Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Beavers are rarely far from the headlines (with Sarah Rainsford)

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

What's wrong with the tricycle? What's the point of sandwich spread? Jane and Fi may or may not answer these pressing questions... And Jane speaks to BBC Eastern Europe correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, on her new book 'Goodbye to Russia' after being expelled from Moscow. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you know what, if somebody came along and instead of bringing me, you know, a bunch of flowers or a bottle of vino verde, if they bought me some Gaviscon, some Imodium and a little bit of Fizzy Paracetamol instead. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. contacts calendar double tap to open breakfast with anna from 10 to 11 and get on with your day accessibility there's more to iphone Well, I knew there'd be controversy, Jane, but I didn't expect it to be this much.

Go on. Chutney. Yeah, I did fear for you yesterday. Mr Lee on the Solent, I've been converted to small chunk chuckney. It's main advantage... Chuckney. Chuckney. Chuckney. Chuckney.

Chuckney. Chuckney. Its main advantage is that the chunks don't poke through the bread. Thank you for an excellent podcast. 300A. Who would have thought it? Well, you and us both, have we done three... Does that mean we've done 300?

Here? Yeah. Oh, my God. Have we really? Hannah's 101. What? 301. Oh, it's 302 Hannah's 101. What? 301? Oh, it's 302 today, wow.

Well, happy anniversary. Oh, happy anniversary. Happy anniversary to you. And thank you to Leon Solon as well, because he sounds like he may have been with us for quite a few. Could be a chap, could be a lady, we don't care. So the small chunk chutney is a little bit of the consistency of the sandwich spread, isn't it? Oh, sandwich spread.

Now, that was a thing, wasn't it? Yeah. Because very distinctive smell, and I'm going to say quite a distinctive taste. And I do question now, what was the point of sandwich? Was it just supposed to be quicker than making a sandwich filling? I mean, it's not time-consuming to get a bit of cheese and a tomato and then put it between two bits of bread.

No, but sandwiched bread was like a minced coleslaw, wasn't it? So it was salad cream and then it had cabbage and carrots in it. It was just bizarre. It was the least wanted thing in a sandwich. It was very odd. But also the consistency was wrong. Yeah. It was just neither one thing nor the other. It looked like something perhaps had been

digested once and returned. It did. But did you buy exactly the same sandwich? Because this is where it started, your addiction to the Wensleydale and carrot chuck. Funny, because actually not today, no. I went and got a ham and cheese baguette so it didn't last

no you haven't done a rob no i'm not doing a rob in the sandwich department no i'm not um bike riding in adulthood um i think this is important because we were talking about how there are still plenty of adults around women and men who can't ride bikes um s says i thought i'd tell you about balance and ride it's a brilliant free scheme in rushmore that's the farnborough and oldershot area for women who've either never learned to ride a bike or like me lacked any confidence having not ridden one since the teenage years you don't need your own bike or your helmet it can be borrowed the women are really supportive of each other and it's inspiring to see women some like me in their 60s who've never mastered riding a bike having the guts to give it a go and realizing they can do it uh there are

brilliant instructors hats off to claire and jewels for being patient and encouraging what a great idea yeah and also i did think after our conversation about adults not riding bikes what's wrong with the tricycle because you know the tricycle uh you give it up, don't you? It's like the gateway to your normal bicycle. But actually, later in life, when you need something much more firm and dependable, I quite like a trike later on in life, but I don't really see them around. Sometimes I see the ones that you can put your kiddies on the back of.

Yeah, kids in bins, can't stand that. But also they can dominate pavements, can't they? I mean, you couldn't go on a road on a trike, could you? Well, you could. I mean, a cycle lane would be big enough. Oh, yeah, I suppose that's true now. Now. Yeah.

So maybe that's another commercial activity we can turn our attention to. I'm slightly haunted by the day my sister, who was quite a ferocious, she was very little at the time, but she was a ferocious trike rider. And she triked over the feet of an elderly lady on the pavement. And my dad had to give the lady a lift home. And it was all very embarrassing. And she was really told off. She was like extreme trike rider.

Okay. But yes, your boundaries, because you'd be big at the back, wouldn't you? There's no way to talk about her. She doesn't listen i know i still i still haven't met your sister but i think you're deliberately keeping us apart because we might get on so well we've got a lot in common allison and you can call me anytime there's a helpline beavers uh this comes from daisy who says love you guys don't have a change we can't i mean we're kind of both working on it, but it's trying, but we can't.

Beavers were back in the news yesterday anyway, weren't they? They're very rarely far from the headlines. And they were back, I think this week, I think it was yesterday, because there'd been some baby beavers born in London. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Little beavers.

There was an otter found in a city as well, wasn't there? Which is actually a very strange concept. We might have to devote more time to that later. Back to Daisy. I heard a few weeks back on your Beaver Brownie leader chat and my mother-in-law was one. This is why she's getting in touch. I do love this, by the way.

But she kind of did it for the wrong reasons, she admitted to me. She told me her job was not satisfying her, so she joined as leader to feel some power in the workplace brilliant bicep emoji bizarre i know i don't think it's entirely sensible 15 years on she still has the key to the hut and helps herself to chairs and tables i guess her reward i just feel for the other owls as she is the kind of woman who takes 15 minutes to make a cup of tea, enough said. By the way, I'm such a long-time fan

that when I had to spend a lot of time in the US, I had to listen to very enthusiastic Californians all day. I had a nice balance of listening to your entire back catalogue in my hotel room to bring me back down to earth. This was in 2020, the week before lockdown. Oh, my God. It gets darker and darker the email daisy but i think that is completely understandable about wanting to go and do something where

actually you weren't undermined or punched down on or not taken seriously and you could be a leader sometimes i think that's why people do some of the kind of more voluntary aspects of our society magistrates magistrates do you think i want to sentence people i think it's quite strange i've thought about becoming a man no um i just think maybe we can't use that correspondence name because it sounds a little bit too easily identifiable her mother-in-law might be identifiable through that. I don't know. What do you think? But does it matter?

I mean, it's just a nice story about... She's stealing stuff from the hut. Oh, no! Well, the implication was that she was. No, she's not stealing. What is she doing? No, I think she just uses the chairs and tables when she needs them for other stuff. I don't think she's uses the chairs and tables when she needs them for other stuff.

I don't think she's taking the chairs and tables. In that case, we'll just open it up to you telling us about good things you've done for all the wrong reasons. Yes. Because I think that's an interesting one. I think it's really interesting. If you do sympathise with that and think, yeah, absolutely, I am running my local Amdram society

because I don't have to you know put up with peter at work putting me down all the time but if good stuff is done particularly in local communities because um maybe it does give you a sense of satisfaction makes you feel happier about yourself that is all to the good isn't it totally um so we don't really care what motivates people who do good stuff as long as it's being done i think but it's interesting that someone sought out a career of sorts in that sort of service because they could get a little bit of a good feeling of seniority it's kind of why i'd like i've always said i want a job where i could be called ma'am yes because despite your very best efforts, I'm never going to.

No, nor is anybody else here. Now, when I mentioned raw dogging at home, I should have realised... It's a terrible term. It's horrible. It's horrible. And I should have realised by the expressions on the younger members of the household that this was going to be the proper explanation. I was just listening this morning and I was thrown off kilter by the mention of raw dogging. You may already know this or have had many emails to this effect, but it's actually the act of having sex without a condom.

These days, the saying has expanded and you can apparently raw dog anything. Some people might say something ridiculous like they are raw dogging the morning by not drinking coffee, etc. Didn't know that emma thank you would it be okay if you didn't start dropping in raw dogging to describe afternoons where you don't have a cup of tea i find i just find it really odd it's really odd yeah um thank you for the most fantastic email from helen which is all about a-level results day. I'd like to read it in two parts, some of it today and some of it tomorrow. Tomorrow morning is the morning for A-level results. And then Thursday morning next week is the morning for GCSE results. And my

apologies, because I don't know when Hire's results are in Scotland. I'd be grateful if somebody could inform me. So Helen says, so many listeners will be thinking of you and your family on Thursday. That's just because I've got both this year. Jane had, did you have both in one year? I terribly sensibly had children three years apart. Okay. So I'm glad all mine was together. Well, yeah, in a way, I guess that meant that, but I do think it's when you've got two sets of worry, is it worse? I don't know. I just think, I mean, you were saying yesterday that it doesn't matter.

And of course it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because most people are fortunate that they grow up in a nice environment where their parents are supportive, but also wouldn't dream of heaping pressure on them in any way. And yes, we all know that actually health is the most important thing. And if you've got that, you can do anything and good luck to you.

But I was thinking about this overnight. And I guess for some people, there's no doubt, good exam results are the path out sometimes of difficult circumstances. They are a ticket out. But I would just say I personally think it's wrong to condemn children who've got that supportive background and all that kind of stuff

as if they're spoiled by people saying, you know, you don't have to do this and you don't have to do that. Oh no, that's what should happen. It's what should happen just absolutely across the board. And also for those kids to whom education is absolutely a ticket out of um you know a very bleak horizon i mean their tomorrow is way way worse because there isn't

a safety net behind them and sometimes i worry that there's so much pressure put on them that the other avenues of opportunity that might be more doable actually more fulfilling are less available to a bright kid now than they were before because of the amount of opportunity that might be more doable, actually more fulfilling, are less available to a bright kid now than they were before because of the amount of pressure that we have put on people. But look, this is all relevant to the email from Helen, who is further down the line, and so sends the email with lots of experience. And I know this is a really stressful week for most families, even for those who are pretty certain of success. And three years on from my family's experience with this, I very clearly remember how long that summer was and how

slowly those last days passed. And she just gives a little bit of detail. Our son attended an aspirational comprehensive that has a lot of success with sending its students on to university. But the end of seven years of grooming in that direction, my son couldn't see any other acceptable path open to him. He had the academic potential to make of grooming in that direction, my son couldn't see any other acceptable path open to him. He had the academic potential to make university a really viable path, but a slide in achievement and lack of independent study skills weren't corrected but exacerbated when COVID took half of his A-level schooling from him.

When he fell significantly short of his own overly aspirational target grades, he accepted the first offer that came to him through clearing by 10.30 on results day and refused to look at any alternatives or to consider taking time away from education. And the point of Helen sending the email is this. I wish we'd known on that day how many of his friends were about to take a year out or still had another year of level three courses to complete before applying to go away. I wish we'd understood the impact that such high social connectivity among that age group would have for someone choosing to go more than 150 miles from home.

He was always extremely aware of what he was missing in his home crowd and was constantly forced to say no to things or try to work out how to afford to come home to join in. And I wish we'd known more about the character of the university selected in a rush on that day. We didn't know it was a university that has an overwhelming majority of students from within the county and that an East Midlands accent

would make him other to the children from the Southeast or that weekends would become so quiet because everybody else would often pop home. I'll detail more of your email tomorrow, Helen, but I think all of these things are really helpful, really important. And, you know, the benefit of hindsight is such a fantastic thing. But that panic on results day to get into clearing and just have something to go to, I think often means that, you know, people end up having a slightly kind of more rubbish time than they needed to.

And I know this year there are thousands of places available through clearing. All kinds of universities and for all kinds of reasons. So we'll do a bit more on that. And also, if anybody is interested, we're doing a piece on the programme today about turning away from university. And we'll do quite a lot of stuff tomorrow about results themselves and that's 2 till 4 live

Monday to Thursday but not next week because we're on holiday that's right Alexis Conran comes your way he's Greek he brings gifts oh yeah actually yes he does he does also very nice man now we were talking yesterday about the experience of having somebody

with a really severe mental health illness in your family, well, mental health condition in your family, in the light of those terrible killings in Nottingham last summer. And this is from an anonymous listener who says, I'm just jumping in before my working day starts. My day now often includes a visit to my 20-year-old autistic son who is currently under section for psychosis, ongoing now for about a year with experience of many different hospitals

and awaiting assessment by a specialist centre, the only one in the country that deals with the intersection of autism and psychosis. We are still trying to understand the complexities of both the illness its causes the approach to treatment the law and social care or lock or lack of that surrounds a broad ranging condition such as psychosis as well as how it interacts with autism itself an individualized condition i've ended up says our correspondent on the weirdest of podcasts in search of enlightenment I'm not surprised because yours is a very challenging your son's um has a very very

challenging set of circumstances there um mental health wards says our listener however modern are not generally nice places to be and our son has absconded many times. Hospitals are also under great pressure to release patients as early as possible because of a lack of beds. From my basic understanding and I would love to hear otherwise, medication for psychosis appears not to have advanced a great deal since the 50s and is currently ineffective in relation to our son despite trying different types and doses. in relation to our son, despite trying different types and doses. There's also the issue of compliance and aftercare on release. My son returned to drink and weed on first release from hospital because the issues that gave rise to his initial trauma

were just not addressed. He's high achieving across academia, music and sport, but he had a terrible time at some of the so-called best secondary schools in London. I'm so sorry to hear about that. It just sounds immensely difficult for you, for the rest of your family, and of course for your son, who's only 20.

And I just want to say that, well, we've read the email and we just wish something could happen to make his experience of life a little bit better. And your own. I mean, it's just incredibly tough, isn't it? And you must be worried all the time about how he is and how he's feeling and indeed how he's being treated. And I can only say from my own perspective that I assume, and I could be wrong, that it's slightly easier for you knowing that at least he's in hospital. I don't know, though,

and it could be exactly the opposite of that. Anyway, thank you, and I imagine that other people will have similar experiences, I'm afraid. And those big thoughts about your child's future, they never stop, do they? You know, even when you're considering you know what will they be able to do when they're 30 or 40 or what happens when i'm no longer around or whatever um you know those must flood your mind too as well as the immediate concerns in the now

yeah so yes just you know i'm always constantly amazed by people's ability to tell their stories so beautifully, actually, on this podcast, Jane. Because it's never self-aggrandisement. It's always thoughtful and it's always to try and help. And honest to God, there's never been a time, I think, when we didn't need more of the shared experience in order to understand what on earth is going on in our world. Well, quite. And you're absolutely right to draw attention to that, that this person bothered to get up early with quite a stressful sounding day ahead and email us. So thank you for doing that.

And she also just makes the point that we need to take a much broader, longer and harder look at the culture of otherness perpetuated in our society. No-one's on the streets waving placards for disability rights and awareness it is apparently the least sexy and most misunderstood area of our society let alone when combined with poor mental health um so yes that's almost certainly right yeah and we all just learn so much don't we from uh personal stories so much more than you will ever learn from someone just telling you what you should do.

That kind of coming from the ground up rather than the top down, I think is just hugely, hugely important. And on that point, they should never relax the listening project. Right. Wensley Dale and Worms. Here we go. We've made a turn. Come with us. Wensley Dale and Carrot carrot chutney has been my favourite sandwich

for nine solid years. Where have you been, Jane? I don't know. This is anonymous. Funnily enough, I was at the Wensleydale cheese experience on Saturday. It is the kind of thing you need to keep quiet. The Wensleydale cheese experience. Where is this? Is it in Yorkshire?

I saw no carrot chutney but did buy some quince jelly to go with the Wensleydale Cheese Experience. Where is this? Is it in Yorkshire? I saw no carrot chutney, but did buy some quince jelly to go with the Wensleydale blue cheese, which was a delicious combination. We were staying in the lakes, a clue, for my best friend's 40th birthday and stopped off at Hawes on the way. Oh, yes, that's right.

So put that in your diary, the Wensleydale Cheese Experience. I'm sure you can book in time for next year. You just never know who's listening to you. Well, you don't. But also our correspondent, she was not sideways by the coincidence on the podcast because her weekend was almost thwarted by worms.

This is not our first outing with worms. Like Fee, I believed in the miracle cure, gave previous experience the magic worms potion i thought well this is annoying but at least it's not next weekend when we're going away i was banging on the door of the pharmacy at 9 a.m on monday morning and the dose was taken by 905 happy that a crisis had been averted i returned home fairly relaxed to put the bedding and towels in the wash fast forward four days and I was still finding the little bastards on my daughter during the night. They are scenes

I will take to the grave. I was starting to panic. We may need to cancel. The miracle cure works very well if you catch the infection early. If you don't, you look forward to a week of torture. My advice to all parents, keep the medicine in the cupboard at all times in case you have the slightest suspicion

that worms may be on the horizon. My second piece of advice would be do not allow your child to go to a summer party with 70 children all under the age of five. After 12 loads of washing they seem to have disappeared and we headed off to join our friends for a lovely weekend. However given the life cycle of worms and the risk of any lingering eggs I was forced to give my friend a bottle of medicine for This was a low point. So thank you very much indeed to our correspondent. The PS is my husband was working in Istanbul for this Worms episode and he was in America throughout the previous Worms outbreak. He's a lucky devil, isn't he?

You couldn't make this shit up. You are such a woman after our own heart. That is absolutely brilliant. But also, I think we ought to start something here. I think that we should absolutely advocate the giving of pharmaceutical products instead of presents. Because how much more relevant would it be if somebody came along and instead of bringing

me you know a bunch of flowers or a bottle of vino verde if i cooked a nice dinner for them if they bought me some gaviscon some imodium and a little bit of fizzy paracetamol instead i'd be so grateful you are right because there's never i mean my my own night's sleep was interrupted by somebody bursting into the bedroom saying have i got any paracetamol? And, you know, you just think, I'm 980 years old. Did you know them? No. This is what was so strange.

So I think every household, and I am that sensible householder, I always have paracetamol. It's just that apparently nobody else in the house knows where it is, which is maddening because I've said it a million times. And we always have the basics. I mean, something for headaches, something for cystitis relief. Well, there's tops and bottoms. Tops and bottoms.

Tops and bottoms again. Always tops and bottoms. Never go abroad without the essentials. And never stay at home without them either, frankly. Dettol, keep it under the sink. With the descaler. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on.

Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day.

Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Before we get to our guest today, who is the BBC's former Moscow correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, who's written a great book. If you are interested in Russia or there's somebody in your family who's, I don't know, about to study history or study Russian, I really do recommend this book. It's called Goodbye to Russia.

And Sarah was chucked out of the country some years ago, in fact, just before Russia invaded Ukraine. But she's fascinating on the subject. So Sarah is coming up in a second. We were talking yesterday. Errol was disputing our suggestion that William Shakespeare couldn't have gone to university. And he corrected us and has written back to say, thank you for reading out my email as requested.

Here is the follow up information. The year each university was established is as follows. Oxford, 1096. That is a long time ago. 1096. Yes, that is. Cambridge, 1209, just in time for lunch. St Andrews, 1413.

Glasgow, 1451. Aberdeen, 1495. And Edinburgh, 1583. Admittedly, Edinburgh was founded during Shakespeare's life, says Errol. Edinburgh was founded during Shakespeare's life, says Errol. Fee, you were quite right to draw my attention, to draw everyone's attention to my inability to acknowledge the Scottish gift, to acknowledge anything, to acknowledge the Scottish gift for education,

because there are a lot of Scottish institutions established well before the rest of England got its arse into gear. It's quite funny, because you went, Aberdeen? I didn't know Aberdeen was... Edinburgh Glasgow. I didn't know Aberdeen was... Edinburgh. I genuinely didn't know Aberdeen was such an old university. It's these great bastions of intellectual civilisation. It's very cold, isn't it?

But why was the rest of England so tardy? That's just hopeless. Well, there just weren't very many people living across the rest of England. There weren't many people living in Scotland either and they managed to establish four universities. But what connects those three places, Jane? St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and

well, I don't know. Well, industry. Two of them are coastal. One of them was a hub. You know, it's where people gathered, wasn't it? So I suppose where other cities throughout the the rest of the country just i don't know less busy so you wouldn't need or be able to afford an institution like that what are you saying about tunbridge wells

well actually i mean i've stabbed myself in the foot there because Canterbury had a cathedral probably predating most of Glasgow and Edinburgh. It's whopping, isn't it? So it might have had a university too. Final one from me. Sarah says, I don't know how you can say all chutneys taste the same. Do you include Branston pickle in that? That's aimed at me, Sarah. I'm so sorry. Far too strong and not sweet enough.

I make an apple and courgette chutney, which is fab with cheese, but I need to try this carrot one. It sounds good. Sarah, you're in hospital recovering from an operation. We're delighted if this is helping you along the way and very good wishes from us. Hope you get properly well soon.

Yeah. And hello to Lorraine who's listening in the States. Wishing Liverpool all the best on Saturday, she says. Actually, I don't think she's wishing Liverpool all that much good luck because her team is Ipswich. That's Liverpool's first game of the new season. When Liverpool come to Portman Road, as your

guest Ian Graham was saying yesterday, there might be a slight, very slight home advantage. I just can't resist stirring the pot. I've been a 40-year Ipswich supporter, season tickets for 15 years until I moved back to the States. I've watched my team suffer greatly, but I'm now so happy we're back in the Premier League again, challenging, and I don't think Liverpool's day is going to be easy, she says.

Are they the tractors? They are the tractor boys. Yeah. Or is that Norwich? Ohwich oh dear i think i might have paused offense there hope we haven't uh lorraine says i listen to you every night on my walk after i put my husband to bed he has dementia my daughter suggested listening to you both in your previous life and i still listen when i can you always bring me joy and laughter lorraine um people like you and all our other correspondents today

do the same for us. That's true, isn't it? It's very true, yep. And we're getting a little bit giddy in anticipation of our holidays. And just to reiterate what we were saying yesterday, don't feel that you've got to send an email in right away if there's something that you thought about contacting us for a long time. We've got plenty of time over the summer to get to things,

but we won't be here next week anyway. So maybe don't send us stuff next week. Radio silence will be a wonderful thing for all of you. Yeah, we can all take a break. We can all take a break. Yeah. Okay, here is Sarah Rainsford talking about her life in Russia and her experience as a journalist.

Her book is called Goodbye to Russia. I have a long attachment to Russia and many years association with the country. And, you know, it's basically a relationship of three decades with Russia ever since I first went there in 1992. And I arrived just two weeks after the Soviet Union had collapsed. So it was a completely different place. I was 18 years old. You know, it was a very, very exciting time. You know, I landed from, you know, I came from Worcester, or a village outside Worcester, and I'd landed in Moscow. It was minus 20 degrees. I was being raced across this vast city with these massively kind of imposing buildings by a man in

a little larder, you know, where I had to scrape the ice off the window to be able to see anything in the city outside. You know, it was an amazing experience. And then over 30 years, both as a student of Russian and traveling to Russia and working in Russia, and then arriving there as a journalist at the very beginning of Putin's time in power, I basically saw a country transformed. And I kind of witnessed that firsthand and very close up through my reporting, but also through my personal relationships with Russia. And it kind of felt like I wanted to document that

because Russia today is such a different place and such a dangerous place. And I wanted to try and explain from my perspective, a very personal perspective, how I guess Russia had been and has been, I think, lost for now and how dangerous that is. But during your long association with Russia, there have been moments when it seemed like Russia would join us. I mean, at one point there was even talk of them joining NATO, wasn't there? Yeah, but I think if you look back, there have been so many signs and signals of where Vladimir Putin was leading Russia, that in a way it seems like perhaps we were naive. I mean, just working on this book and looking back through all my reporting over the years and right back to 2000,

I arrived in Russia 24 years ago to work for the BBC. And it was the day, in fact, exactly this day, 24 years ago, it was the day that Russia admitted that the Kursk nuclear submarine had sunk. For two days, they'd lied. They covered it up. And they refused, once they admitted it had happened, they refused all foreign help to try to rescue the submariners. And so 118 men died, not in the first explosion. 23 of them survived the explosion and they suffocated to death because the Russian state didn't save them.

It didn't make that the priority. The priority was secrecy. The priority was hiding the humiliation of the loss of this atomic submarine. The priority was not allowing NATO countries to come and help. And that was Vladimir Putin then, 24 years ago. And, you know, the roots of what he is today go way, way back to those times. And that, for example, was when I think Putin realized the power of journalism and the power of the press, because he was so criticized in the Russian media in his own country for what he did with the Kursk disaster that basically he began his war on the television channels he took over eventually TV channels so I think you know that was such a sort of seminal moment and that was

you know 24 years ago yes so so there were signs right at the beginning it is interesting you also drew my attention reminded me of that horrific school siege and at the end. It is interesting. You also drew my attention, reminded me of that horrific school siege. And at the end of that, there were more dead hostages than terrorists. It was very poorly handled by the authorities. And again, he got away with it. Yeah, I mean, that was atrocious. We were the first journalists, foreign journalists there. And for me, it was the most intense reporting experience of my life. I lived in a family, within the family, in the home of a journalists, foreign journalists there. And for me, it was it was the most intense reporting experience of my life. I lived in a family within the family in the home of a family who had children and a grandmother inside the school. I met the father on the on the flight on the way down to Beslan. And he basically he thought we could help them because we could probably get more

information about what was going on. And obviously, for us, you you know kind of being with them was also journalistically important but it also was that kind of connection that you don't normally get on a story and it was so Besan wasn't really a story it was it was a huge story but it was also this very intense kind of personal relationship and I you know kept in touch with that family for I still in touch with them now but yeah that I think you can judge a country, can't you? I think by the way it treats its citizens, its civilians, human beings. And I think that showed how Vladimir Putin

treated his people. And ultimately for him, it was more important to kill the terrorists who'd taken over that school than to worry too much about saving lives. So hundreds of people were killed, including so many children. I think it was 186 children who were killed.

And I remember seeing the day of the funerals, but there was gridlock on the way to the cemetery and you could not get past because there were so many coffins, so many children being buried. But he is still there and his opponents, there aren't that many left because so many of them meet with unfortunate ends. He's sort of a bit of an international laughingstock, Botoxed up to the eyeballs. We occasionally try and comfort ourselves with the idea that he might be seriously ill.

But actually, I mean, what do you know about that? He's very much still with us and still with Russia. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea about the rumours. There have been rumours about his health for so many years. And, you know, occasionally he would disappear off when I was still based in Russia. I think there was a period when he disappeared for two weeks and there were all sorts of rumours about where he might be and all sorts of theories about whether he had cancer, whether he had some serious back problems, you know, what exactly was wrong with him.

And, yeah, he does have a very puffy face sometimes and he does have this strange twitch in his leg on one of his arms. But I have no idea if there's anything wrong with him, or whether some people are just engaged in wishful thinking. But he is very much still in power at this point. And of course, prosecuting this massively, you know, devastating war on Ukraine. And, you know, I think, at the moment, it looks like he's pretty firmly still in power, though, of course, you know, there's this massive operation in the Kursk region, which is, I think, you know, a big deal for him politically, as much as it is militarily. Well, let's focus on that, then. It must be, it is a humiliation for Russia. Is it? I mean, how do you imagine Putin will be dealing with it?

I think it was interesting for me knowing how he deals with humiliation. I mean, you know, I throw you back to the to the Kursk submarine disaster. You know, it was interesting watching him speaking, he had a meeting with his security counsel a day or two ago. And I've seen him snarl, I've seen him spit feathers, I've seen him, you know, kind of furious. And he seemed a wee bit lost. He seemed, you know, he was reading from paper, from notes he'd written by hand. And he wasn't snarling. And he still wasn't calling it war. He was still trying to talk about the special military operation. He's still trying to sort of present what's happening as something contained, something where he's still in control. He was talking about the humanitarian

side of it, you know, about how Russia will look after all the people, you know, that are being evacuated from their homes. But I can't help thinking in the back of my mind that at some point those civilians won't matter and that he will respond, the military will respond ferociously. But at the moment, they do seem to be massively on the back foot. And that's, you know, that's a new feeling for Putin in this two and a half years of war in Ukraine, you know, that they have taken the war home to Russians and to Russia. And it will be interesting, I think, to see how people in Russia respond to that, you know, depending on how long it goes on and how far it goes. But isn't there a real chance that he will revert to type and just flatten the whole region? Because

he's indicated in the past, he doesn't care. Life, as long as it's not his own life, is extraordinarily cheap as far as he's concerned. Yeah, that is the danger. But again, of course, it has a political cost, potentially, because if he is willing to do that, then what does that say about the man in the Kremlin if he's prepared to sacrifice that many lives? But he's shown that he's done that kind of thing before. So it is possible. You draw attention throughout the book to those people who have been brave enough to attempt to stand up to him and the regime. And it really made me wonder how many of us

would have the strength to do that if we were ever in a similar situation. Just briefly if you don't mind tell us the story of the very elderly woman you met Vera who I think her neighbours were incredibly dismissive and perhaps more than dismissive of her. Yeah that was Vera Golirova and she was in her 80s I think when I met her she died a few years ago. She's a bit different because she wasn't so much criticizing the current regime. She, of course, was a woman who went to jail in Stalin's time for telling a joke. And I think it was this really telling moment that I sat with her and I was listening to her story and she was telling me about that historical, outrageous injustice, right? She lost a

child. I think she had a miscarriage, if I remember rightly, when she was in prison. She was forced to do hard labor. She was building railway lines, you know, shifting boulders, you know, way beyond up in the Arctic Circle, I think, if I remember rightly. But the point was, she was telling me this story. And I realized as we were sitting on the bench in the yard of her apartment block, and we were filming this interview, there were a couple of women kind of earwigging in the background. And they sort of, you know, I could see them sort of looking over with these kind of suspicious looks. And when we finished, they sort of shouted over and they were sort of like, who are you? They realised when I replied that we were foreign, I said BBC. And

they were like, you know, what she's saying, is she talking bad of Russia? And, you know, she's talking badly of Russia, you know, she'll kind of, basically, she'll get it if she was, you know, these kind of threats in what was it 2000? And goodness knows what 15, 16, 17 threats from people against a woman who was talking about what historically had been done to her in Stalin's Russia. And, you know, for them today, the fact that she was telling that to foreign media was somehow betraying her country now. And I think it was pretty telling about the sort of state of mind of many Russians. And I guess that, yeah. But people are enemies, right? People who criticize Russia are enemies of the state.

And that serves as a really good illustration of why Putin is still in power, why he's effective, because it's a gangster state, it's a giant prison, and everyone lives in terror. And there are very few people able to stick their head above the parapet. Yeah, and because the propaganda is so, so powerful. I think, you know, the control of state television has been a massive win for Putin because it has given him an extremely powerful tool and weapon in his ability to prosecute the war that he's prosecuting now. Because I think, you know, if you live in a country where, you know, we might complain about the media in our own countries, we might complain about, you know, bias or independence or whatever,

you know, you can have those debates. But in Russia, there is no debate. There is simply a propaganda machine which lies daily to the people who watch it. machine, which lies daily to the people who watch it. And I think you don't realise until you live there how very pervasive that is and how very influential it is. Because if you have that turned on in the background, or if it is your social media, kind of everyday reality, unless you put on a VPN, unless you actively seek out something else, then it does get into your head. It is in the air everywhere. It is kind of, it is the noise from your radio. It is the noise from your phone. It is what you breathe. And I heard so many people over the years just repeating back the stuff that I was watching and

hearing on state media, that I realised just how clever it was, frankly, to control the media in that way. And I think unless you live in it and breathe it and feel it every day, you don't quite realise just how powerful it is, even for intelligent people, you know, who might think that they were thinking independently and, you know, for themselves. So how do you think this will end for Putin? Can you imagine covering his trial in The Hague? It's not going to happen, is it?

It's really hard to say. I don't know how it ends for Putin. I think the war in Ukraine is incredibly important. How that ends is incredibly important to how Vladimir Putin continues or otherwise to rule Russia. I think that's important to how the West builds a relationship with Russia in the future. I, you know, whether sanctions are maintained, whether there's any dialogue, possibility of dialogue in the future. I know certainly, you know, I spent a lot of time in Ukraine in the past two and a half years. And certainly I think people in Ukraine would argue very firmly that there should be no dialogue with Putin, with Russia. They want to see him on trial, of course. And he is a wanted war criminal. He has been indicted by the International Criminal Court. And, you know, there ought to be at some point some kind of prosecution. I think, you know,

it's interesting as well, talking to Russian dissidents, you talked about some of the brave people who've stood up to Putin. And I've spent a lot of time over the years documenting their stories and recently speaking to some of those who were released in this big prisoner swap. And, you know, they argue very firmly that Vladimir Putin has to pay a price for what he's done to Ukraine, but also what he's done to Russia. And so I think they want that message to be kind of transmitted by them now outside Russia to the world, to the international community, that the importance of maintaining sanctions and maintaining pressure. But just looking at what's happened in the last couple of days with the Ukrainians entering Russian territory,

just for those of us who aren't experts in military matters, does this make an end to the war in the short term more likely, do you think? I mean, it really depends how it goes. I mean, I was just watching just now Ukrainian reporters inside Russian territory, filming Ukrainian soldiers taking down the Russian flag from buildings. And it is a complete flip, a complete reversal from what Russians have been doing since 2014 in Ukraine. And it was unimaginable. It's actually crazy to watch that happening. And I think both Putin and analysts of the West and politicians in Ukraine have started talking about this as some kind of move towards possible negotiations about ending the

war. I think it's quite clear that Ukraine wants to end the war. It doesn't want people to keep dying, but it wants to end it on its terms. So potentially, this is Ukraine's way of saying, you know, if you want to talk to us, then, you know, we are actually going to talk from a position of power, not a position of weakness, which is obviously what Vladimir Putin wants. And again, you know, the total lack of irony listening to Vladimir Putin saying, well, how can we negotiate with people who target civilians and hit civilian infrastructure? I mean, the man just believes must live in a totally different world to the rest of us. Sarah Rainsford and Jane and I will embark on a journey of knowledge around the visa system of Russia

to be able to bring you news of where you can go in that enormous country if you can go anywhere at all. And Claire, do you remember Claire from earlier in the week? She got her email read out twice. Well, she's back. She says, I've just caught up on Monday's podcast. And you'll like this. While recovering from a steep Wainwright walk oh wow

that is impressive and then she made a huge quiche she's got a house that's absolutely jam-packed with people um well I'm really glad that you're having a lovely time um and well done to you for making a huge quiche and doing a Wainwright that's a lot? In one day. I wonder how huge a huge quiche is. I mean, can you go any wider than an 18-inch quiche? I just don't like quiche. Oh, gosh. Right, so it's Jane and Fee at times.radio. If you'd like to send us any old bits and bobs,

we'll talk to you at the same time tomorrow. Yeah, particularly welcome contributions from people who are old enough to remember when a quiche was just called an egg flan and it didn't have any of the kind of romance now attached to it. Goodbye. Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio.

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