Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Fallen into a Mark-Carney-thirst-trap-rabbit-hole

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Jane’s still off, so it’s a Fi and Eve Off Air special! They cover things like knick-knacks for dickheads’ business ventures, enlightenment, slinkies, stiff-guy yoga, and fanny gallops. No guest today due to technical issues so enjoy lots of chat. Our next book club pick is 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute.Our most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.You can listen to our 'I'm in the cupboard on Christmas' playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1awQioX5y4fxhTAK8ZPhwQIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right, don't be silly. Greetings, everybody. Welcome to Tuesday. This is an offer with Eve and Fee special. Hello. Hello. Okay, right. Let's go again from the top. Once more with feeling, this is an offer, Eve and Fee Special. Hiya! That's absolutely brilliant. Brilliant. You've got the showbiz emphasis. Oh, goodness me. I very much enjoyed Robbie Millen's company. yesterday. He's a naughty, naughty, naughty sausage that one. So you know how some people, Eve, they just have an air of mischief about them, does they? That was a bit of an edit job. So I think you've probably done a very, very good job. But I always wonder whether there's a very, very different solemn side to people who have that mischief dancing around their eyes. And maybe

it just happens with Robbie when we get to know who. a little bit more. But he's endlessly entertaining and just for your information, dear podcast listeners, he comes on the live show on Mondays to do exactly that kind of schick about books. And Jane and I are a little bit fearful. Putting him live on air. He's just over the last couple of months, he's said some extraordinary things live on air that thankfully haven't been picked up by Offcom yet. It feels surprising because he's so literary.

He's very literary. So he must read some quite solemn, hefty, books with very serious themes. It does not infect or impede on his every day. I think it bounces off him. But there'll be a place. There'll be a calm, quiet and perhaps rather dark place

that he's also got into the soul. Everybody has one. Serious in his reading look. Yeah, maybe, maybe. I really enjoyed your interview with David Bediel, says Liz, and I will definitely watch his show. I would love to have a chat. No, that's wrong. I'd love to have a cat.

A chat about a cat. Oh, dear. But I have left my cat. my special glasses, they're still in the vestry at St. Bride's Church. Oh, you still haven't gone to get? I haven't gone to get them. Do you want to do a call out to maybe just have them post it? No, I keep meaning to. Because it would actually be a really lovely walk through that part of the city to St Brides, but the weather at the moment in London. Oh, you'll be waiting until spring at this rate? Yeah, it's just horrible, but I'm leaving them in the vestry and convincing myself that my eyes are fine and I don't need them, but I do.

Back to Liz, I'd love to have a cat, but what holds me back is how do you spot a kitten that will be a great character, Cat Liz, it's a really good question. You mentioned the dog cat debate, but with a dog you can largely predict temperament, and as you say, they do all seem to genuinely love their owners. So my question is, are there, in your experience as cat owners, signs that one kitten will be an aloof one, and another one a cuddler? Kidden selection seems very risky. Well, I think this is a phenomenal question to chuck out to the hive. In your experience of dogs and cats, have you ever had Many, many kittens, Eve? I have had two cats.

One was a real cow, and the other was very endearing and affectionate. But sometimes it's part of their charm, isn't it? What, that they turn out to be diffident. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of part of Dora's charm for Jane. Very much so. And I don't think that you can try and change them. There is a delight in the way that they treat you

with just a complete condescension, really. And sometimes with dogs, I mean, that's kind of why cats are a bit more special, in my opinion, because their love is more easily won. Yes, I think that can be true too. I've got a theory as well that all kittens are endearing and their true character traits don't display themselves

until they're much bigger. We share on the family WhatsApp when we all need a bit of cheering up all of the pictures of Brian and Barbara who used to sleep every night in a yin-yan circle together. Just so, so sweet. And now if Brian walks,

Within a one metre area, a cordon of Barbara, she just goes mental at him. Oh, really? Oh, she just biffs him. Absolutely. Just biffs him, claws hissing. They hate each other. They can't be in the same room together. Was it when they went through puberty?

It might have been. I mean, I don't know what happened. And what does change, yeah. I don't know. But I could not have predicted that Brian would be the terrible rogue that he's turned into and that Barbara would be well I mean she's delightful now but she had a very very difficult phase

Yeah it's a very valid question because I think it is quite a common con conundrum But we should chuck it out to the hive Because I know that you've all got an awful lot of experience And also we will put it to Garvey when she's back tomorrow Because Dora was given to Jane By Claire Balding Let's never forget this

Incredible Confluence of celebrity That came about And Claire is all always said that Dora was the cat for Jane. So we're going to explore that one too. And that might be fair. It could be. Lots of you have thoughts about the cinema as well. There aren't many compensations in having a chronic vestibular condition that affects most aspects of life, including losing nearly all of the hearing in one ear. This comes in from Sue. Sue, Sue, I'm really

sorry. But Sue says that the view cinema in Exeter, when we went to see conclave and the sound was so loud, I could feel it through my whole body. I was able to compensate. I turned my hearing aid down to minus 8, put an earplug in my other ear, and all was fine. I have to see the good side of these health conditions. That's so glass half full, Sue, and I really admire you for that. And I hope that you just enjoyed every second of being able to do that, because I'm sure that there aren't many times in life where you go, wha, I've got a chronic vestibular condition.

So you should make the most of that too. We went to watch two TV programs in a row at a cinema on Saturday. day night Eve. What on earth were they? Well it's because the very generous composer of the music for them had invited people along to watch as a kind of party come, PR thing, come, everyone get together thing. And it just made me think why do we do that more often? Because it was really good fun. So it was steel, which is available on the Amazon

Prime, highly watchable Tosh, really good music. Made by the music. Nicely done. But we really love all of our box sets, don't we? But we don't think, oh, I mean, I would actually go along to a cinema to watch some box sets. I really, really would. I mean, living in a house share, watching television with other people enhances the experience so much. So why isn't not more of a kind of, I mean, it's obviously intended to be a communal thing in your house, but why not blow it up, make it bigger?

We love the binge watching, don't we? So if somebody put a whole day of, I mean, I was going to say the Nightman, but we are a bit disappointed by the night manager, aren't we? So let's say Night Manager, season one, because that was epic. If a cinema did a whole day of that, you know, with breaks in between, I'd so buy into it. On a day like today? On a day like afternoon. Yeah.

And a decent lunch break, so you can go and get some really nice food, and then you come back in and watch it. And then you'd feel that really like with your flatmates, that heightened anticipation. And each time you go for a break, you just dissect what you've just watched and get ready to go in again. I think we've hit on something, haven't we? Okay, we'll put it down on the off-air list of business ventures. Of business ventures. And what's the fantastic title? Nick, what is it?

Nick Nacks for tickets. So our business version of knick-knacks for dickets. Right, you've got a couple of emails there. Whilst I open stiff guy yoga at the right page, Eve. Oh, yes. What have you got? So shall we do the follow-on one from Beck? Dear Jane, Fee and Eve, I know you already read my man at the...

the yoga class anecdote, but I just remembered this exchange from a yoga lesson during the relaxation bit at the end. Yoga teacher, repeat mentally after me. My feet feel heavy. Member of class, out loud in a chanting style. My feet feel heavy. Yoga teacher, repeat mentally. Member of class, mentally. Yoga teacher, I mean repeat in your head when I say it. That's brilliant. And she ends up by think, do you remember Lelis or L-Y-L-A-S, the sign-off of Love You Like a Sis? I don't remember Lylas at all. Did you ever use Lila's Leas? I've heard of. I like it, though. I like it very much. Stiff Guy Yoga is a fantastic book. Thank you to Nikki Lynn's Xavier, who has sent it in,

and Nikki is the exponent and creator and founder of Stiff Guy Yoga. It's a really good book. It's very easy to read, and it doesn't have that stuff at the beginning. When I was very into yoga, I bought quite a lot of books about yoga and sometimes it was like 100 pages of that kind of intoning type stuff that you had to get through first and all the promises of enlightenment and I know that lots of people, when they reach the higher echelons of yoga,

are finding immense pleasure in all of that but actually if you just want to unstiff your back, you know, as previously discussed, I find all of that stuff just a little bit difficult. Did you not find enlightenment? No, I haven't found enlightenment. I'm amazed you have to ask me that. I'm still a long, long way away from Enlightenment. There was a fantastic kind of audio cock-up or whatever you want to call it that Nikki Campbell did once on the mid-morning phone and show where, I mean, I think Nicky's an absolutely brilliant broadcaster and he was always really, really friendly and welcoming to people. blue phoned in and sometimes I think we should remember that radio

show hosts who are taking callers at the moment and he bounced into a call because it always came up on the screen who it was who you were going to introduce and he said Eileen, enlighten us and she went no, I'm in Croydon Nikki.

Oh, it's a lovely moment. Right, baby screenings. Lots of you are going to baby screenings. Sarah says I took my daughter now 16 to the Greenwich Picture House, she slept the whole way through the A-Team on full volume. The A-team. And this is a really lovely one from Kate who says, I'm just listening to your podcast interview with Carol Vordman. And I have to question the use of the phrase midlife in reference to her. If she's 65 and in mid-life, she's expecting to live to 130. Surely given the life expectancy at our current time, midlife is actually around 42. I'm 44 and I'm happy to say, I'm middle-aged.

someone who's excellent at maths, I find her assertion that she's middle-aged, more than a little bit bonkers, what am I missing? Thank you both. Kate, it's a very, very good point. What do you think middle age means, Eve, as a younger person? So I define middle age as 40s to 60s, I think, but I did laugh at that email because it made me wonder why. Yeah, well, I think you're right to define it. I think it changes slightly as the approach 40 and nobody's 40 wants to think that they are middle-aged. Or maybe they do. I don't know.

I'd say late 40s. I wouldn't have gone in at 42 as middle-aged. No, I wouldn't have said middle-aged. I think it maybe is one of those, it changes as you approach the deadline. So maybe you want to push it back. And I think maybe that's what Carol Vorderman's doing. But I completely agree, Kate. And do you know what?

There's just nothing wrong with saying old. You know, I think maybe that's... something that we could all be doing is to reclaim old as not necessarily bad, terrible connotations, all of the rest of it. I won't be calling myself in midlife when I'm 65 at all. I just think that would be foolish and I don't want to live to 130. Could you say it's middle age of adulthood? So it only counts from 18. Oh my God. Or not.

You know what, that would mean doing so much arithmetic every time you meet. For Carol. That's not for us. I mean, unless I've got my handy pocket abacus with me, Eve, I'm not going to be able to do that, darling. I'm so sorry. Still in the draw. Very, very sensible advice from Louise, who says, I don't remember if it was on the live show or on the pod, but you were thinking about taking an over-the-counter medication for longer than recommended.

And this was because I said that I was taking a bit of the codeine and ibuprofen for my back that went out. It just went out last week. week. You might like to know that this is because of the high chance of addiction to Kodi. And Kodin on the short term is fabulous to get you through after injure or surgery, but if you keep taking it, you might have to keep taking it just to feel normal and addiction can begin at any age. You're absolutely right, Louise. I remember looking after elderly people as a student nurse who got to their 70s or 80s had a fall and began to drink every day to get them through.

They were then terribly embarrassed to disclose that they couldn't get through the day without drinking. They didn't think of themselves as one of those sort of people. I broke my shoulder about 10 years ago and I definitely wanted to drink my way through the evening more often than I should have. Thank you very much for your kind of thoughts about my back and it isn't awful a lot better this week and I didn't take the coding for longer than three days. But I think it's a really, really good point actually about who we think addiction happens to. It could be absolutely anybody, the start of it can be at any time in your life. And I think that's really interesting. actually, about the way that you might self-medicate in your 70s or 80s in a way that you

wouldn't think that you should or could when you were a little bit younger. And I wonder whether anybody else has that kind of experience to. If you have an ache or a pain now when you're a bit younger, you just pop an ibuprofen without even a second thought. But if you're in a slightly more constant state of pain and all your life, you've just popped some painkillers whenever that's happened, it's then a bit of a slippery slope. Oh, I think so. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And just now, you know, it seems that every shop you go into, you can buy pretty strong painkillers. You know, I can buy them at my local store. I can buy them at the store that's predominantly a hardware store. I can buy them at Tesco Express, Sainsbury's. It's no longer really a pharmaceutical

thing, is it? It's just like, I'll pick up a packet of painkillers when I get some bananas and yogurt. We'll just kind of pass them around at the desk and the conversations around are quite casual. You're just kind of like, oh yeah, I've just popped a couple of these and you don't actually reflect on what that could lead to. Yeah, and I completely understand also that point about what then becomes normal. And if you think, oh, actually if I just pop a couple of neurofen with codeine,

it'll take me back to the kind of normal place in my head, then absolutely you're in problem territory already, aren't you? Slinkies or Slinkies is just, well, that is a gear change, isn't it? Sorry about that, everybody. This one comes in... Who says, My second of four children, age nine, has a slinky and loves it. We had lots of tears when her little sisters borrowed it from her bedroom

and damaged it, so now it won't slink down the stairs. I don't think anybody has got an original slinky that still works, either. They get quite knotted, don't they? They just get ruined. It's been a source of quite a few emails, though. Angie says after spotting one used to wrap around the pole of a bird feeder, presumably to confuse squirrels, I bought one for the first time in 60 years for that purpose. Spoiler alert, it doesn't confuse them one bit.

However, before using it in that way, I had to have a play and it didn't work on the stairs either. Do you think it's down to deeper pile stair carpets than half a century ago? And Angie goes on to say, I know in the great scheme of things, breakdown in the world order, the threat of climate change, the tangerine toddle, at large. It's not a major issue, but what do you think? Well, Angie, we need to spend time thinking about these things, otherwise we're all going to go completely made. If you can't even derive joy from the simple slinky, then we are in a trouble place. We're stuffed, don't we? I think you're right. I think that's the marker point. If the slinky's not even working.

Yeah, because the slinky's just magic. It's just a little bit of magic. I tell you what never survives either in the toy draw is the etcher sketch. No, I mean that really is magic. It really is, isn't it? Let's never find out how it works, Eve. But you can put a perfectly workable etch sketch into the toy box and something happens to it while it's in there, it comes back out and there's just a weird thing across the front of it.

There's a grid that's been created by the etcher sketch trolls in the box, in the middle of the night, and you can never get it white clean again. That's true. Yeah. I forgot about the etch sketch. How can you forget about the etcher sketch? My apologies. How can you?

More cattery and flattery comes in from Roberta, who signs off Viva Le Revolution. Another fan of your podcast here with a comment on the monetising of one's cats and Jane's pondering a late-in-life career shift to Cat Show Lady. Do you know what? I just think it would just be fun. We've got, we're kind of, we're going to be all over the YouTube aren't we at some point? All over. Do you know when?

Don't ask me those kind of questions, please, please. At some point this year we'll start appearing on YouTube. That's good. That's about right. And I think for extra content, I mean, I know that the Times might be expecting some very serious thought pieces about how sexism and the menopause is affecting life across the country using statistics

and an awful lot of intellectual heft. But I think actually just Jane and I taking our cats to a show It's probably much more what people want. I would love to take Babs to a show because she's so pretty. You can't stop looking at her, she's so pretty. And I think it's probably, I think it would give her the badge of honour in the house that she wants.

And Dora is insanely attractive. And, I mean, really, you know, she's got that beautiful kind of cat eye makeup. So I think that Jane should definitely show her in Bracknell. I'd be very keen. Yeah, I think we should. I think that's the content everybody you really does want. And then when it all goes tits up, that's also the content everybody wants.

As the dying of the light. I'm with you on that one. If you haven't seen it already, you may wish to check out a documentary film produced in your former North American colony, that's Canada. It's titled Catwalk Tales from the Cat Show Circuit. I believe that in the UK it's available to rent on Amazon, but perhaps free through other streamers.

It's as charming and as funny as Christopher Guest's Best in Show. Have you seen Best in Show? No. It's a mockumentary thing, isn't it? I heard someone talking about it the other day. I've never seen it either. So that's a cul-de-sac. Moving on.

But it's all real. And yes, operating a cat beauty salon is a requirement. Sadly, I think, Fee, that it would completely, completely disqualified Barbara due to her unruly fur situation. Oh, yes. I'm going to shave her fur balls off. And your natural desire to retain all ten of your fingers, Dora might stand a better chance. Oh.

I know. Actually, you don't want to set off that competitive mouse between us, who's got the nicest cat. Thank you for your ongoing concern for the beleaguered citizens of the US and your honest criticism of our unbelievably out-of-control government. It is greatly appreciated. It's so much easier for us to throw stones here, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah, it just really is. And as neither Jane or I have any intention of going to America, we feel on safe ground to be immensely critical. If it's of some help to you, we will definitely continue.

But sometimes I feel a bit bad about that, Eve, because we're not having to, you know, imagine if you were living in Minnesota at the moment. How dreadful you would feel about what is happening in your state, And would it be helpful, you know, for two birds on a wire miles away, to just have the freedom? Yeah. I don't know.

Pathetically makes us feel a bit better about our own situation. It does. Without actually affecting any kind of change at all. Yeah. So I don't know. But would you go to America at the moment? Would it affect your desire to travel? I mean, honestly, it probably wouldn't because I've absolutely never been.

And so I would very much like to, but at a point in my life, would have liked to live there, and I don't think I could do that now. Oh, that's interesting, yeah. Because I'm sure that it's also quite offensive to loads of people in America, the notion that people wouldn't want to go there on holiday anymore. Well, some people just can't for quite simple reasons.

That's very true. And I don't think that, yeah, I mean, you know, imagine, if you were turned away at border control because you had made some, what you thought, quite kind of anodyne criticism of the president at the moment, that would be something else.

But one of America's great strengths is it's warmth, generosity and hospitality. You know, I think it must be so, so painful to hear people say, you know, I'm not going to come. And I would feel, well, silly you. It's such a pickle, isn't it? It's such a pickle.

Fix the News is another suggestion that comes in. It comes in from Catherine. And this was after listening to Claudia Hammond's interview. That book is fantastic, overwhelmed. It's just got very sensible advice. And when I first started reading, actually, Eve, I thought, oh my gosh, this isn't really telling me an awful lot that I don't already know. But it is because every single thing in there is backed up by scientific evidence and fact.

And then some of the kind of thought processes that Claudia Hammond makes you go to or indulge in are definitely further than I think you can get yourself when you're trying to work out why you're feeling so stressed and what you should do about it. Catherine says also for you mentioned in the next episode about good news going under the radar. I was struggling with all of the bad news last year and actually started to feel poorly. So I looked around for some sources of positive news and found a fantastic organisation called Fix the News. They've got a podcast called Hope is a verb, which is a proper antidote to all of the Zoom. So this is a Solutions Journalism newsletter, which is sharing the hidden stories of progress. I had a look at it this morning. Fantastic. Really, really good.

And it's not that kind of toxic positivity that Claudia Hammond also brilliantly dissects in her book. It's just proper things that have happened in the world that we are now too bad. busy to get onto the news agenda. Scientific advancements, really decent things happening in the environmental world, and stuff that is working is good, Eve, is really good. Do you have something that you regularly use like that, or kind of where do you find your joy to offset the stuff you cover every day? Well, I have found myself just turning more and more to really good fiction.

Because it's a weird thing, isn't it? that for our jobs, we absolutely have to be across all of the dark stuff. And by the time I get home, we'll get to the weekend. I genuinely don't feel that I've got enough in my, enough room in my head to take on board any more news. So I felt that if I went in search of more positive news, that wouldn't actually be doing the trick. So I've just read, you know, an awful lot more fiction.

So I used to love a biography or an autobiography, and I've just tried very hard not to read that because I just need to go to really, really good stories. Proper escapism. Yes, proper escapism. And, you know, so I think the two loveliest days in the Christmas holidays where I just read William Boyd books.

Yeah. And then if you know that you're in the hands of a really, really good novelist, you do know that you're going to be taken to a place of some satisfaction by the end of the novel. And I really have enjoyed that. But Fix the News looks terrific. I think we should always.

be indulging in a bit more of that. You're looking at something. Just looking at something. Eve is looking at something. Second of April. What? William Boyd. William Boyd. Oh, brilliant. Okay. We must tell Robert Harris. It's very competitive.

Sorry. Okay, final email from Eve. Please, could you tell us the title of the email first? So this comes in from Louise. It's not her real name. I will also preface this by saying that Louise has sent this email from her professional email address. I have her official job title. I won't mention it. The title of this email is, I've got the fanny gallops for Mark Carney.

And what is brilliant, Louise, is that you work in HR. We would have to come and see you if we sent an email in the building with that title. Girlfriend. Jane Fee and Eve. I listened to the speech that Mark Carney gave at Davos the other day and came over all funny. A politician who seems to speak truth to power

is unashamedly erudite, eloquent and upstanding. I have to say, that is very appealing. I was talking about this to a friend whose response was, oh, but he's so short and it just made me think. Yes, I like tall men.

I'm 5'8. Don't be jealous. But there is something so attractive about a good guy speaking out against an orange-faced man baby bully. This revelation led me to Instagram and the discovery of the rabbit hole that is

Mark Carney thirst traps. The man gives a good wink. Yours slightly embarrassed, Louise, again, not a real name. Well, no need to be embarrassed at all. I didn't realise that he was a shorter gentleman. A short king, we call them. So, I mean, is he as short as Macro?

Or is he bigger than Macro? I will say, though, Louise. I mean, if that's your type, then quite lucky you. If it's a man who stands up and speaks truth to power and that's the kind of man you go for then you must have quite a good track history. Well, he must have been glued to Davos. I'm so he glued.

And then along came the big orange one and spoke for, we carried that speech live from Davos and Donald Trump did a thing about an hour and 15 minutes. And, you know, he has many things, but he's not short on energy after a long haul flight. That's what we can give him, yeah. Five for eight point eight. So five nine.

We'll call him five nine. I do. I don't think 5-9 is short, isn't you? You would say that, wouldn't you? Would I? Okay. Well, I would definitely have a crick in my neck looking up to someone who is 5-9.

Okay, I'm just going to have to do a slight height check of world leaders. So Donald Trump is coming in at, what, about six foot? Yeah, I reckon. Is Ursula von der Leyen's then? Quite a... She's a very elegant lady. I'm going to say she's quite tall. I'm just going to put in how tall are world leaders

and we'll be back with you shortly. I don't think 5'9 is short at all. No, I don't think 5'9 is short, but I'm also 5'5. So I kind of think it's the difference. Eve's editing herself now. She knows how it feels. We will save our thoughts for long, tall, medium-sized world leaders. But you, Louise, were calling her, aren't we?

You go, girlfriend. And if you want to disappear down Mark Carney thirst traps, then I think that there are far, well, there are far worse things people are looking at on the interweb at the moment. So you do that. I'm going to stick with stiff guy yoga. And I'm sure, I do what, if somebody would like this book, because I'm not a guy and I'm not stiff, so there's no point in me keeping this. So if somebody would like me to send it on to them, will you just drop me an email?

and I'll happily pop it in the post but Nikki it was lovely of you to send us copies so thank you very much for that right Jane Garvey returns tomorrow my thanks to Eve it's just it's loads of fun doing the podcast with you Eve you are you are funny and our thanks as well to Rosie Wright

for sitting in on the afternoon show I think that's all I've covered it yeah that was good we are reading a town like Alice by Neville shoot that is our new podcast book club book we'll give you about six weeks to do that and it will be glorious. And maybe we'll start to think about a new playlist.

Oh, we do need to think about a new playlist. Yes, good call. Okay, well, should we get Garvey onto that? 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 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. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.