Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Be more like me, be more patronising (with Ruby Wax)

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Raye, if you're listening to this podcast, you have a new fan in Jane Garvey! Congratulations! Everyone else listening to this podcast, we hope you enjoy it too! Jane and Fi tackle Jane Austen, frozen peas and the Freedom Pass. Plus, they're joined by comedian and actor Ruby Wax to discuss her tour ‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was'. Tickets are on sale now and the paperback of her memoir of the same name is out on the 4th of April. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

but yes i am like zola bud sandy shaw and the singer ray going to do this podcast barefoot so ray went up on stage at the brits Barefoot every time and her publicity pictures... She's just wearing a pair of hotel slippers. You know, those great big... That was at the end of the night, though. White, fluffy barges. No, she didn't have shoes on at all. She did have very expensive ones with her, apparently.

Well, I mean, who wants to wear those? I've got great news for Ray, which is that I've properly listened to her track Escapism and now I really like it so well done Ray all your troubles are over I've got into you I asked you to listen to that months ago

yes I was under a lot of pressure to be honest not just from you to listen to Ray it's my dad's name so I was just thinking oh god I know she spells it with an A on the end.

It just seems faintly ridiculous. Or call her Rachel Keane because that's her proper name. Yeah. Well, congratulations to her. You've got a new fan. That's your week completely made. Now, where do you stand

as an aficionado of the Hampshire region on the idea of a statue of Jane Austen at Winchester Cathedral? Because people are getting quite angry. I don't know why. It'd be a lovely thing. Why are people getting angry? There's one woman, she's the vice-chair of the Jane Austen Society. She felt it would be an inappropriate place

because the inner close at the cathedral had been, I'm trying to get this right, a private space for the monks. Yeah. It's also a place... Who knows what went on there? Where me and Debbie and Susie, we used to smoke our cigarettes and drink our bottle of Cinzano on a Friday night, Jane.

So it's got happy memories for me. It doesn't say that, does it? No, it doesn't. In the Hampshire Chronicle. It doesn't mention that. This is from The Times. The Times. I'm on message here.

I'm reading from The Times. The Times. I'm on message here. I'm reading from The Times. Well, I think Jane Austen is one of Hampshire's finest sisters, so I don't understand why anybody would object to a statue. You know, I'm not... I recognise the immense value and beauty in her writing, but it always frustrated me that we had to read a lot of Jane Austen because, you know, the message that it all comes good because Mr Wright hoves into view,

I find depressing, actually. It is a bit, but then in her day, women without a man, it wasn't so much as, you know, what is it they said? A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. That's what the feminists said. Yeah. But back in her day, you actually did need one.

Oh, no, totally. But what seemed to be rather absurd was when we were being taught Jane Austen. Oh, yeah, and that wasn't really a challenge. That we weren't being asked to challenge that at all or to, you know, really cast our minds back to a time... To be honest, back in the 70s, it was still pretty much the same. Yeah.

When was it women could get mortgages? 1967. Oh, I think it might be 70-something. I think 67 was when you didn't need to ask your husband's permission. We were wallowing in the troughs of ignorance yesterday. So let's ask Eve, when could women get a mortgage without a man? You'd have to Google it, Eve. Maybe 67, was that the checkbook?

You were allowed to write your own checks without your husband's signature on the back. I think 67 is the Abortion Act. Oh, God. Okay, let's check this. Anyway, look, it's a long time ago. I think, why not have a statue of Jane Austen somewhere? I mean, I think, couldn't we basically just say

that any woman who's made an immense mark on culture or politics or news should be celebrated in statue form because all of the other ones in the close at Winchester, whoever they were, they were blokes. They should be one with you, your little bottle of Cinzano as well. That would be nice. Yes, Eve has news.

Yes. The Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1975. 1975. Bloody hell. Right. That is something, isn't it? So no wonder Jane Austen was hanging on in the hope of a Fella Hoven interview, because without one, she couldn't get a mortgage.

But also, please don't write into the podcast and, you know, say Jane Austen's marvellous, because I do understand that, but it was just, it was more the message. It's not the way that she writes. I think the way she writes is absolutely brilliant, and her observations about, you observations about the manners and etiquette and pomp of the drawing room are absolutely superb.

But Mr Darcy as well, I think, is a creation that, you know, the older you get as a woman, the more you find just really irritating. You know, a man who's not in charge of his emotions but just has a very healthy bank balance and looks fit is not necessarily the man for you or your daughters. No, this is true. Although he did look good in that clinging wet shirt.

But that isn't in the book, as we all know. Hello to Alice who says, I just wanted to say thank you for keeping me company. I'm on maternity leave with my first baby. Whilst I love being a mother and adore my beautiful baby boy, Rory. Hello, Rory. Nobody had warned me how lonely maternity leave can be at times with a three-month-old for company and how much I would miss the daily conversations I had at work with my colleagues.

Your natterings are filling this void or helping to fill it anyway. And you have me laughing along at home or whilst I'm on yet another walk trying to get the baby to sleep. As the first of my friends to have a baby, I do often feel like I've got nobody to talk things through with. So it helps. She mentions the small matter of birth itself, motherhood and episiotomies. And there's plenty more on episiotomies yeah both today and actually tomorrow in the email special as well alice um welcome along really glad you're there and i'm glad we're helping a little bit and congratulations to you as well and also i would say uh you know jane and i both really sympathize and empathize with that feeling of bewilderment in the early days of

motherhood because nothing in your life will have prepared you for that, actually. I think it's one of those things that is very different from the image that may have been conveyed to you. And so just, you know, treat us as the real-life voices in your head and just keep in touch, keep us posted. A little bit of information from your daily walk. We don't mind receiving that at all. No, I do remember that.

It was particularly, we had a kind of demonic hour between about five and, it wasn't an hour, it was longer. Five o'clock appeared to be a really awful point. Was it a wailing hour? For colic and, yeah, colicky weight, just screeching. And I was often round and about the park, taking a turn, a little bit like Jane Austen, taking a turn around the park at about 5 p.m

on a spring afternoon and uh yes unforgettable times so alice the good news is it gets loads loads easier in so many ways it does doesn't it does yeah and also your episiotomy will get easier in so many ways too that's true too and you can also when your friends do eventually have babies if they do of course many may choose not to um you can be really patronizing because you've been there and you've done it so that's great um right you could be helpful or you could be helpful but be more like me and just be patronizing right uh this is uh we've got we actually we've just got such a bumper edition of ones about birth uh are we going to save the very serious ones for tomorrow, which would just allow me to read a couple about fab lollies?

Yeah, do that. But I am astonished by some of the great quotes we've got from medical professionals when... Oh, my word. Unbelievable things that were said to women. And indeed, referencing husbands and their requirements. Can you find that one? I think, isn't it a terrible euphemism in France

that there is something called a husband's stitch? Yeah, well, yes. Here's actually, here's one. Yes, there is. It really is. This is from Ali. Back in 1988, when i produced my first baby nine pounds i tore badly resulting in months of pain and deep depression uh and none of that is

funny it must have been absolutely awful um three men's words have stayed with me all these years the junior doctor who attended me bleary-eyed at 4 30 a.m when i'd been waiting for half an hour with my feet in stirrups. Blimey, I don't know where to start with this one. Then there was my GP when I consulted him a few months later regarding the shambles of my undercarriage, which was making sex impossible. Well, we'd better sort that out. Don't want hubby playing away from home, do we? And about this, the consultant gynaecologist to whom I was referred to for repair. Not too much damage, nothing a couple of stiff sherries at bedtime

couldn't fix. God. We'll just let that sink in, into the void. And they wonder why feminism was invented. But I'd be very interested to hear if men who've gone to see their GPs about erectile dysfunction have been met with a kind of diminishing return

just in terms of size with the male penis later on in life but again i wonder whether or not the medical profession has greeted that with the same kind of surly nasty language or just uh just a rather brisk jolly approach just and as you say a cheeky reference to the idea that the missus might be getting a little frustrated with that looking at the window cleaner which reminds me they're coming tomorrow right yes do you do you find that when do you have a troop okay have you never cleaned your windows yourself no do you find that paying for a window cleaner is one of those things where they are absolutely entitled to earn that money, but every time you pay, you just think, how much? Slightly.

I genuinely, I couldn't like my window cleaner more. No, he's just a really nice player. I think that's the start of a novel, kids. I couldn't like it. Never mind Jane Austen. I couldn't like my window cleaner more. Right. On you go okay this one comes from allison uh who says uh thank you for your articulate reading of the email about fab

lollies it's well and truly put me off all stick-based ice creams and ice lollies i anticipate a significant change in calories consumed since mini magnums are to me what cheese is to Jane. Alison, and then you've put PS, but there's no PS. What was the PS? That's mainstream media. Get involved. Get back in touch, please, otherwise we'll think there's a conspiracy. There is a conspiracy there.

That PS has been kept from us. Just a brief mention to the incident I had at the weekend on that football fan packed train from Liverpool to London. Marie says your journey struck a chord. I totally understand that feeling of nervousness that something's about to kick off.

For the last 50 odd years I've been travelling back to Newcastle from either London or Norfolk to visit family and I've witnessed some pretty bad behaviour and not always from blokes. As I don't drive, it has always been by train. In the late 70s, it was still separate carriages with the sliding doors, and at the age of 19,

I spent a rather uncomfortable few hours stuck in one of these, with a load of pissed-up squaddies heading back to Catterick. For a memory, I think it was more light-hearted than threatening. Now, I just wouldn't dream of booking an evening train, always a morning one, although you then run the risk of the

because-I'm-worth-it crowd of ladies heading off to the races. The first ten minutes of the journey are spent assembling the plastic flutes, the next ten opening the bubbly, and the next unpacking the comestibles from M&S while singing Mr Blue Sky. Having said that, it's a brilliant snapshot of modern day life, keeping it real. Thank you, Marie.

She says, P.S. She's got a P.S. And it's been included. Yeah. So the mainstream media didn't get involved here. Marie says, Till the Stars Come Down. That was the play I saw at the National Theatre last week. And I'm sorry I didn't get the name right yesterday

because it's brilliant. It's really good. It's by Beth Steele. Check it out if you can. It's on for another couple of weeks. Till the Stars Come Down is the best play. And my friend Mark Wootten, Mr Poppy in Nativity, plays that Polish bloke.

Totally agree, he's brilliant. Mind you, his mother in real life is Polish. That would help. That would help, which is why I think his accent was so convincing. Now, how much is a theatre ticket in London? Because I heard this being discussed on this very station. And as you know, I don't really go to the West End very much at all

and haven't got recently. But they were suggesting that the average night out, you know, the tickets in the West End are now £100. Well, this was the National Theatre and it was £45. £45? It's not cheap. It's not cheap. Having said that, your musicals are a good 80, 90 and above.

That's absolutely right. So how can anybody afford to do that? Well, you can't take a family. I mean, it's unthinkable. It really is. If you've got four of you and it's a big hit show that you want to see, yeah, you're looking at an outlay of potentially 450 quid. Yeah.

If you include travel, then a lot more, obviously. No, I mean, the more obviously and there are cheaper tickets for students and OAPs and of course soon I'll qualify for the cheaper tickets So when do you qualify as an OAP? You get your Freedom Pass at 60 in London Town Yes

But when do you start getting all of the discounts? Well I'm going to go for all of them as soon as possible But when are they? That's a good point. Maybe, I don't know whether they clock in. Because does it move with the state pension age? It might just be when your state pension comes in. That's really unfair. So it'll be 15 years away

for you and another decade at least for me. I should say my mum is 90 today. Happy birthday, she won't be listening. Right, but I've mentioned it. So I feel better for getting it out of my system. My big party was at the weekend. So, yeah. Anyway. I've got to do this other birth one because it just made me laugh.

It's from Diana who says, I think without irony, best wishes from down under in New Zealand. The recent correspondence about birth injuries brought something back. She was 10 pounds 11 ounces and a speedy arrival. The doctor in his white gumboots

proudly announced the biggest he'd ever delivered and with glee went to retrieve the placenta to see how heavy that was. I was past caring. Now, he said to my husband, as he prepared to stitch me up, how tight would you like her to be? Right.

God. I know, it's too much. It's too much, it's too much. And too much it's too much and this comes in from sophie who says those austrian dresses are dirndls i wanted to share a funny translation of something my german friend says is a slightly bitchy saying for the bustiness you described which is she puts all the wood in front of the hut yes all those germans they're funny aren't they yes they are um now the controversy yesterday about what you do with those packets of peas you with your poor toe yeah um so

have you got any of those because this is quite an important uh health and safety message well carla who's a counselor so she must know her stuff she says with four children the poorly peas were regularly called for and always returned to the freezer. I'd like to report that we definitely did eat them. Nothing bad happened. We're all alive and well. Well, I thought there was a rule against it.

Anyway, Liz says, Jane and Fee, you just keep a special bag of peas in the freezer and you mark them peas for knees. Recently, my poor husband had gout in his big toe. peas for knees recently my poor husband had gout in his big toe the sleeves for cooling wine bottles fit over a foot a treat that is a top tip can i just say that that's very times that is thank you mentions gout and it mentions those coolers for wine bottles um very impressive liz a lovely tip and we'll pass it on I think that's absolutely magnificent epic who's our big guest?

our big guest today is Rebe Wax comedian, writer, all round heroine and I think a woman who has battled with some serious shit in her lifetime and has been generous enough to share it with people in a really helpful way

i think her stuff about mental health is just superb and um you know she's a clever she's a clever woman as well so when she talks about mindfulness i'm i'm minded to listen actually and sometimes when it's just a bit more uh you know, wellness fluff, I'm not anymore because I sometimes think there's too... You can be encouraged to think that there's a wellness episode around every corner and there can't be in life. And, you know, perhaps we're making our lives a little bit more difficult by expecting there to be that. But I think she's brilliant, so she's our guest in a couple of moments.

OK, well, we'll move on to her. I'm actually amazed that so many people are as old as me and remember Tinga and Tucker. This is from Adele. Auntie Jean is a silly old bean. Does that ring a bell, Jane? The other characters in Tinga and Tucker were Katie Kookaburra, Willy Wombat, Kiki Kangaroo and who can forget the Wibbly Wobbly Way. To this day, I can hear the theme song

with words playing in my 66 year old head it's funny what chooses to stick in our lifetime memory i mean that that is so true why is it and i was also said by the way some tinger and tucker badges and other memorabilia which just i had a tinger and tucker badge i even had a boomerang what i was doing with it in suburban Merseyside, I don't know. Probably breaking some windows. Sometimes you just think, God, I've been alive a long time. And I was going to... Sorry, I very nearly swore there.

No, because I looked up what happened, because my mum was born on March the 5th, 1934. I imagine what she's going to be like when she's 19. But exactly. You know. People, people, people give me strength. I wanted to put something cheery in her birthday card about, you know, on the day you were born this happened.

But the only thing that comes up is something so depressing that I just won't even mention it now. And you just think, oh. And then you actually think, wow, you know, she has lived through an incredible period in human history. I mean, she obviously doesn't spend a great deal of time pondering that, but it is truly remarkable. I mean, you could even say that we have as well, of course.

Things just keep, they stubbornly keep happening, don't they? They do keep happening. And, you know, we would be a wiser breed, wouldn't we, if we did keep reminding ourselves that things keep happening. Because the idea at the moment that, you know, we might be on the brink of a world war. I know that people listen to this for the frippery, but let's just be serious for just one sec.

No, you know, you can sometimes hear the kind of guffaw after that of, you know, don't be ridiculous. Or people are talking about it in a kind of um guffaw after that of you know don't be ridiculous or people are talking about it in a kind of intellectual way and you think no you know wars keep happening because we aren't standing back and going you know let's take notice of what stops them from happening and actually ruby and i talk about this in the interview about the cult of the strong man who is clearly mad what you know why would you why would you get up in the morning and want to dominate the world and create so much grief for people

unless you were absolutely bonkers? Completely unhinged. Carol has brought Plutarch into proceedings. So should we head to Plutarch? You were wondering on today's show whether women were allowed to bathe in public baths in ancient Rome. And the answer is yes.

Some had special times of the day for women and in Pompeii, the public baths had sections exclusively for women, separate from the larger bathing and exercise areas for men. However, Plutarch warned about sharing a bath with a woman. Men should not cleanse their skin in the women's bath. Men must not be naked together with women. In addition to the indecency certain effluvia issue from women's bodies and excretions which are defiling when absorbed by men anyone who enters the same air or water partakes of them and as carol says misogynist or what effluvia effluvia i was gonna call my eldest effluvia meet my daughter effluvia. Effluvia. I was going to call my eldest Effluvia.

Meet my daughter Effluvia and my son Algorithm. I love the podcast and listen every afternoon in the car as I drive from the school where I teach Latin 20 miles north of New York City into Manhattan, where I live. Valete. Valete. Goodbye.

Hello. Goodbye. Off we go. Says Carol. That's an exciting journey isn't it that really is, thank you Carol I wonder if in American schools they used the same textbooks as we had

you know the ones set in Pompeii did you have those? what was that called? you were always learning about him heading off weren't you to the bars but you always knew it was only ever going to end one way for that family because they didn't survive the eruption.

No. And it was all a bit dystopian in its own way, wasn't it? Why couldn't they have picked another town? You see? I guess. Even then we were lumped with misery everywhere. But don't you think that learning about the Romans was some of the best history? Oh yeah, God, I mean the baths

in school are astonishing. Yeah, any time. They were just so fantastically... I don't know, it was all a bit sexy, wasn't it, the Roman era, by comparison to... I remember going to Batsa. That was one of our special trips to see an Iron Age settlement.

It just wasn't quite the same as Bath. No, I mean, that's what I would... That's why Stonehenge just makes me laugh. Because, you know, they say we don't need immigration. Well, look at what we were coming up with. Anyway, right, yes. Anyway, look, Plutarch, well, he can go and do one ahead of International Women's Day.

He can go and sit in a bath by himself. Yes, you smelly old wretch. When did he die? Can you Google that, please? When did Plutarch meet his... I hope it was a very sticky end. Are there any descendants of Plutarch? I'd like to apologise to my learned sister.

On behalf of News UK, we'd like to apologise to Plutarch. Do we have Plutarch's dates? after AD 119 AD 119 sometime after not very specific ok so he could still

he could well have relatives around right so shall we get to the interview with Ruby Wax Eve is nodding effusively there get on with it is what she really wants to say Ruby Wax. Eve is nodding effusively there. Get on with it, is what she really wants to say.

Ruby Wax is about to go on tour with her show, I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was, which is based on one of her best-selling memoirs of the same name. It was a book about her search for calm in her head as a sufferer of severe depression,

which has surfaced several times in her adult life. Now, she's been a writer and performer for three decades now. And one of her early interview shows included a run in with Donald Trump on his private jet back in the year 2000. We'll talk about that in a few minutes time. But we started by discussing the elements of the stage show coming to a theater near you. Well, I take you on a kind of rollercoaster journey, which is the premise is during COVID, nobody was calling me. And my character, whoever I am, because it's a theatrical event,

I'm not doing stand-up, is that nobody was paying any attention to me. And somebody in show business, we just live in the reflection of other people's eyes. And so i decided i would change my life and i would find something that had more meaning and that was the idea so i signed up for the most extreme journeys that i could think of that might change the paradigm of how i was living so i went on a 30-day silent retreat tried to get people out of Afghanistan, lived in a Christian monastery, went swimming with humpbacks,

just things that would snap me out of the way I was living, you know, bring me into chapter two. There's so much to impact just in chapter one. It's just so fantastic. I mean, the idea of the 30-day silent retreat, if it's true that a problem shared is a problem halved, doesn't that mean that if you can't talk about everything with other people, then your problems actually become worse and more internalized? Well, you're talking about somebody who studied mindfulness. You certainly

couldn't go on a 30-day retreat if you'd never done it before. And the point of mindfulness, and it's a terrible word, they should really change it as soon as possible, is you're replacing the therapist. It's exercises for the brain, the way a sit-up is for the body, which means that, yes, it's hell about for five days, because you're just listening to your inner devil, about for five days because you're just listening to your inner devil, you know, getting the worst reviews known to man. And gradually, gradually, it's like your arm wrestling with that inner demon. And eventually, if there's no distractions and nobody to call and nothing to read, it starts to give up. Now, your thoughts aren't going to stop, but they get quiet. And eventually, you can start to notice things like what you're eating.

And it becomes quite pleasurable. I mean, that I know from studying at Oxford, and I knew there was something to mindfulness, but 30 days, again, they won't let a novice on, but it's sort of the mental equivalent of doing Ironman. So it did what it was supposed to do, which is, which is give you a little bit of peace. And also it gives you insight. You're not blocking out how you think you're seeing clearly how you think you're learning about things, but without giving yourself the second layer, you know, beating yourself up. Like I just need attention all the time. What an idiot that I need it. You just see clearly and you can't change your habits unless you see that, you know, know thyself. What about some of the other things that you tried?

I mean, the whole point of the 30 day retreat is there are things that happened that were hilarious, especially I got into the turkeys in a big way because you're so desperate to follow some drama. There were turkeys on the property, played a big part in my life. And I started to fantasize that the guy next to me was in love with me and that I'd look away every time in my mind, he looked at me. And at the end of 30 days, I said, did you happen to notice that I was sitting next to you? And he said, no, but I heard snoring. So you come to the realization that in life, you project who you think they are and then treat them that way. Everything becomes a kind of profound, oh, revelation, even though it doesn't sound like it. Rather than listening to lectures, you come to it yourself. But I went to a Christian monastery. I went to work at a refugee camp. You know, that humbled me. That was a totally compassionate experience. Somebody did call me and say his family, the uncle was burnt to death by the Taliban and said, could I please help? Well, I don't know anybody who can help, but I made endless phone calls

because I'm a refugee. And I did get him out. So that was fairly remarkable. I'm still working on his family. But it was suddenly when you're called to an emergency, you realize how shallow your life is. Yes. And there's such great value in service, isn't there? You know, doing something for somebody else is often, you know, quite a good way. An eye opener. Yeah, of getting out of your self. I'm interested that you don't like the term mindfulness. What would you replace it with? What's wrong with the term mindfulness?

Mindfulness sounds kind of like you're sitting on a gluten-free cushion with your eyes rolled back. It doesn't describe anything, but I think of it as an exercise for awareness. You know, people need awareness because we live in a time of, I always say, we're surrounded by weapons of mass distraction. And you need your attention. So I'd say it's an attentional exercise. It gives you the ability to focus when you want to focus rather than spending 80% of your life mind wandering. Now, you have the choice. You can still mind wander, and you can still get carried away by those internal stories,

but you can also pull back to what's happening right in front of you. So it's sort of a one-way ticket to the present. When you go on holiday, some people are still in the office, and so you wasted a lot of money. You are training your mind to pay attention, and they should train kids for that. So when teachers say pay attention, they know what they're talking about. Do you think that we're at some kind of nadir in the world in terms of distraction and in terms of

what those things, social media constantly peering into other people's lives is doing to our mental health? Is it something that we're passing through or a kind of state that is here to stay? Well, you know, Moore's law, it's going to get faster and it's going to get more extreme. There's nothing we can do to stop it. Like when we picked up the spear, that was our first bit of technology. And then we learned to read and that was, you know, and then we got the telephone. So the internet's not going anywhere. But what we have to learn is how to pull back from becoming a cyborg, partly technical. So all these exercises to remind you where the human ends and where the technology begins. So let's not kid ourselves. Tech is here to stay.

But you can waste your life whining about it. You can go on TV shows or write articles going, my kids are doing this. Well, their kids' kids are going to be doing it much faster. Yeah. How would you advise a younger person to change themselves? Because it is absolutely true, backed up with statistics, that the mental health of our young people and our very young people is really poor at the moment.

And you can't really expect kids to know how to deal with stuff. But the wisdom of older people can help them, can't it? Yeah, but the wisdom, but we haven't got any wisdom either. You know, parents still shout at their kids. I shout at my kids. We lose our temper. We're but the wisdom, but we haven't got any wisdom either. You know, parents still shout at their kids. I shout at my kids. We lose our temper. We're on the telephone. So, you know, the way they teach attentional awareness in schools is the teachers have to learn it. And if the mother's going to pass her state on to the kids, she better learn how to cool her engines. Otherwise you pass it to the kids. I mean, our only hope is changing the parent, or at least the parents can be calm enough to explain it to the kid. But if you give

them pressure, the whole point of being a teenager is to rebel. So you're just giving them a reason to rebel. How do you think you would have fared as, let's say, a 20-year-old young woman now? Well, I'd still be 20. You know, you don't get into mindfulness until it becomes an emergency, really. I mean, kids really don't have time for it because when you're young, you're supposed to put on the turbo because we're developing an ego and we're developing an identity and that's where you're going to make your success. But then around 40, the dissatisfaction starts to kick in. And sometimes when where you're going to make your success. But then around 40, the dissatisfaction starts to kick in. And sometimes when people have kids, they want their kids to be the success that

they never were. I would have been just as ambitious, but my parents were insane. So I might not have run that far. And I might have been a real success in high school. Part of the reason I ended up an actress is I couldn't concentrate in school because there was too much, there was too much violence at home. So I missed a lot. And so maybe I went into show business to get back at everybody. And maybe that's a good thing. But maybe now when I study neuroscience, I think, whoa, is this interesting? So maybe I would have cottoned down to it earlier. Yeah. Some of your earlier stuff I absolutely loved, which is not to say that I don't like the stuff you're doing now,

Ruby, but you were hugely influential when I was a young woman, actually. And I really, really loved your interviews because, you know, you just had absolutely no fear and it was wonderful to watch. Can you just relive for us some of the moments with Donald Trump? Because I think there's something really relevant, actually, to talk about now, so many years down the line. But can you tell us about that interview with him way back in 2000? Well, it was a terrible interview, because he got to me. And he, you know, when you're not conscious, when you're not aware, I didn't know then, but he reminded me of my dad, who used to belittle me. And I would start to become the idiot he thought I was.

I think now, because I'm a little bit, you know, I'm a little bit wiser about not letting people project who they think you are on you and really, you know, doing some exercises to get your cortisol down, it would have been a better interview. That was just with him. And part of it is, oh, people say, well, it's still good. It is still good. But I felt kind of toxic for a few weeks. You know, if you let them enter you, you know, their state and his state was violent and vicious and woman hating, you'll catch it. I do have a way now of getting up a fence. But then there were love affairs like Carrie Fisher and Bette Midler and Tom Hanks where you're just in love. And so that becomes like you're playing tennis with a pro.

So most of the people were fun. Imelda Marcos was fun. She was crazy, a little crazy, but at least I was playful with her. With Donald, I wasn't playful. With Bill Cosby, who tried to choke me in the first five minutes, I wasn't playful. I was scared. And I think now I wouldn't be so scared. But I did have a lot of nerve.

I wasn't scared of people until they laid that viciousness on me. Then I get scared. So when you saw Donald Trump emerge as a politician, and now when you watch him, what do you think of him as, you know, one of the few people who can actually say, you know, I've been in the room with him. I felt threatened by him. I know why he's, you know, he's just so, he's like Hitler. You know, he's so full of anger that people, you know, people go blank in front of him and think, oh, maybe that's power. But it's not power.

It's craziness. You know how when you get near, well, you don't, but I've been near people in prison, some of them, or in a institution. They're so crazy that your mind jumbles and you can't really hear what they're saying, but their fear is past you. I think a lot of times you think that must be power. I should give him more. So I think he jumbles people's brains. Yeah. Didn't he do something so misogynistic? Didn't he talk about what he'd like to do to women?

But I didn't have my sound on because in those days you couldn't do sound without film. But I didn't have my sound on because in those days you couldn't do sound without film. But, you know, he was trying to shock me, but I shocked him right back. You know, I became as misogynistic as he was just to play with him. And then he started to like me because as soon as he realized I wasn't a female and, you know, I wasn't trying to sleep with him, then I was one of the boys. I figured him out, but I figured him out late in the show. It's so interesting that you immediately say, you know, there's a form of madness there, because I think if you look at quite a few of the strong men of the world at the moment, if you took away their power and they had to live on civilian street like the rest of us,

we would identify them as being mentally unwell, wouldn't we? we would identify them as being mentally unwell, wouldn't we? Well, there's been programs of top psychiatrists saying, giving their diagnosis on what's wrong with Donald. But it's like we have an amputee running the place and nobody's acknowledged that he's missing a leg. I mean, that's a prime example of narcissism. And yet people don't recognize it. It's unbelievable.

But, you know, there's been Stalins before and there have been other crazy people. This isn't the first. Do you think it will ever change? I think if we're stupid enough to vote for him, then there's no telling how much lower we can go. Do you think that there might be something in the more open conversations we have actually about mental illness and about personality disorders? If we can't catch it now, what are you going to tell somebody in one of those states, you know, where they think he's a hero? He's got mental illness. They would, you know, you'd be, you're using violence against violence. They wouldn't understand what you mean. You know, stupidity comes into the picture.

To understand pathology takes a certain amount of brains. They would say, what are you crazy? He's very powerful. He's very powerful because he makes you angry. You know, it's like rabble rousing. I'm so ashamed of my country, I can't even speak of it. Let's bring back Sarah Palin. Okay, let's.

Are you hopeful for this country, your adopted country, Ruby? Well, I think, you know, the people that are running have been educated. So you're just deciding between, you know, they think they're evil. Boris was nuts, but he wasn't nuts in the way that Trump is. But until we get into Parliament where they just bray at each other like animals, I think politics are pretty civilised here. Well, the comparison is probably valid.

I really enjoyed talking to Ruby, just to say that her tour, I'm not as well As I Thought I Was, is up and running. Tickets are on sale now. Just use that sentence as your search tool. And the paperback of her memoir of the same name is out on the 4th of April.

And I'm sorry that we couldn't talk to Ruby for longer, actually, but we have one of those kind of slight tech-related interview situations. So we had to make way for... We don't need too much information on that. For you, actually, because you had a pre-record in at 1.30. Yes, busy, busy. Our lives are so dizzying, but fascinating at the same time.

But I think there's so much more to talk about, actually, just on that point of who we are electing and who we're choosing to be represented by. Because history's going to judge this episode of American politics very badly indeed. And people are drawn to the madness, aren't they? Yeah. Of someone who patently lies, who exaggerates his own importance,

who is misogynistic, sexist and probably worse. And just, I mean, how's that going to look good in the rear view mirror of history jane if there is one uh anyway um sorry that's another apocalyptic note we must all hope for better things let's hope we'll all live long enough to put up a statue of jane austen in winchester okay that's all i ask no let's let's live long enough to put up a statue of Jane Austen in Winchester. Okay, that's all I ask. No, let's live long enough to put up a statue of Ruby Wax. And Ruby Wax. Somewhere in central London. Because I think people like her are saying far more relevant things

than many of the pompous Watsits who are being elected. And the good news tomorrow is that we will be bringing you excerpts from Beefy Botham's book, because Jane brought it in today. Well, hang on. I don't know whether it's really going to stretch to extracts tomorrow. Hang on a sec. We don't have time for extracts today. We don't have time for extracts.

I was itching for a chance to get on the field and prove that. Oh, why don't we just leave it there? I was itching. Yes, probably Plutarch's old trouble. Right. Thank you very much for listening. Have you been in a bath with a woman? You filthy wretch.

Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. Goodbye. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class.

Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock Monday until Thursday every week, and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day

as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us, and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.