Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Birthday Boxing Day!

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

It's the day after Fi's birthday and there's much to debrief. Jane and Fi discuss biting your tongue at work, following cat wee and koalas with koalas. Plus, they're joined by podcast host and Head of Investigation at Tortoise, Alexi Mostrous to discuss his latest podcast 'Who Trolled Amber?' 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: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We've got a little teaser for you. Each month, you can get a bonus episode of Off Air and hear us chat to our fellow colleagues up and down the news building in a feature we like to call Only Interviews in the Building. It's very clever. All you have to do is to be a Times digital subscriber and have an iPhone. Recently, we talked to talk sport legend Jeff Stelling.

That's enough football now, Jeff. Okay. Countdown. Let's talk countdown. What a dream job. How did you get it? How did you get it? I'll tell you what.

I got it by default. So you know what it's like in these situations. Discussions dragged on for a little while. And I was told there was another very prominent TV presenter who went for the job. Not that bloody John Inverdell again, Joe. No, it wasn't that bloody John Inverdell. So it was somebody even more high profile than that.

Anyway, he went and he had to audition. And when he auditioned, he heard the classic signature tune. And he said, well, that'll have to go. He said, that's desperately old fashioned. He said, we need to update that and immediately raised the hackles of every single person who'd worked on

Countdown for so many years. It's not Countdown without the Dully Dump Dog. No, exactly. That's just a tiny bit of the magic that is Jeff Stelling to access more bonus content subscribe to The Times and start listening. It's the day after Fi's birthday,

traditionally known as Birthday Boxing Day. How are you feeling? Well, I didn't go overboard, Jane, because it's a weeknight and I've got a very, very strict... I never drink during the week and I'm always in bed by ten. So fun times, right? No, no, I take an example to us all and i have fallen off the not drinking during the week wagon once or twice i bitterly regretted it so now i too reserve

bevvies for thursday night and thursday night is uh is joyful for me i get two glasses down wherever i am and that's it yeah so you wake up at about 10 to 8 on Monday morning and it's time to start all over again. Yeah. But look, thank you for your very kind and generous presence. The late in life love treat, watch the little video that was put up on Insta of opening the present.

Well, he said that's a really, really typical British thing to do, to put, when you don't quite know what to say when you receive a present, you put it on your head. No, which was what you did, with what I have to say is rather a sophisticated gift. Is that one of our national characteristics? I mean, if somebody gave you a slightly unwanted decorated tray, would you put it on your head?

Has he got a point? Well, I don't know. I've sort of got sympathy with you because i'm not i'm not actually very good with receiving gifts i never know what to do i never know what to say i can't gush so you're sort of i'm reduced to saying thank you which never feels enough um but i'm often extremely grateful um well i'm extremely grateful because it was a very very very lovely beauty bag. It was definitely a winter beauty bag.

Well, yes, I suppose it was. I mean, it doesn't have a waterproof lining, but I'm sure nothing leaks in your beauty bag. Oh, everything leaks, love. Just in my beauty bag. But anyway, look, we'll put that out in the punters. Of which more later when we get to your emails. Yes.

Oh, your emails are lovely, but they're also, they're taking Jane and I back to some quite wince-inducing moments in our own life. Well, we've always said that this is the place where we can talk about everything, and we are going to talk about everything. And you were saying earlier that maybe we need to talk more about this sort of thing. So let's get into it. Let's do it. We should say the big guest is somebody that you've spoken to. Very interesting.

And it's interesting for a number of reasons, but it's, a lot of people will recall the court case between, well, there are a couple of court cases, one in the UK and then in America, between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. And it was notable, I think, because there was so much discussion about this. And it's, can you begin to explain exactly who was suing who and why? So in brief, in this country, it was a defamation case brought by Johnny Depp against the son because an article in The Sun said that he was a wife beater. So he took the son to court and the son won. And in winning, they essentially had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there had been domestic abuse in his relationship with Amber Heard. And I think the key thing to remember throughout all of this

is that Amber Heard didn't ever want to go to court. She didn't start this. She didn't start it. But in order for The Sun to prove that they had not been defaming Johnny Depp, she had to give evidence. And I believe that the findings were 12 examples of domestic abuse or violence within the marriage. So we then go to America, where Johnny Depp launches a defamation suit against Amber Heard, because she had written an op-ed piece in one of the papers in America as a victim of domestic violence. So he sued her for $50

million. She countersued him. And that's where an awful lot of this opinion about Amber Heard comes from, because the evidence that was revealed in that case may well be the stuff that you remember. It was a televised court case. So, you know, images of her went viral. Her appearance was discussed. His appearance was discussed. Everything was discussed. But what was so interesting, and I'm worrying about this, was at best what I was hearing,

and I obviously live in a bit of a silo, let's be honest. I meet people a bit like myself most of the time. I kept hearing, they're both as bad as each other. Yep. Yep, I mean, I'm absolutely with you. And that was the best I heard. Yep, and people would start a conversation going, isn't Johnny Depp dreadful? But actually, she played a part in her own downfall.

Oh, isn't she annoying? So, this is a very, very clever investigation looking at how our opinions have been formed and the title of the podcast by Alexi Mastros from Tortoise Media is Who Trolled Amber? So he's done this incredible investigation into whether or not there was an element of a paid-for campaign. So he visits troll farms. It's fascinating.

It's all the stuff that you kind of think you know is out there and you know that you kind of think you know is out there and you know that you think it's dreadful. But actually, when somebody details what that means to people's lives, and in his investigation, he meets quite a few other people along the way, normal civilians, as Liz Hurley would call people out of the showbiz arena, whose lives have been decimated by online campaigns. I mean, i didn't know jane and and you know forgive my naivety here that you or i could just uh within two clicks uh engage the services of a company that calls itself a pr company to troll each other if we wanted to do

that after a show i could literally go click click and I could fill in probably a form and just go, I'd like someone to take Jane Garvey down today. I'd like 20 different tweets from, you know, 15 different accounts. And this is the kind of thing that I'd like them to say. And then just keep it going. Yeah. And they would appear to people, you know, to just be, you know, Les from Grantham saying something.

But there is no Les from Grantham. So I think it's mind-boggling, and I would urge people to listen to the podcast, which is quite hard work at times, actually, because it does contain, particularly in the examples of normal people, you know, some pretty horrible stuff that's happened. I think it's a good point to make, because people might just hear the names Depp and Heard

and think, well, actually, however awful Johnny Depp might well have been, they're still showbiz people they're not like me but the whole point is it could happen to you and also this year if you live in the UK you've got to vote and you just need to be aware that the sort of stuff you're seeing um the sort of stuff you're reading everything probably should be questioned certainly in the run-up to our election I am really quite fearful about some of the guff that's going to be bunged out in all sorts of people's names that is fake or completely artificial or generated by Russia or whoever else.

We've just all got to be so watchful. We have. So there was a case recently, wasn't there, of AI being used in the Indonesian election where a key political figure who died 10 years ago was brought to life by AI to give out this message, endorsing a campaign. And the interesting thing about that was people, you know, they know that he's died. But there is still something in the human spirit that will watch that and go, oh, of course, that's the kind of thing that he would say. Therefore, I'm going to believe this endorsement.

He's dead. He's dead. He's endorsing from the other side. So, look, we will get to Alexis in a moment, but we've got some fantastic emails, and thank you very much indeed for all of them. Off you go, sister. Well, I just wanted to mention the vexed question of Barbara and her behaviour at home.

This isn't a cat podcast, although there are times when you wonder. And I just think, I've got to hear, where is the email about whether Barbara needs to see somebody and whether you need to take her to an animal behavioural specialist? That was the gist of the email. It's not the only one, perhaps hinting that Barbara's had her chips. So what is the answer to that?

Would you get professional help? Do you think I should? I don't know. My canny solution has been to just shut all of the pets, all four of them in the kitchen cum sitting room. They're just not allowed upstairs.

I did find myself saying out loud to Nancy as I left that Barbara's spoiled it for everybody Barbara you've let yourself down you've let the animal kingdom down well can I just fight back with some animal loveliness you know how suddenly you see a reel on Instagram

I don't know why you're suddenly targeted by a specific thing I happened to see one from the koala rescue park or something in Australia and it from the koala rescue park or something in Australia and it was a koala who'd been and had to be taken away from its mother. I'm afraid I don't want to misgender the koala bear but it was a koala bear and it was being reunited with its mother after a period of separation by a ranger in deepest darkest Australia and the koala bear was looking quite trepidatious at the idea of this reunion in the arms of the ranger in deepest darkest australia and the koala bear was looking quite trepidatious at the idea of

this reunion in the arms of the ranger but what was what broke the cuteness quotient for me just shook everything was that the koala bear baby had its own cuddly toy of a koala bless i'm welling up the mom when saw it, wasn't actually that invested. So I understand that there'll be more meetings to come. They're in the very early stages of that reunion. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I don't know whether koala bears smell.

If anybody's held one, let me know. But this was, it was so, so sweet. So the baby koala got to keep the cuddly toy koala. Just clutching its baby koala. It's comfort koala. It's comfort koala yeah got to got to keep the cuddly toy clutching it yes baby it's comfort it's comfort koala yeah and i think i'm right in saying that um this is probably before your time but when i was growing up we did have koalas teaching us road safety and they were called tinga and tucker that is before i was a member of the tinga and Tucker Club. So if there are any other old club mates out there, or maybe I've just fantasised about this, let me know. Yeah. So that's quite exotic, isn't it?

Because we wouldn't do that now, would we? Somebody would say that's cultural appropriation. You can't use koalas to teach road safety. I mean, they were omnipresent in Merseyside. You really key into the koala. Oh, absolutely, yeah. But otherwise, what would it be? Just a long-tailed rat.

Beg your pardon. That's very common in London, too. Okay, so Barbara's still on the... Well, she's on the naughty step and likely to remain there, but not being chucked out. Nothing like that is happening. No, it wouldn't happen. No, we're stuck with Babs.

Yeah. Babs, kebabs, floof-maloof, whatever you want to call her. Obviously, I call her Pissing Barbara. right uh should we get on some serious stuff about 20 something mental health because we've had some really really good emails on this uh so i think all of these are going to remain anonymous but we're really grateful especially to the younger uh participants in this podcast that's not right is it listeners but oh i think you are participants it's a community it is a community thank you darling thank you uh because it's really good to i suppose that's you know that's what we want to hear actually because that's what we were

saying isn't it that you know that kind of comes a time when our viewpoint is a bit irrelevant and a bit patronizing because we haven't lived through the same things that 20-somethings have lived through so here we go my disclaimer is uh that mine is a view from a very london perspective but in general the anxiety that was described earlier this week is absolutely still a strong feature many startups and larger corporates do try to appeal to younger people with a safe space into which everyone is encouraged to bring their whole selves. They do this by offering free puppy yoga, breakfasts and chats with managers, where it seems no topic is off limits, however personal.

But in reality, this leads to confusion, oversharing, and companies even using information gleaned from employees in these safe environments against the trusting individual. And I've got a friend who, after she had tried to get a pay rise to match the average salary, was told that she was being too ambitious and, amongst some other questionable reasons, that she shouldn't compare herself to friends she has outside of work.

This knowledge of what her friends' professions are was totally irrelevant to the evidence she had put forward to justify her increase in pay. That's the danger that I've sadly learnt of with trying to foster such safe spaces and I may have become too cynical in my mid-20s but I almost wish we could go back in time by around 10 or 15 years where perhaps mental health was something people were aware of as having the potential to be serious but there wasn't an expectation that you should update your colleagues on your dismal dating life as not doing so would risk you appearing closed off and unsociable and our correspondent says

and apologizes for the email which might have a negative tone never apologize for that that's kind of our set piece i just wanted to give an honest opinion on how being a young professional can feel right now i've had a really tough past few years in my job at a very high growth startup where immensely long hours and weekend efforts go unrecognized, but any human errors are focused on to such a degree that it feels as though you must be the devil's spawn for having slipped up despite the multi-spinning plates you're forced to juggle. I hope they aren't all like this.

I totally get the point that I think the modern workplace, not everywhere, but there can be mixed messages here. And I would just say to anyone, whatever stage of your working life you're at, no employer cares about you in the way you think they might, judging particularly now by some of the fripperies they'll hurl at you by a way of incentive or inducement. They actually don't love you in the way that your friends and family do. It's just a job. And just try and remember that.

Because I think, you know, previous employers of mine, I felt that there was an emotional attachment, not just from me to them, but from them to me. It's bollocks. Yeah, the BBC doesn't love you back. That's it. By the way, why would it? What is it even? But you know, we have, we've all been there, I think many of us have actually felt this. But I think there are, I'm not talking about the BBC now, but there are definitely other employers that will give you as many free matcha lattes as you

like. But our correspondent is completely right yes and they can also terminate that contract with you overnight there is another side to this yeah um i did upset one of our correspondents and i'm sorry i think you wanted to remain anonymous anyway so i hope you don't mind that i'm not mentioning you by name um but uh oh no here it is whilst i've listened to pretty much every one of your podcasts since you started and find you a huge comfort usually i felt really angry and sad to hear the way that you talked about mental health in young people there was a suggestion that our snowflakes consider ourselves special compared to previous generations and that if we didn't bring all of ourselves to work we might be able to hold down a job better and this felt belittling i have many friends who struggle

with mental health and it certainly isn't something they choose whilst you can't always see the struggle from the outside. I think it's important to trust the experience of people with mental health problems. Now I would say to you that both Jane and I hugely appreciate that and actually I think one of the massive problems in talking about the story this week was that you have to constantly make that very, very firm divide between people who have a serious anxiety disorder and people who are experiencing anxiety. Yeah, very different. Because experiencing anxiety, which is what we were largely talking about, actually, is just something that you really do have to get used to in life. There will be no part of your life where you know disappointment rejection despair

and sometimes real tragedy doesn't come knocking so that's the bit that we were talking about and and I don't think either Jane or I would ever want to dismiss somebody with serious mental health problems and you know we really welcome every experience that you've had to this podcast. So apologies if that kind of landed badly. But, you know, rest assured, we're not totally cynical witches. No, actually, no, we're not. You paused there for a little too long. That's understandable. Are you going to have a choke outside?

Yeah, good. He's going for a drink. God almighty. I don't want to catch anything. She's in her 20s. Oh, she's lovely, Eve. No, she is. she is that we're all lovely we're surrounded by lovely people and i think they do love us here who am i kidding maybe they are nice um this is from anonymous i was struck by your recent conversation about mental health back in the 90s compared to now i was sectioned in 1993

when i was 17 now i needed to be in hospital but it didn't always feel safe being a teenager on an adult ward. I believe I ended up there because the nearest available unit for young people was hundreds of miles away. Fortunately I have never needed to be readmitted since then. I agree with the conversation you had with Caroline Quentin that a good psychiatric hospital should be a place of sanctuary. When all those big hospitals shut down, we lost their gardens as well. I do vividly recall being stuck in a stuffy and smoky locked ward. Back then, smoking in some parts of the ward was allowed.

Access to a garden would have been truly wonderful, says our correspondent. You were discussing the Resolution Foundation report into young people's mental health. It talks about how young people's mental health is affected by their education and employment. And I'm sure that my ability to resume my studies and have a career have both been crucial to my recovery. I am a weary perimenopausal woman, but I try not to be cynical about young people. I do, though, have to bite my tongue at work sometimes. Yes, but you know what? I think wherever I've been, whether I've been young, old or now,

basically almost a record-breaking age, I've always had to bite my tongue at work. And sometimes it hasn't been I haven't even bothered biting it. I've just spoken out. Sometimes? Often. Don't just spoken out. Sometimes. Often. Don't bite your tongue every day. Sometimes it's actually really good just to let it out. Yes, Jane is known to HR.

Right. Can I say, not in a bad way. No, not in a bad way. I found the email about Barbara because it's from an expert, a retired small animal veterinary surgeon who says she's often asked for advice on the above problem that's barbara's which is horrible to live with due to the awful smell and the loads of extra washing fee cystitis and utis need to be ruled out before other management is considered behavioral modification is achievable in some, if not most, cats. But it isn't easy and requires patience and persistence.

My main reference was a book written by Sarah Heath. I wish I'd known this and I could have got this for Fee for her birthday. Sarah Heath's book, Sarah is a very experienced and fully trained and qualified small animal behaviourist. Her books, Why Does My Cat and Why why is my cat doing that are both available on amazon they were written 20 years ago or so but the same advice is still appropriate although if any medication is mentioned that might have been changed or improved over the years well thank you for that and i'm going to give it a couple of weeks of just locking them all in together and then they're not really locked in.

They've got access to a garden. They're absolutely fine. And, you know, they might all get on even better. They might. I mean, there are some podcasts that specialise in smart and geopolitics. This one, we're following... Cat Wee. Cat Wee.

And whether or not Barbara does have a UTI. Okay. I'm going to lump in two really lovely emails together, one from Glyn and one from Celia. You talked in your podcast today about people not wanting to have photos taken of themselves. My parents died many years ago. I was an orphan at 24.

I'm now 60. I have plenty of photos of them in a photo album, which I love looking at. However, what I really miss is the sound of their voice. I now struggle to remember what they sound like, and I have no way of getting that back. I would highly recommend to people these days, with the benefit of modern technology, to use it and record your loved ones' voices. Do you know, I think that I've been wondering about recording voices.

Well, I was just going to say that's exactly what the Listening Project was there for. So in a previous incarnation back at the mothership of the BBC, that was the job that I did for 10 years, actually. And we were building this amazing, really amazing library of people who knew and cared about each other, having conversations with each other. And so many people came into the project and you could talk about whatever you wanted to for exactly this reason that they wanted to record

for posterity the sound of their loved ones voices and quite a few people because it did run for 10 years they lost their loved ones during that time and they got back in touch to say it was just the most remarkable thing that they could play to their grandchildren or friends or sometimes to themselves when they just needed a bit of comfort, a really decent conversation with their loved ones. And I think it's a neglected area, actually, of our history, oral history. And I think because we're obsessed with the visual image now, you know, we take pictures of each other all the time.

We do Instas and Reels and all that kind of stuff. But actually just the human voice and a really, really decent conversation is such a beautiful thing. And you can ask people, I think, in conversation when the cameras aren't on and nobody's witnessing you questions that you can't ask anywhere else. And you can do it now on your phone.

You just find your voice notes and press record. And get going. And get going. Do you think it's a good thing or even a decent thing to record people when they don't know that you're doing it? No, I don't actually. Even if it's to your relatives? I don't think it's fair.

I'm not talking about doing it in journalism. I'm talking about doing it for the old vocal memory bank. God, you see, I think most people really love to talk. I think they find it easy to talk, so I don't think they'd mind being asked. But I think you, with your older parents, should definitely sit down and do a chat because how extraordinary, further down the line, Jane,

knowing what you've done for a living for several decades. Well, quite a lot now. No, and interviewed so many people to not interview your loved ones. Because your kids and their kids will love to hear a conversation with you all further down the line. I mean, Celia makes the point that interviewing somebody who you love is such a... I mean, it seems like an odd thing to do, but it's not odd at all.

It is an odd thing to do. Weirdly, it doesn't appeal to me very much, but it's a very good point. I don't know why I don't really... I think it's probably because both... I mean, no, we can't really say... My parents are completely in denial about being mortal. Well, but that's something you could put to them

in a very carefully phrased question. I don't know how I did quite what. Anyway, which is probably one of the reasons they're still going. Maybe that's part of it. I don't know. Believe in life. Ignore the alternatives. Just keep on waking up. No, I don't mean to. I'm not being dismissive in any way. But I think, although going back to something you said earlier about AI,

you wonder, I mean, certainly our voices will be out there forever won't they there'll be no and we'll be be able to be constantly reinvented by artificial intelligence forever yeah that's actually quite alarming isn't it we will everybody will yeah but that was one of the huge points of the strike wasn't it the actor's strike it was as much about about ai yeah as it was about pay and and all credit to them, actually, because they've spotted something, the acting profession, I think, and done something about it,

because it's now written into contracts, isn't it, that a studio doesn't own your image forever and ever and ever. They've done something about it and our legislature hasn't. No. Our legislature isn't covering itself in glory at the moment. What are they doing? I don't know. Seriously, our legislature isn't covering itself in glory at the moment. What are they doing?

I don't know. Seriously, what are they doing? We're at a very low ebb in British politics at the moment. We are, aren't we? But change is on the horizon. It could be. Possibly. Possibly. But, you know, don't take anything for granted. Can I just say that if an astonishingly wealthy person is

listening to this and wants to set up a foundation that does something, not called The Listening Project, but does something with interviews with people who love and care about each other and then stores them forever for future generations, that possibility is available. Do call. Yeah, no, do call because it's a really good point.

But also, what is that thing that they... God, I've done endless interviews about it. There was that amazing drama with Victoria Wood, Housewife 49, about a woman called Nella Last during World War II who had just written a diary, and it was part of this diary project that's still ongoing and it's got a name.

Seven Up. No. Seven Up's the documentary series that revisits people every seven years. Yeah, it's still going and you can still contribute to it where they just pick a range of so-called ordinary people to write a diary about their experiences. And Nella Last was a housewife, I think somewhere in Lancashire during World War II, and she wrote about that.

And then it was made into this absolutely brilliant drama with Victoria Wood playing the lead role. I might just go and Google it. But I suppose that's something a little bit different isn't it because that's um that is recording the experience of the ordinary in a diary yeah which is never ordinary when you read it there's nothing that nothing is ordinary but why can't we do it in vocal form yeah and do that instead yeah because there are so many great voices and great stories in britain right now britain's a very different place to how it was

but oral history i think um and you wouldn how it was. But oral history, I think, and you wouldn't call Housewife 49 oral history because it is written down history, isn't it? But people are fascinated by oral history because the sound of the human voice is always original and obviously onto it you place your own image of who it is who's talking. But there's something so distracting once you see the person.

I sometimes... It's the bit that I don't like about the evolution of radio, if I'm honest. Just all the visuals attached to it. It takes away some of the magic, that's for sure. Yeah, I think there is something magic in just speech. That's it. Mass observation. Which I think is still going on.

Could be wrong, but somebody will know. Thank you. Someone will know. Anyway, look. That was a meander, wasn't it? That wasn't it, but it was a lovely meander. And yes, I'll just... Shall I lead Dobbin the hobby horse back to the stage? That was like a really slow meander

around the middle of Lidl. On a very slow Tuesday afternoon. We found something very useful in the middle aisle episiotomies penny in nottingham uh 13 years ago she had a nine pound six ounce baby boy jane it was her first baby and she put all her trust in the doctors and midwives i won't bang on about the long long labor fraught with inconsistencies from the team but i was in london at a time when home births were being encouraged forcefully.

I didn't want one, but I was kept at home too long before being blue-lighted to King's College Hospital. The result was a lot of bleeding and a third-degree tear that needed surgery. Two overriding memories for Penny, having a clipboard shoved in my face while being wheeled for surgery, and asked to sign and accept a list of side effects I may now face,

including faecal incontinence. Then as I was lying shivering, legs spread, waiting for surgery to begin, the song Sexual Healing played out on the doctor's radio. A nearby staff member flitted around my bed singing along. I can laugh at this now and often do. I was well enough to go home a couple of days after flitted around my bed singing along. I can laugh at this now and often do. I was well enough to go home a couple of days after and my massive son was perfectly healthy and still is.

But you're right to say we're not given any information on episiotomies. I don't know if things have changed now, but I suspect not a lot has. It's an important subject to explore. It certainly is, Penny. And Jade and I were talking about this in the office before coming in to record the podcast. explore. It certainly is, Penny. And Jade and I were talking about this in the office before coming in to record the podcast. And, you know, both of us agree, didn't we, that when you have just given birth, and you are in pain and disarray and all that kind of stuff, it's just not the time

for doctors to be telling you important things and asking you to sign important things. I just honestly can't remember what happened after the birth of my son and i had a third degree tear and you know a similar kind of experience a colleague was asking earlier what a third degree tear actually means so perhaps we should say that so a third degree tear is uh is when it goes all the way up to the tissue around your anal anal passage. Passage. Passage, I prefer to call it. So what it means is you've got to have three layers of stitches.

So it is, you know... That's why it's called third. Yeah, and it's a big old thing, actually. It's euphemistically called a birth injury, but I think most people who experience it would say it's a trauma. And obviously it does take quite a long time to heal, and it's very painful. And for a lot of women, there are very long-term consequences

because obviously as you get older and all of your tissues change and lose a bit of their strength, there is a possibility if you've had a really serious tear or the stitches just haven't really healed in the right way that you will always be vulnerable to incontinence and faecal incontinence. Yeah. I'm not a doctor, by the way, so I struggled my way through that, Jane, but I hope I've got it right.

Bea is my doctor. I really don't want to... If I've got any of that wrong, I'm really sorry. People will tell us. And Penny says, I'd like to confirm, I didn't ever suffer from faecal incontinence. I'm really glad you didn't, Penny. I've got to say, we did this on Woman's Hour

when I was presenting it. The response was so overwhelming, we had to do it the next day as well. Because it was just... Because people just don't talk about it. People don't talk about it. And, you know, Woman's Hour is a great programme and it's one of those places where they do it,

but they can't talk about it every day. But it is so, so important to acknowledge that there is help available, I think. I think there is. Please don't suffer if you don't have to. At least, you know, find out whether or not you have to keep on suffering. But it's, God, it must be bloody.

I mean, it's so restricting on your life if you're in that situation. Yeah. So utterly miserable. And I think Penny's point as well is just that what you're told around the time, you know, just after birth is probably very, very compelling and important stuff about how to make yourself better quicker. And it's just not the right time to be telling a woman that. And Penny's been lucky, and I'll say for the record, I've been very lucky too, so I didn't have any really kind of long-term consequences of it.

But you kind of think, well, that is just luck because whatever it was that they said I should do or not do or pay attention to i just can't remember jane i also just think it's worth saying and i know we have medical people who listen to this podcast but um doctors or medical professionals in those circumstances they're at work they're doing their job they're in work mode and i'm not always completely sure that they're aware of the impact of not just what they say, but how they say it on the poor woman.

Because you had a funny one, didn't you, with your cesarean stitching? My second cesarean. There was a bloke brought in from somewhere. I don't know, he seemed to sweep in relatively short notice. He was terrifically busy. And the only thing he actually said was, who stitched this bloody woman up last time? You just think, well, OK.

Hello? Behind the curtain. I'm still here. And yes, you know, you are utterly lost in the wonderment of new parenthood for the second time around. And how fortunate I felt, by the way. It was a gorgeous moment. Lovely. But still, bloody hell hell what do you mean what was wrong with what they did the first time what would need doing now um you know i don't know i mean it's that's what i mean about the

impact of what they say and how they say it yeah because you just feel you feel like a slab of meat i mean if it's having cesarean you're not really involved you are extraordinarily vulnerable because you can't feel anything. You know, you're just, you're awake, but that's about all there is. So if you have two cesareans or more than one cesarean, do they make a cut in a different place? No, they go in again.

In the same... Yeah. Oh, my word. I think so, anyway, yeah. I've only got one scar. I haven't got two. Okay. Gosh.

Well, I'm surprised at that, but I suppose you don't want to look like the arts and crafts movement because you could have a tattoo of the child's name over the scar couldn't you so then every time they get on your wick you could flash your belly and say look this is how i suffered for you this is what i gave up for you! That. And that's just a Wednesday morning in our house. So the funny thing about this is that quite a lot of our colleagues listen to this podcast and I wonder whether they'll look at us in a different way, Jane.

I just want them to look at us. Oh, gosh, that's janeandfeeattimes.radio if you'd like to share all of these things. And actually, Jane's made a good point there. Thank you. If you're a medical professional, actually tell us, you know, from your perspective, whether you, I don't know,

whether you kind of consider that you are saying the right things at the right time or could it be done better? It's Leslie Regan's huge point, isn't it? So she is the, what's her proper title? She's the health,an's huge point isn't it so she is the what's her proper title she's the health uh women's health czar so she says that the one of the big things that needs to happen is for women to have a health hub where all of the things that happen a one-stop shop a one-stop shop so you're going to the same place all of the time which would actually be helpful because then you know you're seeing people uh who've kind of navigated uh your your path all the way through well i should say that we were talking on the

radio show yesterday about this uh our future health project yeah which is the nhs thing which you'd signed up to and which i decided on the strength of the conversation we had about it to sign up to it yesterday but and i've now got this appointment where you get a kind of mot and they go through everything and i'm quite open to to this, I'm quite pleased about it, but it was pathetic how much I lied on the questionnaire last night. About what? They asked my weight and I thought, well, I'll just be very

approximate here, because I'll try and ditch carbs between now and the appointment and see how I get on. No, that's ridiculous. But that's just human nature, isn't it? We're all such bloody idiots. But they can help you more if you're honest. All right, I'll try and put weight on. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen.

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And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. So this is Fee's interview with Alexi Mostros. That's right, isn't it? That is. And the podcast is called who trolled amber and it is an investigation into the troll farms and the bots and the people who are influencing our decisions and alexi and i started our conversation by him reminding us of the sequence of court cases

between johnny depp and amber heard so there were two main court cases, one in London and one in Virginia in the US. The one in London was in 2020 and it was the first case. It actually wasn't Depp v. Heard in that case. It was Depp versus The Sun newspaper or newsgroup, The Sun's owner. And The Sun had published a piece that basically called Depp a wife beater and Depp sued The Sun under defamation laws. That trial happened in London in 2020. And a judge ruled in favor of The Sun.

And in a very kind of considered judgment, found that on the balance of probabilities, Johnny Depp had abused his former former wife amber heard on 12 separate occasions so big loss for johnny depp in 2020 in london but then at the same time as that was going on johnny depp was suing amber heard directly in the u.s this was because she wrote a comment piece for the washington post where she described herself as a spokeswoman for domestic violence, but she didn't name Depp. Nonetheless, Depp said that this clearly referred to him, and he took her to court. And that jury trial took place in the spring of 2022. And that that was the big event that was kind of

everywhere on all our social media. And Johnny Depp ended up winning that case because the jury decided that he had been defamed by Amber, that Amber was basically making it up. How much online activity was there around Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in the UK court case? There was a significant amount of online activity even back then. I suppose what I'm trying to get at is whether or not the very first time all of this goes to court, there is evidence that something else is happening around these two people, where it's not me reading a newspaper going, oh, I think I'm going to post something about him or about her. It's something else.

Yes, absolutely. I think that there were definitely signs back then that there was something weird going on. Like there was a lot of tweeting from accounts that had only just been set up, or accounts that only tweeted about Johnny Depp, and that's all they'd ever done. And people commented on it at the time. But that wasn't the focus of the case. So no one read the news, news group and their lawyers didn't really put a lot of effort into working out if they were bots or not, because they didn't have to. All they had to do was to prove, as a matter of fact, that Depp had abused her.

So the issue sort of rumbled away in the background until the US case. And then in the US case, Amber's lawyers went a step further, and they did accuse Depp of mounting a global bot campaign against Amber Heard. But the claim itself was a little bit rushed. So that part of Amber's claim against Depp was thrown out. And that kind of meant that at the trial itself, the whole issue of bots couldn't be discussed at all because it had already been kind of decided in Depp's favor.

So what we did was we went back to one of Amber's computer experts who'd collected this like huge database of tweets that had been posted against Amber Heard in the run-up to the trial but which had never really been analysed and we took that database and gave it to two like amazing data scientists and experts in disinformation and they came back with effectively a conclusion that there was significant inauthentic activity within that database. And some of those statistics about that

inauthentic activity are just mind boggling, even for, you know, people like me who aren't the most technologically literate. So just one example was an account that had posted something. And a lot of these messages included the phrase, Amber is not a victim. And in one of these, it was an account with very, very few followers. But this tweet goes out, it's retweeted 22,000 times. There are only 11 direct replies to it. So the retweets are way out of proportion to, you know,

the number of people who would usually be able to see that tweet. So immediately you think, well, of course, something else is at play here. So that's what was happening. Yeah, yeah. And the other like kind of shocking thing was that these examples were kind of not focused in one country. We found bot networks, evidence of bot networks in Thailand, in Spain, Another shocking thing was that these examples were not focused in one country. We found evidence of bot networks in Thailand, in Spain, coming out of the Middle East.

Either it seems like lots of people were trying to use inauthentic means to troll Amber, or one person with quite a lot of resources was doing the same thing. How easy is it to follow the trail of that kind of tweets and those kind of trolling? It's just not possible. And it's getting harder and harder. But even more worryingly, social media owners like Elon Musk have really clamped down on the amount that journalists like me and researchers, disinformation researchers, can get data from the platform to work out what is going on.

So identifying a bot is pretty hard. But then if you do identify it, identifying who commissioned it is really hard. And the only way that we really managed to do it in this case was when the bots had been sloppy, when they hadn't deleted previous information that gave us clues about who had commissioned them. So explain that a little bit more.

Usually in bot campaigns, if you use accounts that have already been created, you try and wipe those accounts clean. So what we found this very interesting bunch of pro Johnny Depp Twitter accounts online and they're tweeting today. You can see that they tweet 20 times a day pro Johnny Depp Twitter accounts online. And they're tweeting today. You can see that they tweet 20 times a day about Johnny Depp.

They've got pictures of Johnny Depp everywhere. They hate Amber Heard. Pretty standard for Johnny Depp fans. Except that if you plug in their details into the Wayback Machine, you can see that they've deleted hundreds of other tweets. And those tweets are all in Arabic, not English. And they don't have anything to do with Depp or any other celebrity. They're all praising Saudi Arabia, or its ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. And that's really interesting, because Saudi has like this very storied history in terms of using bots to support its regime and disparage its enemies.

It's what happened after the Khashoggi murder. All these Twitter accounts came online and said, oh, Saudi has nothing to do with it. And we took these Johnny Depp tweets to two experts in Saudi and Middle Eastern disinformation, and they said that the history suggests that these Johnny Depp accounts were once part of the Saudi government bot army. Why would Saudi Arabia take an interest in a case between two Hollywood stars? That's literally what I asked, right?

Like, it's the obvious question. But then you start looking at it and you're like oh okay so uh johnny depp's last two movies have been financed by millions of dollars of saudi money and then you look further and you're like he's been in this country like maybe six or seven times in the last 18 months film festivals but also like tourism trips and then we spoke to this guy called bradley hope who's this brilliant writer and author of a book about MBS and Bradley tells us that this kind of bizarre like bromance has emerged between Johnny Depp and MBS himself like they are actually friends now

Johnny Depp goes to stay on his yacht like in his mountain like villa it's a very bizarre situation, but it does seem, I should say the Saudi government, the embassy didn't respond to requests for comment, but it does seem like they had like means, motive and opportunity to help Depp online. I think anybody who even had a kind of a passing glance at the cases between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard would say that there was quite a lot that came back at Johnny Depp

from Amber Heard's camp. So is this investigating that too? To an extent. I mean, I didn't... So I think it's definitely important to recognise that this was a sort of complex matrix of stuff that was happening online. And there was a lot of hatred definitely on both sides. I would say, though, that there is some kind of quite persuasive analysis to suggest that the amount of hate was primarily going

against Amber. And of course, what's really important in any case such as this is that a jury, because it was a jury case in America, is not swayed by information that is swirling all around them. And the important point to note in the case was that the jury wasn't sequestered. And that means that they didn't have to all just stay in a motel together and hand over their mobile phones. So what on earth could be done in future cases to control what seems to be a very out of control element of society and information? and information? I mean, I think in a narrow answer to your question would be like to be more careful about whether or not to sequester a jury in a case like this,

where there's such a huge amount of online interest. But I think it kind of speaks also to like a broader point, which is something that I've looked at in previous investigations, which is that sometimes our institutions in this country, whether it's the police or the legal service, are sort of one or two steps behind where technology is. And it will be nice if they caught up because then they might be able to kind of predict how some of this is going to play out. How much would it cost to employ somebody

on a troll farm to do some serious, serious trolling against somebody you didn't particularly like. Is it asking for a friend? Very much so. Not much is the answer. Like, I think that you could definitely buy some bots, some unsophisticated bots for like tens of pounds rather than hundreds of pounds. And what is the process that then happens? I mean, we talk about bots.

I don't really know what that means. Is it just a kind of algorithm? Are you just pressing a key on a keypad and off it all goes? It kind of depends on where. So you can go online now and you can pay £20 to buy a certain number of Twitter accounts. And then you can use those accounts to post whatever you want manually. So that's the kind of the base level.

That's the easy stuff. If you wanted to go to like a digital PR operator like company, they might have contacts in Mexico or in Israel that they could talk to that would do a sort of more sophisticated operation for you. It's terrifying then, isn't it, really? Yeah, I think it is pretty terrifying because it's really easy to do and it happens a lot and no one really knows like it's only when there's a leak or an investigation where like examples of it come come come out but um it makes you think to yourself well like i'm seeing all

this stuff on social media i consume news in a particular way am i being manipulated well we all are aren't we so we just need to kind of check in with ourselves every time we read something the key players though in this story um presumably you've contacted both parties made them aware of this podcast etc etc the response has been what from Johnny Depp's camp? Neither Johnny Depp nor the Saudis wanted to comment. We did have a response from Adam Waldman, who's this controversial lawyer for Johnny Depp. He actually got kicked off the case for leaking material to the press. He didn't answer our questions, but he posted little snippets of them online, which in my mind was a kind of clear invitation to like the DEP Army to respond to us.

To pile on. And has there been a pile on? Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what's interesting about the pile on is that it's obviously like directed at me because I did the podcast, but any, and this is just like a kind of, you know, an observation, but any female journalist or commentator who has said, oh, I'm looking forward to this, this is an important investigation, has received a lot more abuse than the equivalent male

commentator saying the same thing. Well, it's an interesting point that you make right at the beginning, actually, of the podcast just about the different reaction that there was to Amber Heard and her career and her work opportunities and Johnny Depp. We can't get away from the fact that he won a court case and it was a jury court case. And to an extent, you have to respect that decision. So if you're a Depp fan, or even if you just kind of believe in jury trials in the US, then you could say to yourself, well, he's been exonerated, so all power to him. But

it's always been a really worrying case this because he wasn't exonerated in the UK. And a judge really, really kind of categorically went through the evidence that led him to believe that Depp had abused Amber Heard. So I think that there's always been a big power imbalance in Hollywood and among Hollywood stars, and this is probably a representation of it. Alexi Mostros, and the podcast is called Who Trolled Amber? I'll pop it in between your ears and give it a shake around. And I think it just changed my perspective actually Jane on and it will forever

now make me question a bit more when I see people's opinions about other women in particular on the Twitter I quite like calling it Twitter because I know that that it's my tiny act of rebellion does that annoy Elon Musk against Elon Musk he us to say X, I'm just going to call it Twitter. I think it was better back in Jack Dorsey's day. Do you? Yeah. You miss the Dorsey days. I do.

Yes, okay. And I wonder whether anyone listening has been watching, as I have this week, Channel 4's jewellery experiment show, Jewellery Murder Trial. Now, I think there's a limit to what we can say about people who've been on jewellery because you're not allowed to discuss what goes on in the jury room after you've been a juror.

But just in general, I'd love to hear what other people think about that programme because we were talking about the way women can behave towards other women, thinking of Amber Heard. But also there are a multitude of reactions from the jurors in this show about the court case that they were trying. I mean, it's a TV show, so it's not real, except it's based on a real case. Anyway, I think it's really interesting.

Let us know what you think. It is, what's the address? Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. That's it. Thank you. We'll be back tomorrow. Goodbye. Goodbye. Well done for getting to the end of another episode

of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't get behind us. A lady listener. I'm sorry.

Voice over describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over 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 iPhone.