Off Air... with Jane and Fi - All the best, Sex.

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Producers of Celebrity Race Across the World, if you're reading this: You've got two easy wins right here! Jane and Fi also cover bolts on benches, Leona Lewis and middles names. Plus, Lucy Easthope - the UK's leading authority on disaster recovery, advising on: 9/11, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell, the Covid-19 pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine - discusses her new book ‘Come What May’. 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.

Judge face is going to pop the mask aside. We're not perfect. I think we, and we do, in fairness to us, V, we, culture and sport wherever you are with the latest stories and live updates on the Times app and website. Don't miss out. Visit thetimes.com forward slash subscribe with Google to claim your offer today. 18 plus new customers only. Offer ends midnight April the 14th. T's and C's apply. I snogged with a boyfriend outside a building.

No, it was really sweet and I didn't pause and stare, I just laughed. What? There's no but there is something a bit funny about seeing public displays of affection with people who you work with in their normal outside civilian life. Well, it's lovely. It is. Although I happen to know that Eva's already told one big lie today. What? What's she done? It's about irrigation.

I won't go any further than that. What? I know you've got to explain. No, I don't really give her dark secrets away, but she was meant to have, what do you call it, watered the garden, and she hasn't. Oh, OK. It's going to rain later, you'll be fine. You'll completely get away with it. It looks like it might. Actually, seriously, there's already talk, isn't there, of a hosepipe ban? It has been the driest spring on record. It's terrible for farmers, Jane.

It must be dreadful, actually. I mean, gardeners, if you have a beautiful garden, then that's one thing. But if it's your job, if it's your living, if it's your livelihood, it must be really, really tough. And never is rain more welcome than when you've offered to water a neighbour's garden. Seriously, do you ever have that onerous task? I don't. I'm the keeper of several keys for the street. That's good. It shows people trust you.

Yeah, well, not very much. I mean, what bigger show of trust can there be when someone says, can you please have a key to my house? I think it doesn't get any better than that. There is that. There is that. I'm quite frequently watering gardens. They don't know I'm in and out of their house. Well, they see they probably do now because there's all that ring doorbell.

Oh, God, you're right. Thank goodness you've reminded me. Can we just start with... Well, we've both got the same one. Well, because it's... It's Mea... What's it's Mea Culpa. Pot Kettle from Sophie. Okay, you win this Sophie.

Guilty, very much guilty as charged. It is entirely appropriate to call out Brigitte Bardot for her misguided support of Gerard Depardieu. I just don't think you helped your argument by then calling her a clapped out old biddy. Although I stand by it. I just don't think you helped your argument by then calling her a clapped out old biddy. Although I stand by it. No, obviously, obviously I shouldn't. But in the moment, it did feel entirely appropriate because you can't go defending him. You just can't and that kind of, oh, it's just a bit of fun. No, it's really not, Brigitte, it's really not.

Dear Finn, Jane, very long time listener since the days of the BBCP outset. We don't talk about them anymore, Leslie. Who? Yesterday. And in fact, well, Leslie was at the Guildford performance, which was our nadir in show business, wasn't it? Because Leslie, we just didn't really feel anybody in the auditorium liked us. It was just baffling as to why they'd come out on a Tuesday night. Anyway. But obviously not our correspondent. No. Yesterday on the podcast, Fee had bumped into Merlin Crossingham on the way to the Tube. Jane very briefly questioned whether Merlin was being immodest by carrying his BAFTA on the Tube.

Although Fee didn't feel this was the case, please can I jump in here and confirm that Merlin is one of the sweetest, generous and most unassuming men you could meet. He really is one of the good guys. I was his tutor when he did his animation degree at Newport back in the 90s. So Leslie, you're part of that enormous Wallace and Gromit story. He was a lovely human, open, creative, curious and playful while learning about his craft and at the same time really focused on his studies. He started to work with Aardman in his final year and has worked alongside Nick Park since then and even though he is a multi award-winning animation director, he remains as humble, polite and curious as he ever was.

Alongside his animation, he also flies planes and photographs bolts on benches. So we love him. Photographs what? Bolts on benches. Bolts? Bolts on benches. He's just interested in bolts. Yep, I mean everybody's got to have a hobby. Yes, I haven't heard about that one before. But what a lovely man he sounds. Yeah, absolutely and Lesley thank you for taking the time to email in and she ends by saying, love the show, I'm amazed that the first time I've emailed in it's to defend a man. He did seem absolutely lovely and congratulations to him. And if over the next couple of days you're out and about and see an interesting bolt,

please please don't send the images to us. Eva suffered it off. Sarah in one stead said, it's not the easiest in my defense, on the subject of titles my old boss was a vicar with multiple doctorates she was therefore the Reverend Doctor Doctor. I mean how far can you take this? I don't know. Oh and should we just mention Pat who got us started talking about judgment the other day. This has completely and utterly changed the direction of the argument. It's interesting isn't it? On Wednesday's podcast it was clear you had the impression I'd been in a GP surgery waiting room when I experienced my judgey moment. Confession coming up I was waiting for my toenails to dry. I was not in a GP surgery waiting room. Thank you, Pat. Over to you,

Fee. Well, because when we were talking about it, I think I'd ended up saying we should give them a break because maybe they were in the doctor's surgery, just assuming that it was a waiting room for that, to possibly hear really bad news or lots of people are really nervous about seeing the doctor, lots of kids are as well. Therefore it might be one of those, let's excuse everybody, just do whatever you want, whatever's going to take your mind off it. But when we got that I don't know, that's a bit different isn't it? I don't think either of my children would have agreed to accompany me to a manicure or a pedicure session.

I think initially they would have been furious, but then I think they probably would have been fascinated in later childhood. I suppose it depends how old you are. Yeah, I mean both my kids used to, because I didn't really wear makeup, I don't really know how to put it on because I can't see anything, but my sister wears absolutely loads of makeup, I mean she just does, and there was nothing they enjoyed more. And there's nothing in your voice to suggest that you find that difficult. Any kind of judgement. They used to love watching her put her makeup on, they would just sit very happily watching it all happen. So there you go, she's been blessed with sons and I've been blessed with daughters, so it's good to have that kind of, you know, little

bit of a crossover there. You're really different, aren't you, as sisters? Yes we are. Which, oh, now I've watched... Trip Across the World, whatever it's called. Race Across the World. Race Across the World, yeah. Because I realised that I was very much in the minority of not having ever seen it.

My mum loves it, I know you love it, so I thought I'd try it last night. And there is much to enjoy. Have you been to India? Yes, a very, very, very long time ago. I think too long to be relevant to any conversation. Oh really? Okay, it's just that this episode, they are travelling to India in the episode I saw last night. And I don't know because I've never been myself, but the little bits we saw of India really made it clear that

this was a full-on assault on the senses, which is the expression that everybody uses I think to describe India. There just seemed to be so much going on I wondered whether it truly was as frantic and frenetic as it appeared to be. Oh yes it is, yes undoubtedly. I think they've done that episode very cleverly because the participants have come from very very rural China. That's where they've been for the last couple of weeks, on their second leg. Yeah.

Or is it their third leg? I can't remember. So the contrast would be astonishing. In last night's episode, I'm a little worried for the couple from Wales. The young couple. Yeah, because I think that Sean-Ed is really struggling with that chaos. She appeared to be, didn't she? Yes, and you can't get away from it if you're backpacking around. I was going to say you can't just presumably park yourself in a luxury hotel where it might be more quiet.

No, you've got to keep going. The roads, Jane. Well, yes. And well, I was off on Monday because my little traveller was coming home, which is not so little, which is the tallest in the household at five foot four and a half. And so I haven't been able to reach anything since she left. It's been absolutely dreadful. I've been nowhere near my top shelves, but now she's back. It's brilliant. I can reach things again through her kind services.

And she was staying in some of those, you know, the hostels with the little curtains around the beds and all those sorts of thing. And I had never seen any of those, so it was good to see them in action, I think in Nepal in last night's episode. So I'm learning from it too, and I can understand why my mum loves it, because she, like me, is a bit travel reluctant, but here you can travel through the experiences of others, can't you? I just think it's brilliant, and it just shows you parts of the world that are never going to make it onto television usually. You said that and I agree now having seen an episode that that is. I thought, I mean, Nepal just looked apt, of course it's breathtaking,

just looked more stunning than I imagined it would be. So I will definitely visit again. I did think my carp would be that obviously it's incredibly cleverly produced and so the participating couples go in, they take different routes. Well of course they do, because if they all took the same route it wouldn't be so much of an experience for the viewer, would it? No, but I wonder how much of that is producer-manipulated. Well it must be, because they then set up things for them to do in the different locations. But I think they've been told, haven't they, at the start, that actually you have to do a couple of homestays, you do have to earn a bit of money. I think they're a criteria that you're given at the start.

So you can't just go hell for leather every single time, although that's impossible to do if you're not flying anyway. So I don't want to undermine it, actually. I just think whatever it is that they've decided to do in you're not flying anyway. So I don't want to undermine it actually, I just think whatever it is that they've decided to do in the name of TV I really don't mind because I think it's really clever viewing. It makes you think about lots of things and the relationships whether or not they solidify or deteriorate during those kind of trips, I think is brilliantly done too. And how bold of the 21 year old Thomas to do the trip with his 60 year old mum. I think they're fascinating. They are really really fascinating. I think they seem a very good combination.

They're a very good combination, but there aren't very many 21 year old young men, I think, who would want to travel on international television with their mum. I love them. I think they're all good. I think he's a remarkable young man. I hope good things happen because he's been on the show. And also she says lots of things that you don't hear. So she's already said, have you seen the first two episodes? No. Okay. So she's already said that one of the reasons she wanted to do the trip with Thomas

was that she felt she'd never really been in charge of the rudder of her own life. So she'd got married, she'd lived in a very traditional family relationship, Thomas is her only son, she'd had him when she was relatively old and she didn't have anything to kind of, you know, go back to. Now he's 21 years old, she feels like she hasn't achieved very much. She is such a lovely woman and she's clearly, clearly worn the captain's hat in her family. I mean she's so capable and I think it's really nice to see a woman of that age being able to revitalise her life. I think you really only see those women in dramas, in fiction, and usually the opening shot is their weeping over a sink.

Do you know what I mean? So I just think... I haven't done that since last night. I think they're brilliant. I think they're absolutely brilliant. OK, well I'm definitely going to watch more. I don't know whether I'll go back, but I'll certainly plough on. And then you and I can do the celebrity hunt.

I was just, well, funnier you should mention that because Young and Eve and I were discussing this at the coffee bar earlier on. So we were asked, weren't we, to do Celebrity Hunt. It would just be so bloody useless, it doesn't even bear thinking about. Also we would just have such a row within about three hours. Oh and actually we were asked to do celebrity, what else was it, antiques cash in the attic trip. Were we? I never plucked up the courage for so-called celebrity university challenge, in fairness

you did. Did rather well, didn't you? Did alright, didn't you? No, God no. No. I think we did alright at the beginning but then no we definitely, no we definitely didn't win. We had some very embarrassing answers. My all-time favourite was they played. Played what? They played a montage of songs and we had to identify you know all the different singers between it and I said one of the songs was Leona Lewis and it wasn't it was Bob Dylan. Well if I was Leona I'd be fuming frankly. Right she's got a cracking pair of pipes. Not so sure about him. Now we did hear a couple of, well it is it's eight weeks ago that we heard from a listener who was on that very day about to have a baby and it's happened.

We survived. She's eight weeks old. Her name is Coralie Pepperlord. Of course, that's Cora for short. She's called Pepper because her sisters were allowed to pick a middle name and that's what they chose. So is it Salt and Pepper or Pepper Pig? Pepper pig. P-E-Double P-A. Philly goes on to say, good lord alive the first weeks are shite but we are two-thirds of the way through the worst bit. She has started beaming at six weeks

which definitely helps and there is a beautiful image of young young Cora Pepper on the front page of the card and she is indeed having a right old chuckle that's just a wonderful image. I had to go back to work last week which isn't ideal but I've got my viva for my doctorate in psychology in three and a half weeks so the pressure is on to somehow fish my brain out of the gutter and get to grips with statistical analysis. Oh God this could go very wrong, says Philly. I don't think it will and thank you very much for telling us what happened and her two sisters look absolutely delighted with her and I'm so glad things are going well as well as they ever do in the first couple of weeks, it's tough. And also well done for

being able to put that together and send it. That would have been completely beyond my capabilities for about the first four years of motherhood. Avantikos did a thing. Do you want to hear this? Yeah, well I saw that title and I thought I don't think I can read that but actually it comes from Rosalind who says, a certain poignancy that my second time of emailing is after my first night away from my baby. My first was during a middle of the night breastfeed by the light of Luna, the room thermometer, to the soundtrack of my snoring husband. I'm en route now from speaking at a farming sustainability conference, just a quick one to say that I've got some positive press for Avanti West Coast.

Travelling from Dumfries to Birmingham International, I picked up the Avanti service at Carlisle. Train down all well, train back delay. Ah, connection at Carlisle missed. Over the top of my earbuds, listening to off air as I moped across the bridge in the station, I hear something about Dumfries customers go to platform four. I was ready to cry at the delay, as it meant an hour and a half to kill.

A taxi, a taxi has been booked for us. Wow, so happy. So please on this occasion let it be known Avanti did a good thing. What's more they weren't shy in pointing this out but I don't care. Back to my baby. Keep up the good work. Best wishes Rosalind. So that is good isn't it? Have you heard of that happening? Well, has that ever happened to you? It has happened but but I think, and this is again, we're creeping into a niche here, but it might have been when Virgin had the franchise, there was delay to the train getting back to Euston and for reasons, I think it was, they were sad reasons, I think there'd been, you know, a death on the line and no one can get, you can't get angry about that,

but it did mean, you just feel sad, but it did mean that we got into Houston the early hours of the morning, and I do mean early hours, I think it was two o'clock from memory, and there were fleets of taxis waiting. And actually, I don't know who it is, I'm praising here, because I don't know who was in charge of it, but they were very, very careful about who got into a taxi. No woman got into a taxi with a man she didn't know. And I was put into a taxi with a young woman who had never been to London before and was going to stay with a relative

quite close to me in West London. And she was brilliant, but you could tell she'd had quite the experience. She was quite young. And obviously you don't expect to arrive in London for the very first time in the early hours of the morning with some mad middle-aged biddy you've never met before. So it was a bit odd for her but yes there were loads of taxis all lined up at Euston waiting to take us on to our destinations.

Well that is good. Yeah so I think that's what they do when there's been a delay that just means that you really couldn't be expected to make your own way home safely. I'm sad to say. Because the trains don't, I mean some of the lines are now 24 hours a day in London aren't they, but not all of them. And of course there are night buses, but it's just not the experience you'd signed up to. So yes, they do supply taxis. Okay. Yes. Can you ever have too many Hellens?

No, not judging by our email bag. I'm not sure you'll read this email as I know you're already inundated with Helen says Helen. But I'm a Helen too, in fact a Helen Jane. Unlike your correspondent who's never met another Helen, I've often been surrounded by fellow Hellens. In one job I was in an office of four people and three of us were caught in Helen. In order to avoid confusion, the most senior kept her, Helen, the oldest opted for Nell,

and I was known as Jay. 25 years later, the fourth lady in the office, Hazel, has a daughter who still calls me Jay. I also worked in a small organisation where there were many Hellens, one of whom married and took the same surname as mine. She had to have her department added to her... Would she just steal her... or would she happen to be marrying a man with the same surname as I have? Yes, yeah. She had to have her department added to her email address. But nevertheless I used to get her messages. I also have a sister-in-law on my husband's side called Helen.

I like being a Helen, sadly it feels like a name that isn't enjoying the resurgence of older names like Florence and Evelyn. Do you know lots of Evelyn's? Only Jane's daughter. Is she a full Evelyn? Yeah. Well okay good to know. You see it's interesting isn't it? I love that now obviously because I chose it. But I did think I was being terribly fashionable. Little did I know that already on this planet was another Evelyn who was going to play a part in my life. But did you think now that there was something in the ether? Because it's not a family name for you.

It's a middle name of one of my great aunt who lived to be over 100. So that was why I chose it really. And also just it was so lovely telling her that the baby was named after her. She had the... because she said, that's my middle name. And I said, that's why we chose it. And she was so chuffed. So that's lovely. But I noticed yesterday, I was looking online, Evelyn or Evelyn is now the eighth most popular girl's

name in America in 2025. Isn't that weird? I'm always fascinated by how the names spread. I think the Helen point is really interesting. So why is it that these, I think they call the maid's names, don't they? So Eve, Evie, Evelyn, Florence those names used to be Enid I think Enid's Edie these names are all back with us. Rosie, Grace, yep and

there's a thing as well for the kind of sentiment and emotion names isn't there so honor, hope, mercy they're all surging. Ambidextrous. Yep, very much so. Either known as Ambie for short or Dexter. Wouldn't that be funny? Hello, I'm Dexter. Ambidextrous is my full name. Anyway, Helen ends by saying, when I'm texting, I often shorten my name with the sign off H with a cross, which auto-cor corrects to hex. My old boss understood this

was problematic. He said it was worse for his friend Simon. Hang on. Can you do that again? So H with a cross auto corrects to hex. So S with a cross would auto correct to sex. Oh sorry. That's a little surprise that I didn't get that the first time. It's been a while Claire. Right, Claire's are very common amongst our audience but I do mean that nicely. Don't call Claire's common. No, it's a beautiful name. Fee and Jane, I'm shocked and as a half French person, very sad, says Claire, that you think baguettes are overrated. I agree that the ones in the UK aren't all that. Neither, in fact, are most pastries. The Sainsbury's

ones are particularly disappointing these days, says Claire. But have you ever had one in France, fresh from a boulangerie, perhaps still warm, maybe smothered in quality butter and dipped in coffee. I'm sure you probably have, but perhaps it's time to pop to Paris and remind yourselves about it. Thank you, one of the many Claire's. This is a very special Claire though because she is half French. Well, it's funny you should mention that, I'm off for one of my lunches in France a week on Saturday. And you'll have a baguette and you'll bloody enjoy it. Yeah, no, this time I'm not going as far as Paris. I think Lille is closer and that's where I'm going.

OK. So I'm going to look for some of my favourite French. There's a box of cereal that I cannot get anywhere. I've looked for it on websites. I've shown it to people visiting France. I said, could you get me? I think I'm just going to have to just leave my friends behind and walk away from lunch and just try and find a supermarket. But I can think of almost nothing else at the moment. I really want

that cereal. I really want it. Why not buy more than one box when you find it? I'm going to take an extra big bag for exactly that purpose. That's very sensible. I tell you what, could I put in a little... No, I'm not getting any of that stain remover. No, it's La Marciez. You know, they're really lovely soaps. Oh, the soaps with the little boil. There's an almond, can't say it properly, almond. There is, yes, they do some lovely...

Which just smells like Bakewell tarts. It's glorious. Is that for the bath? Yes. Yes, I agree. If you see a little one of those, just a tiny one. Well, they're quite expensive. I'll see what I can do. Now, this is absolutely glorious. It's from Anna who is, well she says, I like your Scottish-Brisbanian listener. I've also been listening to you both in the same way since I was 22. When I moved to

London from New Zealand at 21 I found the hour of women to be the most incredible comfort. You are a comfort blanket. It was the part mother part guide to England part feminist boost that I needed in an otherwise low Self-esteem period of my life. I was thrilled to make the journey to fortunately now to Times Towers with you Well, well done. Thank you for following us all the way here I often want to write in and this week your Brisbane listener was my catalyst I too listen to that same quip on Britain being more misogynistic to Australia than Australia and said no, I moved to Brisbane a couple of years ago and couldn't believe what I was hearing on the radio. So just to give a couple of examples.

Yeah, do give them because I think they're astonishing. Here we go. And I think it's fair to say just before people hear them that you wouldn't hear that on British radio. No, you really wouldn't. You just wouldn't, no. When listening to a very popular radio show in the car on the way to the airport,

the male journalist was interviewing a terrorist, integrator, terrorist interrogator, when he actually asked us one of his questions, "'Would you prefer to interrogate a terrorist "'or have a conversation with your missus on her period?' That's just balls for effect. On the way back from the airport on the same station, but a different show, with your missus on her period. This just bores for a second. On the way back from the airport on the same station, but a different show, a male journalist called a listener a slut for referencing that she had gone home with a man

after one date. It was horrendous. He then switched to ask his co-host, who was female, how many men she had slept with and if she had ever gone home on a first date. He didn't have any forthcomings about his own sexual history or provide whether it would be slutty of him to go home with a woman on a first date, but it was clear it was different – he was a man. Of course. Radio switched off, there's also been another famous radio host sacked in March for stating that endometriosis was made up and comparing the National Women's Football Team to Year 10 schoolgirls, his

sacking shocked many people. What strikes me is just how comfortable these men are with saying this on air. Imagine what said off air and you're so right Anna, you are so right. And finally at a work event a business owner for a partner company that we work in the same industry with came up to me in a group of people and asked if I was that girl from his private members club. My colleagues, Kiwis and Americans, were shocked and stood up for me. The Australian men laughed when he said it and then promptly walked away once my colleagues stood up for me. The misogyny here is far greater than any I've experienced in New Zealand or the UK. It is pervasive in conversations and accepted by most. And Anna wants to just say a quick thank you for being a guiding light in a recent appalling food poisoning episode in Vietnam.

It sounds ridiculous but having your voices playing out seriously brought a sense of calm that would have been otherwise unachievable. And I'm so sorry about that. I mean, as you've mentioned, you've had a traveling Wilbury and I've got a traveling Wilbury at the moment and actually food poisoning in shared accommodation. Yes. It's difficult, horrible and being miles away from home. So you're absolutely welcome. I mean, obviously take Gaviscon too, but.

Oh, please God, take everything with you on those trips. My youngest daughter has just got back, as I said, and she had one major bout of food poisoning and her travelling companion also had one major bout, not at the same time, so they were able to look after each other. But I know her mate at one point, she was so ill that she actually took herself outside, just sat outside all night and you know what was really sweet? The hostile dog kept her company, just kind of, she's a big dog lover this this girl so she loved the fact the dog just kind of sat just with her. Well dogs are glorious creatures. I know, I was very touched by that actually. So yes I think it's just a

it's just a fact that on those trips you are going to get the collywobbles, the beast ones. And actually, Gaviscon won't make any difference at all. Symodium you need. Well, no, but they say don't, don't they? Well, some people say, let's put it out there because we've got doctors listening. And I'm really interested in this, as you know. Should you bung it up or let it go? Serious question.

Because I don't know what the real answer is. Because I've always just thought logically you should let it go? Serious question. Because I don't know what the real answer is. Because I've always just thought logically you should let it go. You need the bacteria to or whatever it is to get out of your system. I don't like the idea of plugging it in. But I'm not a doctor. Well, I mean I am a doctor. Services to classics. Somebody will know what the answer is. Jane and Fee at Timestop Radio. Now we've got a good guest, Professor Lucy Easthope. She is the author of Come What May? Life-changing lessons for coping with crisis and she is Britain's leading disaster

planner. So that might sound all terribly melodramatic but this book is actually about how you can apply some of the same techniques to the the crises that will happen to all of us at some point in all of our lives. Nobody gets through 80 years if you're lucky on the planet without something going wrong and so Lucy's got a range of techniques and bits of advice based on her real-life experience right on the front line of a whole string of major global disasters. So she's our guest today but shall we end with the big sort of biggie email of the week which will leave people with something to think

about over the next couple of days? That is very clever and sensible, yes. You go for it. We do need all the detail don't we? We need quite a bit of detail here and we are reading this out without any kind of judgement because we know it's a very... Cos we're so not judgemental people. Cos we are, we're very judgemental. Our judgey when judge face is going to... It's a pop the mask aside. We're not perfect. I think we, and we do in fairness to us, we do make it clear that we're not perfect. Right.

Anonymous says, tonight I feel so alone with my problem and I can't help feeling that some of your listeners will have been in a similar situation. I'll cut straight to it. Do I implode my lovely family because I'm relatively sure I'm not in love with my husband anymore? It's slowly driving me to insanity. I'm in my mid-forties, we've got two children, one is a teen and one not far off. I really love him.

We've had a lovely marriage so far, 15 years. He's caring, he's attentive, he's supportive, he's hardworking, he's good-looking. Most women would think me insane for feeling this way, but I cannot shake that feeling that we've grown apart to the point I can't connect with him in that way anymore. It's not even a case of not fancying him. I sort of do want a good day. I could carry on like this forever but I'm dying inside. I feel unfulfilled. I'm sad. I'm confused. Nothing is massively wrong. Just a

creeping feeling of dread in me about our marriage. Things are not great in the home just now as I've begun to voice my feelings and they have left him quite rocked. On top of that, but please just accept I'm human, I've had some contact via social media with another guy, a friend of a friend, who I get on with. It's very much just friendly, but with a definite hint of something else. We have met for a walk and lunch, my husband discovered this, and for some silly reason I lied. Well, not silly reason, because I'd only just recently told him I wasn't sure I was in love with him, so could see that lunch with another man might not have seemed ideal and of course it wasn't

But the lie crumbled so I had to confess I met up with a man I'd been talking to on the socials Now my husband thinks this is something that's been going on for months This should have jolted me to reality, but the truth is I feel no different I feel desperately sad but mainly for him as I know it would be so hard for him and for our kids My own parents split up and I had a difficult childhood Well, it doesn't it just doesn't get Doesn't get any more difficult than that Friends are supportive she says but can only say so much and I don't have any who've been through something similar

right, so Gosh and I don't have any who've been through something similar. Right, so, gosh, I mean this is, it's so easy to say, it could just be a phase. You might find if you give it more time, you might fall back in, can you fall back in love? But how long does that period of being in love last and even the best marriages? I mean that whole dizzy stuff. It doesn't last that long. The intoxication wears off. You've been through the domestic grinder because you've had two children with all the challenges. Part of me thinks, go for it girl! And then the other part of me thinks, what about the children? What about him and actually what about you if it doesn't work out in the way you think it might and you could find yourself much more unhappy than you are now. I mean when she outlines all her

partners, her current partners plus points, they are many let's face it and there'll be plenty of people listening who think well if you don't want him love I'll have him because he sounds great. I wonder what he thinks. Well, and of course that too. Yeah. And I wonder whether he still, you know, has the those dizzying heights of desire and, you know, kind of high voltage love or whether maybe his feelings have changed a bit too. It's always worth asking and sometimes when you hear somebody say something directly to you it can clarify your thoughts can't you if you ask someone what they actually think of you. But also

I would say why not just spend a week, be really practical about it. You know, go somewhere else and spend a week imagining what will happen if you decide that you do want to leave. I mean it changes so many other relationships. It doesn't just change, it doesn't just get you out of one relationship. It changes your relationship with your kids, with your family, with your friends, with colleagues. Everybody's got an opinion. You know, it is a very, very big thing. It is never just one relationship that changes. The ripple effect will be considerable. Will be massive.

But I sound like I'm saying don't do it. No, neither of us are saying that. I'm not at all. No, she does say she started counselling. But if anybody has a take on this, I'd be interested. I do feel selfish, guilty and anxious, but I don't know how I can go on like this. Well that's yes that we don't want you to feel... No that's a horrible feeling. Self-loathing, that's horrible too. So let us know what you think, what sort of

practical advice you could give our anonymous listener beyond my rather weak suggestion that you might hang on in there for a bit longer and see how you feel. I'd say actually are you going to counselling with him or are you just going to counselling on your own? She says I've started some counselling. Okay I think couples counselling if you get a good couples counsellor I think it is good I think it I think it can be immensely, immensely helpful or it gives you permission to go. Yeah. I think the fact as well that her own parents split up, she had a difficult childhood and she says, I've always felt comforted by the fact that mine wouldn't go through what I did and I'm shocked to find myself where I am. Also, I hate to say this

but I'm going to say it anyway. If she has two children, she's been married for 15 years, could we be on the brink of a perimenopausal situation here where sometimes... Oh, she's just menopausal, love. She just doesn't know what she's thinking. And that's what I want to avoid. I've just said it. Sometimes you do... Your feelings can change around that time, can't they? Oh enormously so and the fear comes in Jane. Yeah and the fear and the attitude towards your partner can change. All sorts of things are going on.

Yeah and self-doubt. You know you're right in the quite a lot to look back on in your life, not entirely sure what it is that you're looking forward to. Your hormones go all over the place, you start losing the really kind of juicy, estrogen progesterone stuff. I think that happens. But she may only be 35. She may be. Sorry. That's just me. You've given us some to afford to.

But also, as Jane has already said, we know, we can't, we can't and we wouldn't want to just give advice to somebody. We've lived lives that have had some very bumpy bits in them, but it by no means entitles us to say you should do this or you should do that. But I would recommend maybe a bit of good couples counseling. Yeah, I'm just cheering myself because I do find that very sad by the way that email I don't dismiss it at all I think it's a it's a very real situation and it's clearly a very sad one so look hopefully you get through the next couple of weeks reasonably okay and do let us know what you think in a non-judgmental and understanding way please. janeofee at times.radio. I'm cheering myself up by just looking at young Cora,

the baby born just eight weeks ago, who's laughing like a good one here on the front page of this card because she's yet to find out that her middle name is Pepper after the popular cartoon pick. It's great. I think if we had had that same rule in our house, my middle name would be Hong Kong Fooey. Number one super guy. Hong Kong Fooey. Quicker than the naked eye. I didn't like that. Did you like that? I think it was one of very, very few cartoons that we were for some reason allowed to watch. Well, because you lived in Hong Kong. Well, maybe. I don't think we were watching it in Hong Kong. I think Hong Kong was the last place where they wanted Hong Kong

Fooey with everything that went down with them. But anyway, right, fun times. Can I just say? I'm just trying to think. Jane Wacky Races. Wacky Races. Well, that would be good. We just need to give a shout out to the festival

that we're attending in North Berwick, Fringe by the Sea, we're up there in August, if you'd like to buy tickets they're selling fast. So you crack on in there, it'd be lovely to see you, Judy Murray is going to be our guest. Jenny Murray? Judy Murray. Come back out now. Welcome to Professor Lucy Easthope, welcome Lucy. Thank you for having me. Britain's leading expert on disaster recovery and the author of Come What May? Life-changing lessons for coping with crisis. Now you've written books before haven't you? I think is this your second or third? This is my second sort of mainstream book. I have an academic book as well but yeah this is my second book. Okay and it's about how we as individuals can apply some of the techniques that are

used by governments and institutions post huge disasters to help us through the, what you might call domestic disasters, that will happen to all of us at some point in our life. Absolutely, it was bringing about that big macro idea of things that I'd learnt really help and make the difference home and it's been wonderful to see people using and reacting to them as the world sort of changes around them. Yeah so in the book you talk about things like flooding which I'm not dismissing at all that's horrendous if it happens to you. Yeah it's terrible. But there'll be things like divorce, sudden death. I know you've been through a series of miscarriages,

hadn't you? These are challenging experiences, to put it mildly. And personal crises. And there were two things. One thing was that I'd realized that often in the disaster world, we actually talked and dealt with things in a different way. So there was new information that I felt people

might be able to hear, and that didn't seem fair that we got it, but they didn't. And also, I think we are likely to see more of these kinds of world events coming home. One of the things we knew would be a long toll after the pandemic, for example, was more people dealing with chronic or sudden illness. So how to help people, how to pace,

how to look after yourself, how to put yourself a little bit more front and center. These, I found that I was using my disaster skills all the time at home and I just started to talk about it a lot more. I think people might be wondering how you become an expert on disaster recovery. So you're medically qualified aren't you? No I have a PhD in medicine which means that don't have a first aid emergency in front of me but yes I was originally trained in law and I have a master's in in front of me. But yes, I have a, I was originally trained in

law and I have a master's in disaster management and then a PhD in medicine. I was a very activated child and I write about that in my memoir, When the Dust Settles. I was very affected by friends and family at the Hillsborough disaster and I wanted to work with families and communities at their worst time and I've done that since 2001 now. You start this fascinating book with a disaster that I had heard about because I think for some reason we discussed a poem about it at school but other than that I confess it's a never, I hadn't ever thought about it again and it's the Gresford mining disaster back in the 1930s. Yes, 90 years last year and a really really really profound and terrible disaster where the vast majority of those killed but the men and

boys are still under the ground, the the colliery was sealed and Wrexham, Gressford is part of Wrexham, Wrexham sort of just had to limp along for a long time and the point that I'm making is that these these things don't fade, they are there and they are part of the place and they are part of the story and the story that I start to tell is what happens when two Hollywood stars buy into the local football club and want to learn about the disaster themselves. Yeah that's the hugely successful series Ryan Reynolds and I'm afraid I can never remember. Rob McElhenney. I mean who would have linked that terrible disaster in the 1930s with a couple of Hollywood style moguls all those years later

And there's a terrible detail in the book that the poor men and boys who as you say are still down there Their remains are still down there their relatives didn't get all the money from their final shift because they didn't finish the shift Yeah, some things never change. Well, but that, no, that, it's just dreadful. It is. And I'll never get that out of my head. So you talk in this book about something I hadn't heard of called the disaster recovery graph. Now what is that? So this was a classic example of the thing of a thing that disaster workers like myself were holding in our own tool bag, but we weren't sharing with other people. And this was something that started to really work for me when I was talking to people affected by crisis and this is the idea that before the

event there may be an incubation phase which is very important so a phase when you might be worrying that something's going to happen then there's the event then there's something that can feel quite a jarring way to describe it the honeymoon phase eight maybe twelve weeks if you're lucky, of quite good spirits, people rushing in. You know, if something happens in a town, I heart that town. People very, very generous with their time, their love. A lot of oxytocin is flowing. The love hormone, people feel very supported.

And then at about 12 weeks this massive fragmented desperate slump and we see this particularly for example with illness and bereavement you might feel very well supported you might feel very well cared for for a few weeks and then it feels like people are bored or people have gone away lots of bereaved people talk about feeling abandoned in the slump but what I've done here is I've really explored this in terms of the purpose of that stage is for you to take stock. So if that's you at the moment, you've been through something, you start to think where's everybody gone? The food gifts have dried up, nobody's really reaching out, everyone's a bit awkward, people are crossing the

road not to speak to me. Knowing about the slump and actually how much agency and how much work you have to do, you know, you have to kind of start It's very very hard to do at the worst time of your life but sort of taking stock and this was something, you know, I've worked with hundreds of disaster communities now and The bravest actions occur in the slump building Crafting making space. I've just come from the amazing Latimer Community Art Therapy, which is a charity that I support at the base of the Grenfell Tower. Local women took the keys hostage of the community centre on the

night of the fire and have run a centre for children there ever since, and it's the proudest thing that I do. But they, in the slump, in this terrible time, find the energy to focus in on the children and that that's the kind of thing where I people say to me where do you see the hope is in the immediate aftermath do you do you love it the the vigils and when the Prime Minister visits but no the real joy is these fragile moments in all of our lives so my mum you know lost my dad he was is and still is and always will be the centre of her world.

And she will always be partially in the slump, but you start to see the joy from things like her grandchildren. And one of the things that's really important to me to say in the book is that if you are grieving and so many people are either a loved one or a life before, there's a lot of redundancy and challenge, it's okay that that loss never gets any smaller. We've been told a really naughty little lie for many years that these things get better. The hardest day I often see in tragedy affected communities is the first morning after the first year anniversary because everybody told them it would get better after the first year. So these are the sorts of things I wanted to write down. the first year. So these are the sorts of things I wanted to write down. I came in a black cab and the taxi drivers just lost his wife and I

had my one author copy and I've signed it and given it to him. There's a lot of a lot of coping that we're not being told about how to do. Do you think that our wellness woo-woo mentality, a massive, massive industry that definitely helps people along the way in their lives, but do you worry that it diminishes our woo-woo mentality, a massive, massive industry that definitely helps people along the way in their lives, but do you worry that it diminishes our ability to accept that simple fact that some parts of life are rubbish? You definitely get a big dose of honesty from me that some points of life are difficult and rubbish. There was some criticism, for example, at the weekend of breathwork,

that it's being mocked as we all know how to breathe, and I've actually got breathwork in the book because we don't know all how to breathe. When we're stressed as we all are, because the world outside the window is a bit odd, we tend to breathe short shallow breaths that don't oxygenate us. So disaster responders learn to breathe differently. One of the big things for me was the very first disaster, and I'd been based in Britain sending team out to ground zeroes, the first disaster I worked on was 9-11. And it is a great privilege of my life that I've been very much supported by talking therapy and psychologists, and often those were American colleagues. And 2001, certainly a lot of this was dismissed here in the UK, but what you

learnt with your international colleagues was they saw this as essential maintenance. Finding words to ask for help, finding ways to value what I call in the book fallow, the odd surprising afternoon off that you weren't expecting, you don't fill it with more screen time or more meetings. So I have lived what really came home to me when dad died. I've lived a very different life to most people, not because of the disasters, but because of the skills and the ways that I've been taught to protect myself. And that was when the dust settles came out, everybody was looking at me to see how traumatized I was, how on earth

could I have been proxy to some of these things, and lived through it. And I think one of the things for me was it was this wake up of how grateful I am for the work, and that was when I started to write the book. When we are, as we all will be, bystanders to somebody else's disaster, we've got to be in that position aware of the slump as well, haven't we? And we've got to make sure, and I really take to heart what you say about the morning after the first year anniversary, that's when you should give that person a ring, send them a text, take them a cake, and don't forget, but blimey, it's quite time consuming. It is! I mean you've got to make

space for it in your own life. And if you're grieving now and you're feeling like you're abandoned, you know, do you give people around you a break? They're probably trying to work out what to do. You know, it is, it is, but one of the things I really wanted people to think about was what sort of help they give. You know, there's a big controversial chapter in the book which I hope doesn't get me cancelled called Bad Help, which is all the ways that we don't help. Britain is addicted to toxic positivity. Never do you see that more than in a disaster setting here in the UK and then you see the responders and the leaders lean into it as well. It could have been so much

worse, all these kind of things. I'm very proud that I write so much about flooding. Flooding is one of the most desperate and we're gonna see more of it. Constant and I do see more of it. You know I see flooding and you know I open myself up to be mocked the minute I tweet about it or post about heatwave, but we are going to see so many reasons. We always have to be honest. It's not, please don't think that I am saying as an emergency planner who lives by my national risk register that things are any more risky than they were when there were saber-toothed tigers. The world is exactly the same as it always has. What

we've just done is we've looked out the window for the first time. And this book is designed to guide you and hold you, but also maybe challenge you very, very gently. You may have been doing some really bad help. Yeah. Disaster pollution is something you talk about, which is when people just dump their old rubbish, frankly, on the community center close to a disaster.

Yeah, really bad. That often becomes a secondary disaster. And this is where things like social media have been brilliant. We get the message out really quickly. It was out very early on in the LA fires. I have my own campaigning that I do around that. I've been translated, for example, with the Spanish floods. I was translated into Spanish very quickly on that did a number of media interviews and so you know one of the things I would say is you can make quite a big difference in this field. The disaster pollution was the area where the you know where I first when I first started to mention it I only started to use social media about four years ago I got so much hate for suggesting maybe you could give cash people hated that

message so I've done a lot of publicity about why it's so harmful. If you are at a church or a school or a mosque please do read some of my stuff around why it is literally the worst thing you can do to help. Can we talk about the current situation? Absolutely no pun intended but I am going to move on to power outages just because this week there was a power outage on the London Underground. We've had Spain, we've had Portugal, we've had a string of fires at substations. Now, I'm sorry, but we just didn't used to have them,

certainly not three or four in the space of a couple of weeks. What is going on? There's a lot going on. There's probably some things that I certainly don't know that's going on. They don't tell me anymore now that I use social media as loudly as I do.

It's havoc with your disclosure vetting. But what I would say is definitely going on. We're highly vulnerable to things like cyber attacks and we're highly vulnerable to things like espionage. We always have been. We're also seeing big climactic changes and our infrastructure is failing just to end on a really chirpy note is the reason why.

Thanks for coming in. So the things that I would say is, if you are listening to this, you're absolutely right to feel, should I have a little bit of nervousness around this? What the emergency planners then do is do stuff with that. So you do two things. One is you're ready at home,

if you're lucky enough to have a home, and that's a lot that we need to make sure we're supporting people who are not got homes. But if you've got a home, we need you to be doing certain things. And if you're out and about, you need to be thinking disruption. So planning with your bag to have a little bit more to get you through. So a little bit of extra medication, a phone charge is always helpful

in non power outage situations, those sorts of things at home. It was very interesting. I was I wasinterview with a Spanish journalist two Mondays ago and it was very very moving because the interview moved from an article that he was going to publish to he suddenly realized that he was trapped away from home, his children were still at school, there was no transport and they were being told to stay in the office so the urgency of the call changed just as we're in an office building now, don't use lifts, that sort of thing. We talked about he put an article out very quickly.

The media is always phenomenal in disaster for this. And one of the points he quoted me directly was please don't use candles. And that night there was a very serious candle fire which killed somebody elsewhere in Spain. But the phone call that we had changed him realising that this affected him too. And that's what I want people to get into the mindset of in a very non-anxious way, is chatting with their household or with their family about some key things.

And one of them is light, let there be light. When you have a power cut at night, it's very disorientating. We don't want you to use candles. If nothing else from this book, and I hope you take a lot from it but if nothing else a hurricane lamp and a chargeable torch please. Right in every single household. In every single household I really want them donated I have to work out whether it's possible to donate to things like food banks because

light calms the situation. The power cuts in Spain they work so hard and that was an infrastructure problem to get them back on before it went very dark, and that did make a big difference. But what it does mean is, particularly as more of us come back to the office, a power cut in the day means you're away from home. So one of the things is to have a chat as a family.

Ideally, if your children, for example, are in school, leave them in school, embrace the concept of the loco parentis, don't try and get to them and try and follow instructions if you can. Do you think that this government is as prepared as it can be for exactly that kind of thing? It's very alert to it. I think it got a bit of a shock when it came into power, excuse the pun, about how bad things were. I don't think it had necessarily realized and what happens is you know when a new government comes in as they get sort of they get the briefings

for the first time that maybe they haven't quite realized. The other thing that I've noticed they're really interested in is they really have understood that citizens are not being talked to honestly. We use what's called in disaster science the empty vase approach, the empty vessel, we keep talking to you as if you really don't get it, we use a lot of fear, a lot of nudge rather than talking equal to equal and so one of the big problems we've got is that we need citizens to be much more ready with we're so far behind other countries on this. So I mean well we have, I wish we could talk to you for much much longer, so every household, we're not panicking people, you do need bottled water, you need the torch, you need some dried food, you need your pet food, you need to be able to stick around at home

for a length of time. 72 hours, we're not planning for the apocalypse, make sure there's some chocolate, some snacks, some board games, it doesn't have to be a miserable 72 hours. And hopefully, you know, alongside that there's some lighter things you can be using if you are feeling very distressed or anxious about this, which is what I hope to do. Lucy, thank you so much for coming in. Always a pleasure. Always brilliant to talk to you. Professor Lucy Easthope and James says, this woman is a brilliant communicator. You've done with James, I mean he thinks you're fabulous. Thank you. One of the best suggestions that we had on the podcast when we were talking about being

prepped before was to have red wine because it doesn't need chilling. That's my kind of prep advice. That is the brilliant Professor Lucy Easthope and if you think you could benefit from the guidance in that book it is called Come What May life-changing lessons for coping with crisis. Right have a really good couple of days we are back fresh as daisies on Monday cannot wait or am ready I'm excited for you. Oh me too! But also be lovely to have a break. We'll see you on Monday, have a nice weekend. 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, 2-4, 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.