Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Finding the crevices in the niches...

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Today Jane and Fi ask: what age is the cut off for public displays of affection? They also consider starting up a travel agency... Nantucket anyone? Plus, Jane speaks to mountaineer, Kenton Cool, about his upcoming tour 'K2: The Savage Mountain'. 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.

I mean, I hope it was a nice occasion. That is a bit of an odd one, but nothing illegal about it. They weren't really... Sorry. Sorry. Greetings, people. This is Off Air, the podcast. We don't really know what it's about.

It's about you, it's about stuff, yeah. It's about the essentials, the non-essentials, whatever it is. You're very welcome. Pamela Wade is 72 thirds. She's listening in Auckland, New Zealand. She's been an award-winning freelance travel writer since 2009 and I'm surprised that you're still with us Pamela because we've had another correction on our geography today. Yeah gosh. But anyway she's written on a different thing. This exchange literally stopped me in my tracks today ladies. This is Jane saying, it may well be that her knockers are coming out now and then I'm saying I wouldn't like to see that at all. It didn't help that my autocorrect chose to write knickers. When I read that

on coming in to read the emails this morning, I couldn't quite place it. What were we talking about? But it was about Taylor Swift. It was about Taylor Swift, yes. I hadn't even intended it to be... As funny as it turned out to be. Or in any way funny. No. So there we are. But there are, I have to say that I have been looking at more of these images of her. I mean, once you get above 30, is it okay to do lots of spooning and canoodling in public? Well, it is, it's a little bit.

We were having this chat in the office yesterday, weren't we? And we had it at home last night as well, with my youngsters. And one of my children is a fanatical Swiftie, but even she is just, she wonders whether it's necessary. Well, the weird thing is, how old is Taylor? She's 34, 35, I think. And Travis Kelsey, the whatever it is, Kaiser, what's it, tight end.

I just never get tired of saying that. Tight end, scrum half, prop forward. Yeah. He's 34 as well. So I just know that when I was 34, I didn't really do public displays of affection full stop and would never dream of doing them if they were going to be captured on film or camera. Unless you had a point to make. What do you think the point is? I don't know. I mean, it's not helping with the old conspiracy theorists, is it? No.

But I think there should be a cut off. I'm going to say that cut off should be about 17. Do you think? I think just so that's enough. I don't mind it going into your 20s. Or the other way to look at it is that it should just be extended into all age groups. So you know you see lovely octogenarians sitting in the royal box at Wimbledon having a quick fondle. That's the way to do it Jenny. Exactly my point, you really don't and I don't want to see it. So let's not encourage those venerable celebrities who get invited to centre court. We don't want to set them off. Yeah, but you're right.

On those hot afternoons. It is weird. And if I was at a public event now and I knew that a camera was kind of, you know, being trained on me, absolutely the last thing that I would do is pull somebody towards me and have a snog. It just wouldn't be the first thing that I'd think of. Obviously it wouldn't be somebody. It would be the late in life love interest. Exactly, it wouldn't just be anyone because you used to do that, but you've stopped it now.

Well, that's a very unpleasant thing to say. I've got an email about that actually, about your earlier unpleasantness. So here we go. Go on, go to it. Kind regards, Amy. It's actually a really, really lovely email of gratitude, Amy, so thank you for taking the time to do it. My husband suggested your podcast to me pre-pandemic or perhaps pandemic cusp and I loved it instantly, I loved it long and strained to hear you over the hubbub of your previous settings.

It was weird that we chose to record audio in one of the loudest clanking places we could find. It really was weird and that was the BBC. They were cheap. What a cheap lot of people they were. So we did think it was a USP for a while but quite often when we were recording the podcast because we were doing it outside in the piazza we had to move three times during the podcast because they'd be putting up stuff for the one show. Exactly. We were very vulnerable to the one show set up which would unaccountably often seem to involve crash barriers as though punters, members

of the public would be desperate to meet the celebrity that they had on the sofa. And then there was the protester, do you remember him? The loud haler, Loud Haler Len. Yep, I do remember him. What was he protesting about? I don't know, the noisiest possible way I can remember but the BBC is quite vulnerable to that. Listen, protest is good. Who wants to live in a country where you can't protest? Not me. But just with a megaphone when we're trying to record a podcast and we both have... It wasn't desperately helpful. So Amy, thank you. I want to echo Fee's sentiment. Just

thank you for bothering to keep listening and also to thank us. It's lovely. She does go on to say, I listened to the back catalogue and I marvelled at Jane's open grumpiness towards Fee and after all your jokes are needling towards each other, here comes the bit that Jane will find difficult. Then the lockdowns came and I then marvelled at the softness you had with each other as the times required it. Oh you see, no but they did, they did. Because that was, I mean, I honestly, I was listening the other day actually to our good friend and showbiz pal, Sheila Fergati, who works for another network. Yes. But she was talking to Lucy, the disasters expert. Do you remember Lucy Easthope? We've met her at a literature festival and she's interviewed. We've interviewed her. She writes

about and is an expert in disaster recovery. And she was talking to Sheila and she was saying something that I don't think can be said often enough, which is that we are all as a planet still in recovery from COVID, from what it's done to us and what it's done to the way we think about ourselves and our relationships and our family lives. And she thinks it's slightly understated and it should be referenced a little bit more and I think there is an eagerness just to forget it isn't there and just move on oh that was that was three years ago we don't need to think about that anymore but for us for our generation that was an epic and challenging experience

and on the scale of World War Two for our parents and grandparents? Yeah, I mean my deepest sympathy goes towards the kids though, because I think for anybody under 14 or 15, two years is such a long, long part of your life. I'm not going to try and do the maths because my maths is a bit hopeless, but if you were very young then 20% of your life could have been spent in lockdown and that is absolutely massive. If you and I at the age of 50 had spent 20% of our life indoors not allowed to talk to people, you know that is such a profound effect and I don't think that gets recognized in education, in development, all those kind of things. Well there have been stories this week

about children starting school with you know again really struggling with communication. We're talking about the four and the five-year-olds who will have been around during, well, yes, they will, between 2020 and 22 when it all just about ended. Yeah, they would have been making their first social interactions. Tottering around and, you know, very much vulnerable to everything that was against us at the time. So anyway, sorry Amy, thank you anyway for writing. Yeah, no, it is a very, very nice email to write and I hope that you can carry on listening to us.

And actually she does go on to say that what she's trying to do is to recognize her gratitude and make it very public for people who she thinks really got her through some tough times. She says, I'm trying to push myself to actually thank and acknowledge the people who provide content that actually means something to me and actually helps. And she says, this has meant I've started accosting people on the street whose art or talk or television show I've seen and loved and expressing that enthusiastically to them. I then walk away slightly red faced wondering what the hell I just said with one of my daughters saying, do you even know them? Well, I'm sure I speak for every single person you've approached, Amy. They'll be grateful that you did. So never feel bad about doing that,

because actually it's a really lovely thing to do. So she has charted the progress of our friendship. Some of the grumpiness can still be there, Amy, from time to time. Some of the digs, but I've learnt to cope. What you got? Well I have, I'm seeking sanctuary from your Roth in the arms of Martin because he is backing me up on this bus thing. Oh I know, I didn't do the bus experiment, I'm sorry.

I hope people across the world will try it with your local bus service. I said the other day, and this is something that has been lingering deep in the back of my mind ever since I attempted to do it, that when I went to my local bus station to take photographs of buses, anyway it's not as interesting as it sounds, I did it with my smartphone and you can't do it, the numbers just keep revolving and it's really weird. And Martin says, as I was walking through Wimbledon village on Sunday, a 93 came past and I remembered Jane's revelation

about taking or attempting to take a photo of a bus number with her phone. I held up my camera and she's right. It's just a series of horizontal lines. Therefore I tuned into Monday's podcast expecting some proper humble pie from Fee after she dismissed it as tripe. I don't think she dismissed it as tripe in fairness. I just think you didn't quite know what I was getting at. No I just I just didn't believe it. No. She also wondered if Jane

was referring to when the bus driver used to turn a handle. No that wasn't it. No. No it wasn't that and that wasn't what Fee thought either. So Martin is with me and he's coming in February to see us at the theatre. Oh my goodness, well bring some pictures of buses. Well no, we'll talk about this Martin on that night because I want everyone in the room that evening to either have attempted to take a photograph of a London bus or to be happy to do it in the near future after the event. Do you think the challenge should be thrown out to the regional buses? Yeah, let's do it.

Because do you think it's just something in London? My question is though, what is it? Why would they not want you to take a photograph of the front of a London bus? I don't know. I mean, I can't imagine that there's some kind of reason from the, a deliberate reason from the bus providers. Wouldn't it be about the, just simply about the whatever that thing is made of that's at the front of the bus? I don't know. Somebody will be able to enlighten us. It's quite an

odd thing to get stuck on isn't it? But it's good. Well it's good. Look, we're finding the niches in the niche, aren't we? We are, the crevices in the niche. That's right. Sian is listening to us in Sligo on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Sorry to be a pratt. You're not being a pratt.

But just a minor geography correction, Nantucket is off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, while Long Island is off the coast up above New York. I made it through the first half of the episode when you discussed that the thing was set in Nantucket, can't even recall what it was called. What is it called? The Perfect Couple starring Nicole Kidman. I think it's on the flicks, isn't it? But Fell Asleep, well done on your stamina. So thank you for that. I'm afraid that our joint career in the travel agency business is looking less and less likely every episode. Imagine if we did that and people came in and said you know I'd like this this and this

and we pointed them I mean we've done it we've got it very wrong actually haven't we because we would have been directing people to the Suffolk coast when they needed to be in Kent. I mean don't bring that one up. I think people have forgotten that mistake. Yeah. What was it? You couldn't see from somewhere? Let's not go there. No, let's not. It was Dungeness. We wouldn't be able to find it. Oh, I'll tell you what. That does remind me actually.

I bumped into a dog walking friend yesterday and there's a Suffolk connection there, which is why I've suddenly remembered it. And he said, I've been meaning to tell you this for ages. I haven't seen you on a dogwalk for a long time. But you accidentally added me, he's called Henry, to one of your work groups. You must have thought that I was a different Henry. He said he stayed in it for quite some time, had quite a laugh. Oh God!

I know, isn't that terrible? Okay. So you must be very careful, you must be very careful children when you're setting up a WhatsApp group. Just make sure that you've got the right... and I have done it before actually because I've got quite a few emas in my life. Yes, so have I. Yeah, that's a difficult area, isn't it? I've done the wrong emas before, but it did make me laugh because he's such a lovely bloke and I mean he would never have repeated it.

So he was a safe Henry. He was a safe Henry but it just made me laugh that he had had a laugh because you do immediately think oh my god what were we saying? That reminds me of the golden age when they brought in electronic messaging on our computer systems and we were all busily messaging the wrong people about all sorts of things and the classic was always that you'd be bitching about someone you'd send a message to them about them. I mean I made that mistake so many times. So do you mean the E-NPS thing? What was it called?

E-NPS. E-NPS. Was it okay? Electronic news something service whatever it was but the terrible thing as well as something, service, whatever it was. But the terrible thing as well as presenters that quite often you'd have a hot seat changeover so you wouldn't bother to log out because the new presenter was coming in. And you'd be able to well and also you'd be able to just read all of the messages that have been sent to them or that they had sent back all the way through. That was great. So that's another top tip. Always log out.

Actually that is a top tip. That really is true. It doesn't matter where you work or what you do. Fran says, I share your pain about Avanti. Yes, okay, well let's try and stay off Avanti just for a couple of weeks. However, recently I've noticed that when there are no empty seats, parents will sit proudly with their children taking a seat, even when the children are really tiny, and that leaves elderly and older folks standing. Is it just me? I would have immediately put my child on my lap, or if they are six and eight, just suggest they share. Respect for anybody else appears to be long gone, says Fran." Well, Fran, I don't know whether I've

mentioned this before but it is an ongoing fandango of mine that that old rule of you give up your seat for somebody older, potentially frailer, potentially more tired and certainly pregnant does appear to have just died a death. And I think it's a real shame. And yes, kids can sit on your lap, and they can if they're little, share a seat with a sibling. Can't they? Yes, they can. I mean, they really can. And you do get, it happens on the tube as well,

all the time that you see adolescents of both sexes just thinking, I don't need to bother. Why would I give up my seat? I don't think it even crosses a lot of people's minds that there's a possibility that you would. Because if you haven't seen it happen, then you don't know that you should be doing it, or if you haven't once been told that you should. Should, yeah.

Maybe you don't. Well, can I say? I think we should bring it back in. I think you're absolutely right. One of our correspondents, and I'm sorry because it must be really annoying if you write to us and then you don't actually get the name checked, but I will try and dig it out later, did make quite a good point about that sign that's on the London Underground now about not all disabilities being visible. And her point was that's unhelpful because, you know,

does that mean that you should automatically kind of know that somebody should tell you? It's quite a weird thing. I mean, it's a very good thing to say because obviously it's absolutely true. But what's the point in putting it up there? And it doesn't really solve anything, does it? I suppose if somebody is brave enough to say, could I have your seat instead? Has anyone ever, no one's ever asked me that. No, no, nobody ever has. No, I mean I'm obviously getting to the stage where I'd be very grateful if somebody offered me their seat. I would no longer ever say, no thank you, and you know carry on standing. I would suffer it.

I won't do that anymore. No, fair enough. I find also, because I'm short, you're short too, I'm just about to do another short email, you know the kind of, the bum rests that you can, you're meant to be able to use in the tube, absolutely do nothing for me at all. I envy the people who are genuinely perched on a bum rest. Yeah well I can't reach them. No. My bum hasn't been that high in living memory.

No because if I tried to then my legs would be dangling and I'd look a little bit silly. This comes in, Tall or Short from Janet May. Now Janet, I'm afraid I can't read all of your email because it pertains to being in a women's Morris dancing team. We can't go back. We've abandoned that, we can't. We can't go back. It's an absolutely lovely story and thank you very much indeed for sending it and if we got an email special I'll try and go back to it. We can't start the Morris dancing again, it's triggering. Very triggering. But I just wanted to say, because your PPSs are fantastic, her family is also from the east coast of Scotland,

mostly in Aberdeenshire on the corner, but also from Ferry Den across the river from Montrose. And we all love the east coast. I'm trying to start a fight between east coast and west coast here. Six years ago, we strolled along the east coast from Fraysborough, Aberdeenshire to John O'Groats and it was simply fabulous. We love it even more now and the wonderful John O'Groats way from Inverness to yes, John O'Groats makes it a truly wonderful experience.

They are improving it all the time with stiles, footbridges and wooden steps to get up and down some of the steep bits. So I totally agree that the East Coast is vastly superior to the West. No midges either. And that is such a massive, massive plus. No midges. But why no midges? Well, I think it would be to do with the lay of the land and that kind of liminal space in between the sea and the mountains,

which on the West coast is huge, which is what makes the landscape so beautiful sometimes. But the east coast tends to be much more rugged. You know, the sea bangs straight into the coast, hence some terrible coastal erosion going on at the moment. And also, it's just colder. I mean, it's just windier. You know, the wind is blowing down from those Nordic regions. And the midges don't like that. They don't seem to like that, no. But it must be to do with the vegetation and the kind of standing water as well. And I'm right at the

edge of my geographical knowledge now, so could you read something else? Do you have a blue beater badge? I do, yes. And so do I. It's for a limerick. And right, and so does our correspondent also call Fiona. My blue beater badge was awarded for writing a letter about how I was a bridesmaid at my grandparents' wedding. I think this is such an experience

that I've never heard of before, but I suppose it must happen. Finding themselves widowed, my two remaining grandparents, my mum's dad and my dad's mum. Is that your stomach? No, that was yours, wasn't it? It was yours. It was my stomach. I know, okay Okay we'll be nearly finished you can go...

Yeah I need my shawarma wrap. We're back on shawarma wraps here, they're limited edition. Um... Not that limited love, they're available in every M&S. I know that's what's... Come on M&S. Either stop making it or stop claiming it's limited. Anyway, finding themselves widowed, my two remaining grandparents, my mum's dad and my dad's mum, found a later in life love treat in each other and married when I was seven. The result was that my cousins got new grandparents, aunts and uncles, while all I got was the same relatives but with the added element of parents who were now stepbrother and stepsit. Oh that's so confusing.

Fact which, much to my mum's embarrassment, I regularly relayed to anyone I met. I have occasionally pondered how it would be if either of my parents were to marry my former in-laws and frankly it doesn't bear thinking about, says Fiona. Well I suppose you've got to meet people somewhere. I mean it's great that you got the Blue Peter badge by the way, congratulations on that. All three of us, you Fiona, this Fiona and me Jane, we've all got Blue Peter badges. It's a special class of person involved with Offair, there really is. But I mean I hope it was a nice occasion, it's a bit of an odd one

But nothing illegal about it Said the vicar Just to be clear no incest involved there nothing funny about that But why do I think it's just a bit odd? It's not odd. I'm sure, I hope they were happy. Fiona doesn't say. I don't think it's odd, I think it's rather serendipitous. I think it's rather lovely. Yeah, but just that sentence. My mum's dad and my dad's mum married each other.

My mum's dad and my dad's mum. Yeah. But back in the olden days that must have happened all the time. Oh god, I often think about that. I mean before the wheel was invented your options were very, very limited. Terrifyingly small. Hello cousin. Oh, and that's, oh yeah, let's just not go there. No, let's not. Now, this is a source of ongoing ire in the production office that every edition of The Lady, which is, I like to think of it only because it's addressed to me, is my entitlement gets opened by Jane.

Is the album open, addressed to you? Yes. Yes. Sorry, I didn't know that. gets opened by Jane. Is the envelope addressed to you? Yes, yes. It's opened by Jane, taken by Jane, read by Jane. And on this edition, there is a beautiful picture of one of our favourite women in the world. It's Claire Balding. God, she's had a busy summer, hasn't she? Oh my goodness, does she ever stop? She has not stopped and she just never gets a fact wrong. It's just extraordinary, just encyclopedic. It's all at her fingertips. It is, isn't it? But you wanted to draw attention to one of the letters written by Margaret

Jefferies in Berwickshire. Yes, I don't think Margaret's a listener, but she raises an excellent point. She might be a listener, she might have a crossover with the lady. Well, we might. I suspect that's probably relatively small, but I don't know. Margaret says I'd be very interested to know what other readers think is meant by the description country butter. How does it differ from the other butters we see in supermarkets? That's a very good question Margaret. It is a good question Margaret because I can't be the only idiot who regularly buys a butter with the word country in its title somehow because it conjures

up an image of Daisy the cow surrounded by buttercups in a field. Am I a fool? No, but they're very clever with all of those things. Because some of the names that they put on stuff that is absolutely out of a factory and it is that, you know, fresh farm delight. Euconic idles. Yeah, from Meadows Inc and stuff like that. And it's very, very deliberately placed. And you know, it's actually a warehouse just outside Swindon. Oh, I tell you what, we've never got to the bottom of the Jane Austen electrification training

center. I just don't want to Google it because that just seems so boring. But if nobody can fill me in... We're going to have to, aren't you? Yeah, then later on tonight I'll save that. Well, are you going to... I'm... do you know, this is such a ridiculous thing to say, and I'm slightly embarrassed to be saying it.

I'm actually quite nervous about the Harris-Trump debate. Oh, fair... no, no, you're not alone on that at all. Okay, good. Because I... Just don't want her to mess up. You know I don't either. Please don't, please don't, please don't. I'm not, we're not suggesting she will, but yes I'm actually really glad that you're slightly fluttery about this as I am. I might wake myself up at two-ish and listen on times radio to the debate going on. Would you really? I wonder whether I'll just wake up because sometimes I do that you know when you're having one of those you know overnight slightly in and out of sleep sessions I might just you might put the radio on I put it on yeah

or I might wake up because I know it's on. I want to see all of that stuff that she refers to as her skill set as a prosecutor so she just seems on such firm ground when she talks about that experience and that's what I really want to see her deliver to Donald Trump. And it would just be, I don't know, I mean, he'll put banana skins all over the place, won't he? And, and try and wound her in the most visceral, nasty ways. Or maybe he won't because, you know, he's done that on all of the socials, hasn't he? Because he knows it plays to his crowd. You drew my attention to a post that he had put up, which was so revoltingly misogynistic.

It demeans Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton by connecting them both to a sexual act and we'll just leave it there. It was so gross. It was so, so gross. But he knows he can do that on Truth Social because lots of people will absolutely love it. His base. Come back. They do love it. Yeah. But, you know, his advisors are clever, aren't they? So they won't let him say stuff like that because she would end up just by saying nothing,

looking like the best person in the room if he ever chucked that kind of stuff at her. But I really wish her well. And I know we're running out of time, but the Princess of Wales' video came out after we'd finished our live show yesterday, didn't it? It did. And look, we both, neither of us have had cancer, so we were incredibly fortunate and we don't know what it's like to be her and we, it doesn't need to be said, we both wish her well and want to have cancer with three young kids, I cannot imagine, but I was a bit unsettled by just the overproduced nature of it. I just what about you?

I agree. So when I saw it, I just I really, really liked the film that she did when she sat on a bench and told us her truth. I thought that she was phenomenal. And because she also said very clearly, I need you all to back off. I'm the mum of three. I'm very young, I've got cancer, I'm really scared, it's going to be a very difficult ride. Please just stop, just leave me alone for a while." And I just thought, absolutely brilliant love, absolutely brilliant. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by that. But like you, I felt with the movie, I think the huge problem is once something appears very, very overproduced, you as the viewer do feel a bit distant from it, not as connected to her. And she doesn't

have to be connected to me. And actually, this is a conversation we should have throughout this week, because the singer-songwriter, Chappell Rhone, said some really interesting things about kind of fan love at the moment. But I felt with some of the video you could have spliced it with some of the adverts from American Riviera Orchard. That's Meghan's company, brand? Brand and you might not be able to tell the you know which shot came from which and the opprobrium that is levelled at Megan for being overly controlling about the message she sends out. I don't want to see the Princess of Wales being over controlled by the message she's sending out because I think she's handled an unbelievably difficult time unbelievably well.

So like you I really, really wish her well. But also I suppose, Jane, if that's how she is viewing it, and, you know, wants to show that her family's okay and the kids are okay, and it's a reset for all of them, then that's fine by me. I'm not going to get kind of offended by it. No, but once they've produced that sort of content once... Well, we always expect it? What's going to happen in the future?

That would be... I don't know. I don't want to return to the ridiculous stiff upper lip, which didn't really serve Britain all that well. It doesn't really serve anybody very well. But I think there's probably a safer grey area where we just keep some of the authenticity and also keep some of it back. I don't know whether I'm making any sense. Anyway, you can tell us what you think. Yeah, it would be very interesting to know what you think.

Particularly if you have had cancer or you've got cancer, I don't know, neither of us can speak from that perspective. We're not royal either. Speak for yourself. My nan always said Irish royalty is very much in my DNA. Stand by. Okay. Yes, it's Jane O'Fee at Times.Radio. Our guest is, I mean, honestly we get him don't we? Climber and mountain guide, Kenton Call.

Now his name makes him sound like one of those old rockers we were talking about at this time yesterday, but this Kenton is a climber and a mountain guide. He was born in Slough and he got the climbing bug at University in Leeds and has got to the summit of Everest 18 times. If you'd like him to be your guide though, you better start saving up because the Nepalese authorities charge $15,000 ahead just to attempt it and then there are Kenton's considerable charges on top of that. Kenton's new stage show starts in October and is called K2, the Savage Mountain. As he told me, K2 may only be the world's second smallest mountain but it is actually a tougher challenge than Everest.

Well, there's a couple of reasons for K2. K2, second highest mountain in the world, is about 250 meters lower than Everest but its geographical location is in the Karakoram, North Pakistan and that's just a melting pot of unstable weather patterns. We generally climb K2 in the summertime, so it gets the effects of the monsoon coming in, generating storms, a lot of precipitation. And then added to that, K2 is a steeper, more unrelenting mountain than Everest. It's a real beast of a mountain and you know in comparison to K2 it is by like a factor of 10 harder and more dangerous to climb. Chris Bonnington I think said that actually and I'm not entirely sure I've got his words exactly right, but that fundamentally, Everest wasn't that hard a mountain to climb.

Is that true? It depends which route you climb. So 99% of people will climb either the original 1953 route from Nepal up the Southeast Ridge, or they will go around into Chinese Tibet and climb the North Ridge. Both of those routes are technically, comparatively easy. You have to contend with the super high altitude and all the dangers that brings.

So yeah, so Chris Boninton, he's got a valid point with that. K2 is technically way harder. There's a couple of points on K2, House's chimney for instance, parts of the Black Pyramid which technically are quite hard to climb and then throw into the mix the bad weather and the the altitude and yeah K2 definitely a harder mountain all round technically a harder mountain all round, technically in terms of objective dangers, weather-wise, way more dangerous and harder than Everest. Just take us to what makes a really good mountaineer. What is the skill set required? Perseverance and a bad memory, I think. Because you need to be a well-rounded article.

You need to be technically competent. You need to have the ability to sit out bad weather. Literally sit at base camp, twiddling your thumbs, waiting for the right moment. So patience is a really good attribute of a high altitude mountaineer. And then also, without doubt, you need a good level of fitness.

And you need an understanding about the weather systems, the mountain itself, when to go, when not to go, and also having the ability to say no at the right time. If things don't feel right, then generally they are not going to be right. And so many people fall into the trap of continuing to push forwards when perhaps they should have turned around. And that's when deaths happen.

Well, unfortunately so. And we see it on all these big, big mountain peaks. We see it in the European Alps as well. Only this weekend just gone, there are four climbers missing on Mont Blanc, you know, a mountain that we generally consider to be an easy mountain to climb. But these climbers persevered in a ever decreasing weather forecast. The weather forecast was particularly bad this past weekend and unfortunately four of them are missing and the rescue services currently can't go and search for them because of the continued bad weather. Do you need real physical strength or could any reasonably fit individual female or male climb Everest or K2?

I would say Everest quite possibly, you know given the right logistical teams around them and a good dollop of good luck, it's not just the physical fitness required. There needs to be a modicum of mountaineering sense there. But that's where people like myself step in. I'm an Everest guide. I will help professionally lead people to the top. K2 is a bit of a different proposition. It's more than just having a solid base level fitness. And I would probably say that anybody that goes to K2 is gonna have a pretty good resume of climbing mountains around the world

for them to legitimately be able to go there. Now, obviously there's always somebody that goes there with very little experience, may get away with it, they may not get away with it. But that's been a bit reckless. K2, you want a good pedigree in the mountains before you go there. In fact, any mountain in Pakistan, I think, to a certain extent. Tell us about the young Kenton then. What kind of a child were you and how did you get into all this? Well, I grew up inside the M25. I was born in Slough for my sins. And last time I looked, there's no mountains there.

But I grew up on the corner of a farm. I had great access to the outdoors, out making dens in the woods and playing around in the river, which was at the bottom of the hill near the house. And I think that generated a really good love of being in the outdoors and an adventurous sort of mentality added to that as a boy scout. So outside as much as

I possibly could be. But climbing came quite late. I was a relatively good field hockey player. And then it wasn't really until I went to university that I really found climbing and fell in love with it and the community it gave me and I also liked the physical challenge it gave me. It was climbing is one of these weird things. It's very much a team sport because you very much do rely on your climbing companions around you. At the same time, a lot of it is down to you.

So it's this combination of individual skill, technique and fitness, yet still being part of a team. And I loved that, I really did. And from my early 20s, I fell in love with climbing. But I mean, the critics of these enterprises would say that there's a massive link between rollicking machismo and mountaineering and expeditions that are fundamentally quite risky and are about a lot of men who could be doing something else, actually choosing to risk their lives for the sake of their own ego. Discuss Kenton. Well, where do you need to start to unpick that? I mean, I think there's a modicum of

truth in there. Now, I don't think we should just pigeonhole men on that. You know, women partake in this. Not quite as equal as men in terms of numbers of participants, but you know, they're growing, which is a great thing to see. But you know, essentially climbing is a ridiculous sport. Very few people gain fame or sport. Very few people gain fame or fortune through climbing. It is inherently dangerous. I think it was Ernest Hemingway famously said, there are only three sports on the planet, motor racing, bullfighting and mountaineering. The rest are merely games because there is this chance that you could get seriously hurt or die climbing and to what end? Well I suppose the only end is down to the individual you know perhaps it's self-realization pushing oneself in a dangerous

environment or for many people because let's face it you can go to say the Brecon Beacons or the the Scottish Highlands or the European Alps, you don't have to climb hard dangerous things to get a feeling of fulfilment and joy from being in the great outdoors. Well can I just say I'll get you to nominate your favourite British doable climb in a moment or two if you don't mind. But just tell us what it's like. I mean you've climbed Everest 18 times. Yeah a bit ridiculous isn't it? Well no it's also incredible. You're there. I just want to know what you can see, how you feel in that moment and does it smell of anything? What is it like up there? Well the interesting thing is it doesn't really smell of anything.

You're so high up, everything is frozen. So when you first return to base camp, and arguably a little bit lower than base camp, when you hit the tree line where things actually grow, it is like a century overload. You get hit by the smell of life. You can smell the trees, you can smell the grass, and everything seems to have a greater sense of clarity, which is absolutely wonderful. But actually on the top, there is virtually no smell. The view, well, how do you start to pick apart possibly the most wonderful view you're ever going to see?

You can literally see for miles. You can see across into Tibetan plateau. If you look north, you can, I mean, I don't know how far you can see that way. If you look eastwards, you can see Makalu, the fifth highest mountain, Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. Kanchenjunga is some 150 miles away and it dominates the skyline. If you look south you get the the Kumbu where the the valley that leads up to Everest where you've just trekked up from and if you're up there at night time which I've been lucky enough to be, you can see the little twinkly lights of the of the villages so far beneath you and it, you know, if you ever need something to ground you and make you more humble

it's that because all of a sudden you feel so fragile are you in such a rarefied atmosphere so far from civilization as we know it that for me at least it elevates my sense of purpose. It is quite wonderful, the view from the top. And the feelings are just incredible. Yeah, but we are now hearing about the ludicrous number of people who are climbing Everest, the queues of people to get to the summit, the environmental damage, the questionable attitudes

that some people have towards the Nepalese people, the Sherpas. Is it something that the local population genuinely want to continue? Oh, I think if you ask a local population, they would almost, you know, to the person say yes. And the reason why I say that, you know, Everest is, and I mean, it's in a really nice way, Everest is a cash cow to the local community. There's a lot of trekkers that come through the Kimbu region to go and visit Everest Base Camp. You know, they bring a lot of revenue with them,

the tourists spend. And then climbing, well, you know, we have to pay what's gone up this year. So it's now $15,000 per person peak fee. Last year, they generated 4.2 million US dollars that goes into one of the poorest nations of Southeast Asia. Now 4.2 million dollars perhaps to the British economy doesn't seem that much but to the country where the average annual income is hovering around 350 to 400 dollars a year, 4.2 million dollars makes a big impact. So for the

local communities, I'm speaking for them, I would say they'll categorically say yes, you know, they they would embrace the industry, the commercialism that is around their mountain, Mount Everest. But you're absolutely right, there is, you know is the media pick up on it every year, the queues, the deaths, the inexperience that go there. And this is an ongoing issue with the Ministry of Tourism out in Nepal, the commercial operators like myself, you know, what's the best way to combat this, to project a more wholesome image of the mountain and it is a work in progress but it certainly is getting better for you know without a shadow of a doubt. But you are happy to carry on making your living this way by working as a guide and taking other people up Everest? For the time being at

least yes, the industry is changing. We're seeing more and more Nepalese operators come into the industry, which is a really good thing to see. And the traditional Western operators like myself, we are being squeezed to a certain extent. I'm super lucky I work in a bespoke way. I generally just work with one client each year. So I think my business model to an extent is future-proofed. I think I'm going to be there for a good two or three years. Right. And you must work only with very high net worth people because if it's costing $15,000, did you say dollars per person to get up there?

Well, no, that's 15,000 just for the peak fee. Then on top of that, you've got all the logistical fees and everything else. So realistically, on Everest, if you want to join a reputable team, to give you the best infrastructure that I think you should need, you're looking at a minimum of 70,000 US. And to be honest, the sky's the limit. I'm, I definitely operate in a sort of slightly upper echelons, uh, just the way that I work, um, and my experience. So you're absolutely right.

The majority of my clients are high net worth. Um, but, and this is something that I should really put across climbing mountaineering, even in the Himalayas does not need to be anywhere near as expensive as that. My first Himalayan trip, albeit 30 odd years ago, I went to Pakistan for seven weeks. We climbed a number of mountains and then we went trekking just south of K2. And that whole expedition, expedition including my flight was $550. Now it is definitely doable, you don't need a huge budget, you need a budget to climb Everest but there are so many other mountains not just in the Himalayas but globally that

anybody that's interested in the outdoors or mountain areas can go and pick themselves up. All right, well, back here in the UK then, I've got a decent pair of walking boots, I'm relatively fit, I've got waterproof clothing, where can I go for a climb where I'll be rewarded, but it's not going to kill me? I'm a huge fan of North Wales. We used to know Snowdonia, it's now renamed Eerie, the original name. The multitude of peaks, I mean obviously the the Honeypot Mountain is Snowdon, you know fantastic views of Snowdon. It does get a bit busy though, so I would put my hand or put my cap in the ring and say, Triffin, which is a slightly lower mountain. You can climb it from the Ogwin Valley. They say it's the only mountain in the UK where you have to use your hands, which puts it almost in a category of mountaineering.

But that's a fantastic mountain. It has something for everybody there. And then the views from the top are simply stunning. So I would say North Wales, a myriad of peaks there, pretty good transport links, good accommodation and really interesting fun mountains. And when you're away, does your your domestic situation, your marriage, you've got two kids, do they invest in your expeditions or are they all just a bit tired of that? I mean in the nicest possible way because they've seen it all before. Oh he's gone to Everest again.

They have seen it all before. It is a little bit, oh here he goes again, you know, it doesn't really matter to them if it's 15, 16, 19 or whatever, they're not that interested. However, we have all been to Kathmandu, we have all been into the Everest region trekking together. It was a huge experience for the children. This was a few years ago, so they were quite young at the time. So they have a really good understanding, a sense of what they get up to. But I do think it is a case of, well, daddy's away again, we're not going to see him for four weeks, he could potentially die. So I think it's a double-edged sword for them. They understand the reasons why. It is work. At the same time, I would like to think that they miss daddy when he goes away. And what is the most adventurous thing you do at home?

Oh, at home here? Well, good question. I seem to be here, there and everywhere. Most adventurous thing we do, well, I'll tell you what it is. My son's getting into mountain biking. He loves mountain biking. I go mountain biking with him. I think it's the most scary thing on the planet.

It absolutely scares me witless following him down some of the trails and there's all sorts of, we live in Gloucestershire, there's all sorts of trails and bike parks near us and oh my god it's absolutely petrifying. So that's probably the thing that pushes me the most in the UK. And if your wife says to you, right, you know, you may have climbed Everest, but can you put the bins out? You're actually okay with that, are you? I put them out only last night. Oh, Kenton, what a man.

Yeah, it's a case of, I come home from Everest and I come through the front door and it says, if I've never been away, it's like, okay, you've been away, this is what you've got to do. You've got to mow the lawn, you've got to put the rubbish out, you've got to repaint the garage, you've got to tend to the vegetable patch or whatever it may be and it's the jolt back to reality is pretty brutal. Kenton Call and his show is called K2 The Savage Mountain and you can just go on the Google there and you'll find out exactly where he's playing. Sounds interesting doesn't it? Well it sounds interesting. Does any of it wet your appetite? That's wet with an H.

Does it though? What do you think is going to be the most adventurous thing you do in your third age? How far will you get? Beyond the tea room? How far will you get? Beyond the tea room? I'm so well suited to, let's face it, relatively mature middle age. Elasticated wastes, early nights and plenty to read. Youth was wasted on me, this is great. I'd like to hear about adventurers. I'm, as you know, very interested in space. But I'm very happy not know, very interested in space. But I'm very happy

not to go any further than Greece for the rest of my days. Thank you. Over and out. Have you got an expedition in you? No, I haven't. The closest thing I get to an expedition is naming my winter duvet Shackleton. Well, you see see there we are. I tell you what I was very grateful for Shackleton last night. I think you've been an early adopter of the thicker duvet. I don't think we've had any correspondence on duvets. Disappointing. So do let us know if you've done a glover and already gone to a Shackleton.

Yeah I'd like to hear from anybody who's got three duvets. Can you justify that? Please try. Bye. Congratulations you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2-4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.