Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Carry On Off Air Wild Camping (with Laura Bates)

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

The AstroTurf trailblazers bring big news from their back gardens — steady yourself against something firm. They also cover kindness, costume parties, and wild camping. Plus, feminist activist and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, Laura Bates, joins to talk about her latest book, 'The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny'. This interview includes adult themes. If you're affected by any of the issues discussed, drop us a line at [e-mail] and we’ll direct you to resources that can help. If you want to contribute to our playlist, you can do that here: Off Air with Jane & Fi: Official Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=9QZ7asvjQv2Zj4yaqP2P1Q If you want to come and see us at Fringe by the Sea, you can buy tickets here: www.fringebythesea.com/fi-jane-and-judy-murray/ And if you fancy sending us a postcard, the address is:Jane and FiTimes Radio, News UK1 London Bridge StreetLondonSE1 9GFIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] next book club pick has been announced! We’ll be reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession. Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Podcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I, as ever, overrate my sense of direction. I just went shambling off in completely the wrong direction. At one point, at about half past six, I found myself outside the Embassy of the Ivory Coast and I just thought, I just do, where is the King's Road? This episode of Off Air is brought to you by Thomas Fudge's Biscuits. We've got a bit of a reputation, haven't we Jane? Our desk here at Times Towers is pretty famous for having the most delicious sweet treats in the office. Yep, guilty as charged.

But we're not into any old treats, no sir. Only the most elevated biscuit makes the grade. Because we're so classy. May we introduce you to Thomas Fudges, born from the expert British craftsmanship of inventive Dorset bakers in 1916. Thomas Fudges's Florentines are an indulgent blend of Moorish caramel, exquisite almonds and luscious fruits draped

in silky smooth Belgian chocolate. You've said a few key words there Fee. Exquisite, Moorish, exactly the way my colleagues would describe me I'm sure. Did you say sophisticated? I didn't but I can. Just like the biscuits, you're very sophisticated darling. And like you Thomas Fudges believes that indulgence is an art form and it should be done properly or not at all Jane. I concur. Thomas Fudges, hats off to remarkable biscuits. Right, here we are. It's Thursday, we're under a very, very strict timetable, so we need to get on. Have you got any ad-libbing and anecdotes to tell, Fee?

No, absolutely none. Right, let's move on. No. I'm having my astroturf removed. That's my big news from home. I know, Eve. Thank you. Yes. Well, we've certainly... I think you were the trailblazer in that department and I did follow you. Did you? So you're going to follow me now? Well, it's got to be said that something needs to be done because at the far end of my vast lawn, the fake grass has just kind of crungled and wrungled to the degree that I can't open the door of my shed.

Oh my gosh. Because you just can't, it just buckles. Well, I mean, be honest, it's not a shed, it's more of a dower house. No, it's a shed. It's a shed that I think is actually rotting. So when, what's the schedule for the removal of the grots? Oh, I tell you what, they were sprightly. Although it's happening as we speak.

What excitement. As we speak. Right, OK. So this morning, I mean, by quarter past eight, a rotavator had been moved through my lounge. And that's not happened for a while. Spotty euphemism. And yet all the equipment's in and the astroturf's already gone, listen, I really, really, in all seriousness, want to know more about it. Before I move on, I just want to say hello to Carol Worthington. That's your full name, Carol. You have a grandson called Rory. You didn't reference the names of anybody else in your life.

Not your husband, nor your daughter. Or was it daughter-in-law? I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. She was on a train, on a tube train today. She saw me and we had a lovely chat. So in all seriousness Carol, thank you for coming and sitting next to me. She has been through a recent nightmare which really does send chills down my spine. She went on a trip to Vietnam, but she lives in the Manchester area. Oh no, I don't want to hear this. No, no, it's not about Daria. No, it's not.

Okay. She went, so she came down from Manchester to Heathrow to catch the connecting flight but her backpack didn't make it. So she found herself at Heathrow having to buy everything she needed for a relatively long trip around Vietnam. And she pointed out when you're airside, it's actually very difficult to get even really simple things like knickers. Yeah, and everything's ten times the price. Everything is so expensive, yeah. So anyway she had a great time, the holiday itself was brilliant,

but it was just very difficult to get those really basic bits. And I don't understand why airports don't have that facility, why you can't just buy standard, comfortable trousers and a couple of t-shirts and a hoodie, that side of the way airports work. Well, I suppose they've done their research and it's because everybody has got all of that in their suitcases. Well, if they've got their suitcase with them.

Yes, I suppose it would be quite an outlying balance sheet that considers how many people like Carol. Whose case didn't make it. But I would challenge them on that because you know with that kind of hour and a half that you've got to spare at an airport if there was a big M&S that just had all the statutory M&S stuff in it I would be in there and I would buy myself a little three pack of new knickers for my holiday excitement. Carol was going with girlfriends on this trip it wasn't actually a holiday excitement. Oh, but it would be a holiday excitement if you were with girlfriends.

Oh yeah, no, she didn't need special pants. Although maybe she did. No, maybe we should take special pants with us, whoever we're going away with. I would just buy normal pants, Jane. Right, we haven't got much time. Judith's in the Lake District. Can we just, before you do that, can we just say a huge hello to Jane from Stockport, who came to find us at the Chelsea Flower Show. Oh yeah and Fiona. Yep and it was so lovely to meet you, we completely agree with all of your takes on the podcast Wink Wink Nudge Nudge Say No More and it was very

nice for you to come and find us and I hope you had a very enjoyable afternoon. There was so much sneezing it was quite funny. It was actually quite alarming. I mean I don't have hay fever but you do start sneezing as soon as you arrive in that... is it not really a tent? It's like a big kind of solid marquee. Yeah, this is a podcast that you'll be able to hear. You're in for such a treat. They tell your neighbours. But you all went off together because you were coming to the east of London and I was relatively close to home so I made my own way home or

attempted to. Suffice to say, I as ever overrate my sense of direction. I just went shambling off in completely the wrong direction. At one point, at about half past six, I found myself outside the embassy of the Ivory Coast and I just thought, I just do, where is the King's Road? I couldn't find it. Why don't you use your map? I know, but I couldn't find the glasses in the bag and then I couldn't, and I can't follow the instructions. So anyway, I, because London is well equipped with a public transport system, I found a tube station so I was able to get home.

Okay, which tube station? I got to eventually to Victoria, but I ended up wandering through the bus station first of all before and that turned out that the underground station is loosely connected to the main line station but not even all that close to that. No, it's quite a long walk. So anyway. So you're absolutely right, you would have passed three far more convenient tube stations before you got to Victoria if you had gone on your sensible journey.

Well all I can say is it didn't look a particularly busy evening at the Embassy of the Ivory Coast. It does make you wonder, what does, I mean, I'd love to hear from ambassadors or anyone who's ever worked in an embassy. On a bog standard Wednesday, what is going on in an embassy? There's a lot of visa applications. Is that, but what about sort of, you know, the merrymaking and presumably spying that also goes? I'm not casting aspersions on that nation by the way, but necessarily I'm just wondering what goes on. Anyway. I'd love to be a cultural attaché, wouldn't you?

Oh, you'd have been excellent at that. Do you think? Yeah, well, your book recommendations, you'd have to brush up on theatre, but you'd be very good with book recommendations. You could just casually advise foreign visitors to go to the panto. I'm just going to say really, really good, top gun. Judith, still in the Lake District. I too do not have an en suite and I've always wondered at the wisdom of anyone who actually desires one. It's how the whole conversation started, was you and I saying we wouldn't want one.

Well I sometimes think I would. Anyway, Judith might have put me off. The thought of the aromas of a bathroom, particularly when shared with a bloke, mine 68 years of age she says, permeating unhindered into the bedroom. Horrifying. Admittedly I am in favour of a hotel room having its own bathroom, but that's where I draw the line. The recent British asparagus season has reinforced my thoughts on this matter. Yeah. Well Judith, I think you might have won there. I think it is.

Totally with her now. You're right. The whole thing started because you are a household of all women. All ladies. And I have two possibilities for the peeing from a height sound. So I didn't want the en suite bathroom, but you'd happily have them. Well, I think I could take it. It would be a treat for me in the middle of the night for that whittle that wakes you up. And it's just annoying because you don't really want to have to go down the stairs. Not stairs.

No, I the stairs. I'm not laughing because I know it's challenging. Get a commode. Well, I could. I don't think I don't know where to hire one from because I do. When we were quite young and still needing to get up in the night for widows, so four, five, six years old, we did, we had a chamber pot under the bed. We had a great big, I mean obviously it was porcelain.

Oh of course. But I remember it very clearly, it was a very sensible thing to do. This one comes in from Simon in Ontario in Canada in reference to Fee's youthful King Charles Spaniel haircut. I'm here to tell you that my own cavalier King Charles Spaniel, so that's gone one up hasn't it? It really has. Rufus had his own unfortunate encounter with the scissors while he normally has lovely long ears fit for royalty. One day he came back from the groomer looking like Lady Mary when she had a new hair cut in series five of Downton Abbey. It's such a specific reference. Series five? Yes, series five. The groomer said Rufus's ears were so matted. I went off her when she killed that Turkish diplomat.

I know, that was odd, wasn't it? It was appalling. Well, maybe we shouldn't be cultural attachés. It's very dangerous. Well, actually it is quite a dangerous job sometimes. The groomer said Rufus's ears were so matted, she had to cut them short. Now, look, I'm really concerned about this.

Cut the ears short. Does a spaniel have a lot of kind of excess hair below the actual that's just dangling and not connected to the actual ear and you wouldn't have you wouldn't have wanted to go near the actual ear I've tried looking for pictures of Lady Mary Rufus but it appears I didn't take any probably because both Rufus and I were so shocked by this modern Bob style but I guess it goes to show that like humans dog haircuts can go awry and while Lady Mary looked quite chic with her new-do it's a challenge to get one's quaff-her correct. There's a lovely picture of Rufus as they say in the papers, in happier

times, as Simon points out. And if anybody does have some of those fantastic pictures of where the dog groomer has gone wrong, we'd definitely, definitely take those. We've had some explanations, haven't we, of wine glass charms. Oh yes, you better do one, yeah. This is Julian Sacramento. I'll fall over if somebody doesn't beat me to the email to explain the purpose of wine charms. You select your charm at a dinner party, book club or other gathering where beverages are

served in stemware. Then you can put your glass down without the risk of somebody mistaking your glass for theirs and vice versa. A thoughtful guest slips off the charm and puts it back before putting the glass down wherever is most helpful to the host. They're having a different party aren't they, Sacramento? I mean, come in Sacramento, let's hear more about the way you live and how you do it. That's so civilised and it's obviously a place full of thoughtful guests. Well we've been everywhere and I think it's high time we went to Antrim and brought in

Brenda. Love the podcast, genuine laugh out loud moments. Oh I like Brenda's assessment combined with thought provoking items and interviews. Thank like Brenda's assessment, combined with thought-provoking items and interviews. Thank you, Brenda, appreciate that. Read your emails about calling children after a parent. It's very common here in Ireland, although not so much using senior and junior. Here rather, we get David has, for example, usually a first son so David becomes big David and then the son is wee David. That's how they'll be referred to henceforth then wee David becomes a dad to baby David or David Og which is Irish for young. Didn't know that did you? It can become very confusing indeed especially at family gatherings where we have to use their full title when we want to get the attention of the appropriate David. I agree it is mostly

in the male line but back in the days of very large families it was very common for the firstborn boy and girl to be named after their parents. As the fourth of six kids it didn't apply to me. Brenda thank you very much. And it is also isn't it true that sometimes boys in Ireland would be given the name Mary as one of their middle names? I think that happened. I think, and I could be, I'm really delving into my fact bucket here, but I think the middle name of one of the members of Buck's Fizz, one of the male members of Buck's Fizz was Mary. Oh my god, this is good! Really? I just...

Look, hear me out. I think that's the case. But why would a boy in Ireland be given the middle name of Mary? What prominent Mary is extremely popular in Ireland? Well, I know that, but why would you give it to a boy? Well, just because it's a... You know, it's a... call out...

Can we deep dive on the middle names? I think it might have been Bobby, Mary, Gubby, from memory. Oh, interesting. Either that or ladies and gentlemen, she's very, very drunk. No, it was no names, Alan. Oh, look, someone, can someone please back me up on this? It may not be Bucks Fizz, it could be Liquid Gold or another sensational pop combo.

Liquid Gold. Dance Yourself Dizzy. Good song. I mean, genuinely a good song. And people need to, we could put that on the playlist. Oh, the playlist. So we've got a Spotify playlist. It is called Offer with Jane and Fee playlist.

Yeah. There was a meeting about what to call it. Well, yeah, so I thought I could just set it up on mine, but then Rosie and Eve helpfully pointed out that that meant that everybody had access to our entire family playlist and you don't want that. No, you really don't. Mike Mary Nolan.

Thank you. Mike Mary Nolan. Mike Mary Nolan. Thank you. I knew. That is brilliant. I knew there was some black there. Thank you.

That is Mike Mary Nolan. Well, come in. Any other gentlemen from the Ireland who've got Mary in the middle. You know the song A Boy Named Sue? Yes. I mean you can't say this sort of thing anymore, you've got to be very careful here Fee. Well I never understood, I never, what is that about? I don't know either. I don't understand.

Was that Johnny Cash? Let's investigate it. Because I heard it being played somewhere the other day and it was a live version and there's so much laughing all the way through and some kind of muttering and stuff like that. And I just thought, I just don't know where that's come from or where it's going actually. We've lived through some dark days. What about Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-ling?

My Ding-a-ling? Not good. I mean, what about Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-ling? My Ding-a-ling? Well, we had a brief conversation in the office about some of the lyrics currently doing the rounds in rap. And actually, I might try and find them. There was something that came up on a recommended to you on Spotify that I was so, so horrified by. I did do... I saved it in order to do a little bit more digging around it. I genuinely don't understand why record companies can put out really devastatingly misogynistic lyrics about female body parts that are just so degrading and disgusting. I don't get how that's actually allowed. I don't

really understand how a company that's making lots of money isn't answerable to the offense that it is being caused and I was genuinely really offended. So I'll do a bit more digging around that because I think it's a conversation worthy of our time. It definitely is and we should say our guest in this edition of the podcast is the mighty Laura Bates, the founder of Everyday Sexism. I have to be honest, it's quite a serious interview I've already recorded and it is quite a serious conversation. It should be. But Laura is, she's so well worth hearing, always, always. Now this comes in, dear both, remaining anonymous, recent discussions on kindness within relationships really struck a chord.

I really like this email. I did too. My gran always said a giving hand is a receiving hand and I suppose without ever really knowing it, kindness is the single most important factor which governs all relationships. More than anything else continuing kindness in all its small forms is what sustains me. Whether it's my husband bringing me a cup of tea in bed every morning at 6am, he does that. Why at 6am? That sounds amazing. Yeah. To all of the small, insignificant moments in life where we do something to help our loved ones. I too cart plates of toast to a 21 year old in bed now and again, Jane. But as my grandmother predicted, kindness breeds kindness.

I was seriously ill with an infection last year and struggled to stay positive during many months of pain and discomfort. I'm pleased to say that I'm fully recovered but I will never forget the kindness of a nurse who sat with me one night and just held my hand and told me, you won't always feel like this. Her incredible kindness helped me so much

when I was at my lowest ebb. As I grow older I find myself emotionally removing myself from those who I feel really haven't offered kindness when they could have. I'm glad you've raised this topic. It's actually incredibly important to look out for those in life with a kind heart and hold them close. Anonymous, I just couldn't agree with you more. And somebody years ago said to me that kindness is close to wisdom and I remember thinking, oh, I'm not sure I really understand that. I thought that those were maybe some things that could stay a bit apart. But I completely believe it now that a wise person, you are only wise if you can be empathetic

to understand other people. And you can if you can be empathetic to understand other people. And you can only be empathetic and want to understand other people if you've got a kind heart. It's just all so connected. We don't celebrate it enough. Sometimes I think we use kindness in a very dismissive way at the moment. I think actually the trans debate is a place where it is used as a dismissive thing. Oh, you're just being kind, okay. You wouldn't say that about any other type of prejudice, you wouldn't say that you stood up against racism because you were just being kind and it's derogative to kindness I think. So I love the story of the nurse who just went, I'm not going to say any further than she had, but it's just the fact that that counts for so, so much. And it might very well have been the case that that nurse was

maybe she'd finished her shift, maybe she was exhausted. There'll be stuff going on in her life, but she was able to do exactly the right thing in that moment for our correspondent. And actually, we must never forget those NHS staff who sat with the dying during COVID, when no one else could be with them. And then quite often they had to go home alone and then come back in and do the same thing. They just took it all on. Absolutely. Absolutely incredible. And already I sense people are saying, let's move on from Covid. Well, you know, it's not that easy, is it?

Well, no. And actually, as our guest yesterday, Adam Buxton told us, you know, the story of his mum, who he will have to live with forever, that sense of regret, that he couldn't have got to her sooner and realised that her dementia was kicking in and realised that she was confused and she obviously felt that she had to do what she was being told, which is to stay completely isolated from her loved ones. All those really decent people who followed the rules. Yeah, but whereas Dominic Cummings didn't. He put his kids and his wife in a car and had a drive.

So don't mention that again. No, no, I know. But the long tale of Covid will be with us for ever and ever and ever. The way that people died in this country will stay within families. But kindness does count for such a lot and if you can find that bit of time in your own life to just extend a bit of it, you'll benefit too, won't you, in the end? Just make it your go-to position before any others and you can always, you know, then move on to just be absolutely witchy. Let's start with the finances.

Have you, yesterday you interviewed a member of parliament. I think we can be allowed to say who it was. Caroline Voden MP, she represents South Devon in our Houses of Parliament. Oh we were talking about wild camping. Wild camping. Anyway, it turns out Caroline's emailed to say thank you and she listens to Off Air. So Caroline, well done you. I just, I'd like to know more from wild campers, about wild campers.

I'd like to hear from wild campers about their wild camping experiences. Where in the world or in this country have you been that was just unimaginably beautiful and I would, I think, I didn't fully understand, I know I listened to the interview you did with Caroline, that the deal with a wild camper is that you leave nothing behind, nothing. And do people actually abide by those rules? I mean, do they cart their waste products of all kinds away with them when they leave? You should, definitely shouldn't you? You really should. You should dig a hole. Yeah, you should dig a hole. And cover it up.

And presumably you do the same with your food waste and absolutely everything. Yep. Magazines, periodicals. Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints. Is that right? That's meant to be the motto, isn't it? Of the sensible and responsible traveller. Yeah.

Coming soon, off air, goes wild camping. Well that'd be quite funny. It would be quite funny. I'd be absolutely fine until the sun went down. And you actually had to come. And at three in the morning, Jane, I so wouldn't be fine. No, I think we'd both be hustling for the Uber app to get to a local Premier Inn. But anyway, it's nice to know that members of Parliament are having a listen to this,

because quite often, you know, in amongst all of the fluff, I think we talk about really important things that sometimes are dismissed by mainstream media. What? Mainstream media, legacy media. It's not for me. Emma Worcester said, who knew transitioning from modeling, Felix Howard became a successful songwriter, record producer and music publisher.

He's collaborated with artists such as Amy Winehouse, Sia, The Sugar Babes in 2007. He joined EMI Publishing as an AENR manager where he signed talents like Calvin Harris and Lana Del Rey. I tell you what, what a life. Yeah. And he was the incredibly striking, he was sort of relatively young teenager wasn't he? Yes, beautiful young teen. Really interesting, a really interesting face. We've got so much good stuff from you but I'm conscious that we also have the interview with Laura Bates to come. Just want to thank, who do I want to thank? Oh yes, Kate from Berlin, who has risen to the challenge and sent us a portrait, a wonderful portrait of our late monarch.

I didn't think it was too bad. I don't think it's bad either. I don't think people appreciate how the rest of us couldn't begin to get close to painting a portrait of anyone and therefore, Kate, bringing to life Queen Elizabeth II is not something that I would dismiss. The mention of slightly skewed painted portraits this week brought a throwback to 15 years ago to the first year of my art and design BTEC. I wish I could remember the exact assignment. My interpretation of it was to paint a portrait of our dear late Queen. Right this portrait is still burned into the memories of me and my family very sadly

though during my parents house move they seemingly no longer had the space to store it. Well I'm so sad to hear. Here she is. She's not bad but there's the touch of Richard Coles. It isn't exactly as I remember but it's a wonderful attempt and you were only doing, you were a teenager, you know, that's fantastic. So I think we've got that and we've got David Soul I mean it's gonna be I'm sorry we may have to put these on Instagram they're just too good to waste and thanks for having a sense of humor about it Kate brilliant effort yeah final one for me to throw out to the group dear Finn Jane I've just received an invite for a wedding

oh this is golden the invite was accompanied with a detailed description of the type of outfit that would be preferred or approved, possibly by the wedding police, but who knows. I will type the advice guidance below for your amusement. Here it comes, anonymous. Your wedding guest look is part of the whole fabulous picture. You can absolutely go for a timeless wedding guest dress if that's your vibe. But this is your time to get playful. We're talking pops of color, structured silhouettes, ruffles, prints, textures. Go as bold or as minimal as you like, but bring personality. Margate is full of character. Think pastel painted houses, seaside kitsch and creative energy.

So lean into that. The dress code is playful expression. Think pastel painted houses, seaside kitsch and creative energy. So lean into that. The dress code is playful expression. I mean really? Am I the only one finding this totally bizarre? Why would you care so much about what people wear? Surely you just want people there to feel happy and comfortable. It's added an extra level of complexity to wedding outfit shopping. On

a positive note, my husband and I have started using if that's your vibe as a passive aggressive insult. It's absolutely up there, isn't it, with you do you. As in, you can absolutely do insert undesirable behaviour here if that's your vibe, but you'll be a fool. Yours continually baffled by modern life. Well, that would just that would annoy me so much if I received that invitation. It's quite a challenge isn't it? Oh stop asking so much of me. I'm going to go to your wedding, I'm probably going to buy you a present, it'll probably take the whole weekend. I mean I wish you well, but statistically it's unlikely it'll survive. So don't tell me what I need to wear as well.

I think that's just an illustration of how it's all about how it looks on the socials and nothing else is really that significant. I mean, I'm very conscious there's quite a lot of detail in there. If you do recognise that wedding invitation. Yes, you may well do. And I'm sure it'll be a lovely wedding and I'm sure it will last. I'm not putting my kindness first there. Do you know what? We got an invitation once to go to a Christmas party that had a theme.

And the theme was white and it was from some quite flamboyant hospitable friends of ours, you know, who often really, you know, their parties were kind of four or five parties. Push the dirty boat out. Yeah, they were great at parties, they still are. So I thought, OK, we really do need to go for it. And my now ex-husband, but we were quite new to each other at the time. And I thought, OK, we could really, you know, this is lovely, we can really do something together. It's like a soft launch for you as a couple. Very much so. So I thought, OK, we'll go do something together. It's like a soft launch for you as a couple. Very much so.

So I thought, OK, we'll go all in white. So I went to my local Leyland and I bought two white boiler suits. And... Oh, the paint shop? Yes. I thought you'd gone to the garage. No, so they were, you know, so we were just all white. Got you.

So the two of us and we travelled there on the tube across London. Fine underground. Can I just say how wacky you sound? Exactly. And with these admiring looks. You chose to interpret them as admiring. And we walked into the party and people maybe had a little white hunkerchief. Or maybe a white tie. Honestly Jane, we looked like we'd come from cleaning up an accident itself. Yes. Or it's a crime, major crime scene of one sort or another. It was so embarrassing. Right, okay. Don't, just take a tip. Don't do that. Well, I think you see that's gone to the other direction, hasn't it, where they didn't give enough detail on what they meant by a theme of white.

Yeah, that's wrong too. Yeah, that's wrong. But this I think is fully at the other end of the spectrum. We just want to send love to Kate who has emailed to say she's just been on her first walk without her Labrador. Oh, this is so sad. Who's died, it was Gladys. I'd had her for nearly 11 years since she was seven months old and honestly I am heartbroken. I don't think I was expecting to feel like this. I needed to get out of the house and I just wanted to say thanks for your company as I walked our regular long walk route. You made it manageable. She just brought so much joy and love into my life

along with endless shoes and mud and great drifts of golden dog hair and long dead rabbits and once even alive thankfully unscathed chicken. She's been with me through thick and very very thin so there's a lot to get used to. I absolutely adore her. Oh Kate, so sorry and you know we're not going to pretend that you won't always miss her because you will but you never know. Give it a while and then and see how you're feeling. Yeah I think it must be so so difficult those first couple of weeks and months where you're used to having a walk in your daily routine and of course it's difficult to walk without a dog. It really is. And can I just end, because we've had a very international edition, we'll

go to France just for some thoughts about baguettes. This is from Jane, not a week goes by without me thinking I should email but I've never plucked up the courage before. She has now. But the baguette. Please find attached a photo of un baguette. Look at it please from our local boulangerie. Oh I mean they're gorgeous. 42 centimetres long and delicious. Being sourdough it doesn't turn into a stale solid baton almost as soon as it leaves the boulangerie. I love this. Eaten with butter flecked with sea salt crystals used to mop up delicious dressings and sauces. It's a staple of life. Last year this local baguette was voted the

second best baguette in the Tarn region. Right, it also comes in half size in case people are worried about wasting any, but that never happens in our house, she says. I always go for the big the big one. Jane, thank you very much and how wonderful to be so close to a boulangerie selling the second best baguette in the region. That's good, that, isn't it? It's very good and it does look delicious, Jane. Yeah, it really does. I think you just need to revamp your image of the baguette. I do. There's so much I've got to work on. Of course, I'm going to Lille this weekend,

so who knows what might happen. You can, you absolutely can. Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project. Now she founded it, as you might well know, back in 2012 after what she calls a bad week. A man had sexually assaulted her on a bus, another man followed her home, and a group of men shouted abuse in the street. Well that project allowed thousands of women and girls to post about their own experiences but as you're about to hear if you think life can be pretty tough for women and girls in the real world it can be significantly worse online. In her new book Laura Bates goes to some pretty dark places including a cyber brothel in

Berlin and I'm afraid to say that is every bit as bad as it sounds. I should say you can hear a full version of our conversation in the Off Air with Jane and Fee podcast which will come your way at around about six o'clock tonight. I should say as well that this interview does include adult themes. If you're affected by any of the issues do drop us a line at feedback at times.radio and we'll point you in the direction of the appropriate help. So here is Laura Bates and I took her back to the start of her campaigning and the remarkable response to it. I had not expected the response that we got. I had thought that if 50 people

shared their stories it would be an important set of data. In reality over a quarter of a million testimonies flooded in and it just became so clear that there was such a significant overwhelming public health crisis of male violence against women and girls. I think as well what really surprised me is that up until that point if I'm honest and I was by then well into my frankly almost my dotage, that I as a woman and then before that as a girl, I'd had to navigate the world in a very particular way but I hadn't given it any thought. And if even a woman didn't realise that, why am I surprised that so many men have no

idea that women and girls live their lives in a very, very, have to live their lives in a very different way? Absolutely, we live in different worlds. We can walk down the same street and have completely different experiences of it. And so many of the women I spoke to expressed exactly what you just have, you know, until you asked me directly. I've never told anyone any of these experiences because it's the way things are, you have to put up with it. And that's not because women were, you know, silly or stupid or self-censoring. It's because we live in a world that taught us that. From childhood, don't make a fuss, take it as a compliment. It's just boys being boys. That's just

banter. Haven't you got a sense of humour? Lighten up. You know, we are taught that from such a young age. So it is a process of de-socialisation to even allow ourselves to acknowledge the extent of the barrage of trauma and harassment that so many of us have experienced. And the men who aren't aware of it sometimes become aware through the experience of usually their daughters. You read a lot of comments from men, you know the hashtag father of daughters, I think that's it isn't it? From someone who's, I don't know, got to 45, perhaps suddenly finds themselves the parent of a 13 year old girl and thinks, oh right, okay, I see that now. Does that frustrate you? Yeah, I mean it is hugely frustrating, of course, because we would like to be seen as real human people

whose lives and suffering matter regardless of the man we happen to be seen as real human people whose lives and suffering matter regardless of the man we happen to be attached to. On the other hand, I think any point at which men do become aware of this and decide that actually they want to get involved and change things, you know, that's a good thing. We need them on board. Let's talk about this new book. Why did you want to write this one? For me, it was a sense of a really urgent moment where there is such a short window of opportunity to do anything about these emerging technologies, particularly with AI. I felt powerfully that people don't know the ways in which these technologies are already

re-embedding misogyny, racism, existing forms of prejudice into the very foundation stones of the world we are very soon going to have no choice about living in. And I wanted to raise the alarm now before it's too late really to raise our voices collectively and say stop. We demand something here, some regulation. How is AI already impacting our lives then? Right, so I mean this is not about saying stop to all the technology, it's about saying when this technology is directly affecting our lives, there should be some form of safeguarding in terms of it proving that it can be equitable before it's released to the public.

At present, that's not happening. So right now, if you're a woman and you apply for a job tomorrow, 40% of companies in the UK are already using AI in their recruitment processes, which has been repeatedly proven to discriminate against women. It will filter out CVs, for example, if it notices that they've got the word netball in them. So they'll say it's gender blind, it doesn't know the gender of the applicant, it can't discriminate against you. But of course it's discriminating by proxy.

And that's not because the AI has been designed to be a discriminatory tool, but because they haven't recognised that when AI is trained on existing vast data sets of material that is flawed and is biased, it will replicate and actually amplify those biases. This is the tough thing for some of us who are slightly on the Luddite side of things to understand, but AI learns from the mistakes of our past, fundamentally. Is that correct? Well, so many AI tools, particularly generative AI, so things like ChatGPT, which people may be familiar with, learns by ingesting vast datasets of available information, whether that might be from the internet, whether it might be from books,

and then what it's really trying to do is guess the best possible answer that you might be looking for. So if you ask a generative AI tool that creates images for a picture of a cute kitten a hundred times, it will give you a hundred pictures of cute fluffy kittens it's never going to give you a baby hairless Sphinx cat because it will assume from the data it has available that that's an outlier it's unlikely to be what you're looking for. It's not sufficiently appealing. No well yes but also it's looking at kind of probability and numbers that

becomes really significant if you are a human treated as an outlier, as women are and marginalised groups are. So if you asked it, show me a scientist, what would it show me? It would pop out a picture of a very smart looking white man in a white lab coat. If you ask it for stories about women, it tells you stories about women who are domestic servants. If you ask it for stories about men, it creates stories about men who are domestic servants. If you ask it for stories about men, it creates stories about men who are CEOs and firefighters. If you ask it for imagery, it will pop out imagery that

is extremely racist and stereotypical and sexist. So if you ask it to show you a picture of a Mexican, it will repeatedly show you a mustachioed man in a sombrero. If you ask it for a picture of an Indian street, it will show you a street strewn with litter and debris. So it repeats stereotypes that are already quite deeply embedded in our society, but it doesn't just regurgitate the racism and misogyny back at us, it amplifies it. What are you most concerned about? If you could point to one aspect of AI and its incredibly important influence and increasing influence on the lives of women and girls, what would it be?

It's a difficult question. I mean, one thing that I feel deeply concerned about that nobody seems to be aware of that has really wide scope in terms of its impact is the rise of AI girlfriend apps. And people hear about these apps, which enable a man to customise and design the ideal girlfriend down to every specification from freckle placement to eye colour to personality. And they think, oh you must be talking about a handful of men who are using these apps, it's not going to have a real world impact. But the reality is that in the last year alone hundreds of millions of people have downloaded these apps, so their use is absolutely huge. And they are essentially training male users into thinking

that they can have a woman who is available to them 24x7, always amenable, always ready to please, pretty, and pliant, and submissive, never disagreeing, never challenging him. That's a worry. Yeah, it's more than a worry. I remember in previous incarnations doing conversations about why the voices of are, they're always female. Why is it not Alex? Why is it the other one? And they estimate that 10% of conversations with those voice assistants like Siri and Cortana Alexa are abusive, which is significant when you think about the scale, the scale of all of this is what matters. A tiny thing on its own might not be

significant, but for example already we know that global financial services companies are using AI to determine credit scores, to decide who gets loans and we know that they actively discriminate against women, again these AI tools. What matters is when you scale up and realise that globally we have a 17 billion billion gender credit gap and we know that whether women are able to get credit and financial services determines rates of domestic violence, it determines early and forced marriage, rates of education. This is hugely significant and yet it's already happening. These tools are already affecting millions of people around the world.

We've had some really serious real-life examples. There was the young man who tried to take the life of the late queen. Yes. Which is a story that, until I was reminded by this book, I'd forgotten about. But that was because of the influence of a so-called AI girlfriend. That's right. He told his plans to this AI girlfriend. And I think she said something along the lines of you have all the tools to complete this mission and I believe in you.

I mean it is and there have been repeated cases as well, very sadly, of people taking their own lives after being encouraged by these AI apps. What I found was a really dark side of them where very quickly when you download these almost universally young hypersexualized female avatars they will be ready to jump into sexually and physically violent scenarios and role plays. Almost none of them will stop you, in fact they'll play along and actively encourage you to continue. We'll talk about some of the more honestly even more terrifying aspects of our future and what our present looks like. But are there female equivalents? So if you're a heterosexual female, can you get hold of an AI boyfriend? What form might he take depending on taste?

Yes, so there are, in some of these cases of these technologies, there are those equivalents. You can create a male AI boyfriend but we know that the vast majority of users of these apps, according to their own data, are men. And we know if you look at the marketing and the advertising, they are heavily marketed as presenting men with the opportunity to own a young woman who will do anything that they want. They're not advertising heavy on the male companions. And I think that reflects the user base. The same with sex robots which are overwhelmingly made to look like women and it's the same with deep fake technology where most of the apps you can download to create a pornographic image of

any woman you like don't even work on male bodies. Can we talk about sex robots because in the book you detail a visit you paid to, well, just explain exactly what this place was. Yes, so sex robots have been developing for a while, but what we're now seeing is a rise in places, like one that I visited in Berlin called a cyber brothel, where you can visit to engage with a sex robot or a sex doll, but with the aid of technology, in this case virtual reality technology, to make the experience as close as possible to that thing seeming

to come alive. So using the VR technology it can seem like the thing that you're interacting with is actually a real life moving, breathing, responding woman who responds to you depending on what you do. And of course it's gamified so you can earn points for certain particularly demeaning acts for example. But really this is again about presenting these robots as if they are real women. So before my visit for example I received... How did you get in? Can we... Yeah, absolutely. So I posed as a male punter. I booked one of these. You can choose from different sex dolls and robots. They'll come... But they show you the... On the website, yeah. They're hyper, of course, hypersexualised but they're also hyper-stereotyped in terms of, you know, the kind of girl next door, or there are

certain extreme racist stereotypes as well. And then they claim or purport to send you messages in advance of your visit. So it's very much geared at trying to make it seem like this is a real person that you're going to meet. When you say that, we just got to acknowledge how pathetic this is, actually. Genuinely, it sends messages saying, I can't wait to meet you. You know what, I wish it was pathetic. The problem is you can order one of these things that comes covered in blood. I asked for mine to be prepared with ripped and slashed clothing.

There were no questions asked. It was just done. When you get into that room, there is one of these kind of antique gynecological chairs that you can force the thing into. And when I walked over to it and looked between its legs, there was evidence of violence that had been done presumably by a previous visitor to the room. You can order sex robots that have a setting that you can turn on that's called a frigid setting so that your advances are not welcomed by the robot and you can logically follow what that is expected to enable users to act out. I'm trying to, it's very difficult to know what the follow-up question is here in all honesty. Do we assume that this is a need that if it's catered for in this environment,

its founders and defenders might say, that might keep real women and girls safer? That is absolutely their argument. They present this as a very altruistic thing for society, that it's all about loneliness, that it's about exploring frontiers of sex, uninhibited, and that it will protect women and girls, which I think is a known goal because it in itself acknowledges that men are visiting to be physically and sexually violent. We know that one of the robots had to be taken out of commission after 10 visits for that reason because it was so badly damaged. But there is no evidence to back up that claim and the idea is so incredibly insulting. It taps into this societal myth that male violence is inherent, that we can never prevent it, so we just have to respond

to it. There's no evidence to suggest that and all the evidence that we do have from experts, from police who are dealing with these issues around child sexual abuse is that it runs the risk of escalation essentially and increasing the realistic prospect of real life offending. If as a society we say this is normal, this is okay that you have a need to be sexually violent to a man, come to a place where we will keep you safe and give you the opportunity to act it out. We would never do that with murderers, we would never say come and stab these realistic corpses and they'll be warm to the touch and spurt realistic blood for you because you deserve to have an outlet for that. You know, it's ridiculous.

And again, I'm just going to ask the question, there are male robots, are there, that I could as a female punter order? Yes, they exist, but there are vastly fewer of them and the market for them is vastly smaller. And I'm going to say, I think it's unlikely that, but of course I don't know, that a woman would want to order up a physically damaged, brutalised male sex robot and then do even more damage to it for their own personal pleasure. Do you believe that is the case? No, I don't. I think that we live in a world where one in three women on the planet is raped or beaten in her lifetime and I think that what we're seeing here is a reflection of that very gendered nature of this problem. That more men than women have interest in being violent towards the opposite sex?

Yeah, I mean what they would say of course is that not all men are visiting to be violent in this space, that you know of course there will be people who are visiting to use these tools in this space in a very different way and of course that's important to say. What I think is also important is to be honest about the much darker reality of a significant minority, perhaps of those people and what they are doing and the potential impact that that has on the real women and girls they will later come into contact with, not least sex workers who will be the first to bear the brunt of this, but are so often unheard in these conversations. Do you, when you leave places like this, do you feel, well tell me, what do you feel? Despair? Anger? What?

Do you know, I got into a taxi when I was leaving and the driver asked me what had I done that day? And usually I don't make the mistake of answering honestly in those situations but I was feeling so shell-shocked that I did in this case. And the driver laughed and said, well at least she won't answer back. So I think you do feel, I think, quite despairing. I also felt guilty, which I wasn't anticipating, about leaving her there. I found that when her hair fell across her face, I instinctively reached up and brushed it off for her and I felt awful leaving her there for the next person to come, which is not right. We shouldn't be anthropomorphising these things. That is actually a big part of the problem. But what it made me realise was, well, I was

fighting to remember that this is an object created by men for men's profit. It isn't a her. It made me realise how easy it would be for the men who visit to let themselves be convinced into thinking that she was. There's so much to talk about here. I just want to ask you about the online safety bill and about the notion that we might in this country be prepared to make some concessions in order to get better trade deals, get a better version of the trade deal we currently have. Are you concerned, because there's a really interesting expression towards the end of the book, something I hadn't heard of, effective accelerationism, a Silicon Valley phrase. What does it mean? This is kind of the new version of move fast and break things, which used to be

Zuckerberg's motto in the early days. He's the meta man. He's the meta man. Yeah, so tech bro is in Silicon Valley are obsessed with this idea of effective accelerationism, which simply put means unfettered progress, research, expansion of technology for profit with absolutely zero regulation. And their kind of thesis is that that is the only way to make progress. When of course we know from all of human history that that isn't the case, that it's absolutely possible to have reasonable safeguards in place and still to innovate. It is really worrying because the US has absolutely taken on that kind of cry. It's very much what was cited by the Vice President

JD Vance in his refusal to sign the agreement at the AI summit in Paris that AI should be foundationally safe and ethical. But we didn't sign it either, did we? That's what I was about to say, yeah. So what's really worrying is that the UK wouldn't sign it either and that as you've just said, when they were trying to get a favourable trade deal with the US, the UK government said they would put on that table watering down the provisions of the Online Safety Act. What I would suggest is that those two things never should have been on the same negotiating table at all. That they were at all suggests something very suggestive about the heavy influence of the other men standing in the Oval Office behind President Trump. Why is it, how is it that we've moved from a part of our society that you covered so brilliantly with everyday sexism, the idea that women and girls are not

safe in the real world. What you're now forced to discuss and acknowledge, we all are, is that we're not safe online either. We've just morphed as a society into an even more challenging set of circumstances. Is this ever going to change? Well, I think what people must recognise is that the false perception of an online-offline divide will soon be meaningless because this is coming for all of us. This is being encoded into the algorithms that are determining everything from healthcare to recruitment to spending. So it isn't just a case of saying we weren't safe offline and now we're not safe online. It's about recognising that the ways in which technology has accelerated and in many ways exacerbated gender inequality are now going to expand to affect every element of our society if we don't take action now. Yes, there is hope. It is possible to stop and to demand efficient regulation be put in place.

I think looking at Baroness Kidron's interventions in the House of Lords yesterday around AI and the creative industries is an example of just what that responsibility of standing up to power can look like. But we're up against it. It's a David and Goliath fight because we know that only 12% of AI researchers globally are women. We know that women only get around 1% of all global venture capital funding, including in this area. So even where women are presenting tools which actually have the capacity to do brilliant feminist things with AI, they're

dramatically less likely to be funded or rolled out or supported. Laura Bates and her book is out now and I'm not going to hit it, it's absolutely worth reading. It's called The New Age of Sexism and well, a lot frankly that threatens our existence that we need to be made aware of and we need to have enough information to properly challenge what our tech overlords seem to have in store for us and the great thing about Laura's writing is it's really clear and she's she makes her case incredibly passionately but it's also properly interesting as well. She's really put

herself out there. No she's a very very, I shouldn't have to say this neither of us should have to say it, she's brave. Yeah no she is properly brave. The fact that she has to be brave is disturbing in itself. And the very least that we can do is to read her message back from the front line, because it is the front line. Exactly it really is. So the new age of sexism by Laura Bates is out now. Well thank you for all of that. We've had a properly good gander around the world. Well we have and we've had a lovely couple of weeks on the podcast actually. Thank you for joining in with us on so many very disparate topics. It will be me and Jamal Kerens next week.

Jamal, yes. From Tuesday, thank you very much because it's Bank Holiday Monday. Enjoy your Bank Holiday weekend. Bon vacances, bon voyage et bon chance, ma petit ami, le Jane. Thank you very much indeed. I'll bring back a solid sourdough baguette. Yes, well, seriously, could you? If you like. I mean, I'll have to put it in the freezer because there'll be... Anyway, people don't need to hear the logistics.

I've had enough logistics trying to get home from the Chelsea flower show yesterday. Barely made it back before dawn. 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, the jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.