Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Envy knickers and a jealous bra (with Adam Peaty)

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

In today's episode, Jane considers renewing her Shetland pony travel card whilst Fi realises someone has stolen her genius invention: 'Fi's She Wee'. Also, Fi chats to six time Olympic medal winner, Adam Peaty, about swimming, religion and whether we might see him at LA 2028. Adam Peaty is sponsored by Bridgestone, the world’s largest manufacturer of tires. Our next book club pick has been announced! 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep' by Joanna Cannon. 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.

Because I read exactly the same recipe and just wrote scrambled eggs. I thought you were being genuine. Hi, I'm Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor for The Times. At the 2024 Times Earth Summit, our discussion on the essential steps for a net zero transition will be set against a backdrop of the biggest election year in history. The governments voted in this year will face a crucial period for the sustainability agenda. This transition will be theirs to accelerate and all our futures will be affected by whether or not they do so. To book your ticket to this year's summit head to timesurfsummit.com forward slash virtual. Sorry, there's a little melancholic moment here.

I know. It's young Hannah, she hasn't even left yet, but when she does, we'll be very sad. We'll tear up. She's been ever so, ever so, ever so good. Can I ask you how old you are Hannah? 22. 22. She's been ever so, ever so, ever so good. Can I ask you how old you are Hannah? 22. 22.

I mean that is composed isn't it for a 22 year old. What were you doing when you were 22? I was running around screaming. Why isn't she doing that? What's the matter with her? Just trying to think. What was I doing? Oh I know exactly what I was doing.

Yes. What were you doing? I was working in news information research at BBC's broadcasting house which was such a highfalutin name for a department where we cut out articles from newspapers in the morning and filed them in filing cabinets in the afternoon and much, much more important journalists came down from their other offices. Their purchase. Yep. And so they'd say things like, you know, today Matt Fry would probably have urgently

needed to see Middle East forward slash Lebanon forward slash Hezbollah forward slash 1979 to 1982 slash reaction and somebody would have filed something in that. So your job was literally cutting out. Yes. Did they provide you with scissors? Yes. Not pinking shears but scissors. And we all sat around a table.

They were safe scissors. They were very safe scissors. They had those kind of moulded ends. Right. So would you also cut out things about celebrities? Yes. Oh yes. Some people had very, very big folders.

Oh did they? I mean this is a slice of life for our younger listeners isn't it? What has happened to all that stuff? Well because the internet marched across the horizon with its unique opportunity to simply use Google search so it just doesn't exist anymore. But there must have been a day when they decided, it's rather poignant this, that they didn't need that anymore. And they got the files. And they just shredded everything. They would have done exactly that. And because it was so long ago. So you know, that is 23 years ago. Can I do my maths? Last century anyway. It's

33 years ago. It's actually more than 20 years. Yes, yes it is. I think we're in the home for the no longer impartial and slightly infirm. But back then we had no idea what the internet was going to enable us to do but there was a sinking feeling that everybody's job was going to be on the line because there was going to be technology that would make the cutting out of newspaper articles a little bit of a redundant pastime. But I tell you what it was, it was the most amazing first job in terms of all of the different people who worked there. So there were all kinds of people, some of them had been there for 50 years, some of them were particularly, well, they

were markers. So if you stayed there long enough you got to be the person who marked the articles in the paper in terms of category. I was very, very, very junior indeed. So you wouldn't have been a marker. Even if you'd still been there. Jane, I would never have achieved those heights. Right, that's me. Where were you when you were 22? 22, I was a medical records clerk on a temporary contract at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, where my mother was on reception. That's how I got the job. Nepo baby! I was. I was a Nepo baby. And that's, yes, so I have no right to cast dispersions on

the likes of Brooklyn Beckham. Absolutely none because that was you. That was absolutely me. I had a white coat and... Oh, that's so dangerous, Jane. I did carry out just minor surgery. It's not come to court yet. Will that ever happen? And this is again, I'm going to put out an alert.

Were you prescribed inappropriate medication by this woman in 1834? In 19... Let's get on my maths. In 1986 it was. So this is pre my showbiz career and of course the technology was such that my job as a clinic clerk was to get the files and get them from the library, medical records library and then take them to the appropriate clinic on a trolley and then collect them after the clinic. So it was multi-layered, two-dimensional. I'm just trying to imagine you in charge of moving

equipment. I wasn't very good at it. Because I think it would be fair to say, there's not really a day in the office where you don't miss a chair, or fall over a light. It's a very big hospital and I did quite routinely get lost, along with the medical files. Anyway, it was a job that actually I probably learned more in the time I did that job than I had done in the three years I've been at university. Well, I would agree about mine. You do. You do. And because you suddenly rub up against, not literally, even in those days, so many people from different places who are at work for different reasons actually. I found it to be really eye-opening and just to go back to our original place that this started I would have been nowhere near as composed as our Hannah is, who is in charge

of so many things and does them all brilliantly. I think you would agree that your job and my job had very little ultimate responsibility. None, thank God. That was a good thing. So Hannah well done. Absolutely. And actually I'm just trying to find it now it would have been brilliant if I had found it. We had an email, no you're right about Hannah she is brilliant, but we'll save all the really saccharine stuff for when you actually leave. Okay. Maybe just after she's left. Yes exactly so she doesn't hear it because she'll probably give up listening. The email

we had from a listener who actually said she doesn't think anyone should go to university at 18. Everyone should do a year in a job. Well, let me try and find that whilst you talk slowly about something else. I'll just talk about Knickers because this is very good. Lots of great stuff still coming in from local newspapers. And this is from Jo. You've got to love the leak post. She includes a small ad from the leak post and times. Brazilian secret buttock bomb enhancing padded envy knickers as new five pounds. Padded envy knickers. And as new, as Jo asks, just how much heavy wear had those secret buttock burn enhancing padded envy knickers had? But five quid, you can't argue with the process.

But sorry, are envy knickers a thing? I mean, is that something that I've just completely missed out on? Yes, some good questions. By some envy knickers and a jealous bra. What does that mean? I've never personally felt envy about somebody else's pants, but maybe, I don't know, it's a very personal thing what you wear and how you wear them. Okay.

I think the bum enhancing stuff is just so bizarre at the moment and so dangerous, isn't it? The poor young woman who died. Yeah, exactly. Horrendous. And I genuinely didn't realize exactly what they were doing with those butt lift injections. I thought that it was surgery, so you would be in a hospital with hopefully somebody with some medical qualifications. But these are just injections that somebody who, and I'm

not being disparaging here, has been on a one day course somewhere outside Slough, is then entitled to do. And of course you're injecting into muscle and stuff. It's horrendous, Jane. Incredibly dangerous and I think the real, without being putting on my womans' hair here, the real question should be why does any woman, any person feel the need for this? Yeah, no I completely agree. This is just crazy. Well I'm just going to say it, it's because of pornography, isn't it? There we are, yeah. Like so many things that is the answer.

Yeah, I mean for you and I, I can pretty much guarantee the only time we've seen our own buttocks is when we've been in one of those unfortunate changing rooms trying on our holiday wear and they have thoughtlessly, must have been designed by a man, sorry about that man, put you know, 360 degree mirrors in. I mean, nothing is going to bring your profit margins down more kids than if you enable most women to be able to see themselves from all angles. Funny enough, I was talking about changing rooms yesterday because I went with my daughter to buy some trousers at one of London's biggest shopping centres and first of all got completely

discombobulated by a new car park route. Do you know what, I'm increasingly worried about these medical records. Some of them are still probably doing the circuit at the hospital somewhere. I do apologize if you never did get that scene to. But my daughter was saying, you know, why aren't changing rooms better? Why aren't they more flattering? Why has, unless you go to a super upmarket store, in my experience, the changing room experience is by and large a

shattering one. It just is and it could be better. Well I completely agree. So why isn't it? The idea that you want to see yourself that close up which is always unflattering. Most people see you from a distance. To be honest, for most of your day people are probably only seeing about half of you. You know, if you're standing up sitting down or whatever, the 360 degrees in a very, very tight space with the lingering smell of somebody else's armpits, it's not jolly, is it? It really isn't. It was a bit like that yesterday. We went

shortly after the shop opened and it was still a bit... quite a lot of activity had occurred, I think, if you know what I mean. I mean just heavy usage by customers, I don't mean anything else. Anyway, also quickly, very quickly, the Dorsa Echo 1991. This is from Anna, thank you Anna. Suspect bomb was a chicken, the entrance to Tesco's Dorchester store was sealed off and army bomb disposal experts called in after a suspect package was found at the front door early this morning but the bomb turned out to be a chicken wrapped in brown paper and placed in a shopping trolley pushed up against the revolving doors. Very stupid thing to have done by the way. Probably cost an enormous amount of money. The authorities called in at half past six in the morning to deal with that. Don't put a chicken in

a trolley by the revolving doors at a supermarket. Very well reported that by the Dorset Echo in 1991. Now this one comes in from Jackie whose name is Jackie Clinch and that goes into our top 10 names of all time with Gaynor Frostick. Dear JNF, regarding your item on students pets, my middle child, he's 27, is just finishing his vet degree and many of his fellow students have their horses with them at university. Yeah, I was absolutely amazed. We were gobsmacked to hear this, maybe unusually. We are a family with no pets, just chickens, now deceased. I'm sorry to hear that because my current husband, channeling Innerwogan, is allergic to four-legged mammals. On a more serious note regarding universities, part

of my professional life is as a doctor treating young people where pain, anxiety and low mood have complicated their lives. Many of them have been overwhelmed by every aspect of life and further education away from home. It is like the ultimate social experiment take thousands of 18 year olds fresh from the stress of A levels and put them in a different city all in the same halls with no one they know and see how they fare. My very strong belief is that no one should go to university at 18. Young people could apply with their A-level results, work for a year, we could create plenty of great community and caring opportunities and then go to university if they still felt it is right for them, better for all.

Hope teeth and viral load get better for you both. Jackie, I think that is a fantastic email and I would completely, completely agree with you and I think many parents would feel the same way that 18 suddenly feels incredibly young to go and drop your beautiful child off in a strange place. And halls can be really, really good fun for some people, but I think that feeling of being on your own, in amongst loads of other people, imagining them all to be opening their doors and going to parties and doing all the rest of it, actually when you're in a small space with the door shut, it can be an incredibly miserable

experience. And the peer pressure in that, and you're right to call it a kind of social experiment, is just so immense. And they've just got to the top of something, haven't they? They've just got to be the biggest in school. And it's come with a, hopefully, a kind of a growing of whatever, and then they go back right down to the bottom again in a university and I think it's all extremely challenging and I love your idea of everybody having a year out I think it would it would sort the wheat from the chaff for a lot of people actually. Well at the beginning of the election campaign Rishi Sunak did mention that it withered on the vine national service. Yes.

But a form of community service. Would be great. It's nothing to do with the military. I just don't understand what's wrong with that. I mean some young people would want to go into the military, absolutely fine. But you shouldn't have to, should you? There must be other things that you could do, just something in the community. And as we both said, just mingling with people outside an educational space who could teach you about real life. And you could then, I think you would stand a better chance of being able to see yourself in other people around you as well and realizing that you might not be a person who's going

to benefit from staying in a classroom for another three years. You might suddenly realize that actually you want to go and put on a uniform and go to work somewhere and have somebody else, you know, tell you what to do and you know stuff like that you just don't know it until you're out in the real world you can never learn that at university on placements or whatever so I just really I agree I agree Jackie clinch married name or is that your maiden name did you become a clinch or have you always been a clinch do you get back in touch and we'd like a little bit more information on the horses as well. Yes, we definitely would. Where do they keep them? Our contract negotiations

regarding our Shetland ponies are still ongoing. So at the moment we're both having to use public transport to come into work, but we are hoping that will change. Actually, oh yes, this is from Orla. You mentioned the rests in tubes are too high up to actually work. We talked about this, didn't we? I totally agree, says Orla. And I was delighted to find that the Clapham to Harrow line has appropriately heighted rests clearly designed by a normal-sized woman. I accept this is useless information unless you actually want to go somewhere on that line. Is it the Northern line, Clapham to Harrow? Clapham to Harrow, ooh.

Ooh, I don't know. I don't know. I know a lot about TfL, but I don't know that. I've never been to Harrow on the train. Have you been to Clapham? Hapham? Clapham a few times. All a thank you.

It's almost worth travelling between Clapham and Harrow just to do so in comfort. Thank you very much. Almost. Sorry. between Clapham and Harrow just to do so in comfort. Thank you very much. Almost. Yeah. Sorry. I have been to Harrow once to watch some sort of cricket match. Did you?

Yeah, I don't know whether, I can't remember whether it was at the school. I remember being absolutely livid. It was my only taste of being, I was married at the time, being a cricket wife. And I remember I had two kids, I went with a friend who had three kids. So we were entertaining five under sixes on the boundary while our menfolk played a match.

Oh, they played a match? They played a match. Honestly, I was incandescent by the time the end of the thing rolled round. So did they play a match at the school, Harrow? I think it was, maybe it was, I don't know. It was such a grim and very long day and I was so angry by the end of it that I've tried very hard to park it until now. Yes, you've not done very well. I do, I always feel sorry. I think the cricket, because it used to be a thing, Cricket Wives, you made the tea and they played a game. Yeah, I've made a cricket tea. Have you? I didn't know this. What was in it?

We did it for charity. So someone who we both used to work with actually, he was part of a charity team of journalists I think. And they went off and they played and raised money. Because is it the Lord Taverners that actually does a lot of incredibly good work? Oh yeah, I think I've heard of them. So I think it was for them or some other charity. But I did offer've heard of them. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I think it was for them or some other charity But we I did offer to do the to do the tea I mean, I just had no idea how much all these these blokes ate so in the middle of a game

So we had to me and my friends Morella and Sue's always worth a mention We had to bob down to the local superstore in in kind of half time Sorry about the terminology store in kind of half time. Sorry about the terminology. To get something together. And buy 24 emergency pork pies. They ate so much, you thought how can you go back and perform? Didn't you have a homemade produce that you'd all come up with? No. Okay, well that's good actually. Another Marie says, my son has just begun his second year at Nottingham Trent University and the campus, the Brackenhurst there, has got a room of cats, they're called the Brack Cats, where students can go for a stroke or a cuddle if they feel the need.

I think that's brilliant. Great isn't it? The cats wander around the campus and often make it into student rooms, although the students are not allowed to feed them. My son really enjoyed seeing them in his first year when he was adjusting to student life. The campus does offer a veterinary nurse degree which explains the need for real life animals. I love the podcast. I listen every evening with my 13 year old cat Poppy. So Marie and Poppy, good evening to you. Hope you're enjoying this evening's edition. Also want to shout out to Ivor as well, one of our listeners. I had a lovely email about you Ivor. Lots of love from us both and keep listening please. we need you. We really do.

Excellent. This comes in from Jacqueline who says a very lovely thank you to Eve as well because the tote bags arrived in the post. Can't wait to take them to Rome next year and photograph them with the hot priest calendar. My friend Janice and I are totally chuffed with them, we can't believe they got here so quickly. I'm heading to Singapore. It's very busy, Jacqueline. For a few days later this week... That's funny, isn't it? I'm going to Swindon on Friday. Oh, you... But Jacqueline is heading to Singapore... Show off!

...for a few days later this week with Carry On Only. Would you be able to do that? Carry On Only? To Singapore. Gosh, no. I mean, you'd have to cram things. There is a really probably economic, economical, productive way of packing so that you could just about take your travel wash. Yes. A couple of pairs of pants are all you really need I guess. Oh gosh yeah, I mean I'd be tempted to do that. I always get told off though if I do

by other members in my close and immediate circle. Yes. For Fee. Now this is really, really the top tip, Jacqueline. A very pet-friendly weed killer. I'd never heard of this and this is utterly brilliant and shame on me for not knowing. If your bunce and burner thingy fails, well it already has.

Boil a kettle and pour the boiling water over the weeds. A couple of days later, the weeds will be dead and brown and easily pulled out. I wish I could say that I was clever enough to come up with the idea myself, but one of my staff, plot thickens, told me about it and having tried it numerous times I'm happy to report it works a treat, practically cost free and entirely pet friendly. That's good.

Never heard of it. That was so, so simple. Yeah, very, very simple. Speaking of which, we did have an email about getting human hair out of shower drains and suggesting, and I looked it up. I looked it up on the interweb and this is not unknown. People put hair removal stuff down their shower drains. Did you hear about this? Have you heard about it? I've not heard about it. What's just a big squirt of wheat? Yeah. It's a hack. Apparently Mrs. Hinch has recommended it. It makes a hack. Apparently Mrs. Hinch has recommended it. It makes perfect sense.

It kind of does, but I'm here, I'm shouting out now to the plumbing community. Is it honestly something you'd recommend? I can't believe it's that simple. Well it would be problematic because it does kind of harden and dry up, doesn't it, if you leave it out for too long? It's a long go since I used it. Well I used some yesterday. Did you chip it off? So it hardens? Yes it goes a bit like you know like any kind of I think even if you left

moisturising cream out for a long time. I suppose it probably would yeah. So you don't want that to harden in your pipes do you? No I guess anyway that so look we're not recommending this at all, because as we've just illustrated, we're not sure whether it's entirely sensible. But if you have done it and it's worked for you, you can tell us. Yeah, I suppose it's very, very logical. That also has reminded me, only because we were talking about uni's earlier, I met Saskia on Mersey Rail on Saturday. She's

at Liverpool University, listened to the podcast, she was going on a windsurfing taster course at the Sailing Club. That's amazing. Saskia, I hope it went alright and thank you for coming to talk to me. She was really sweet, she was, you know, she's a very new student so quite a lot to adjust to. Where would she be doing the windsurfing? At, I think, I'm assuming at Crosby Sailing Club. Oh, the famous Crosby?

Down at the Marina. Okay. Well, see that brings us back to the Anthony Gormley statues. You wouldn't want to windsurf around those. Doing! Well no, because there's a lake at the Sailing Club. Oh, okay, sorry. I've never been.

No, it's very, very glamorous. It's a little bit like the Riviera, all I've said before. It's more or less the Riviera down there. Do you want to talk about Philip Schofield? Hannah has asked us to. I think it's quite interesting, yes. I've just read an article about the Philip Schofield programme that's coming up. I was really surprised that he continues to excuse himself and says that if it had been a heterosexual affair it would have been ignored. What do you both think? Am I just being judgy? Surely what we need is for all affairs with a young person to be stopped, not all of them ignored. What I would love to know about this whole thing

is whether other presenters would add children on social media. I'm a teacher and lesson 101 has never had a child even after they leave school. Surely someone is telling presenters this too. Is this something you have come across? Grump over, thanks for keeping us thinking. So Philip Schofield has done the Cast Away programme on Channel 5, which is just him and a series of cameras. So we have got monologues and soliloquies from Mr Schofield about the position he has found himself in, entirely of his own making. I haven't watched the programme yet. I don't think it started, I think tonight it starts. Oh okay, so it's just some people have watched the previews where he basically says this

is me saying my piece and I'm never coming back to television again after this. And he names, he doesn't name but he alludes to three people who he believes let him down in the ITV network because they didn't support him, turned their back on him and to use his very well-worn phrase he believes that the affair that he had with a very much younger member of staff was unwise but not illegal. That is a summation of events over to your sister. Well that is from a teacher that email isn't it? And I must admit, there's always been, can we just acknowledge that there have been incidents, certainly during my lifetime and in my own life experience where a teacher has become a little too close to a pupil.

Sometimes when they're actually in school, back in the 70s and 80s that really did happen didn't it? Yes. And certainly after they've left I mean teachers occasionally marry former pupils and I think it's dodgy and I'm really interested to know that now the formal advice is that you don't even add them after they've left school. I didn't know that actually did you? Well I'm slightly confused what you mean what Hannah means by add them. Well, you wouldn't even make them part of your social media community after they'd left school. Oh, I'm with you. I'm assuming that's what that means.

Because I don't think there is any doubt that there's something very dangerous in that dynamic of a relationship between an older person and a younger person in the workplace, whether it's a place of education or a radio station or a television studio, it's just wrong. Too much is very questionable about that, I would say. And I know that rules have been tightened in my experience, but when I was at the BBC, if we had young children in women's hour, for example, I would only be allowed to talk to them on my own if the door was wide open and people were going backwards and forwards. And occasionally you would get sixth formers coming in to find out about the program and about feminism and all that. Absolutely fine. And I was always happy to do it, but I was never ever ever left in a position where anything could have, well you know, it wouldn't have happened, but I was never

left in a position where I would have been vulnerable and potentially they might have been vulnerable as well. But well, I mean that whole, Philip Schofield, I think he's a whole separate entity. I wish he'd just gone away and left his career at that point. That's what annoys me, Jane, because he has got a remarkable platform on that programme to say what he wants to say. He's there in the programme, I believe, and there are quite a lot of shots of him with his family who have stood by him. So his wife and his two children are in the program too, not on the island, but I think there are kind of, you know, cut-away slots for them to talk about everything that happened. But my bugbear is the young man who he had the unwise but not illegal affair with him.

I wish him well with the rest of his life. I don't ever want to say his name because I think he deserves his anonymity now. And this surely is problematic for him and his family. You would imagine so. Just when you think maybe that's gone away and you know up it comes again. And it's the same feeling that I have for every person who I think may have been taken advantage of by somebody in the public eye. It is just too easy for us to talk about that famous person and you know we say they're fair game and we've done it very recently with Hugh Edwards and absolutely say we should have done because it's a subject that needed talking about.

But obviously the people who are affected by it, which is often children, not in Philip Scofield's case, his children obviously seem fine by it, but you just think it's coming back, it's coming back, it's just in the media again, it's another day when they have to think about it too. And that's problematic. I don't understand why he hasn't read The Room and realised Philip it's over. Just go away, just shut up. Yeah. I don't know, just genuinely you're fine financially. Yes. You've got your wine tasting, you've got your roaring log fires, you've got your money in the bank,

your family have stood by you. Enough love. Yeah, no he's actually in many ways been extremely fortunate. Yeah and good luck with the rest of your life. You could turn your attention to so many other things. And actually, I really do hope that he does a John Profumo and goes and does something very valuable. And in fairness, we don't know that he hasn't. I guess we could have given thousands to charity. Well said.

That's very good of you to say so. Well, but we just simply, there was no national thirst for his return to television. There just wasn't. You know, I think we all have to understand there's a time when everyone has had enough. It won't happen to us, darling. But to your central point, I do, I hope that, I don't think this is a question of heterosexuality or not. I don't think Philip Schofield was given a harder time because this happens to have been

a gay relationship. I honestly think that in 2024 it's not acceptable for older, senior people to take advantage of younger, more vulnerable people in the workplace or anywhere else. We're supposed to be better than that now. We don't do it. Yeah. I agree with that. I think that there has been a more salacious quality to the story in terms of how it's been reported, but I agree that it's just a no-no, heterosexual, homosexual. But I think for Philip Schofield, it was what was perceived to be the added hypocrisy of having lived his life as a straight man.

So there was something else going on behind the, there was something else going on. So I can see why that has been reported, actually, but I would agree, it doesn't mean that it is any more acceptable if it had been a young girl and I would hope that you know that that that people would have acted very swiftly when they knew that perhaps there's something in that that people Didn't act quickly enough because they didn't Because they believed Phillips go feels and because they believed Phillips Schofield's heterosexual life, so they didn't stop themselves enough and think,

what is going on here? I don't know, we don't work at ITV. I've never worked at ITV. The other side. As we used to call it. No, I never will. We can be sure of that. And thank you for that email, Hannah.

I feel that we've got something off both of our chests. Well, it'll be really interesting to see whether that program tanks or does relatively well. And frankly, it's a ratings business. If it doesn't do badly, I suspect Channel 5 will give him more work. That's the way that's the way the showbiz cookie crumbles. I want to thank Ari for his cheery photograph of his moustache. His moustache is unbelievable, Jane. Blimey.

It was taken a month ago, this photograph, he says. I shaved it off about a week ago. Oh. But it started out as the silly residuum of my winter beard and then stuck around longer than I expected it to. Ari, I think it's fantastic. It's substantial. It's chunky.

And it's absolute chunkiest. It must be two or three inches wide. It's a mustache that's so prodigious, it's almost a sideburn, and he is wearing in the photograph an American Red Cross t-shirt. So if you work for the American Red Cross, even more kudos to you. But thank you for the image. I think he's on a tram. Wonderful. Oh, I'd love a tram back in London. Kate's in Oxford and her sister is Sarah.

They're both head teachers and they ask is that enough for them to have a tote bag? I'm just going to say yes there Kate. Also her advice is to wear earbuds or headphones when you're next at the dentist Jane. When are you? In... in two hours and 13 minutes. You're crying in sympathy, it's very good of you. She feels things. No, I'm having the rest of the root canal this afternoon. Oh dear. It'll be alright, there are worse things. I think it probably used to be really, really, really painful and it just isn't anymore. I'm so sorry. That coffee had a tiny bit of the ground left in it and it's just caught at the back of my throat.

Well while you're getting over it, let's just celebrate Terry Wogan. It was nice to hear you talking about Terry Wogan, says Pam, who was a former tog. I listened to his breakfast show for many years and I really enjoyed his gentle wit and his wry sense of humor. One comment still makes me smile, he played something by the lighthouse family when it finished he'd say they're not a family you know in fact they're not even a lighthouse and then he just carried on. Fabulous. He has much missed. Yeah he has much because for exactly that sort of comment. And actually I do still miss Sean Keevney on the breakfast show Six Music, because when he was being his right old grump, and it was during the first part of the pandemic, wasn't it? That was when he really met the national mood head on.

Oh, he was just so grouchy about everything. I used to love that. So just to complete a little bit from Kate's email, she hasn't had a dream about Dory yet but she does feel your pain about winter house poos. She has had a dream about Nancy that she was a horse greyhound and brought joy to many. I love the idea of that. What's a horse greyhound? I think it's just a horse who's a greyhound. Like a massive, massive great big greyhound. Oh I see. Right. That's the size of a horse. And the final one from me is just to say an enormous thank you to Anne who took a photograph in Bangkok featuring one of my early commercial venture ideas, Anne, that has gone absolutely nowhere. It's the mobile toilet. I did just see it from a bus though

so I can't review the quality of the facilities says Anne. She says I'm a bit behind at the moment on the podcast because I'm doing some traveling with my husband over the past couple of nights. I've had to stop myself laughing out loud and waking said husband over the suggestions of what to call the hot pre-sperm donation business and also imagining you two ladies rocking up to times towers on Shetland ponies. So I still keep laughing about the suggestion and was it from, it was definitely from a guy and it was palm funding. It's just I keep coming back to that in my head. But look, so my idea and you've poo-pooed it, and I choose that term carefully, so you've never ever taken on my idea of a massive great big mobile she-wee van. Well, but it's not, the idea is good. I couldn't understand the logistics. Your idea was that

it would tour the West End. Yes, and so in the interval... But how would it, it wouldn't be able to make the interval at every show, would it? Well they'd just have to stagger the intervals and then it would pull up outside the theatre royal Drury Lane and on the Tanai it would say you know Fee's she-wee has arrived and if you were queuing in the toilets and you thought I can't hold it in any longer you'd be able to dash outside and a pan technican of urine would be made available to you. So Anne has seen this in Thailand and it's exactly that. It's a massive great big bus. Yeah. And it's called the Mobile

Toilet BMA and it's clearly got some cubicles on it and I think that just, I think they've done it haven't they? It just pulls up at any old event and there you go. You've got some portable toilets. Proof there that there's no new idea under the sun. I thought you were onto something there, I genuinely did, I was a little bit jealous, but it turns out that it's already happening. If listening to this drivel you're thinking I wonder if I can see these wonderful women at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the bad news, Fee, is... Well it's sold out. Yeah, but thank you. I suspect, we've chosen to think this is a vote of confidence in us. I suspect the presence of Brenda Blethan and Anne Cleves might have something to do with it.

But we are really looking forward to it. That's on October the 10th. And you can hear that too, can't you? It's not going to just be for people in Cheltenham. That's very true. But if you are coming to Cheltenham, you get the full hour of us in conversation. And you'll only be able to hear half an hour of it on the live radio show. I don't want people to feel that they've paid unnecessarily Jane they could just stay at home and listen to it. There's an extra point. It's a greasy bonus. I have just started the Anne Cleves book The Dark Wives and she's actually it's really interesting this Anne Cleves book is a Vera book and it's about children's homes, the privatized sector and children's homes and I think she's

really onto something important there so it's actually a really interesting slice of life and I'm glad she's investigated it. Yeah it's a very good Vera book not that any of hers aren't but I'd say that this is superb. I've really, really, really enjoyed it. So we are at the Chatham Festival and thank you as well if you have book tickets to see us February the 4th at the Barbican in London where Jane and I are just going to do, well we're just going to do some stand-up routines. You might do your Princess Margaret impersonation, I might do some dancing. Juggling.

It's basically a wide-ranging evening. And I'll pop on my white coat and chat my way through some medical records I've hoarded at home. And I will bring some newspapers and cut some bits out of them on stage. Life! What's not to enjoy? Adam Peaty is one of our finest Olympians. He is a six-time Olympic medal winner in the pool. breaststroke is his thing, three of those medals are gold and when he tipped up in Rio at his first ever Olympics he put Great Britain back on the top spot

of the podium winning the first pool gold in 24 years. And at the Paris Games I defy anyone to have watched his 100 meter race and not winced. Just 0.02 seconds separated him and the winner Niccolo Mantanenghi. It then transpired that Adam had been swimming with Covid. He tested positive later on that day. Now Adam's path has not been without bumps. He's spoken about his spells of depression and self-loathing and reliance on alcohol, once admitting that at his darkest point he couldn't even look himself in the mirror. Now on a two-year hiatus from competition, we sat down for a chat earlier today and I began by asking him when he started swimming

and if it was true that as a little one he was actually rather scared of the water. It's a bit cliché really I guess that know, I started swimming, didn't really like it in terms of learned swim and all through that process of finding something like a hobby or something that would keep me busy. My brain is a very active brain. And swimming was that kind of release in the end when I got back to 10 years old. But it was actually through the, I guess, through the channel of racing that I really found my love for it. So yeah, I mean, it's when I got, when I started racing, I was like, yeah, this is pretty good. Then you start winning and then you start losing and then you find a way through that. So yeah, I mean, it's been a pretty incredible, but very fast journey when I look back of how it kind of

evolved into what it is now. What, 19 years later, nearly 20 years later. I'm interested by what you say about your racing mind. So can we talk about that a bit more? I mean, a lot of people find swimming to be unbelievably helpful for their mental health, because actually you can hit a zone quite quickly in a pool, can't you? Which just completely takes you away

from the rest of the world. There's something about being surrounded by the water, about being underwater that sometimes feels quite comforting. So is that the kind of thing that you're talking about? Yes. I think obviously the racing aspect aside, because most people who know potentially listen to this won't be racing competitively. If you are, good job, if you're not, get into it. But at the same time, I think swimming is probably one of the few sports left that we're not connected to technology in a sense of it's very raw

and it's probably the only time in the day where most people will be like, okay, before work or after work or away from the family, sometimes with family, that you'd get that time to yourself to decompress. And I think that a lot of people mentally never switch off from their phones or emails or whatever it is, and that can't get you there.

So that's a beautiful side to things that even though you're doing something and it's quite a hard sport to learn and do well, that you're also away from society's pressures which I enjoy just kind of swimming up and down and just almost releasing my faults as well. Can you swim just for fun anymore? Of course, yeah, of course. Well, I don't know what the people next to me think, but

I can swim for fun. But me being me, I'm always trying to find an edge to something or trying to find a way to do it better or more efficiently. So yeah, it's still a bit of a catch-22, I guess. Take us back to your early teenage years then, and when you really started racing, what was your training schedule like? So training schedule would have been probably four, well definitely four a.m. get up in the pool for five, do a two hour session, very hard session,

then get to school, which is about 30 minutes back home, have about 20 minutes to refuel, beans on toast, go to school, do school all day, and then you train again, I think five till eight or whatever it was. And that'd be three days a week, and then the other days would be single, so you do afternoon only.

But probably for the 19 years I've been doing it, you'd be averaging 50,000 meters a week, which is a lot of swimming, but you'll be also doing gym, and obviously as you get more professional, you have commercial things, which I'm very grateful for, but you'd also have nutritionists, psychologists, the whole team around you to have those conversations. So it's like the more success you get, the less time you have and the more responsibilities as you get older

as well. So it's managing all that kind of, I don't know what you call it, equation. That's the hardest bit. Yeah, I mean, it is mind boggling when, when you talk about that 50,000 meters swimming a week, that's just extraordinary. And I think your path through some poor episodes of mental health is quite well documented, Adam. So I hope you don't mind me asking you about it. But I mean, it just strikes me as a lay person that it's not surprising that you might have had some peaks and troughs in a life that was actually demanding so much of you, so young. I know it must be more complicated than that, but would that just be quite a simple truth as well?

I think it is, you know, if we take it for what it is, it's a bit like an onion, I guess, like on the shell, people will see, you know, I guess you winning and breaking world records and not ever taking a loss in what seven, eight years in a championship. And that's great, right? But we all know, especially as, as we get older, that everything has to come at a cost. So that will come at a cost as relationships, it will come at a cost financially, it will come at a cost in time, energy. But swimming in a sense like any other sport will punish your body continually. And when you punish your body, your mind will be constantly fatigued.

So learning to deal with that fatigue, we're not talking one week at a time, we're talking eight months at a time. So staying in that hole or the black hole we call it, for that amount of time is easier when you're younger. And again, as I say, I'm a more mature athlete now that you realize that it's not sustainable to live like that. And I have been through some very, very hard times

where, you know, it continually changed. First, it was, is this worth it for all of the outputs of the 1% that we see the results or 0.1% of the Olympic games or world championships? And then as you get older and the team evolves around you, you know, am I feeling valued? Because anyone in any job, if they don't feel valued, you don't wanna really perform that well, you know,

because it's like, oh, you know, why am I doing this? Is it just for me? Is it just, is it for my family? Is it for my future? And having those questions on your mind when you're going at 200 heart rate and you're asked to being pushed and pushed and pushed for years at a time is incredibly hard.

And finding an event for that is extremely difficult. So it's a very complex answer that would take hours to properly go into the depth for, but at the same time it's, I think athletes in general, you know, when you are pushing that edge constantly and pushing that boundary constantly and finding ways to push it, it's difficult. But it's also as a human, I don't think we've ever had these pressures on us ever, because we're expected to deliver more results as people deliver, we're in less time, and if we have less resources and you know continually find a way to do that as well. So you can kind of segregate the human and the athlete in both their struggles. I mean I completely hear you when you say it's

it's more complicated than this and we're never you know we're never going to be able to to cover all of you know what you've been through in one simple interview. But I wonder as well, Adam, whether it's something about the kind of length of your horizon as well when you're an incredibly successful young sports person. You don't have the kind of luxury that most of us have of thinking, well, I might do this job for 20 years and then at the end of that, I will have reached my peak, I will have accumulated my wisdom and experience. Your horizon is right in front of you all the time, isn't it? Which is something that most of us don't

have to actually live with. Yeah, and I think the biggest struggle with that is, I mean, again, in a very privileged position where my job is very rewarding if you do well, but where's that reward if you don't or something goes wrong. So the horizon is always shifting and trying to find a new way to do something, even though it's the same goal, because again, the formula changes each year as you get older, you have children,

and you want different opportunities and stuff. So it's, again, these answers are very, very difficult to kind of shorten. But I think the overall one is that, you know, you have got to keep your eye on the ball, but what if that ball isn't there or, you know, that ball is punctured and you want to kick it? Because the Olympics, from my experience this time in Paris, was the most difficult Olympics because of my illness and the journey I had to get on in the, I think, 13 months I had to prepare for that. And 13 months for an Olympics is not enough time

in the sense of, yes, you can get to full speed, full fitness, but it's almost like you kind of go through that motion and before you know it, 12 months out, and then you blink and the Olympic games are here. And you've got so many uncontrollables at Olympic games and that you can't control because the organization of things is out of,

without your kind of jurisdiction. So yeah, I mean, that hit hard, you know, obviously getting ill on the last bit down in mind, I've been pretty healthy the whole year. And then one week, the one day you're meant to be healthy, you know, you've got an illness. So how do you deal with that? And that still plays my mind of what ifs. And that's where kind of discipline has to come in. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

So talk us through the 100 meters then, where you won the silver. You didn't know that you had COVID going into the race, did you? Didn't you test afterwards or had you tested before? So I tested afterwards and we had kind of comes across whole Olympics that it was going around, but we kind of treated it like anything, like a cold. And my whole preparation to do anything is, we're always gonna prepare to perform, right? It's what Bridgeton say for us is that we align with that.

So it doesn't matter what we're doing. It's all about preparing for the worst outcome. So I had the doctor rounds and she's brilliant. And she was like, yeah, there's a really bad hay fever going around in France right now. And I was like, don't know, I've got a really bad throat and everything above here just feels horrendous. And so I did the race, I did the heat,

I was like, you know, that feels good, but I feel like I'm at 80% of my ability without even knowing I had a little bit of brain fog, like I didn't really feel I was there. And then obviously the semi-final went well, and I think two 100% or 110% efforts just knocked COVID potentially on the other end. And I woke up the next day and I was like,

this is pretty tough. But at the same time, I'm like, I'm here, I've got to do it. I've got two arms, two legs. I've got a good mentality and I'm just gonna give my absolute best effort. Doesn't matter what I've got. Because you know, you've got to take in bits from what other people do, right?

It's what if I wasn't a special forces or I needed that to happen right there, right then, I wouldn't just give in. And then obviously I got the result, but we did the COVID test a few hours after the press conference and it came up straight away. And I knew it. And then I was in bed for two days, three days,

and then I had the relay towards the end of the week. But I think as time goes on, even though, you know, obviously you wanted to get the gold and you wish to be healthy, that I think there's going to be way more learning from what happened there for the rest of my life than getting gold, if that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, it makes total sense. And I think you actually said that in the post-swim interview, didn't you? Which I won't be alone in saying this, I really felt for you and I know that Simone Biles was keen to make quite a point actually

about those post-event interviews at this Olympic Games which just actually are quite, they seem to be quite painful sometimes for the athletes to go through. Would you agree with that? I don't know. I think it, I'm a very honest person right and I'd always kind of say how it is. I'm very straightforward I'd hope that when you are interviewed after the race, one yes you don't know what you're really thinking because you know you don't never want to make excuses because that's just my personality you know, you don't never want to make excuses because that's just my personality. But also it's like, okay, how can I say something

that what is my true heart saying? And I'll just let my heart spill because you put so much effort into it and so many sacrifices and so many things have gone wrong in that week prior to it. And so many decisions that I could have been better. So you feel a little bit disappointed, but also at the same time, you're still blessed,

you're still here, you're still doing an incredible job. So I'd say it's a mix of pain and being blessed and being happy because again, I don't define victory or winning now by a medal that would hang around my neck. Of course we all want it to be gold every single day. I think everyone will listen to this once a gold medal in their own field every day, but that's just not real life. It's not even on this world. So yes, it is painful, but people out there are going through a lot more pain than I would in a swimming race., you've got to keep it in perspective. Can I ask you also about the Chinese swimmers who were in the pool at the Olympics? I know you've

been asked about this before, but two of them had tested positive for banned substances, which was then excused or explained as some form of food contamination. or explained as some form of food contamination. How does it feel though when you are in the changing rooms, when you are in the pool with athletes who have just done something a bit different to you, you know, whoever's to blame or not to blame? I don't know whether I've used the right language there. I don't think it's, you know, right. Okay, let's take it away from a single country. It doesn't matter who is there, who you're racing.

You expect the governing body, so let's say Waterquatics and WADA, who are the world anti-doping agency, they oversee everything. You expect everyone in that field, doesn't matter what sport, doesn't matter what country, doesn't matter where you're racing,

that everyone you're racing has gone through the same painful experience of getting tested every single day. Or we have to put a 60 minutes slot every single day where we are. So we're ready to be tested, take a sample, then they can put it on your passport of this is out of line of what your body has been for the last 10 years, for example, they'll take on an average, I guess.

But the, the most painful thing for me is that, you know, people who have worked extremely hard, even, you know, myself that we're racing people that have almost skipped that and found a way through it. So would I want to be racing people who have had an antidote in a violation? Absolutely not. Doesn't matter if it's an accident, doesn't matter if it's a meat contamination, doesn't matter if it was a kitchen, doesn't matter. It's, I don't know how people can race people can race because it's not honorable and it's not fair but that's just my point of view and you know these countries have certain pressures and certain

ways they're brought up that they think it's okay to do that if they get the okay from above but I think that's where sport is the most evil at the moment that people are finding ways through that there's too many loopholes and it needs a massive overhaul politically and in a sense of how people are tested and where is that tested by water or is it tested by a kind of a an agency that has No ties to anyone. So there's no influence anywhere and that is the dream that everyone is under the same anywhere and that is the dream that everyone is under the same body that is being tested that we're not relying on UCAD to do UK only we're not relying on

USA, USADA to do US we're not relying on Chinada to do Chinese athletes so it just needs to be more fair it needs to be I'm trying to think of the word kind of less centralized and more governed as a whole. Yeah. I know that you are on a two-year break. You've said that you want two years off from the sport. It's inevitable wherever you go, you'll be asked about whether or not you will make a return and whether or not we might get to see you at the next Olympic Games. Does it become beyond frustrating for you that that's what people want to know about you?

Not really. I think it's more than fair. I think as professional athletes, you know, just like anyone, if say you're in football, you owe it to the team and the fans and people around you to give an answer. The problem with my answer is I wanna, you know, I'd love to go to LA and I'd love to go there. But if my world changes in the next two years where I have a family and you know, have more kids and more responsibilities

from people around me would that affect my decision? Absolutely. So it's not a decision that I can make anymore, it's a decision that the people around me almost help me make that decision and it's too soon you know we're only a month or two months from the Olympic Games in Paris and I've been so busy I haven't even been home I've been home a collective of maybe five days like home home because I've been so busy, I haven't even been home. I've been home a collective of maybe five days, like home home, because I've been working across the world and doing stuff for my own business.

So that answer is still cloudy. I know that water crates have put forward for the 50 meter breaststroke, 50 meter fly, 50 meter backstrips, so the sprint events. If that does happen, I'd be stupid not to go for it. But if it doesn't happen, it's still beyond the fence of is this going to be worth it and is this the answer I'm looking for going to be an Olympic gold medal? So I can't really give an answer on that one.

But I suppose that's what I meant by being frustrated because actually it does mean that you can't really have any time off because everybody's just putting you back into the place that you're trying to have time off from. Final question Adam, because we're almost out of time and it is a bit of a walloping question as well. I think it's always really interesting when people find faith and I wonder whether you can explain what it means to you to have found faith? I think faith, you know, it doesn't matter what religion you follow or to what extremity you follow that, you know, for me, my faith has always been there. I've always looked for a higher being or higher kind of understanding and I think in sport again you know obviously this is my world sport so I have to keep relating it

back to what I do that you have that community but you don't really have a community out of that and church for me and the people in church provide that community and help me and hopefully I help them with certain things and they don't want anything from me either so that is very different, very different to the society that I live. So I think yes it's very very important but not important for the athlete at all. I'm not looking for answers to go faster or to win, I'm looking for answers for the human and I don't think modern society has any of the answers for what we're trying to do, what's my purpose, what happens in you know 10 years, 20 years and I used to worry a lot of what happens

after sport but for me I don't worry about pretty much anything anymore. I'm very, I've even got more relaxed with certain decisions and certain people. And because I put that worry on my faith and I still work hard and I work extremely hard and everything I do. So I trust that that hard work would be put in the right place with my faith to guide it.

And the hardest thing about traveling so much and being so busy is that sometimes that's cloudy and sometimes I have to check myself Whereas before even though I still believed and I still thought about it that I wasn't accountable for my behavior Whereas now I look for guidance from people from church or from the Bible for example that okay, you can Know relax on this. It's not really too serious and okay you can relax on this it's not really too serious and it doesn't matter what the situation is you'll be dealt some horrendous cards throughout your life but just just don't worry and have faith of it will get better there's always a always light in the dark.

Adam Peaty and I think any sportsman's story is interesting't it, when you come to consider what you then do next. Because to have that huge, huge, enormous success so early in your life, I often think is a little bit of... I think it's a bit of a weight, actually. Oh, a huge weight. And also, particularly with swimming, I always think of those really punishing five in the morning swims probably since you were about 11 or 12 and that's but although it was probably really demanding it was a structure that you then have to learn to live without and I don't know how they do it. Yep I also seriously would never want to have ruined my absolute love of domestic swimming by taking swimming so seriously because I do think for so many families it's a

real joy to be on a beach to be mucking around in water with your kids and stuff I mean it's not like it ever the opportunity ever presents itself for me to compromise that at all. But you know what I mean? I know you're a good swimmer but I think the average swim is about sort of 5 foot 11. Yes, I didn't really have the physique for it. Wasn't going to happen. Not really but there isn't actually, if you think about it Jane, there isn't really, apart from gymnastics, there isn't a sport that you and I would have a natural physique

for. No, I think the pole vault was ruled out very early on and swimming. The long jump. You're right, it was literally gymnastics all bust and unfortunately I could barely do a forward roll. So there we are. We are back tomorrow, it's Jane and Fee at times.radio. I'm sure that all of you would join me in wishing Jane well at the dentist today. Obviously, we hope it all goes okay. Have you got some soft food in the fridge for when you get home?

What would it be? Scrambled eggs? I'm going to refer to Tom Parker Bowles' recipe for scrambled eggs. Like, I'm going to eat like a royal. Turns out I had no idea how to make scrambled eggs until he revealed all in the time zone for the weekend. I'm going to challenge you about that tomorrow because I read exactly the same recipe and just went, what is scrambled eggs? Did I? That's not what I thought. Oh I thought you were being generous. I read through the ingredients and I just thought,

well yeah, scrambled eggs. Coming soon, the Jane and Fee cookbook. Beans on toast. Buy beans, put them on toast. Best selling. Goodbye. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. 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. Music