Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Did Trump go to school? (with Anthony Scaramucci)

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

In today's episode, Jane has a bone to pick with Fi, whose new glasses bear an uncanny resemblance to a pair Jane was once mercilessly teased for wearing. And Jane speaks to Anthony Scaramucci on his new book 'The Little Book of Bitcoin'. The next book club pick has been announced! 'Eight Months on Ghazzah Street' is by Hilary Mantel. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's quite a firm thing, isn't it? Yes. Well, yes. Anyway, that concludes our section of oral porn with Jake. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses,

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and live updates on the Times app and website. Don't miss out. Visit thetimes.com forward slash subscribe with Google to claim your offer today. 18 plus, new customers only. Offer ends midnight April the 14th. T's and C's apply. The Long Work Day continues. Have you finished your chocolate button?

There's a horrible, horrible, horrible, claggy sounds coming out of Garvey Corner. Mmm that was so nice. It's one of those giant buttons with mint. I'm not sure about the mint. Well I didn't think I'd like them but they're good aren't they Hannah? I just like, I like a classic. Well I don't mind the classic and I didn't think I'd get used to mint but I have. I'll tell you what I can't do and that's chocolate in the morning.

Oh no, unless it's Christmas Day. No. Or Easter Sunday. Oh I suppose we're just after midday. I've had my lunch. Have you? Have you? Oh okay. Another of my super food specials. Really the only problem is I do get very hungry. You'll be back on the large baguettes by the end of next week. I do love carbs, that's my problem. So I've been packing my Tupperware over today. It was chickpeas. Chickpeas and rocket and peppers and chilli and red onion.

I mean lovely, another smashing bit of mackerel and really delicious, genuinely tasty, but somehow not as filling. No. It was just a handbaguette. No, it's not. So when I went home last night there were unpleasant scenes. Just stuff it in, rip it off and stuff it in. Dora was looking great. Oh, you could see her thinking, God, thank goodness I'm not human.

Anyway, we've all been there, haven't, and you get back from work and you just open the fridge. Yeah. That's right, okay. We've got what we call the drawer of joy at home, which is a whole drawer in the kitchen that is just filled with naughty, and we all literally dump our bags and go straight to the drawer of joy. Is that all ultra-processed products?

Yes, very much so. You're not allowed in the drawer of joy if you're good for the human body. So there have been times when I've tried to just put some plain rice cakes in there and they're still there six months later. There's absolutely no point at all. Hello Jane and Fian, the mum of two boys who are at a small village primary school on Dartmoor, two classes with a grand total of 27 pupils. Raising money was so hard, one of our annual favourite fundraisers was a cow splat. We used to sell a grid of 100 squares and one of the local farmers would turn a cow

in a field and yes, were the cows splat, we would measure and calculate whose square on the grid was the lucky winner of a share of the proceeds. We also moved on and did a duck splat. The duck took longer than the cow to give us a winner. It was good fun and tapped right into the children's humour. I'm now worried children should have an apostrophe too late now." I don't, no, I think maybe. I think if you were going to have an apostrophe, you've actually put it in the second mention of children in the wrong place, Caroline, big fan of the podcast. But we'll forgive you because that's just fantastic. Would you like to participate in a primary school cow

splat? That is wonderful. It's a great idea because you can imagine the children would have really, really loved that. Would have loved it. Absolutely loved it. So we'd like more of those tales from the PTA. Claire says my then three-year-old received a certificate from his nursery for making the best ghost noise. A certificate did you say? A certificate, yeah. Look it's a useful skill particularly around spooky time in October. But worthy of a certificate? I hate to be judgmental. How old was the child? Three.

Oh, you can't be nasty about a three-year-old, but nor would I ever be, obviously. But well done. Congratulations. It is one of those slightly arbitrary things that primary schools do give awards for. Well, at least we don't have the college yearbook in this country, which I've always thought just has such a cruel underbelly. So this is, explain, because I've heard of them. So when you graduate from college in America, and I don't know whether every college does this,

and my knowledge of it is actually only from TV shows and books and films, where there's always somebody flicking through the college yearbook and there are all these smiling pictures of the graduating students and then underneath it, it's most likely to make a million pounds on Wall Street, most likely to have six children, most likely to win Miss Universe and then they'll be most likely to not succeed at all and be a complete failure and end up living in a small dark hovel. But some of the, you know, most likely to predictions sometimes don't seem particularly nice. And the theme in fiction is always the person

who was deemed to be brilliant at the time, but has ended up, you know, Craig, who was incredibly handsome and good looking and ran in the football team and all of that type of stuff. Ran in it? Well, whatever you call it. Let's say he was the star striker. Yeah, exactly. In his college yearbook. But actually, when we meet him in the movie, you know, he's an out of work lumpster who

hasn't managed to leave the small towns, you know what I mean? But do you think, I mean, I'm going to ask a question now. Did Donald Trump go to school? Presumably, it's a good question. Did anybody write in his yearbook? Oh, what a good question. What was he predicted to be? Well, I mean, he just would have bought the yearbook and adopted the photo. Oh, yeah, you're right. So, yes, it wouldn't make any difference would it? Oh dear, right, okay. So we are 24 hours away, probably a bit more actually,

from our promunisterial encounter with the Trumpster, which is tomorrow isn't it? But we'll have long since gone home by the time that actually unfurls. We will, but it is a biggie. I can't think in my lifetime of covering the news, I can't think of another meeting of a leader from this country with another world leader that seems to have such a lot riding on it. And also there's something weird about this meeting, Jane, because it's like we've got a kind of pair of glasses that we've all been asked to put on at the moment, whereby all of the stuff that we know we know about Donald Trump, and we definitely knew about Donald Trump, we've put the glasses on and we're being asked to look at it through a

different prism at the moment. And I know a lot of people have developed a bit of a squint. Very good way of putting it, which does bring me onto the subject of your new glasses. Now when we, we were very fortunate to be allowed by Times Radio to cover the coronation back, I haven't forgotten, back in the May of, gosh when was that? A couple of years ago wasn't it? April last. Yeah. And I've brought my wrong glasses with me. I brought my kind of the ones that change with the sunlight. Reactor light repeats. That's it. And so I didn't intend to bring them. Certainly no requirement on the day.

It was extremely cold. Oh, it just pissed it down. And wet. It was so miserable. Absolutely awful. And I had these silly glasses on. We were sitting in some makeshift pop-up studio opposite Westminster Abbey. We were on a roof, weren't we? We were like two beleaguered pigeons. Yeah, that's true. I had to commentate with a pair of binoculars.

Yeah, oh dearie me. I was so cold, I was cold right through to my nose. Look love, it was your idea. Yeah, I know. Oh look. Yeah, okay. But I got the right royal piss taken out of me because my shades started becoming sunglasses wildly and appropriately in the weather and I look ridiculous and people said I look like the old cockney comedian Mike Reed who put in such a shift on EastEnders. Pet! I love you pet! Yes anyway but now you've got your own. So I find that we've got really, really strong lighting in the studio here because we're all about clips, we're all about social media.

Well, we're not, but the world is. We couldn't be less. So the lighting is very harsh and I've had a couple of migraines since being here, which has been really unpleasant. And for me, that kind of very, very bright spotlight has definitely triggered. So we tried lots of different things, you know, sitting in different seats and Ryan, who's our studio engineer, has turned down the lights and all that kind of stuff. But I've now got some proper migraine-helping dark glasses, which I get to wear every day but they do look a little

bit stupid. Well, you know, like one of those ladies in a fur coat who may have had a male partner, heteronormative reference, who may not necessarily have followed every rule in the book. What are you trying to say? I look like a costadel soul criminal life. Like a gangster's, slight element of gangster's mole. But you'll carry it off and look if it stops the migraines it's got to be worth it. Yeah I kind of don't care actually because I want to be able to do my job with verve and spirit not thinking I'm going to squint my way through the afternoon. So we'll see

how it goes, we'll see if it makes a difference but yeah I'm going to squint my way through the afternoon. So we'll see how it goes. We'll see if it makes a difference. But yeah, I'm going to just don't look at me today because if you're going to get the giggles. There are various moments when we're not allowed to look at each other in case there's an outbreak of mirth. So I'll be extraordinarily well behaved today. Our guest is Anthony Scaramucci, who is someone who's been, we worked for Trump, not for long, but he did. He was his White House Communications Director for a very brief period of time. They fell out pretty spectacularly. But he's a financier, essentially, runs his own investment company, and he's written a book about Bitcoin. So we're going to talk

to Anthony Scaramucci about his podcast life. I'm speaking obviously that the interview is live on the radio, so I don't know what it's going to sound like. And we'll talk to you about whether he can give us a few tips on Bitcoin. And indeed whether he's got any advice for Keir Starmer ahead of the trip. Bitcoin just petrifies me, so I won't personally be going there. No, me neither. Well, do you remember for a while in my local cost increase a store Next to the we charge you for it cash machine Yeah, there was a Bitcoin machine with the idea that you would be able to just randomly pop in for some cat litter and

Rather sad for itself tomato and pick up some Bitcoin at the same time. It didn't last very long So the machine just vanished it did same time. It didn't last very long. So the machine just vanished? It did, yep. It didn't take off. I mean I just looked at it and thought I don't know what I'd be buying. I presume I'd lose all of my money. I don't trust it yet. I just don't, I can't bring myself to trust it. Well, it'll be interesting because Anthony Scaramucci's mission is to get us all to trust it. He says it's incorruptible and it's safe and... But lots of them have just kind of gone under. Lots of them have turned out to be a scam.

That's the issue. For example, the Trump, the world's most happily married couple, Donald and Melania, they each have their own... I mean, this is the... It seems competitive. Yeah, the absurdity of it. They've both got their own meme call. It's just... Yeah, there are lots of questions. I like my notes with Winston Churchill on them. They've both got their own meme call. It's just, yeah, there are lots of questions. I like my notes with Winston Churchill on them.

Yeah. Pay for money, you can trust. So it will be well worth listening to The Mooch. One of the things that I really like about him, he does a podcast, doesn't he, about US politics with Cathy Kaye, who I think her knowledge is phenomenal. Yeah.

Do you know what, he's so polite to her, and I know that that shouldn't be something that we have to congratulate a man for in 2025 but it's really nice to listen to. You realize you don't actually hear that level of courtesy, what's the right term? Courtesy. Courtesy, thank you. Well it's not just that you can tell and you're right, I like it too, it's one of the reasons I like that podcast. He respects her and her knowledge and her experience. She respects his, but we kind of take that as a gift, don't we? You're right. It's so, in a way, it's infuriating that we should be captivated by a man who's pleasant to a woman

who's... I wonder why him and Trump didn't get on. I can't imagine. Andrew emails with some sympathy for me about my ear. And I am very grateful to you, Andrew. He says, I had exactly the same problem last year. This is one of the... The hearing in my right ear isn't very good, but rest assured I'm having them syringed on Friday.

I felt that the hearing in my one ear... No, he's got two ears. Very fortunate. I felt that my hearing in one ear was below normal. I used some drops and it just made it worse. I could hear nothing at all in that ear. The situation lasted for a few days until I decided to act. Do you want to know what he did? I do. He used a syringe full of warm water. That sounds rather erotic this. And squeezed it gently into the ear over the bath. Rather boastfully he says we happened to have a suitable syringe

because we needed one to feed a poorly guinea pig. It was absolutely ideal. It was quite large. I repeated the action several times. I couldn't believe what came out. My hearing was restored. Right, Andrew, thank you. I think I'll go see what the nurse at the surgery says first, rather than just going to the local pet shop and where I once queued behind Colin Firth, of course, and seeing if they've got a syringe that would fit both a poorly guinea pig and my ear. But there's something very touching about that. We did have a message on WhatsApp yesterday from someone who said, can you stop, don't mention earwax, it gives me, it makes me feel ill. I think of all the stuff that the body produces,

earwax is one of the least offensive. I know what you mean. It doesn't it doesn't give me the expression. The giggles. No, it doesn't. No. You just think, oh, well, that's interesting. Yeah. And because it's quite, it's quite a firm thing, isn't it? Yes. Anyway, that concludes our section of oral porn.

More on request. No, don't say that. Sorry, don't. Because poor Hannah is going to have to read through the email inbox. You just save it for your retirement and you can boost your pension on OnlyFans. This one comes in from Holly. Whenever I hear Alpacas being mentioned on the pod I tell myself I'm going to email in and then promptly forget. I am 45 after all but before the topic is retired, and don't worry we will retire Alpacas this week, I want to give a shout out and a recommendation. If you're ever in the Lake District for you, you should check out. Now just wait for this name. It's

just utterly brilliant. Total genius. Alpacalea Ever After. They're a social enterprise. They've got three sites across the lakes offering alpaca and llama feeding and walking experiences. My son and husband went on a lovely alpaca walk for my son's 14th birthday at Wynne Latter Forest, special mention to Rupert and Milky Joe. They are alpacas, not the stars. We can all follow it if we can't make it to the lakes because they are on alpacaleeverafter.co.uk. The content is brilliant, hilarious and uplifting as well as showcasing the lovely community work they do. This year I bought one of their wall calendars, see picture attached, it's the gift that keeps

on giving. We also now have one of the alpaca Christmas tree decorations. And just on the front cover there's an alpaca, I mean they just look friendly don't they? They just are joyful to look at and I just couldn't recommend strongly enough Just replacing some more difficult elements of the world on your insta feed with alpacas And miniature donkeys. There's a very nice line in miniature donkeys and the never failed to amuse Fat cats falling off things and if you can just tap on all of those feeds It's just a lovely way to wake up and a lovely way to go to sleep. Yeah well there was an adventurous cat in the news last week I don't know if you followed that one of these cats that goes on. It went to Waterloo?

Yes it had gone on a train trip yeah uh it was a I think it was a you know she was quite young but a two-year-old cat and she just sort of leaves the house and goes to the station and gets on trains. Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. I mean, Dora, the chances of her being so limited. Does she even go in the next door gardens? No. No, she doesn't really. No. Unless... Why do you think that is, Jane?

Unless I'm in the garden. She won't go in the garden, really, unless I'm sitting on a deck chair and then she sits under it. I don't know. She's... Yeah. It's hopeless. She's really, really inappropriately named, isn't she? She's not, and we have established that thing is not an explorer. Nope. Right, Cher is one of our regular correspondents in the United States. It's tough here, ladies, right now. I could go on, but I won't. It's the small things that get me through. Myself

and thousands of other Americans sent emails in at Elon's request, even though we don't work for the federal government. So this is the email that Elon sent out. If you work for the government, you had to, what was it, outline five things you'd done. The week before. And if you didn't fill it out, the threat was that that would be taken as you offering your resignation. Right, well I think this is quite a bit to fight back certainly. A kind and thoughtful person just shared that email address online, so Cher. So we flooded the office of personnel management with loads of spam. My email was really long, it was about my trip to the dairy for milk and then I told them about my trip to the Sisters of Providence where I buy my eggs. By the way the Sisters raise alpacas.

They spin the alpaca fibre, I think I must be right, she says, for yarn. Then they sell various items made from alpaca yarn. Besides this email experiment, I am participating in the 24-hour Economic Blackout on Friday the 28th. I hope lots of people take part. These corporations, hashtag, sorry, stroke millionaires need us the people to make money and if we just boycott them for a day then maybe they won't. So sorry, what is the economic blackout? You just don't buy anything. Could you mind just, because I'm interested in this and thank you Cher, as ever,

because although we are hearing something, there have been a couple of incidents at these events the Americans call town halls where people have turned up and just said this isn't what I expected, they're often talking to the Republican representatives and they just are getting very angry, in some cases walking out and the politician from Maine who took on Trump didn't she and she just said no no won't be doing what you're asking us to do. So, oh thank you Hannah, here we go thanks a lot. Consumers are preparing for a 24-hour economic blackout this Friday the 28th, one of several boycotts planned by groups of consumers or activists to protest about corporate greed, companies that have rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and President Trump's to eliminate federal DEI programs since

taking office. So consumers are encouraged not to spend any money anywhere for a day. If they do have to they're encouraged to buy from a local business. So there you go. I mean thank you very much. No idea how many people will take part or how practical it would be to take part for lots of people. But yeah, not everyone is loving the Trump years. No. Just a month in everybody. This one comes in from Catherine and it's about family rooms and we'll talk about those in a moment. But it is also about USA class or USA class and that tells you everything you need to know in this country. In the USA class consciousness isn't nearly as

prevalent as in the UK, it's more of a function of how much money you have regardless of how much you had as a kid. If you were born poor but got a good education or started a successful business and have some money nobody will look down on you or suspect in a bad way your more humble beginnings. People also live beyond their means or pretend to have more money than they do. I find in the UK the opposite is often true. Well off people pretending they are poorer or a middle class when they're not. No one hears certain words or has a certain accent based on class or wealth and nobody cares how you cut your meat, eat your peas or hold your wine glass. There are vast regional differences on words and

accents of course, what to call a sandwich, drink and lots of other things, but I find that no one looks down on you here unless you are lazy, a drug addict etc. And these are seen as moral failures. Thank you for the update Catherine. So I guess, I mean, the cutting your food, the way you eat your peas and the way you hold your wine glass, you're absolutely right, Catherine, that those things take on the most monumental significance in this country in a way that they really shouldn't. I am sometimes bewildered though when I go to America and I say this without, this is genuinely without trying to be classist or patronize or whatever, sometimes the way that people eat their food with cutlery to me I'm

bemused by it because it just seems so unwieldy. There's you know this the kind of the the stabbing and soaring. That's a That's a TV cliché isn't it? But sometimes, no it's not a cliché at all. So they don't, they stab the thing and they sort of, or the shoveling. Yeah, so they just eat, you know, putting a great big piece of meat on a fork and eating it like a lollipop.

Yeah, there's lots of stuff that goes on where you just think there's actually just a more effective way of doing this kids. So that's not a class thing. I just want to go and help people sometimes. It's born out of kindness. I'm an American restaurant. Walked over to a fancy excuse me. It's just a better way of doing this. I don't know if you were aware. I've traveled here from the United Kingdom to offer you some advice. It's well meant, from the heart. Yes, absolutely. You could charge them. How much would you charge them for your advice?

$75. Or in Bitcoin, what would that be? I don't know. What do you call them? So the price of Bitcoin today is about $70,000. But what does that mean? Actually, let's just ask Hannah to check what is the current price of Bitcoin? Because it went down yesterday, there's a big kerfuffle about it. I think it's sort of gone back up a bit today. But it's currently 69.9, 69.6. Oh, that's pounds, a big pardon. 69,070 grand for one Bitcoin. As I said before, Jane, until I can buy my pants and marks and spencers with Bitcoin,

I'm not buying Bitcoin. And there we are. The final word. Jane of Fee says, Helen, I write from South Australia. It is a beautiful 31 Celsius here today. I thought I'd add to the discussion about family rooms. In Australia, in new builds, family rooms are generally included. Now they are a multi-purpose large room, often combining a kitchen and living area with seating, TV and music equipment and a dining area. We live in an old, for Australia that is, 1800s, 1880s house, and like many people with an older home, we've dispensed with a separate dining room and have repurposed it along with the lounge room.

We added a family room as part of a renovation we did 30 years ago. The family room reflects daily life and the way we entertain these days. Thank you very much Helen. Yes, I remember the dining room used to be a separate room, didn't it? And then everybody knocked through and you just had one big living space. And there was also that whole notion of, back in a long time ago, I guess, the rooms that you never went into. Yeah, special rooms. Special rooms that were just for what exactly? Smart rooms. Special rooms. That were just for what exactly? Smart rooms. I don't know, a friend

of mine, her parents had a priest room and it genuinely was. It was the smart room at the front of the house that they only went into when the priests came around. How often did the priests come around? Well, quite often actually. Nothing like that. They just devout Catholic family. But I think in the olden days there was often a room for receiving people. Oh yes, I rather like the formality of that. But I don't think we really receive people. How many people kind of just tip up at your house for a hello? Interestingly, do you think people call in in the way that they used to? No. I was listening to something on the radio the other day.

It was a really fantastic little kind of piece just about the way that our Gen Z, Gen Zers or whatever communicate. And somebody was trying to explain that actually just turning up at somebody's house and ringing the doorbell and expecting them to be in and to ask you in would be seen as slightly threatening behavior. It wouldn't be seen as friendly. So the idea that you'd just pop around and see Debbie, which I frequently did, or Susie, back in the day in Winchester, and it would be a lovely expected and yes come on in yeah now it would be seen as why you're here what have I done it

would be a kind of aggressive gesture that just seems sad. That is sad well it's like it's like the demise of the really long phone call it's just one of those things that you didn't think you'd miss it until it went and then you realized that yeah life has changed a whole etiquette of there is no popping in in the way that they used to be. Let's bring popping in back. Let's just annoy people. Turn up completely on it. Do it today. I'm gonna throw it to all the listeners. It might be late at night so it's inappropriate if it's 10 to 2 in the morning but if it's you know daylight. But if I'm honest with myself Jane...

Oh you see, well no I'm kind of with you, I know what you're going to say I think. If somebody, if you just pop round at the weekend... I'd have to make a real effort, it's a long way, but don't worry, you stop worrying about that. But I would find it a little bit discombobulating if someone just turned up and expected to be invited in for a whole hour good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people,

but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think it's a good idea to be in a room with a couple of people, but I think that's the signal that you do want them to stay if they don't offer you anything. Not necessarily, it's just a signal that, you know, that it's the right thing. You must offer. Okay, so where do you stand on this? I went, I did go round to her neighbours,

this is a while back, a good while back, who I didn't know particularly well but liked her very much and she did invite me in and she offered, she said, I've got some coffee that I made earlier that I could reheat in the microwave. She didn't want you to stay. I remember thinking, not really. Would you mind making her fresh? Would it be completely wrong for me to ask for some fresh coffee to be made? Anyway, can we talk about Unforgotten, the ending, or should we not?

Well, just mention it because I think if people are going to watch it then I think maybe the final episode is shown terrestrially next week. OK, so shall I hang on to this until then? Perhaps we should be kind? Yeah, okay, because I think there is something to be said about that actually. We'll keep that for our email special, which is heading your way sometime over the next couple of weeks. Right, final one from me. I'd never heard of this before. It comes from one of our regular correspondents, Marie Love the Show. Thank you for that. Travelling from London to Newcastle on Sunday on a very crowded train. I saw four separate men getting on the train carrying ironing boards. This is new to me too.

At least one was brand new as it still had the plastic wrapping on it. I nudged my husband. We exchanged a few musings about this. Needless to say, because I said ironing board, I then got some footage on Insta of blokes in Belgium doing the same thing. Apparently it's a trend there. They were off to a rave and the ironing board is used as a portable bar, somewhere to rest your drinks. The blokes on my train stopping at Peterbrook, Newark, Doncaster, North Allerton and Newcastle didn't look like ravers. Maybe there's an ironing board shortage north of Watford. So why would that be? I mean the idea of taking a portable bar with you is great. Yeah, that's a really good idea.

I can't think of another reason why four men would have ironing boards on a train. What else could they be using them for? Well, perhaps they just wanted to show off their ironing skills over the course of a stag weekend. Gosh. I know, maybe they'd have like a speedy ironing contest for fun. OK. In the same way that on a hen night you'd change some oil underneath the bonnet. Listen, absolutely, why not? It could be that they were planning a hike and it was part of the fun to take an ironing board to the top of somewhere. It seems a bit weird,

doesn't it? But then where would you plug in the iron? Yeah. Anyway, any thoughts on that? It's quite random, but I'm sure we can solve that mystery. I really want to hear from people whose children have received certificates for reasons stranger than making the best ghost noise. And I don't want to mock Claire's then three-year-old because my eldest child got a certificate for... I was so excited, I remember it. We got an email, was it a phone call, saying, you know, you must be at assembly. She's going to get a certificate. And I thought, I thought well you know it hasn't taken them long they've spotted her clearly she's a genius so went

along sat there expectantly and sure enough she did get the gold certificate for doing 21 consecutive skips and what was so lovely about it and it still makes me well up when I think about it now is that she got a genuine round of applause and there was an and she was and what was so lovely about it and it still makes me well up when I think about it now is that she got a genuine round of applause and there was an it was only five she was very little there was a real intake of breath and the appreciation just swept through the the other kids because they think that's good that's a lot of consecutive skips I still think it's very good. So maybe I shouldn't mock best ghost noise, because that's as good as the 21st and 22nd schemes.

Woooah! Briefly, back in Bromley. Good morning from Morocco, says Barnes. I emailed a few weeks ago and suggested Nancy Burtwistler as a guest, so I was thrilled. She's so grounded. Yes, she is grounded. I like to think you and I are grounded. Yes, ground down and grounded. Frequently ground down. But I don't think either of us has, we don't have ideas above

our radio station do we? Not really. We know where we fit in, in the great scheme of media starlets. We know that, you know, we're not right at the top of the tree. No. But we're a couple of serviceable baubles. Well, we used to say, don't we, back at the BBC, essentially we were packhorse donkeys that used to take everybody else's luggage up to the top of the mountain on our podcast. Pretty much it. That's why we left. Anyway, right In my previous email, I noted the fact that Madeira was free of riffraff. However, the same cannot be said of Morocco. I'm so sorry to hear this. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being high, it's only about a three. There

are many French people here, but naturelment, the riffraff are British. Definitely not quality people, Jane. Yes, so if you are currently in Morocco and you're British, please up your game. These are difficult times for the United Kingdom. Yeah, don't show us up abroad. Please don't show us up in Morocco, or indeed anywhere else. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk free.

Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at ZenSurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Anthony Scaramucci was briefly Donald Trump's White House Communications Director. He is the founder of SkyBridge Capital and the co-host of a great podcast, The Rest is Politics USA with Cathy Kay. His book, The Little Book of Bitcoin, What You Need to Know that Wall Street has already figured out, is out now. Anthony Scaramucci, good afternoon from us. How are you?

It's great to be on and I like the way you said briefly. You didn't say that I was unceremoniously fired because you're a polite person but that was very nice of you. Thank you. Well like your podcast colleague, Cathy, we're English ladies, Anthony, and we behave accordingly. Okay, now Bitcoin, you say... I'm going to tell her you said that, by the way, when she's overly riffing me. I'm going to say that she's an English lady and that she needs to behave accordingly. Yeah, okay. Well, you sock it to her. You've got our permission. So make the case for Bitcoin. I mean, I'm very scared of it. I wouldn't go near it.

But you say it's portable, it's valuable, it's incor incorruptible and it's good for the unbanked why? Well I mean for all of those reasons that you just said but I mean at the end of the day what was created about 16 years ago is a decentralized ledger and so if you think of your bank your bank is basically a spreadsheet you know your your assets are on one side of the bank my assets are on the other let's say that you work for an auto dealership and I wanted to buy a car. Well, we're just moving digits from my account over to your account and then you deliver me the car.

And so when you stop and think about a transfer of value, it's really a technology between us. Money is effectively a technology that we're using so that we don't have to border with each other. And so these computer programmers known as Satoshi Nakamoto figured out a way to create this immutable, unbreakable system that's quite scarce. There's only 21 million of these tokens on the Internet. And they made the case that if this proliferated this would be a very hard asset You know the Bank of England couldn't make any more of it the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States couldn't make any more of it

And so it had a little bit of an inflation Hedge to it as well And so what we're saying here at skybridge and what I wrote in the book is that this is a form of digital gold Now it may not be people of your or my demography, but younger people, our children, particularly my children in their early 30s, have accepted a digital world, and they recognize that they can use this decentralized,

fully transparent spreadsheet as a way to transfer value between each other. And the reason why I think it's good for the unbanked is that you don't need a bank account to do it. fully transparent spreadsheet as a way to transfer value between each other. And the reason why I think it's good for the unbanked is that you don't need a bank account to do it. You know, I, I had some officials here in this office from the government of El Salvador during the UN general assembly meetings in September of last year. And they said that wallet to wallet transfers between their ex-patriots that live here in the United States to their moms and dads in El Salvador

If they could do it over the Bitcoin network versus having to pay a Western Union or some other wire service They could save over 400 million dollars a year. And so this is this is going to be part of our future This is sort of like an operating software for value transfer, value transactions, and it's cheaper. The same way you and I are doing this phone call or this zoom call and it's virtually costless, but if we did something like this 40 years ago, we probably couldn't have a television connected to it, but we could have a phone call together. It would have cost us, the telephone company was charging us

per minute 40 years ago. Well the banks are still thinking like that. They charge us per transaction. Or if you have low amounts of money at the bank, at least here in the United States, they charge you a monthly service fee to have that money. That's why millions of Americans are unbanked. But Bitcoin provides them this other alternative. It's sort of a way to transact without having to use the third parties of the banking system. Okay, I think you've made a spirited case for the Bitcoin or for Bitcoin I should say.

Can we move on to what's going to be a pretty seismic day in British politics tomorrow when our Prime Minister, Sakir Starmer, goes to visit Donald Trump at the White House. How should he play it, Anthony? I mean, okay, Liz, I mean everyone doesn't want to say this because he's the leader of the free world Goes to visit Donald Trump at the White House. How should he play it Anthony? I Mean, okay, Liz. I mean everyone doesn't want to say this because he's the leader of the free world But Trump is obviously got something wrong with him. I mean, I I don't know if you saw that artificially intelligent Trump Gaza video that he posted on his own truth social network And so anybody looks at that whether you're a clinical profile for MI6 or the CIA, I mean you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that

something's wrong with Trump. It's like if someone in British football broke their leg and the bone was sticking out, you don't have to be an orthopedic surgeon to know that there's a broken bone. So I would say to Keir Stormer, the guy is unwell and he's surrounded by willing sycophants that want to pretend that he's not unwell and you'll do by willing sycophants that want to pretend that he's not unwell. And you'll do yourself and your country a service if you are polite to him and you give him some fortuitous flattering, but you try to stay away from him if you can. Don't get too close to his orbit because he'll end up eating you. He harms everybody in his path. He's not well liked. He's not well liked

by his family members, not well liked by his staff, but they're there because he's a powerful person. I would just tell Keir Starmer to stay away from him because he's a dangerous guy and in a couple of years he'll burn himself out. The United Kingdom will exist and Donald Trump will be long in our rear view mirror. Yeah, so you work for him and you liked him well enough to do that. Millions of people voted for him. What's changed? Well, I did work for him and I did like him. You can't corrupt history. I have to own the mistakes that I've made in my life. But what I didn't see in him, which he's now shown

to the world, is this he's he's in singular service for himself and the attention that he's getting and the money that he can potentially make. He's not in service of the world. He doesn't think about himself as the leader of the free world the way I think you or I or other people would like to think about that role and that frankly responsibility. And so no, I didn't see that. I made that mistake. I've owned that mistake. And but then again, you know, there's shortcomings on the Democratic Party because of the way they handle themselves with this improper intergenerational transfer of power in their party. They could have beaten Donald Trump. Remember, he only won by one and a half percent of the votes and that was with the

party in full disarray with a president, unfortunately, that was cognitively sun setting and then they forced Vice President Harrison to the race 107 days prior to the election. We don't have too much time Anthony and I know that you have on X recently said that you think that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, might eventually, perhaps quite soon, just give up, just he just can't do it anymore. Do you stick by that? Well just take a look at his body language, look at the body language that he was with Macron in the in the Oval Office. Rubio has stood with the West and Rubio stood with the liberal democracies.

I don't think he loves the secretary of state that we're voting with North Korea, Russia and China on certain issues. And we're basically lying about who started the war in the who started the Ukrainian war. And so so for me, I think he's going to break. I think he's a princi break. I think he's a principled guy generally as principled as politicians can be and I expect him to say no mas and to walk away from this. I don't think he's going to be able

to do this much longer. And I thought I probably was almost unshockable when it came to Donald Trump but actually the AI video that he shared today and you've already referenced it, I mean is it a new low? Can things get worse? Well, there's no there well first of all, there's no level of low. Okay, so as low as you think he can get you know If dante was writing about trump, there wouldn't be nine circles of hell. There would be an infinite level of circles You know, you can't get any can't get low with donald trump.. He's gonna find a way to get lower and so next week there'll be something even more disturbing. But he's not well. I think that's the number one thing that we have to explain to people and we have to be honest about that. People fear him. They

fear his retribution. They fear people like Cash Patel. But this is the United States. We still live in a free country and have the right to speak out. And we'll see how long that lasts here in the United States. But I have a tendency to believe that our government and our people will outlast the corruptible forces of Donald Trump. Antony the mooch, Scaramucci. He's a very reticent. He's a little bit shy but I think we did our best there. Just lift him. Just lift him, bring him out of himself a little bit. You have to do that sometimes with blokes, don't you?

Tell us about yourself. And somehow they do. Right, okay. Oh dear. Right, it's Panicky Thursday in the UK tomorrow. I hope you can be part of the whole experience with us on this podcast. Jane and Fee at times.radio. Yeah, we're keeping a very, very close eye on world proceedings at the moment.

We're not falling for it, are we Jane? That's, you know, I just think a lot of people have changed their tune and I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Stand firm everybody. Episodes don't change their spots. Jane and Fee at times.radio is our email address. Get us shifty on with the book club because we are going to be recording that episode either Wednesday or Thursday next week.

No it's not next week is it? No because this is, you're now going to have to do a correction to correction corner. Because this was going to be correction corner oh what's happening well um eve's still on holiday next week oh so we have to wait until she's back before is it only eve who can press play and record at the same time i don't quite understand this but so yeah hannah it's above your pay grade love that is that is a blow to you I know because you're really very good.

Okay so Correction Correction Corny you've got two weeks to finish the Book Club book Eight Months on Gaza Street by Hilary Mantel. If you can get your thoughts in as soon as possible then that will help Eve to collate everything. She'll be very tired when she comes back because she's been off for three weeks. And as we all know, it can be genuinely tiring enjoying yourself. Very, very difficult. So- Why I don't bother trying. We will rejoin you next week. Have a good evening.

["The Last Supper"] 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, 2-4 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. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free.

Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at ZenSurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen.