Off Air... with Jane and Fi - A three day streak (with James May)

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Fi is off on her holidays, so it's a dose of double Jane - with Jane Mulkerrins in the hot seat all this week. They chat about getting your steps in, Fi's appearance on The Weakest Link and a very curious quiz called 'The Wheel of Meat'. They're also joined by The Grand Tour presenter James May, who talks about his new children's book Marvellous Vehicles. 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: Matt Murphy Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why have I got a round one and Jane's got a long one? I don't know either, Jane. You don't have to turn everything into a double entendre. There's probably a very serious technical explanation. Welcome to Off-Air. Fee is away. I had a very funny text from her. Do you know? Oh, I'll get on to who my co-host is. It's Jane Mulcairons, associate editor of The Times magazine. Always good to have you, Jane. You're a lovely fee replacement. Oh, thank you. I'm emergency fee, as you previously said. We have fired up our emergency fee. And it's very good of you, seriously, because I know you're not even working today. Well, I'm working, but not in the building.

Not in the building. I don't really understand that concept. No, OK. Sure, I'm not working today. Well, I'm working, but not in the building. Not in the building. I don't really understand that concept. No, okay. Sure, I'm not working today. Let's just leave it at that. It doesn't really... Because we all know if you're not working and you're at home working in speech marks, that just involves looking in your fridge and then, I don't know, going out for a coffee. Is that all it is?

Yeah, listening to you when I'm not here. You know, that kind of thing. I wouldn't go that far. So, Fi, as she mentioned on Off Air last week, did The Weakest Link. Oh, has it happened? Yeah, she did it over the weekend in Glasgow. And it's hosted by Romesh Ranganathan. Love him.

Yeah. And I, well, I think we'll just leave it to her to describe everything that took place. And presumably we're not allowed to know how she got on, or at least not to reveal do know but i won't be revealing it no but just to mention one of the names of the celebrities that she was on with um that lovely welsh um weather forecaster away no wayne oh away you know the drama oh yeah yeah and apparently they were in the bar for quite a while after the show is that a new celebrity friendship? Might you be ousted? I think it'll be.

For a wane. Fee and a wane. Fee and a wane. So, yes, so she can tell us all about taking part in The Weakest Link when she gets back next week. And she is, of course, in the Caribbean right now recording her fitness DVD. That was discovered last week. She is, yes.

She always does it. It's an annual thing. Get fit with Fee. Actually, I'd love to see it. Well, in fairness to her, she does have quite the regime because she does her swimming thing. And I always feel really guilty because it's around the time that I'm sauntering to my local coffee shop to have a flat white.

Sometimes there, sometimes Jane for Variety, I bring it home because I'm a crazy sort of person. I think of Fee and I realise she'll already be in cold water she's yeah damp and sort of doing a bit of breaststroke somewhere yeah and i've just put a support garment on and gone out for a coffee but look it's to each their own jane no and the steps all add up exactly they really do i had a three day streak last week you about one of those no not in living memory no but you know the pacer that tells you how many steps you've done oh i don't have one of those well it's kind of um of, I mean, there was on the third day, I was at 9,970 for the day. Wow.

And to complete the three-day streak, I obviously had to get up to 10,000. Oh, I see. So I just took it up to the bath with me and walked up and down the stairs three times and got there. And then you get all this confetti and your pace is really pleased with you and you feel good about yourself. You get validation. You get huge amounts of validation. Now, I think we obviously, legally,

we have to be very careful about what we say about the big talking point. But we can't in any way dodge the fact that there's really, as we speak, it's 17 minutes past five on Monday evening and there's only one talking point across the land, isn't there, Jane? Yeah, it's a huge story. I mean, it feels like that's been the only talking point since pretty much Saturday morning. Certainly it was the talk of the wedding and the birthday.

I was at this weekend. Was it? Genuinely? Genuinely. We should say for people listening outside the United Kingdom, I know there are lots of you who do exactly that, and we're very grateful. This is a story about a pretty prominent but unnamed thus far BBC presenter who's been suspended from his job after some allegations were made about him.

And these allegations are not, they are unpleasant, aren't they? It has to be said. Yeah, they're very unpleasant. We're allowed to say what the allegations are. We are, yeah. I mean, there is an alleged victim, of course. We're allowed to say what the allegations are. We are. I mean, there is an alleged victim, of course. Allegedly, this person had paid £35,000 over the course of a period of time

for explicit pictures of a teenager who was 17 at the time. And this teenager's mother has spoken to the son and said that this teenager spent the money on drugs. So it's a fairly gnarly story all around. Yes, it's very, very sad. There's a sort of tragic element to it, actually, and there is a young alleged victim at the heart of it. And if you were a parent or carer in that situation,

you would be extremely angry and upset. But there's a lot we still don't know yeah absolutely so but what we can't pretend for you know of course we've been talking about it here and i imagine that you have as well uh in your life so we'll see what happens over the next couple of days i mean i worked for the bbc for over 30 years and i can honestly say that there are very few situations on this earth that BBC management can't make substantially worse and I suspect they may have done it again here. Well I think aside from obviously the very difficult and sad situation for the family

and you know a young person has allegedly been exploited It is also a really damning indictment of the BBC if they had any inkling about this incident and did nothing about it, or at least didn't investigate it quickly enough, which is something that's been suggested. Yeah. I mean, I do think, we were talking about this briefly on the Times radio programme, I had a conversation with James Marriott

about the strange nature of people who choose to be broadcasters. And because I chose to be one myself, I think I'm okay to say this. And I think you could say it of lots of high profile people in the media world, performers generally, actors, they're a bit strange, because you mentioned affirmation earlier, and you don't do stuff like this unless there's a part of you that is craving exactly that sort of thing and my experience at the BBC has was that the more successful you became the more your oddities were tolerated and even encouraged and I think it would be fair to say that happens across most of the media and

probably in all workplaces. Yeah, I think that's definitely true on newspapers as well. Is it? Yeah, I think some people, some people are much less pleasant to work with than other people and much more difficult to manage. But there's, it seems inversely proportional to your fame how well you have to behave sometimes or you know the expectation upon you um because i think people's foibles or idiosyncrasies you know are seen as part of the creative process or part of their brilliance um and are tolerated in a way that that really shouldn't be no i mean it's just sometimes they're just a prat yeah and and they should and they. And they should be called out on it, but I'm afraid it tends not to happen.

And I've got a tiny amount of experience of the NHS. I've worked in roles in the NHS, and I have to say that there's peculiar behaviour from doctors, nurses, surgeons. I'm afraid we're all capable of really unpleasant stuff. It's just, gosh, I'm depressing the life out of myself. Do you think that that is as true for women as it is true for men? I mean, do you think that, or maybe we don't know because we don't have as many years of women being in such positions positions of power

that we don't really know whether you know abuse to power idiosyncrasies and things are tolerated as much from women in senior positions um as historically they have been of men i think i guess we'll have to see we will have to see i can certainly say i've known some, quotes, difficult women with fairly odd behaviour, but nothing ever remotely sexual. And I've got to say that if I were the BBC and I was looking for someone to fill a high-profile presenting role over the next couple of years, I wouldn't look at a man. Yeah.

I mean, I'm actually semi-serious, because the BBC's got a job on its hands, just fighting its corner and continuing to exist. And this sort of stuff is the very last thing it needs. I couldn't agree more. I think, well, you talked about it when we were talking about Gary Lineker. And I know you felt slightly that while he is entitled to his opinion, it perhaps wasn't helpful for the BBC at the moment, having someone so outspoken. And I think, yeah, every little chip that the BBC is undermined with is very detrimental at the moment, you know, in a time at which they're having to really justify their existence

and their licence fee. Oh, should we just talk about kittens? Yeah, should we talk about kittens and lovely, lovely listeners. Yes, lovely, lovely. Oh, the big guest today is James May, who is the host of Top Gear, of course, and then the Grand Tour. And do you have a car, Jane? No, Jane, I've actually never owned a car.

You've never owned a car? No, I had a Vespa for some years. I had a little scooter that I loved. But now I've always lived in big cities and I've never owned a car. And now I've got a push bike. And actually, I did hear some of your interview with James May earlier. Yeah, he said he didn't think women were intimidated on the cycle lanes. I would like for him to just follow gently behind me as I cycle to work, shouting at all the lycra bandits who just whiz past me, clipped into their...

Is that what it's like? Honestly, they all think they're in the Tour de France. It's absolutely horrific. If you time it badly and you're sort of on that cycle superhighway along the Thames between sort of 8.30 and 9.15, I mean, you're very lucky if you don't get mowed down by a man in Lycra. But you enjoy it, do you? Not the mowing down.

No, but the thrill of just getting on the bike so i love cycling yeah i do really love cycling i'm only allowed to do it between april and october because my boss on the thais magazine won't let me do it in winter uh because i'm prone to an accident well no that sounds suggest a very caring nature i you know i tootle along at a reasonable lick but i've got a basket you know i've got a i don't clip into my pedals I'm basically not there doing a tap for the Tour de France on my way to work no I'm cycling I'm getting some exercise I'm being conscious of other users of the cycle superhighway and basically I seem to be the only person between the lycra bandits and some tourists wobbling around on some Boris bikes. Right. So it's basically the threats at both ends, Jane.

Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Can I just say, as a driver, both the Boris bikes, the tourists and the nervy cyclists are, and just trying to work out what's the cycle lane and what's for the traditional motor, it's a real challenge these days. Anyway, I ended up, I have to say, liking James a lot more than I might have expected. He just seems like a nice bloke. We are huge fans of his on the Times magazine.

Yeah, we really love him. We did a huge piece with him a couple of years ago and we've got another interview with him coming up in our What I've Learned section and he's hilarious, very self-deprecating. Yeah, as you say, just seems like a really good bloke. I'd quite like to go to the pub with him. Longer hair on the older man. What do you think?

I don't want to be rude to James, so maybe let's just leave that one. Okay, so, right. And now to the emails we have, what we have had at janeandfeeattimes.radio. I just want to mention this one because it's sort of just important and I get it. This is after Fee and I paid tribute to the NHS

last week on its 75th anniversary. And Pedro points out, I'd like to ask you why you both go on and on about the NHS being there and free. It isn't free, says Pedro, slightly bitterly from the sound of things. Every taxpayer contributes over a lifetime, a bit like an insurance policy that doesn't have small print to wriggle out of liabilities. So it is hopefully there at our moment of need. It's really frustrating hearing people go on about a free NHS. It isn't. It's only free if you don't pay tax. Okay, good point. Well made. Thank you, Pedro. On to you, Jane. Jane McAlevey He's got a point. Dear Jane and Fi, this is an email about Catlin Moran, who was your big guest last week. I agree with Catlin that we've made progress in the empowerment of girls to the point where nothing more can be achieved without engaging the boys.

This listener says, I've brought up two boys, now 20 and 25, and would love to believe that they want to further empower girls and would be happy to be the homemakers and the child rearers while their partners pursue career ambitions. How can we, oh she says, but I'm not sure I've succeeded in my effort to bring them up to believe this. How can we educate or influence boys to believe that the home-based role can be just as fulfilling as the career when they hear their mothers, sisters and girlfriends loudly celebrating the fact that they've recently escaped from the expectation that this is the role they are expected to play. I think this is a really interesting point. I think it's a great point. It's a really interesting point. And I think, yes, we as women do have a role to play in that,

in recognising that that is a valid use of time and resources and parenting. But I also want to say that I think, as you know, I went to Sweden recently because I bang on about it for about 13 hours of every 24. Well, a friend of mine has just been on a cruise and she went to Stockholm, sent me some pictures. Gosh, it looks amazing. It's beautiful.

But one of the things I found out when I was there is that in Sweden you get 15 months parental leave. And of that, men have to take at least three months of it. So the male partner, if it's a couple, there's no choice. It's not, you know, it's not optional. You have to take at least three months maternity leave, paternity leave. this is a really great way of encouraging, or forcing, men to partake in solo active childcare in a way that just doesn't happen here because you can have shared parental leave.

But basically, men don't encourage one another to do it. And I think culturally, it's just not caught on. And I think we need middle managers and senior men to encourage younger men you know to partake in this we need to make it normal in a way because I think I could probably count on three fingers the number of men I know who've taken a proper chunk of parental leave what's the name of the emailer sorry I can't remember uh I didn't read her name out okay I don't need to read I was just going to say because i i do think she is making a really good point but i think it would be god i mean i'm what would i say

about the price you pay for being a mother and i say that because but it's fantastic and so rewarding in any number of ways is your career in speech marks likely to suffer i mean it's hard to deny it will i think it probably will. Yeah, that's the thing. It probably will. But women have to face that and men, thus far, don't really. No.

So should we lie about the fact that we've made a promise? Because we don't want men to pick up on it. We just want them to do it. We want them to do the leave. No, I think it's...'s well it's basically changing the culture so that organizations penalize people less for taking parental leave um if everyone has to take you has a child obviously it's going to be less of a gendered

impact hopefully i do think it's a really good talking point there's there's a very long story and i won't tell the whole story now but um i know a friend of mine who interviewed melinda gates yeah um for one of her books melinda was telling her the story about how they had a child who was going to a special music school and it was a 45 minute drive each way so it's an hour and a half round trip drop off. Melinda said, could you do it sometime? So basically Bill Gates started doing pick up twice a week. And she said the number of men at the school gates doing drop off and pick up just went through the roof about two weeks later when clearly all the women were going home saying,

do you know what? I know your job's important, but if Bill Gates can do pick up, you can probably do pick up. And I think there's something in that about men leading by example. Yeah, I think there can't be. I mean, unfortunately, they have got divorced, the Gateses. Yeah, I mean, not a perfect example,

but still. Nevertheless. I'm sure it wasn't because of drop off and pick up. I think it's other things. It might have been. Yes, I think it might well have been other things. Yeah, he may have done pick up a few times but he did

anyway he did other sorts of right let's move on because we've been so careful about what we've said today and I had to spend two hours this afternoon being very very careful

indeed about what I said you must be exhausted from that being careful the mental strain I'm quite interested in this email from and we won't mention her name either

I loved listening to your interview with Catlin Moran if you missed it Catlin was on Off Air last Thursday talking about her new book, What About Men? And she was really interesting and a lot of you

wanted to get involved in that conversation. This listener says, I listened to the interview, my son is 11 and started secondary school in September. His sister is 13. We haven't yet had a conversation about porn. I didn't think I needed to yet, but it sounds like we do need to start that conversation soon porn i didn't think i needed to yet but it sounds like we do need to start that conversation soon about a year or so ago my husband called me out on my

feminist views and suggested that i needed to tone down sharing my ideas with the family because i was antagonizing my daughter she was going through a particularly strong period of hating everything i said and stood for. I did think about what he said and decided I probably needed more balance in my life as I was only listening to podcasts by women, women fronted TV and radio shows and following women in social media because they were all fabulous. So for about a year, I have been following and listening to other podcasts, Stephen Bartlett, Ryland Clark, Ranjan Chatterjee and the High Performance podcast that's the one that Jake Humphries does Jake Humphrey I really like these men's messages and what they stand for I think they promote communication and the importance of having a healthy body and mind I mean I don't doubt that, but I suppose I think both Janes are a little shocked

by the husband calling you out and suggesting that you avoid solely listening to women's voices. I just want, can you please, lovely listener, please send us another email and tell us what you said to your husband when he asked you to tone down your feminism. How did that go for him? Well, I think there is a point when teenage girls in particular are in their early teens when they do, obviously.

I mean, I've certainly done it. I bet you did it. I did. No idea what you mean, Jane. Actually, I was more likely to challenge my dad than my mum when I was 14. I suddenly sort of just got very cross with the male of the species in general which I think does happen to a lot of teenage girls they just think oh god because they they see the future unfolding and they see their reality in front of them and just get really angry about it and

perhaps quite unfairly take out on their poor old dad who in my case didn't really deserve it but you know no I definitely gave my mum a much harder time and my dad would go and say, I'll talk to your mum I mean, we actually still have that conversation now where she and I all have a difference of opinion A fiery debate A fiery debate, and my dad will calm us both down Right, well, good So he's like the referee

He actually was a sports referee, so he's very skilled in that rugby, basketball and related women. Excellent. Well done him. Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, I do listen to, I think I certainly listen to male podcasts. And I listened, in fact, back in the day, you didn't have any choice. It was only men on the radio most of the time. So I wouldn't fight shy of writing, of listening only to women,

if women float your boat, frankly. I do try to mix it up a bit. I also think ideas are not gendered. Good ideas are. Yeah, they're all ours. Can I just read another one on this male-female tip? And then I've got some other totally non-gender emails to read. Hyphy and Jane have listened to you since the beginning times

and have drafted many an email to you that I haven't sent. In regards to men being jealous of women's ability to give birth. Oh, yeah, this is another part of the conversation, Katniss. My husband often talks about how he's envious of women and their ability to have children. We have yet to be lucky enough to manage to have any children of our own. But he often talks about how he anticipates that I will have a much stronger bond with my children than he will by virtue of the fact that I will carry them, hopefully, and breastfeed them, again, fingers crossed. I don't know if this is something to do with the fact that he's Spanish

and the reverence for the mother figure in his culture is a much bigger deal than it is here. But it's definitely something he feels seriously disadvantages him as a man and then he says a really interesting point which I think is very pertinent to certainly the experiences of many friends I know he also has male friends who are single and yet to have children but who are envious of single women's ability to still go ahead and have children via donors and I think this is becoming something we're only just talking about and I think we are not really talking about men's experiences of childlessness and of wanting children and this is a point made by a really good friend of mine on Father's Day she and her husband have one child and it took a lot of work

to get that one child and she sadly recently had a miscarriage and her husband who is wonderful and you know the most present and active father feels that there's very little support or even conversation around men going through these things emotionally with their partner obviously the woman is physically carrying the baby so the experience of a miscarriage is deeply traumatic. But for men also, all of their hopes and expectations that are bound up in that don't really have anywhere to go at the moment.

And I thought that was a lovely email and a really interesting point that I think you touched on a bit with the discussions around childbirth, but maybe it's something that men are going through silently i think it's almost as as though women hadn't really thought this through because i'm a different age but if you are a single woman now in your let's say early 30s mid 30s perhaps perhaps even older and you you can't find quotes the right person i suppose your options do they are there are options for you there are no certainties whoever you options, there are options for you. There are no certainties, whoever you are, but there are at least options.

Whereas for a man who just can't find anyone, doesn't have anybody, it isn't the same. No, it isn't the same. I have talked to single male friends who have thought about surrogacy, about doing it on their own with a surrogate. But that's an even more difficult, complicated scenario than using a sperm donor. And I know that the ONS, I remember doing this on Woman's Hour,

the ONS keeps figures for women who, you know, the numbers of children women have had, but there are no figures at all on childless men. No. They just don't keep those figures. Right, which is very telling. It is very telling. I mean, it's partly, I suppose, childless men. No. They just don't keep those figures. Right. Which is very telling. It is very telling.

I mean, it's partly, I suppose, because there are some men who are fathers but don't know. And then there are other men who think they're fathers but they're not. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a tangled web, Jane. It's a tangled web. I have always weaved those tangled webs. Right. Oh, God. Time's marching on.

It's actually midnight. Can I just... One more. Really tangled words. Right. Oh, God. Time's marching on. It's actually midnight. Can I just... One more. Really quick email. Yeah. Completely different direction. The quiz wasn't the worst, it says. Oh, we did this.

The quiz. This is from Cher, isn't it? Yes. Oh, did you read this out? I did it on the radio show, but I love it, so do it, please. Okay. So the worst quiz she's ever heard was the wheel of meat. Yeah.

It is terrible. It was sponsored by a local supermarket. The contestant would spin the wheel over the radio and it would land on, say, pork chops. A description of them would follow. Does the contestant want to spin again or take the pork chops? If the spin matches pork chops, you win $500. If it doesn't, you get a pound of ground meat.

Now, I can only assume this listener is in Australia where I've been to meat raffles no I think it's the States oh it's the States the wheel of meat I have to say

meat raffles were horrifying when I was vegetarian they're a big Irish thing aren't they now I would love it I'd love a meat raffle would you

as a big old carnivore I'd love a pork chop Jane I've discussed previously I'd love to win a pork chop in a raffle the thing about chops

is I always found this as a kid there's hardly any meat on them. There's a heck of a lot of effort for hardly any meat. Well, American pork chops are much bigger. Yeah. I think a pig's bigger than everything. Oh, the pig's bigger.

I know. Did you see the story in The Sun today about the pig who had to be rescued from a flat? No, I didn't. That's very sad. I got stuck on the front page, as usual. Like a lot of people, yeah. I'm going to go and read about the pig rescue. It was a pig rescue from a really overweight

pig who'd been kept in completely insanitary circumstances and had been fed a load of junk food. What was it doing living in the flat? I know, honestly, Jane. I mean, before we move on to the KFC, that it was being fed. It's a very, very sad story, but the pig is okay and in a sanctuary. Oh, thank goodness. I know. After the airlift. Happy ending. Right, OK, let's get on to James May, who is a very welcome guest today.

He has written a book. We'll get onto that in a moment. You know him, of course, from Top Gear and The Grand Tour. He's had cookery shows. He's a man who can really wear a floral shirt because not every man can. And he's rigidly stuck to the floral shirt over many years now. And he does have that idiosyncratic hairstyle, which I'm growing to like because I like him.

So therefore, I've got to like his hairstyle. So I asked James about his new book for children. It's called Marvellous Vehicles. And I put it to him, it's the kind of book that you used to get back in the day, but it's not really, that sort of thing isn't really around that much anymore. Well, I think I'm slightly out of touch with children's books because I don't have any children. I do have nephews and nieces and things like that. And I look at their books and I can't remember the last time I saw a book that was sort of about how things work and basic ideas about mechanics and physics, which is sort of what my book is about. And yes, I had a few like that when I was a kid. I still have them,

in fact, but I don't think I had one quite like this. So what was the book that you remember that maybe actually woke? Woke? What am I saying? Oh, God, I'm obsessed with being woke. What was the book from your childhood that got you still there yes I am sorry I was just having a a moment of of uh thought sorry was there a book then that you remember that got you interested in actually how you've ended up making your name well if there is one book I think I do know what it is because I found it only a couple of weeks ago. And I can even tell you the publisher, it was Heron Books, and it was called How Things Work. And it was actually my dad's book. It was a very grown up book. And it was,

you know, round with stuff about jet engines and steam engines and typewriters and teleprinters. And it was only printed in one color. so it was black ink for the text and then the diagrams had some red in them it was spot color as we used to call it in printing in the old days then they did a volume two which had blue but that book was called how things work and i was too young really to read it and appreciate it but i used to love looking at the pictures in it everything was done diagrammatically and i wonder if maybe and that's what I'm talking about very early in my life, because that book came out in, I think, 1962. That's a year before I was born. So it's a very early memory. And I wonder if that triggered something or sowed something, and it all came from there.

Can you remember the day your own stabilisers came off? Yes. Funnily enough, I was talking to someone about this only this morning. I do remember it. It's actually an extremely vivid early memory. I think I must have been three and my dad was behind me on the bike. I'd been riding it around with the stabilisers on and he bent them up a bit, which is what people used to do to try and get you used to the idea of them not being there but he used to stand behind the bike and hold on to the saddle and let me sort of steer around and then one day he had simply let go and I had ridden off on the bike without realizing and when I got to the end of the road we lived

down a little side road excuse me when I got to the end of the road I stopped and turned around and my dad was right back at the other end of the road. And I realized I'd ridden the bike and the stabilizers weren't on it because he discreetly taken them off. And I think actually we make an error in putting stabilizers on bicycles and children, because this is beyond the scope of my book. It's a little bit more complicated, but the nature of gyroscopes, which what bicycle wheels are mean that if you're going left on a bicycle what you actually do is very minutely steer right that sets up the turn to the left and when you've got stabilizers on the bike the bike behaves like a car and you turn left to go left so as soon as you take the stabilizers off you're having to start to learn the bike again

because it behaves differently so you'd actually be better putting children on bicycles without stabilizers and doing what my dad did, holding them up by the saddle or by holding onto the little rack at the back or something and letting them get used to it until one day you just let go and they don't notice. The moment when you become a cyclist, when you learn to ride a bike is in effect instantaneous. You can't do it suddenly. You can. and then as we know you never forget no well it's just one of those great moments okay that's for book two i think james you can get onto that a bit later i'm working on that so um it's going to take me a while but this is a slightly more grown-up book with tv series that i've been trying to plug it here the idea that

i can explain everything you need to know about physics and mechanics just using a three-speed bicycle. It's quite lovely, actually, to hear a noted petrolhead like yourself talking in quite a romantic way about the appeal of the bike. Is the bike what you use most frequently now? Oh, it is around town, definitely. I mean, I've come here today on my bike and I rode my bike all around town. I did about 27, 28 miles around town, definitely. I mean, I've come here today on my bike, and I rode my bike all around town. I did about 27, 28 miles around town yesterday. To be honest, it's not a statement, but it is quicker. The fact is that most of the time, a bicycle, and I live in Hammersmith,

and a lot of the things I have to do involve me going on journeys of between sort of four and seven miles. So stuff up in the West End, for example. And, you know, I can step outside of the door with my bike and it's already moving and I'm on it. And it gets through everything very quickly, especially now we've got so many bike lanes. And then at the other end, I can just carry it into wherever I'm going. I still marvel at the bicycle as an invention because it's one of the few things in life, well, certainly in physics, that feels like you're getting something for nothing. It is quite literally a free ride because you're still using the same muscles and expending the same energy that you would walking. But it can be anything between 4 and 15 times as efficient right all because it's turned the rather lumpy

reciprocating motion of your legs into the smooth circular motion of the bottom bracket and the bicycle wheels and that's that sends you on your way and you are you are genuinely liberated by it. You are liberated from the constraints of being a human being by this very simple machine. I think nothing else really equals it for that. And it is quite romantic. You're right. There is something faintly poetic about the relationship between a human being and a bicycle. I love to hear you talking about being liberated, but I wonder whether there are women now shouting at the radio saying, yeah, I'd love to cycle from Hammersmith into the centre of London, but I'd be petrified, not least of other cyclists, most of whom would be male.

Is that true, though? I mean, when I ride along now, I would have agreed with that five years ago, but I noticed this morning, and yes, I'm not actually keeping count, but there do seem to be quite a lot of women on bikes, and there are people of all ages on bikes now. It's definitely catching on. One of the problems that the cycling lobby has had, and I don't try to be an evangelist for it or anything, I'm not one of those angry cyclists, and I don't have cameras mounted all over my face or anything like that. But for a long time, it was promoted by people who were very serious about cycling and, you know, the lycra louts

and people with apparently big bunches of bananas strapped to the top of their heads and so on. The thing that has made made a huge difference i think is the promotion of the idea of cycling as a means of transport for normal people so the equivalent previously would have been well to be honest it would have been a bit like us on top gear and then the ground tour the business of driving being discussed by people who kept driving around in ferraris and lamborghinis when most people drive perfectly feasible hatchbacks because they're practical and they're a necessity and that's what's happened with bikes we've realized that I mean there is a place for I have some quite

serious bicycles as well but the big shift is going to be really the way the Dutch do it on sit-up bicycles and just it it's just like walking. It is. The bicycle is an elaborate pair of shoes. I live in West London, too, actually. And I wonder whether you, like me, have had sightings of Mr. J. Vine on his penny farthing. I haven't seen him on his penny farthing. I have seen him on his regular bike. And I have I have exchanged things on social media with him. And I did offer to mend his puncture once. He had a puncture just down the road from me. But by the time I'd read his message, he'd gone. I don't really I wouldn't ride a penny farming. I have tried it once. It is incredibly precarious and in my view view quite dangerous for everybody involved the person on it and the people

around it um but it's not illegal and uh good luck to him really yeah i i frankly i'd be a bit scared um i like bicycles that work i like things to work properly i spend a lot of time fiddling with my bicycles and maintaining them and as a concept the penny farthing the penny farthing exists the way it does because chain technology hadn't developed well enough to make a chain small enough to have the arrangement that we know now with pedals driving the rear wheels so the pedals are attached directly to the front wheel and then the front wheel has to be of a very large diameter for the gearing to be correct otherwise your legs would be going around you know your knees would boil, essentially.

But as a result of that, you end up miles off the ground and you have a crude shoe for a break. And it's very, it's not quite there yet. That's beta bike, it's not the finished article. I am talking to James May, and I put it to James that he has the status on Top Gear of being the least irritating of the Hammond, Clarkson, May trio. I just wondered if the other two knew that. They've never articulated that, but I imagine it would be quite difficult to be one of the other two and not realise that they were more irritating.

If you see what I mean. I've made that a very convoluted sentence. I'm the least irritating. That's a bit like the least bad venereal disease, isn't it? It's not really much of an accolade. I didn't put that very well. I could have thought of something a little bit more. No, no, no.

It was good. I can't feel the venereal disease. Your Instagram bio, I think you just say james may bloke and yes there's i mean i you are authentic aren't you which i think is is a really large part of your appeal you're not actually pretending to be anything else uh well i hope I'm not, no. And I don't even think I'd know how to do that. I know I'm a very bad actor and a very bad liar. So I don't really have much choice, to be honest. I have to do it that way.

I'm very flattered that you think I'm... Can I say I'm dead normal? Is that allowed these days? Or can you say that if you're still a black? I think I'll let you say it on this occasion. I'm being dead normal. Yeah, you're just being your dead normal self. Speaking of which, you have just turned 60.

I think that's right. Yeah. And is that a thing? Was it a moment for you? I mean, my own is fast approaching, I should say. Well, it was a moment for me? I mean, my own is fast approaching, I should say. Well, it was a moment for me because I'm not maudlin about it. I'd rather I wasn't 60. I'd rather I was 30 again. And I know that I work with a lot of young people who are in their very early 20s. And they think that people that people my age mean my two colleagues and so on

they think we have so much going for us because we lived in a time when we could just about afford to buy our own houses and now we you know we've got money saved up our mortgages are paid off and all the rest of it but they don't realize that we'd actually probably swap all of it for one week of their optimism and virility and all those other things that they have that they can't possibly appreciate and shouldn't have to um so i've gone slightly off course there but i the thing that amazed me most about being 60 is that the last 20 to 30 years have been action-packed to be brutally I mean, I've done a lot of amazing things that I certainly wouldn't have done had I pursued something else in life.

And yet I find it quite difficult to account for them. It's sort of one soup of activity that feels like one event that took 20 years and suddenly here I am. But, you know, it could be worse. I could be 70. Okay. Thank you for that advice. That's how I'll approach it next summer. So you presumably have a freedom pass, do you? I do, yes. And some people resent me for it because i talked about it on twitter um i was just having a bit of a laugh with it really joking about being old and saying i've got you know a bus and shoe

pass for absolutely nothing and some people sort of well they got quite cross with me about it and they said well that's inappropriate for someone like you to have it why don't they give it to people in need and i was thinking oh well yeah all right but come on i'm only going to go on the tube occasionally and i'm not allowed on it at rush hour so i'm not getting in the way of people I mean, why don't they give it to people in need? And I was thinking, yeah, all right, but come on. I'm only going to go on the tube occasionally. And I'm not allowed on it at rush hour, so I'm not getting in the way of people doing important things. I'm just a bloke who's lived in London for quite a long time and paid my council tax,

and I'm just having a little warm on the tube. Come on. Will you know when the time is right to do the unthinkable, in your case, actually, and pack in driving? Oh, that's a question no one's ever asked. Well, I hope I would. I mean, I think driving should be made as accessible as possible for as long as possible, because the roads aren't for, they're not really for enthusiasts or evangelists or any of those other groups. They're actually for everyone. The roads are a shared space and everyone is equally entitled to them, whether they're in cars or walking or on bicycles or whatever.

is equally entitled to them whether they're in cars or walking or on bicycles or whatever so i would like to drive for as long as i could but i wouldn't want to be doing it at the point where i thought i was maybe becoming a menace and by menace i don't mean you know the the specter of oh as an old person going too slowly and taking too long to get back into the car or the petrol station. We should accommodate that because we may all be old one day if we're lucky. But I wouldn't want to do it if I was a danger to anybody else because my last remaining ambition in life, not that I ever had very many of them, but the only one I have left is I want to get to the end without running over anybody. I think that's important. Well, we've been talking about this a little bit on our programme on Times Radio,

and the truth is there's no law about when you have to give up driving. So there's so many grey areas, literally, and people don't know how to tell their parents, how to approach it. It's a tough one. Maybe it would be better if there was just a law that said okay if you're lucky enough to get to 85 um tough give up the car at that point

well maybe i mean i would have thought most people i've got a friend jim who's 98 and he actually gave up his car getting on for 20 years ago because he just decided i mean he's perfectly healthy there's nothing you know you can see and you can walk around and everything but he's um he just decided he didn't really need to bother with that anymore and at his age doing the sort of things he liked doing he was happy walking and going on the bus so I think it sort of happens quite naturally but I didn't realize there was no law at all I remember years ago I remember writing about it in fact there was uh an elderly woman she was in her 80s and she'd been told she had to stop driving because she'd been driving down I think it was the um the a4 through West London

and she'd been going very slowly and holding up the traffic and everybody was getting very annoyed with that and she'd explained that her eyes had been very bad and she couldn't see very well. And I thought, well, okay, but actually she's doing the right thing because if it was foggy, you'd say, oh, you must slow down because visibility is not so good. And it wasn't very good for her. It was just only in her car.

Right. Okay. I mean, you do get old people saying they can carry on driving because, quotes, I only drive locally. As though if you plough into someone you're likely to know, it's not quite so awful for them. So, yeah, it's a subject for the ages. What about the Just Stop Oil protesters? Actually, for the very first time yesterday on my weekly, not weekly, almost daily trips to the shops in my local high street, I saw for the first time the slow walkers holding up the traffic through my part of West London.

And there were people ignoring them. There were people shouting at them. There were cars honking. Then the police arrived. I mean, it was a fantastic spectator event, to be honest. What do you think about it all? It was a fantastic spectator event, to be honest. What do you think about it all? I'm unsure. I've only been held up by them once, and that was actually on a motorway.

They'd done one of those, you know, climbing on the gantries and they had to be winched down and so on. I mean, there are certain parallels here with the anti-monarchy demonstrations during the coronation and so on. I do think people have the right to protest, and i think people have to protest in a way that makes an impact otherwise they you know they will simply be ignored there's no point in just standing quietly on the corner with a banner that says eat more fruit and less meat or whatever because no one's going to take any notice but there has to be a bit of a balance i mean in the same way that they're committed to protest people are also committed to be annoyed about it

and i can see the argument for stopping oil licensing and certainly reducing dependency on oil which a lot of people are trying to do anyway um but we cannot shut the world down whilst we work on the solution they have to the two things have to happen in parallel. So it's right that they make a fuss about it. They've made us think about it, which is the whole point, and that's good. And being slightly inconvenienced is a part of that, so we shouldn't complain too much.

But they can't overdo it, and they can't expect everybody to stop their lives while the government sorts out the business of oil licensing. So that's a bit of a fancy sort of answer, isn't it? No, they should all be killed. Yes, we should all join them. Maybe one of your former colleagues might have said something like that, but we don't want that from you, James. He's not a former colleague, he's still there. Oh, sorry, yes, very much so. Now, I just wanted to attempt to do an interview with James May without mentioning him. Is that possible?

Oh, I love you for that already, because the last interview, sorry, the last but one interview I did with someone talked almost exclusively about my relationship with him, which is not something I like to dwell on, obviously. It's far too difficult. I just can't be bothered asking about him. But can we talk briefly, if you don't mind, about Fiat Pandas? Because my Fiat Panda was my first car and I must be one of the few people on earth to then go on to get another Fiat Panda. But you have one, don't you?

Well, it's my third one, if I include one I bought for TV purposes. And I'll be honest about the Panda. I bought the Panda for Sarah, my other half, because she wanted a small car and she likes that. Her theory is that if you have a small, simple car, it keeps you younger. Because if you buy the inevitable big SUV crossover, multipurpose vehicle, there's a name for them amongst the cycling lobby which I won't use on your program but if you do that it's because you're basically scared and you fear and you fear death but if you drive a small car you are effectively it's a youthing ingredient because it means you're not worried about these things because they are too far off and not the sort of thing you could easily contemplate.

That was her feelings on the small car. So I bought her the Panda. And she pretty much wore it out by using it all the time. So I bought her a Polo a couple of months ago. So this is the most basic Polo because she likes like that. And I like cars like that, if I'm honest. It's the one litre entry level model. But it's absolutely brilliant. I mean, it's so well equipped and so comfortable and it's it's perfectly

adequate it doesn't matter that it's not very fast because all cars in the real world go at exactly the same speed but we found we couldn't get rid of the panda because it we were emotionally invested in it i think that's the correct expression. So I simply hid it in the corner of the garage. And then the other day I started using it again because it's our fear of panda. It's like a pet. Not driving it is like ignoring your dog or your cat. That's very, again, a surprisingly emotional turn of events. I am very emotional, Jay. I'm sorry. I'm just a soppy old bastard, really. James May talking there very frankly about his panda love. His panda love, because he's got a fee at Panda J.

Oh, doot, doot. That's it. I'd love one of those. Well, I had one, as I told him, and I spent a lot of time on the hard shoulder, in particular of the M62, if I remember. It had a choke. Oh, God.

I know, it had a choke and you'd optimistically pull it out on any day where the temperature was sort of below 17 Celsius. My Fiat Panda wasn't that keen on working. Which is quite a lot when you're in the M62 area. Yeah.

It's often below 17 degrees. When you live on Merseyside it doesn't really help. You don't get above that much. How dare you. I've been honestly assured by everybody in Liverpool the sun has beat down for weeks on end this summer. That's true actually, it has. I've been honestly assured by everybody in Liverpool the sun has beat down

for weeks on end this summer. That's true actually, it has. They've had very good weather so take it back. Sorry, I apologise because obviously

I'm from very sunny Sheffield so practically balmy. Really tropical. So Jane and I will be back tomorrow. The two Janes take over on off air. Do keep the emails coming.

I think people are still processing Catlin Moran so if you've got more to say on that we'd. Do keep the emails coming. I think people are still processing Katlin Moran. So if you've got more to say on that, we'd welcome it. And also thanks to the many people still emailing about having a trans child. We'll get back to some of those tomorrow as well. It's janeandfee at times.radio is the email address you need. We'll see you tomorrow. we're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe.

But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3 p.m. and you can listen for free on your smart speaker. Just shout Play Times Radio at it. You can also get us on DAB Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy. And you can follow all our tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our Instagram account. Just go onto Insta and search for Jane and Fee and give us a follow. So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we, Jane?

Pretty much everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.