Beauty Refresh offer is on now. Enjoy up to 20% off select beauty and grooming so that you can shop brands you love and ones you've always wanted to try. July 10 to 13 in store and online. Terms and conditions apply. Happy shopping. Come see us online or at a Holt Renfrew store near you.