Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Dancing in quite a narcissistic way

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Fi's off this week so we've got some good old fashioned Jane² fun for your Monday evening. They discuss new age camping, good funerals and successful siblings. Plus, Jane G speaks to Dr. Michael Mosley about his book '4 Weeks to Better Sleep'. And our next book club pick has been announced - A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi. 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.

Obviously not that many lions in Southwold, but there were some pigs nearby and some goats. So, you know, could have been dangerous. You're building up the tension here, but it's not the Serengeti love, is it? It's not the Serengeti. Welcome to Monday's Off-Air with the Brighton Bell, Jane Mulkerrins, who's here because fees on her, what we don't call holly bobs. Anyway, how are you? I'm very well, thanks. Very happy to be here.

Are you? Keeping Fee's seat warm again. Yeah. Well, you do always do a very good job. Thanks very much. What did you call me on air last week? The Jane Mulkerrins podcast fill-in services limited or something. It's fine. That is what it says on my paperwork

when you get the invoice it's always very kindly meant i understand sure i think i referred you on air today as my dance partner oh and we were going to float across the dance floor of life or some old cobblers i've managed to come up with yeah you're leading sometimes yeah well if only i could i'm absolutely i can't dance to save my life really i'm definitely i'm one of those very inhibited british people who just sort of jiggles nervously on the spot and just i don't dance to save my life. Really? I'm one of those very inhibited British people who just jiggles nervously on the spot. I don't dance like there's no one watching. I actually dance in a narcissistic way

as though all eyes are on me. They won't be. Pretty sure they are, Jane. I know. I need to get over myself because they're not. Big shout out to Caroline. Caroline, thank you so much for those lovely portraits of pets Barbara and Dora

which arrived at Times Towers. We've got them. I'm going to take my Dora home tonight. Fee will love her Barbara which she'll collect next week when she's back. And we both did give donations by the way to the animal charity that you referenced. But they're such brilliant portraits of our cats that Caroline's done for us.

Are they on the social medias yet? I think they can be. Fee hasn't opened hers. But mine might be first. She'll look at the Instagram, no? She always looks at it on our holiday. Just like she listens when she's not here. Not. I think she probably sneaks a listen.

You implied that you'd had a bit of a frantic weekend. Oh, not frantic, just fun. I drove a Land Rover Defender with roof tents on it to suffolk and camped on top of a land rover in very high winds is this for a feature i mean obviously yeah um it was really fun uh the land rover defender was incredibly fun to drive it's like driving a tank down country lanes um i would say that the tents, while fantastic and high-spec Swedish tarpaulin, they were quite noisy in the high winds.

It was basically like sleeping inside a kettle. It was quite windy. Yeah. And you were in quite an exposed place. Yes, I was in a field near the sea in Southwold. Okay, Southwold. Yeah. I know Southwold.

What are you pulling that face for? It's because we've been to Southwold. Okay, Southwold. Yeah. I know Southwold's... What are you pulling that face for, Eve? It's because we've been to Southwold. We couldn't get served in a chippy in Southwold. That was my abiding memory. Eve made a PTSD face there. Well, no, because it was about... We ended up... It was Southwold, wasn't it?

Yeah. We'd been to the Latitude Festival. Yes. As a group. And we're looking for some sustenance afterwards. And, yeah, just couldn't... Also, Southwold is quite a lead lead character as a location in a very spooky PD James book children of men and I've

never been able to think of South Ward in quite the same way since anyway if you're going to take you rooftop tent camping there then well I don't know this was obviously the item is about Land Rover Defenders or about this rooftop camping both it's about the landy camping that i did which is the land of camping is this becoming very fashionable it will be when you've made it fashionable no it is becoming because it used to be a bit of a thing it's been a bit of a thing in africa and australia and places where it's a lot safer to camp off the ground so you don't get eaten by a lion yeah um obviously not that many lions in south but there were some pigs nearby and some goats.

So, you know, could have been dangerous. You're building up the tension here, but it's not the Serengeti, love, is it? It's not the Serengeti. No. But it is becoming a bit more of a thing because people like to go wild camping a bit more and sort of go...

I wasn't wild camping. No. I was next to a glamping pod where they let me use the hot showers. Yeah, OK. So, yeah. I mean, and I also needed to have my hair dried for the pictures with the labradors so right you know this is so times magazine it's just so you had a lovely time yeah uh the camping was great sleeping inside the tent on the top of the so you did actually sleep yes i've got a picture for you i'll show you on my phone. This isn't going to work very well on the podcast, is it? No, we'll still do it.

But I'm going to show you and maybe you could paint a picture with your words. Oh, God. I often find this sort of thing is... I'm not really a commentator because I've been tried in that department and I can't do it. Sorry, I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.

You haven't had any commentators on state occasions. I haven't, no. Because it used to consist of, and here they come. There they are there's that so i will say the two things that would improve it was not not not high winds yeah and also uh we had to put these things up my friend and i who um we're both under five foot five yeah and there was only a teeny tiny step out of the two steps. So thank goodness we did have a husband with us who was six foot two to do it.

Menace is useful at times. Really useful. So my note would be either you need a tall man or a tall woman would also be fine. Or a bigger ladder. And what's it like to drive the Defender? Really fun. Is it? Yeah, I loved it.

Is it a manual? It is a manual. A big, long, sticky manual. Yeah, loved it. Very satisfying. Incredibly satisfying. The fourth gear crunched a bit. I big, long, sticky manual. Ooh. Yeah, loved it. Very satisfying. Incredibly satisfying. The fourth gear crunched a bit. I really enjoyed that.

Yeah. Yeah, loved it. I mean, I drove it like a nana, obviously, about 35 miles an hour. I think that's probably... Did you keep the speed limit? Yeah, and it's worth a lot of money. And I, yeah, didn't really want to lose my deposit or, since they'd lent it to me for the weekend, ruin their baby.

OK, well, I bet you didn't. I didn't. OK. Second sound. Look, thanks for all the fantastic emails. What we're going to do is tomorrow record an email special. That's right, isn't it? I'm looking to my executive here.

And so that will encompass the brilliant emails we've had because there are just far too many to squeeze in. Ruthie's been back in touch. She's our regular stateside correspondent. She's got a story about her first open casket funeral in the United States. I think we will do that. We've also had a lot of people saying,

you must try to talk. To be fair, though, I think everyone's trying to talk to her. So this woman, Jasmine Paris, who has completed the toughest race in the world, 100-mile course that includes 60,000 feet of gradients, double the height of Everest, and has got to be completed in 60 hours. She is the British ultra runner and mother of two, Jasmine Parris, first woman to have ever completed this thing.

So this is amazing. I didn't know anything about the Barclays Marathons until Friday afternoon when I was driving the Defender with my mate who runs ultra marathons because she is one of those nutters. And she was telling, she was watching Jasmine Paris's progress via this one man who tweets from Tennessee about how everyone's doing on this course. And my friend was getting very excited because no woman had ever got that far. I mean, this course is bonkers. It's five loops, about 100 miles at least. And it's a kind of scramble, isn't it? It's a scramble, yeah. So the reason it happened, it was set up by this man, Laz Lake, who,

if you're near a computer, please Google him because he's quite an extraordinary looking man. And he was inspired by the prison break of James Earl Ray, who is the man who shot Martin Luther King. He was held in a prison in Tennessee. And when he escaped from it, he only made it 12 miles because it was basically the countryside equivalent of sort of shark infested waters. So he was inspired to start this incredibly tough marathon, which he now does every year. When you apply, only about 50, 40 people get the chance to take part. And you're just kind of chosen at random. You have to write a letter saying

why I should be allowed to run in the Barclay essay with a £1.27 penchant fee. If you get accepted, you get a letter of condolence and then you have to bring an additional fee which is things like white socks or a car registration plate. There's no time for the starting time. You're just told to turn up somewhere and you get an hour's notice. A man blows a

conch shell and then Laszlo lights a cigarette and then you're off. So it's completely bonkers in every way and incredibly tough and Jasmine is the first woman ever to have completed it. Only 20 people have ever finished this and it's been going since 1988, 86.

Here's an email from Amy in Manchester. Jasmine is 40 years 40 years old mother of two works as a vet near edinburgh she previously set a record for a different endurance event listen to this 268 miles over the pennines she was stopped okay she stopped occasionally to express breast milk along the way okay it's at that point you just think no i'm a beaten woman. So many women have been rooting for Jasmine, says Amy, and we are overjoyed at her success this year. She's made history and she is a true inspiration. I don't imagine she has a clue how many women have been frantically waiting on updates from the one person, Keith Dunn, allowed to tweet from the internet. Yes, Keith. Good old Keith.

She is an absolute wonder, says Amy in Manchester. Well, look, we'd love to talk to Jasmine, but as I said, I think everybody would absolutely love to talk to Jasmine. Absolutely. But congratulations to her.

What an achievement. Are you inspired to take up ultra running, Jane? No, but I do admire... Listen, I registered for the Our Better Health... Is it Our Future Health? Our Future Health,

the NHS campaign, and went for my initial check up You have to supply loads of information It's an NHS project And they basically mine you for data Which they can use to plot The health of the nation as we go forward And if I'm honest I was slightly worried about my cholesterol

But it was all good I was very pleased So you're not going all good oh yeah yeah so that that's that I was very pleased so you're not going to do ultras but you did register for some blood tests I just want to know because we've mentioned this before that I've been for my initial checkup in a basement at Boots it's a little bit ad hoc but it's a very nice young woman who did it and um I'm all clear the cholesterol is looking good I mean listen no one lives forever I get it but um whatever I'm doing she just said you know that lovely way to keep doing it just keep doing it so i celebrated by going to zara home and getting some scented candles

you know how to live don't you to reward yourself i did i literally rewarded myself i looked at donuts but i thought no i'm not that sort of person no just keep the cholesterol keep the cholesterol down keep it where it is keep doing what you're doing. I have to say, it won't surprise you to know that no one's ever told me to keep doing what I'm doing on any level. Well, you registered for our future health. Stop that immediately. Oh, dear. I mean, actually, to be serious just for a second,

Libby is one of a number of people who have emailed about the Princess of Wales. And her take actually is, we've had the Princess of Wales in her take actually is we've had the Princess of Wales in the news of late for obvious reasons and I've tried to prepare myself for getting irate when I hear her being referred to as Kate Middleton. I find it totally

disrespectful. In official terms, she is always referred to as Catherine, so unless you know her personally, don't call her Kate. Alright Libby. You might be fighting a bit of a losing battle there, Libby. I think you are. Do you know, is it partly, and I'm not a newspaper person,

that Kate just fits in the headlines? It's two of the characters in headlines. So that's it, really, I'm afraid. Yeah, we can get a lot more words on if we call her Kate. It's a practical thing. Yeah, sorry about that. Just change people's names. But, you know, obviously, yes, people are talking about her.

Well, actually, I hope they've stopped talking about her now and just give her some peace. Yes, absolutely. There was quite a few messages about Fee's interview with Gino Di Campio last week. Yes, he's a popular fella. Popular fella. Some choice words from Michelle.

What did she say? She said that she really enjoyed Fee's perseverance. She said some things about gina that i'm not gonna say on this podcast she did she basically not like him she wasn't effusive in her praise no no didn't cover him in glory in fairness condescending was a word she used with some other words mingled in mingled in all right um i think the point was that gino uh he did appear to have, I think we'll call it a lifestyle that's enviable.

Yeah. With an extraordinary policy of just going off on his own. Not working for half a year. For six months. I sort of, I think it's great. I think it's the manner in which it was delivered, possibly. But anyway, Deb says, please, please, could we have an interview with Mrs. DeCampo?

Well, I think that, and again, if she's available and wants to email us, it's janeandfeeattimes.radio. We will most certainly think about it. Also, emails too from WASPy women. And again, I think what we'll do with the WASPy women is we'll put those to Adam Shaw next Monday when I'll pass these emails along to make sure that Adam gets them

so that he and Fi can talk about waspy women on our personal finance slot on a Monday afternoon. That's Easter Monday of next week because I get it. I do understand why so many people, so many women are furious about this. I'm actually startled by how unpleasant

some men are and not just some men, some people are about these women. They're really, they're not, not men, some people are about these women. They're really, they're not, not everybody's a fan, are they? No. It's quite, I'm quite surprised. Got a lot of pushback. A great deal of pushback.

And when I was on Women's Hour, it was a subject we covered a lot. And yeah, I think you can say how come they didn't know. But as somebody has said, somebody sent us today the adverts that were put out to try to alert women to the fact that their pension age was changing, and the adverts were truly ridiculous. They were terrible. And also, there are a cohort of women who really were,

they had their hands full with any number of other responsibilities at the time, and I am quite prepared to believe that some of them genuinely did not get the message. Also, even if you haven't got your hands particularly full, you could suffer with something that I have, which is official document blindness, which is when anything official arrives, usually a bill or something about my pension or my mortgage or basically anything financial,

I have an inability to open it or look at it until I'm in trouble, basically. It might be a bit too late. Yeah. I know. To my shame, only since I've been divorced have I really taken responsibility for that sort of thing. And that's a bit pathetic. Oh, I mean, ODB, it's a problem.

It is. I mean, I'm single. I've got absolutely no excuses. Nobody is going to look at it for me. Why don't you go home tonight and make a new start, Jane? Yep, that's exactly what I want to do on a Monday night. Just look at my finances. Make a new start.

Yeah, then I might register for some blood tests. Well, listen, I've tried to sell you my lifestyle and you're not interested. Can I mention this email from Lou who is picking up on something. I don't know that I heard the beginning of this thread but she says she is too is alarmed horrified and bewildered by the current options for the next American president was that something you were talking about last week maybe sure um

she said my Lou says my attention was recently brought to Gavin Newsom the governor of California have you heard of him uh while nobody's, he seems like a seriously credible candidate to lead the country. And I can't understand why Democrats are keeping him in reserve. People, what are you waiting for? The mother of all rainy days is already right here, says Lou. Newsom is your brolly. Deploy him. I think it's a really good point, Lou. And I did live in the US for a decade and I'm a big Gavin Newsom fan. He's been brilliant. What is he at the moment? He's governor of California. It's just, it's a very different situation over there. And I think one of the things that often isn't explained to us as Brits

is that it's so hierarchical in a way that I know our political situation is hierarchical, but they don't have anything like the 1922 committee where people can express, you know, votes of no confidence in a leader and try and oust them. The staff running the White House right now is the presidential staff. It's not the party staff. It's not the civil service. It is Biden's administration. And they are there to prop him up. So there's nobody in that process to really challenge him or to say to him, are you really sure going for another four years is the best for the country, is the best for the party? They don't have those kind of inbuilt challenges.

It is one man with an enormous amount of centralised power. It's just completely unilateral power that he holds. It's huge. I mean, they call themselves the democracy. It's not actually that democratic in lots of ways. No, that's a good point. Although the last couple of weeks, we haven't heard too much about declining Joe Biden, have we? No, that's because he's been recovering from that speech he did a few weeks ago. He's probably having a big, long nap. Sorry, that's a terrible thing to say. But he did perform really well at State of the Nation.

We haven't heard from him since. We haven't heard from him since. You might actually be onto something there. We were talking, Fee and I, about what it's like to be celebrity adjacent or to have a sibling who's done incredibly well for themselves. And Claire says, my husband's brother was a professional footballer at Chelsea for a decade in the 90s. And early in our relationship, I noticed that whenever we were out,

people were more interested in what his brother was doing than him. Always asked about ex first. My husband was often introduced as ex's brother, never even saying his name. My husband was always very gracious and always answered politely, but I did see his frustration growing. 20 years on and it is still happening. What's ex up to now? Before even asking about my husband's life. This reminded me a little of my own experience as a twin growing up. When entering a room, we were always introduced as

the twins. It's painful not to be recognised as an individual with your own voice and personality, rather than being in somebody else's shadow. I do adore my sister, and we're very close, but this frustrated us both. It wasn't until i went to uni that i felt the shadow disappear although a little bizarrely also missed my shadow having been conditioned to live with it for 18 years she says thank you for keeping me company over the last year helping me to transition from a global senior corporate role into full-time retirement i'm happier and healthier than ever and enjoying giving back to my local community, grounded in reality and a world away from

corporate politics. Meetings, bloody meetings. You make me laugh and keep me sane in my male-only household. Two young adult sons and a male cat with the very butch name of George. Claire adds a PS which I won't read out but I've taken note of. Claire, thank you very much.

She went to school with someone I know, let's put it that way. I do think it must be very hard if your sibling is incredibly famous. And I, but also, I have also wondered if your sibling is incredibly famous and successful, why do you go into the same profession as them? A friend of mine is married to the brother of an incredibly successful musician. The brother is also a musician and we obviously for a very long time referred to him as a famous musician's brother

I just, why would you do that? Wouldn't you pick something else? I also once went on a press trip with Seamus Heaney's son who was a writer. I mean you'd just pick something else, wouldn't you? Oh you really would. But it's extremely difficult that, isn't it? I always feel very sorry for, well, Paul McCartney has a son,

James McCartney, who is, you know, he's a singer-songwriter. As you say, that's just really tough, isn't it? It's very tough. Really, really tough. Probably not helped in that case by the fact that his two sisters are both incredibly good, one at photography and one at fashion. Yeah, that's tough, isn't it? Because let's face it, most of us don't especially stand out.

I'm not looking at you, Joan. Although I am at the moment because we're doing a podcast. But yeah, we'd love more tales of sibling rivalry. Not even rivalry. No, it's not rivalry because it's more than that. Unequal levels of success yeah fortunately

no other Mulkerrins has tried to do middling journalistic jobs before oh no no no darling you said middling I'm not going to allow that

you've just done that Land Rover Defender thing heaven's sake know your worth it's true I can drive at 35 miles an hour through some country lanes

and you can yes be very proud of myself. And you can steer a manual Land Rover Defender. Right, a quick one from Isabel, who's in Perth, talking about good deaths. I think you'll be interested in an Aussie called the Coffin Confessor. Bill Edgar is his name, and he crashes funerals for a living on behalf of the deceased to deliver their wishes, both the good and the bad. Not surprisingly, Bill is the first only person in the world to create this profession as a paid job. Though he does occasionally do stuff pro bono.

How does he know? I want to know so much more about this. How does Bill know their wishes? Well, they've obviously hired him before their demise and then the agreement is that it'll rock up on the sad occasion and let rip wow only in australia yeah i'm impressed um this is a lovely email from lee uh who says she's been listening to the funeral chat and wanted to share her experience mum and i nursed my very non-religious dad two years ago through a brain tumour which dad named m McGregor and talked about it like it had its own personality. Dad was extremely strong throughout the whole wicked illness,

asking the oncologist, should I buy a turkey this year or not? And then turning and telling mum and I, OK, so I'm almost at the end of my lollipop. They don't have a big family, says Lee, and no real close relatives. Really only her mum and her. But mum and dad have a mountain of amazing friends and neighbours that I consider more like my family. So mum and I decided as dad wasn't one for big pomp and morbid funerals with wearing black and sad faces and hymns, we shocked and surprised their friends as we didn't have a funeral for dad. Instead we hired

a local hall for an afternoon, laid on a buffet and I played a Spotify playlist through their speakers and decorated the hall with flowers. We invited mum and dad's immediate friends and we celebrated dad. No sad faces, I made a short speech, more to thank people for coming and supporting mum and dad and I throughout the tricky time. Both mum and I said it was the best decision we had made. We got home at tea time with a wee doggy bag from the buffet, had a glass of wine and didn't feel like we'd been emotionally through a spin cycle. Dad would have loved the get together. We'd done him proud. And I'm sure a few people were a bit disgruntled.

But mum and I named them the local ambulance chasers that enjoy a good morn and a hand drink. I actually think it's I've been to. Unfortunately, I've been to a few. Those people do exist. They do exist. I've been to some funerals lately with both my parents. And every time we go, my dad says, just remember, I don't want any of this.

I don't want any of this. I just want a party, maybe a bike ride with all the people he loves. But he just absolutely doesn't want a funeral in any way. Well, that's really interesting. I've recorded an interview today with Kate Botley, which we're going to play out on Thursday afternoon, which is Maundy Thursday.

Obviously, Kate is a vicar. She's a very famous vicar on Gogglebox and much, much more. And she has a really interesting way of approaching her mother's death, which I'll leave until people will hear it on Thursday. But I just thought it was a really positive little initiative that she came up with after her mum died. And I think other people will enjoy hearing about that. So that's a bit later in the week.

A very quick word before we get on to the guest because I can feel that slightly negative energy which I think is what the young people call it from my colleague my executive colleague young Evelyn over there Michael Moe's doctor doctor he's a doctor Michael Mosley is on today talking about how to get a decent night's kip Jane but before we go there but Julia says it's my first email your food waste piece with gina de campo inspired it choose what you use is one tactic however food storage knowledge is another the wonderful nancy burt whistle inspires me to wrap carrots and celery amongst other things in damp tea towels another use of your british golf

gubbins soon to be relaunched range says julia then just store them in the fridge salad drawer they last for weeks and weeks and weeks nancy has oodles of easy and cost-effective tips she's super and will be a great future guest good tip that julia thank you very much do you sleep well no i, I sleep terribly. I've never been a great sleeper. Take us through an average night. Not leaving out a time. Everywhere you are, we just start. No, well, exactly.

I knew as soon as I said that, that was a silly move. When I get into bed, sometimes I go to sleep relatively easily. I wake up at four quite a lot. I wake up at five quite a lot. And then about 5.30, then I think, oh God, I've got to get up at six anyway. So do you get up or do you just lie down? No, I get up at six and mutter a bit. Yeah, I've never been a great sleeper, but the waking up at the four is sort of new-ish. Don't talk about my hormones.

You know I'm not doing the menopause. We've talked about this. It's not on brand. It doesn't seem like fun. And I'm just not going to do it. I'm just going to say, I'm just going to put it out there that I think the worst time in the world

is 3.17. Oh, yeah. Weirdly, you wake up a lot at 3.17. Anyway, perhaps other people will disagree with that but I'm just going to put it out there I think anywhere in the 3's

is quite bad anywhere in the 3's unless you're coming in of course which over the course of the weekend I am like hell

so here's our guest Dr Michael Mosley now he has turned his attention to sleep he's done fasting he's done tackling diabetes by cutting your calories he's done fasting. He's done tackling diabetes by cutting your calories. He's done all sorts. The 5-2 diet book, that was him as well. But his new

book is about sleep and it's called Four Weeks to Better Sleep, a life-changing plan for deep sleep, improved brain function and feeling great. I asked Michael if he'd ever struggled with getting a decent kip himself. I have. And that's why I wanted to write a book. Now, most of us will occasionally have a cracking night's sleep for reasons we can't fully explain. And then occasionally there'll be a night where, for example, I woke up this morning at 11 minutes past five, worrying about something, I still don't remember what.

There was a quite tentative bird song. I lay awake for about 20 minutes, and then I woke up again at a dead-on 6.30. That's not a bad night's sleep, is it, for somebody in middle age? Not at all. I mean, one of the things I worry about is the fact that there is so much information out there about sleep now that people are becoming obsessed by it.

And they're actually staying awake, worrying about the fact that they're not going to sleep and their brain is rotting and all sorts of other things. So that's why the book is all about solutions. I obviously deal with the problems initially and also my own sleep problems because I used to be able to sleep anywhere, any place, any time.

I have slept in telephone kiosks when they still existed. Planes, once I actually slept in a graveyard. So I used to be able to be a great sleeper. Then we had kids. Then work got stressful and about the age of 42, it set in. It's typically three in the morning, bang, I'm awake. You know, sometimes when you look at your teenagers, when my teenagers are now not in their teens anymore,

but you'd go in to see them at about 11.30 in the morning just to check that they were still breathing and they're lying there with their hands in the air like starfish on the bed, the sleep of, if not quite the innocent, the sleep of the untroubled. And that's a wonderful thing, but the plain fact is real life intervenes and it can't keep on doing it in your 30s and 40s and beyond, can you? No, well, the thing is there are hormonal shifts happening as well.

The reason that teenagers, they start off being larks as young children and then they become owls and that's actually driven um some people argue for evolutionary reasons because we're hunter-gatherers once upon a time someone had to be awake in the middle of the night and nature allocated that to the teenagers so they become sleep shifted and then life intervenes they have to go to work and things like that and suddenly they're having to get up at six in the morning like you or 6 30 and that can be quite brutal the only thing i'd say is as you approach middle age and later you tend to revert to being a lark again so your sleep problems were restricted they're now over you sleep okay much better because i wasn't really aware what the problem is i've made quite a few programmes about sleep, but I've never been in the sleep lab.

So that's what happened when I was in Australia last year. They gave me the full gamut. And what they discovered is I have not one, but two sleep problems. One of them is sleep apnea. Now, you're probably familiar with that. Snoring is... Sleep apnea is basically... You start choking.

What happens is your tongue falls back when you're lying on your back and it blocks your airways. So your brain wakes you up and this happens multiple times. Turned out it was happening to me 20 to 30 times an hour. And no wonder I felt shattered during the day.

And I was completely unaware of it because I don't fit any of the characteristics apart from being male and older. Not overweight, nothing like that. But it turns out that I had quite severe sleep apnea. And that was a big shock. I know that your partner is a doctor, Claire. Did she not dig you in the ribs? Well, that's what Claire said afterward. She said, look, I've been telling you for some time you need to go get checked out. But obviously, I didn't hear her. So one of the things we then looked at there was

approaches. I didn't fancy CPAP, which is that sort of Darth Vader mask with the, you know, the tank next door pumping away. So I went for something called MAD, a mandibular advancement device, which shoves your jaw forward. And because your tongue is attached to your jaw, that stops it flopping back and covering the airways. And that seemed to effectively cure me. So that problem has gone? Yes. Can anyone get hold of one of those? Yeah, mainly dentists and things like that,

other people who provide those. And obviously the dentists of Australia were completely thrilled when the series went out. But suddenly there was a huge demand. The other thing you need to do is try and not sleep on your back. The simplest way of doing that, apparently, is to sew a tennis ball into the back of your pajamas. It also reduces snoring. There are devices,

for example, we were looking at a device which detects, you put it around your neck, it detects when you're lying on your back and gives you a little buzz, a little stimulus which says roll over onto your side. So these two are techniques which are very effective for both snoring and sleep apnea. And does your partner sleep well every night? No. No, okay. So Claire is a parasomniac and that means that she walks, sleepwalks and sleeptalks.

So about once a week she gets out of bed, she's still deeply asleep, but she's on a mission. And this mission varies, but quite often it is to look for patients she's used to be gerbils these days it's patients patients under the bed patients under the cupboard and she's a doctor we need to exactly so she wakes me up and says michael we've got to find the patient so she's not content just to go look at herself she wakes me up and we look because i can't reason with her so i think both of us would be absolutely startled if we found a patient in the cupboard but so far that has not happened so let's just go at the

heart of your family life now i love this um she's looking for patients she isn't awake but she's woken you up yes to help her look for the non-existent patients she is convinced are in the house absolutely so there's a lot of this is, it's genetic, there's inherited parasomnia. I actually met somebody while researching the book who was a sleep driver. She would wake up at work with no idea how she'd got there. That's terrifying. That is terrifying.

So the only solution for that was for her partner to hide the car keys. Is that really uncommon? Tell me it is. It is. I mean, sleep sleep walking sleep talking are quite common sleep eating um all sorts of strange sleep things happen uh but i have to say yeah she's the only person i've ever met who's a sleep driver so uh what what is the average person to do to guarantee or you can't guarantee give yourself the best chance of a decent night's sleep

which is i know you're keen to emphasize can, can be anything from, what, six to seven hours. This figure of eight is maybe something we should park? Yeah, I mean, it's basically when you wake up, do you feel good? In the day, do you feel good? Do you fall asleep watching television while out at theatre? I saw one bloke who was asleep at the wheel of the car. You know, he'd turned red and he was asleep with his head on the wheel. So if that's your,

then you're not getting enough sleep. There is actually a test where you go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, you set the alarm for 10 minutes. Do you fall asleep within 10 minutes? If so, you are sleep deprived. You think it's a good thing to fall asleep straight away. It's not.

It's a sign you're really sleep deprived. So I would say, obviously, buy my book because that contains the solutions moving away from that michael what about those of us who can possibly possibly think about buying a book at some point but just want to improve our quality of life uh first of all find out why what problem you have because if you have sleep apnea then everything else doesn't matter it doesn't matter what whether you're applying sleep hygiene you've got eye masks on, dark rooms, quiet, and all that sort of stuff.

It's not going to make any difference. If you don't have a partner, how will you know whether or not... There are apps, you can record it. So that's one condition. The other is insomnia. Three different types of insomnia. The one is do you struggle to go to sleep at night? So you go to bed at 10, but you're still awake at 1.

And that is basically called onset insomnia. That responds best to bed at 10, but you're still awake at one. And that is basically called onset insomnia. That responds best to bright light in the morning. So you go out and expose yourself to bright light. Yeah, first thing. First thing. And you kind of store it. What happens is that resets your body clock. So that your problem, if you have that is you have a body clock, which is shifted to later. So rather than, you know, being at deep sleep around four in the morning, you're probably in deep sleep at six in the morning. So bright light is the best way we know to shift the body clock. Conversely, if you're someone like me who wakes up at three in the morning, or indeed even like you described five

in the morning, your best bet there is to have bright light lasting at night. It's the exact opposite because you have the opposite problem. Your body clock is running fast. So I actually had myself tested and I had to swallow this pill which measures my core body temperature and that is a measure of how your body clock is running. Turns out that most people,

it should be at its lowest point at 4.30. With me, it's 1 a.m. So first of all, you've got to work out what your problem is. Do you have sleep apnea? Do you have insomnia? And then you start applying things like this. Do women and men differ hugely in terms of sleep and quality of it? It depends on the age. So typically, women get a bit more sleep according to the survey, it's about 30 minutes more sleep. Maybe they're just more honest about what sleep they're getting.

But they feel less refreshed. And so rates of insomnia are very similar sleep apnea is much less common in women until the menopause and then after the menopause it's just as common in women mainly because of weight gain and also hormonal changes right and and people who've never had children so never had that nighttime waking and that sense of responsibility which means that you're never fully asleep and i'm convinced that i'm still not yeah they haunt you okay yeah they do they do um are they different is that does their sleep actually stay reasonably good throughout their lives i've never seen a study done on it would be a very interesting thing to find out but i suspect like everyone, as you get older,

your sleep drive becomes less consistent. There is lots of evidence that as you get older, your sleep is more fragmented and you get less deep sleep. That's very clear from the use of sleep trackers and data from that. And that could be, again, why poor sleep is associated with increased risk of dementia. Because it's when you're in deep sleep that these channels in your brain open up.

But what it does is fluid washes through your brain and gets rid of the toxins that have accumulated there. Now, I know that you've mentioned weight gain as a proper risk factor for sleep apnea. You've written The 5-2 Diet, which was your hugely successful book. There's another tome about 800, is it 800? It's the fast 800, yeah.

The fast 800, which means that you eat 800 calories a day. Indeed, for up to 12 weeks. And people say that's ludicrous, but this programme is actually being rolled out across the NHS. 5,000 people are currently doing it because the evidence is so overwhelming. That what? This really good way of losing weight and keep it off, both in the short, medium and the long term. And it's particularly being used for people with type 2 diabetes.

And that's where the NHS are using it. But it's also, Oxford University did a study and they compared it to standard weight loss advice. And this was vastly superior. And this was in people who, not diabetic, but who were significantly overweight and with things like hypertension or high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Right. I mean, I've got to be honest with you, I couldn't think of anything worse than surviving on 800 calories a day. It gets better. It really gets easier. It's 800 to 1,000 if that makes you feel any better. Marginally, but not much. I wonder whether there's certainly been, for most of us civilians, it's difficult to bumble our way through this environment.

And I'm neither fat nor thin, never really have been either of the two things. Have a reasonably good diet, sleep okay. My parents are still alive. They're in reasonably good health. Isn't there something to be said for everything in moderation? Don't drink like a fish. Make sure you walk around and occasionally have a fry up. Surely I'm not doing that badly.

I think you're not doing badly, but people's idea of moderation is normally what they are doing. So for some people, moderation means a pizza every evening and a large, you know, a litre of Coke. So it doesn't mean anything, which is the problem as a piece of advice. And we know that the advice you often get, you know, if you want to lose weight,

you know, do more exercise, eat less. That is true in the limited sense that if you go to a tennis coach and say, I want to be better at tennis, they say score more points than the other side. It is true, but utterly, utterly useless as a piece of advice, which is why I wrote things like the Fast 800, because it is a very specific program. And it is based on real science. And as I said, there have been a large number of big clinical trials which shown that this approach, if you want to lose weight, if you have a reason to lose weight, because you have a metabolic problem, you have a fatty liver,

or you have type 2 diabetes or you're pre-diabetic, I think you need a good reason to want to do anything. But again, very effective if you don't want to have sleep apnea. And the intermittent fasting thing, which I think this week people are beginning to say, well, perhaps that's not for everybody. It's not the best idea for certain people. No, well, this was something called time-restricted eating,

which is different. The thing I talk about is cutting calories a few days a week. That was the original 5-2 diet. This is time-restricted eating. And it was a study from China where they looked at people who on two separate occasions over an eight-year period kept a diary of when they ate. So this study has been absolutely ridiculed by leading experts who say we can glean nothing

from this. We don't know why they chose those two days. We don't know if it was representative. I've looked into it, understandably, because I'm interested in intermittent fasting. I am absolutely certain this is garbage in, garbage out. So intermittent fasting might be good. There are hundreds of studies, literally hundreds of studies, which have shown the benefits of intermittent fasting, which is why I was somewhat gobsmacked.

And obviously it's newsworthy because it says the exact opposite of what 120 other studies have said. But it doesn't mean it's right. So, okay, just for Joe and Joanna average, if we finish eating at 7 o'clock at night, is it genuinely better for us not to have our breakfast until 9 the next morning? It's not the breakfast, it's actually the dinner that seems to matter. It's when you stop eating your calories. My advice, which is the simplest, is try to avoid eating within two to three hours of going to bed.

The studies basically show it's not delaying your breakfast, it's bringing your evening meal forward and avoiding late-night snacks, which seems to be where the benefit lies. In which case, why aren't the Spanish all obese? Well, they have high rates of obesity in Spain as well and they have high rates of heart disease and things like that. So, yeah, unfortunately, the Spaniards are not a great example.

We talk about the Mediterranean diet and the Greeks and Spaniards and Italians who were once sort of opposed to boys and girls, they're not. Now they're on the junk American diet. So if you really want to find a country who do it, it is Finland or it is Sweden. They're the closest countries in Europe to doing what you would regard as a traditional med-trained diet.

They call it a Nordic diet. Dr Michael Mosley. So there you go. The answer to almost everything I find in life is Finland and Sweden, Jane. And once again, they turn out to be the places where people eat the best food at the best times. And I bet they're all bloody sound asleep as well

every night from 11 till 7. They're all sleeping soundly across Scandinavia, the lucky sods. There's just no justice, is there? No. I mean, my rooftop tents were Swedish, so, you know, very comfortable. Yeah.

The tents themselves are incredibly comfortable. How was your sleep? Pretty good, actually, this weekend. There you go. Yeah. Right. I did wake up at half past five needing Pretty good, actually, this weekend. There you go. Yeah. Right. I did wake up at half past five needing a wee, though, and being in a rooftop tent.

What were the arrangements? Well, I had to get down a ladder and scuttle across a field. Was it light? Yeah, it was actually quite nice. Any animals? No, no lions, no tigers, no goats, no pigs. It's Southworld. Just a gentle reminder there.

So the book club is up and running again. And your new book is A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi. A Dutiful Boy, a memoir of secrets, lies and family love. We wanted something set in Britain because I don't think we've ever had a book set in Britain in the book club so far. It's by a man. And it's about growing up in a devout Muslim household. And then, well, frankly, everything changes. It's a really interesting read.

It takes you, certainly if you're me, to places you haven't been. And I think it's really interesting. So give it a whirl. It's out in paperback now. You can certainly get it in the library. And we'll discuss it in about a month's time in a Book Club podcast. So that's your duty there. It's also worth saying, while I'm with a Janeane there's a wonderful link coming up here jane because on friday fee

and i were we were actually really busy i was doing a load of washing and doing some ironing and i went shopping as well but i also found time to upload our interview with virgin radio presenter jane middlemiss it's just the latest of our monthly series of only interviews in the building. You can only listen to these if you've got an Apple iPhone and you also subscribe to The Times. Now, if that's a bit of a fix for you, well, there is a handy guide online if you're struggling to download it. Just email janeandfee at times.radio if you get stuck.

Jane Middlemiss told us all about her career, including her years spent finding herself. She practised yoga on the banks of the Ganges. And she also talked to us about her first ever white knuckle experience presenting on BBC Radio 1 for the very first time. He's a massive party. He was amazing. He was amazing at booking acts. And he was sort of like he was my sort of like I was doing a show on radio one called top of the pops on the radio so it was pre-recorded so the first live time they gave me him as the producer and it was doing midnight till three in the morning because you know they put you on at that time

to sort of like you know let you find your feet and at five to midnight my producer still wasn't there and he rocked up. It's the 90s. He rocks up at about two minutes to go, going, darling, I've just come from the Met Bar. I nearly got Michelle to come in. I'm like, seriously, can you sit down? He's talking about Michelle Gale at this point.

I'm like, I'm literally going to knock him out. I'm terrified. And I just have to open the mic and go for it. That's Jane Middlemiss. She's got a great story to tell. And you can hear it by downloading that interview now. Search for Off Air on the Apple podcast app and log in using a Times digital subscription. So have you done yoga by the Ganges? No, actually, no. I've done Pilates by the Thames. It's not quite the same, is it? Well, technically,

I do Pilates relatively close to the Thames. I mean, I was a couple of miles away, but yeah. Yeah but yeah yeah i'm probably about a mile and a half no it doesn't have any ring to it naked yoga i've done naked yoga yes you would okay well we'll try and hear about that tomorrow if i can find time but i don't think i will be able to uh right uh join us then um it's always good to have you jane thank you for being here thank you for having me i appreciate it tomorrow's guest is adi adepitan um if you have time between now and then to watch his documentary, which is on all four, I urge you to do it. It is called Whites Only, Adi's Extremist Adventure. And it's about his week in South Africa's extraordinarily controversial whites only town of Arania. It's a weird place. And you can probably imagine what it was like for addy

uh but well worth a watch and we talk about that tomorrow 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 do that. A lady listener. I know, sorry.