Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Fi's secret sleeve tattoo... (with Sebastian Faulks)

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

There are lots of questions left unanswered in today's pod. Fi is steering the ship solo - exploring whether TV characters should say goodbye? What the Off Air robot should look like? And who (or what) is Super Trouper? And Sebastian Faulks discusses his memoir ‘Fires Which Burned Brightly’ with Royal Editor of The Sunday Times, Roya Nikkhah (who’s helping out on the live show this week). You can listen to our 'I've got the house to myself' playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2MkG0A4kkX74TJuVKUPAuJ 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 Podcast Producers: Hannah Quinn and Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm shuffling my papers here in the way that people used to do back in the day. Hang on, I got very painful earrings on. So back in the day where you did actually have to read news from papers, there was a definite kind of art people shuffling their papers, wasn't there? But now they've just got a mouse and they just click on and off. And I don't think it's the same. It's one of the great sadnesses of the world. Hello everybody. It's Fee here with Hannah today on the podcast. Say hello to the children, Hannah.

Hello, children. Hannah is part of our team. She's an essential part of our team and she will be doing the podcast today. Eve is back for the rest of the week. Jane is still up in Crosby. We are passing all of your very kind messages on to her and we will all get through till Christmas, won't we? because as we've said, and so many of you agree, sometimes the show just mustn't go on and family is the place that you need to be. So that is where Jane is at the moment. Carol says exactly that, just to say how sorry I am,

that your event was cancelled. So that was on Sunday at the Prince Edward place where they do plays and stuff. We did have to cancel it, and I think everybody would have got an email, so I really hope that nobody turned up. But hey, if you did, you just had a free evening to yourself in the heart of London's beating but slightly dirty West End

so I hope you enjoyed it all the same and also let's be honest about it 98% of you when you received that email saying the show was cancelled and you were going to get a full refund would have had a little in a woup of joy quite a few of you thank you for the rest of your email it's just very nice indeed Carol and oh yes no this is a good point Carol

I'm so sorry your event has been cancelled We will certainly look to come in the spring You did mention a little while ago It would have been better if you had the afternoon slot And too blumen right It would have been much better But that was taken by Kermode And Mayo doing their film thingy wasn't it

I wonder if you could bear that in mind As I heartily agree Logistics would be so much easier to organise Carol, it's a yes And also, as we've often said We really want to do another show outside of London so maybe both those things will happily collide and you'll find us at the what will it be the basing stoke horse shoe or maybe it might be the crosbie anvil i don't know if

these places exist of course they don't but we will try and get out and about a quick one from elaine as well i appreciate the nice message from both of you on spotify wrapped but i was totally distracted by where fie's left arm was did you hide your seat Critsleave tattoo Did you think that too Well I went So I saw that email And I went back and looked at it

And you are sat like this It does look like you're hiding something But I didn't think it at the time No I didn't notice at the time Okay because Hara was our visualization producer She was taking the film On her phone And sometimes

Let's have a look I actually I was served this actually Spotify kindly send me Oh yeah no that looks silly isn't it That looks like I'm about to do a ta-da And it's like you're hiding something

Yeah bring out something Yeah Or I've been caught mid adjusting my pants And I've just thought I'm going to have to stay like this for a long time The good news is that we're heading towards Complete visualization on the podcast Aren't we Hannah

That's going to come our way We don't know where It's somewhere in the hinterland Of forward planning here at News UK But the whole of Times Radio is going to start being live streamed, and we're going to start visualising the podcast. And that's just such terrific news for Jane and I, because we're just, we're so across that aspect. We're so not. So both of us have just got terrible resting bitch face. And you can

say yes to this, Hannah, because neither of us might. Oh, you're so lovely, Hannah. You are so lovely one person's pensive is another person's what earth is that woman so pissed off about I have that kind of face sometimes I'm out and about that builders shout cheer up love at oh I hate that though that's so rude when people do that oh it's so rude and I'm sorry but it is people in the construction industry who usually do that what you got to be sad about love

you mainly mate you also when people ask you what's wrong and nothing's wrong and then you feel awkward And it's really weird, isn't it? Because then sometimes there's something about the short middle-aged woman, I think, that is either completely and utterly dismissed

and you feel you can just kind of shout, rude things like that at us, or you're the most approachable person in the room. So I think in London, going out and about, I probably get approached for directions and lost people. They gather around me like a maypole and ask me where.

things are and can I help them and all that kind of stuff because I suppose it's a non-intimidating presence isn't it so it works both ways I think if I was a super confident you know five foot nine leggy brunette with swishing hair

maybe nobody would think I knew where the nearest cheap and available toilets were or they'd be too intimidated to ask I think you also though just look like you've got direction and you would know things I think you're not knowing I love you very much Anna. I love you very much. But yeah, I mean, I never do, but I think I always say with

conviction that I simply don't know. Anyway, we will definitely take into consideration people who would like a different time of show if we managed to get the live show back on track. And my apologies for my hidden arm. Lots of you had thoughts about Aline Van de Veldon, so she was the AI creator, she probably still is, of Tilly Norwood. and her interview was on the podcast last week. I'm going to read this one from Alison. Aline seems very clever, creative, but utterly naive. And here's why.

Knowing an image isn't real, doesn't diminish its insiduous influence on children and young people. Think Barbie or Anna from Frozen. Now, I've only watched Frozen once. Who's Anna from Frozen? Anna is the... So there are two sisters. One of them is the ice queen. Anna is the other one who sets off to find the ice queen.

But I'm not sure what influence she's having. I assumed she'd have a positive influence on children, but... Okay. I don't know. Yeah, interesting, okay. Fee asked how will we know what's AI and what's real, and Aline herself admitted to being startled by how real Tilly seems. Aline's answer, they should be clearly labelled.

Well, obviously they should be, but equally, obviously, they won't be. With the internet as a training ground, of course, Tilly's going to take her clothes off, and Aline, this is not charmingly wacky or funny. I think that is just sinister. Aline openly states that we can set up an AI brain, but then doesn't fully understand how it learns and we aren't in control of its behaviour. But hey, she says, we don't understand human brains either,

so that's fine. No, it isn't, says Alison. She shouldn't kid herself that what she's enabling is benign or entirely ethical. The good thing about AI is that in order to know what's real, we'll have to go back to face-to-face meetings, handwritten letters, agreed code words, it's always Ken Bruce, isn't it?

Direct personal experiences, printed photo albums and physical books. Well, Alison, I hope that all of those things actually do better because of the arrival of AI. Like you, I think that search for the human experience and authenticity, I really, really hope it continues. Our generation's going to hugely miss it, aren't we? Because in exactly the same way that we were born

in an analogue world, and we found it difficult to, you know, get on the boat that is the digital world, I think we're going to really struggle with the complete immersion in AI because we're always going to miss what we had before. And we've talked about this, Jane and I quite a lot actually on the programme and on the podcast as to whether or not we will mind in our dotage being looked after by robots because that's definitely coming at us. And I think I'd be grateful for anybody taking care of me. I think it would, in a sense, release me from thinking that I was being a burden to my kids.

It might provoke in me the same empathy and reaction and gratitude as people do. And, I mean, a robot's in many ways not going to be as annoying as a partner. Because you can tell them, you can tell them off for doing things and they will change their behaviour. So I think it'll become, you know, robots are just going to become very addictive, don't you think? I do. I think, though, I'd prefer them not to look. like humans. I think if they look like humans, then it's scary. You know, when you see like the horror films and it's like the little girl robot and she's going crazy? Like, can we come up with like a different look for the robot? That's such a good idea. That's such a good

idea. Because actually if they had three arms and three legs, I mean they could do more stuff, couldn't they? Yeah, it'd be more useful as well. And then they'd be immediately identifiable. And maybe if they just always had a kind of shelf at arm height, you know, so they could always be It would, wouldn't it? They'd always be carrying things at the same time as doing things. Let's build our own off-air robot. What was I going to say?

Well, I did see a robot wouldn't forget, either would it? But I can see, sorry, that's the point. I can see how it would become addictive. And for people my age, I think that might be okay because we are probably going to use robots in our dotage to look after our personal care and stuff. I think younger people will look to them more for other things and that would worry me too.

You know what I mean. This one comes in from Holly. who says, I just wanted to say thank you to Fee, for repeatedly recommending Colin from accounts. Was I a bit boring? Did I go on about it too much? Holly, I'm sorry. It's taken me a while to get to it

and to persuade the husband to give it a go, but it's absolutely saved me in what has been the most stressful and difficult few weeks of my professional life. It's been the perfect time to discover such a funny, charming, clever, and slightly filthy, a filthy little comedy, which just took me away from everything

for a previous half an hour. I don't know why it wasn't an Australian accent. So thank you and please do recommend anything similar you might have seen. And Holly goes on to say, despite the strong language and the glorious filth, I was surprised to discover that my parents in their 70s and in my mum's case, quite judgy, had got into Colin from accounts before me and loved it too. They can be surprising, can't they, those septuagenarians. Other suggestions would definitely include Fisk, which is the most fantastic comedy about,

probate lawyer operating in the suburbs of Melbourne and Deadlock which is a fantastic kind of comedy crime caper set in New Zealand and I know that Jane has loved Pernil I don't know if I'm saying that right Pernille it's a Norwegian comedy about a midlife woman's orbit of teenage sons and relationships and all that kind of stuff I haven't watched that but Jane says that's fantastic So I hope some of those might do the trick too. Now, a tiny little bit of a challenge, a challenge for you as we head towards Christmas and to keep us all going as well. This is prompted by Jane, who said thank you so much for reminding me

of if it wasn't for the nights, this almost forgotten Abba song. Dancing around my kitchen now, remember playing this LP on our family summer holidays in Las Palmas, Grand Canaria. Oh, get you. Good memories on a rainy Thursday morning. So I think the album's Vue de Voo, isn't it? Are you an Abba fan, Hannah? I do like Habit.

My grand has a massive Aberfan, so it really reminds me with my granddad. I always have them playing. And it surprised me when I learnt that when I was shown. We got in the car and he had Super Trooper, lights are going to find you, he's bop in his head. Yeah, he loves her. I remember being rather disappointed, Hannah, when I found out that a Super Trooper was a light.

what it's a light it's the big it's the technical person oh I'm sorry I'm ruining your dreams too no no it's the technical name for the big light that they put on you know when you come on stage so when Abba come come on stage and it goes and it lights up the whole stage that's a super trooper

lights are going to find you so they feel for their light as we'll feel for our robots yeah very much so they're having a connection with an electrical force we've decided off the back of our discussions about all of this that we could do

with having another little playlist in the run up to Christmas so I've got the house to myself as being superb it has got so many fantastic bangers on it it goes from Odyssey to candy

staten to one direction all kinds of stuff is in there in just the 14 tracks so that is available on the podcast no sorry it's available on the playlist part of Spotify. If you type in the name of the podcast, bet with me, it's only Tuesday. So we thought, would you like to collaborate on another one in the run-up to Christmas,

which we will be calling, I'm hiding in my cupboard at Christmas. We will take the first 10 tracks and you, my friends, know exactly what we mean by this. We want the kind of songs where you can go and we don't want anything too melancholy or sad. we don't want Christmas songs at all but for that kind of half an hour 45 minutes where you pretend that you need to go and iron the napkins in a separate room because you're quite happily killer of your family

this is the playlist that we want so take us somewhere with your choices I'll put one in Hannah will put one in Rosie will put one in I'll contact Jane and I know that she will want to put one in and then we can have fun times together in the cupboard at Christmas

it's not a phrase I've ever said before at all. I want to say hello to Laura because Catherine has had some major surgery. I think by the time you listen to this and she wasn't able to come to fringe by the sea in North Berwick which was another one of our live shows. So let's give her a shout out and maybe we'd be able to put the new playlist on for her when she comes round because the nurse popped on a Disney playlist for several hours before when Catherine was in recovering she couldn't get the device to switch it off. That is cruel.

Nightmare. Yeah. Absolutely nightmare. So all of those great... So I'm not a huge fan of musical theatre. So that would just be my idea of absolute hell. I mean, even if it included songs from Hamilton, which people always speak about in a kind of reverential musical way, as if it's the Shakespeare of the musical world.

But I've listened to a couple of their songs. and they're still in the... Everything's a corral. And also they're very similar. They have a very similar style, all of them. Yeah. I see Lynn Manuel Miranda, he's the guy he wrote it, and the way he speaks, people kind of meme it now.

So like something new will come out, like the Lillian album. Yeah. And then someone will make it Hamiltonian and be like, who's meddling? Okay, oh, I like that. Well, that shows that you've definitely created a long-lasting hit, doesn't it if you're the meme that everything else is sinking into it's memorable yes yeah but i haven't

seen hamilton so you know forgive me because i'm just talking out of my wherever my left hand was and i'd just like to end we have got a guest actually so this just takes a little bit of explaining but i know that you're all going to be okay with this because you completely understand what's going on at the moment so this week on the podcast it'll be a combination of me and hannah and me and eve or should it be eve and i No, it would be me. I know one of our correspondents, Patricia, gets so angry when I get that wrong. I'm so sorry, Patricia, calm down, don't worry.

So that'll be the podcast for this week, and who knows what might happen next week. And because I'm doing the afternoon show with different people as well, so that's between 2 and 4 on Times Radio, available for free. If you download the Times Radio app, please come on board. Apart from anything else, you get the opportunity to win a 250-good Wix voucher, don't you, this week? with another edition of our Wix, Peacock competition, Thingme, Bobby. Yeah, and they've got very good Vax, I've seen. Very good fax.

Vacumes, yeah. Vacons? Yeah, is that not a usual song for vacuum? Vax. No, it probably is. I'm with a generation, I know, I'm still calling it a hoover. Yes, a hoover, yep. Vax.

Or a mechanical suction machine. It's probably not something you should go around saying anymore. They've got good vacuums, have they? Yeah, that's good to know. And drills. And drills, okay. Well, we are fully paid up members of the Wix fan club. But anyway, the afternoon show I'm doing with Roy Nika,

who is the Sunday Times' royal correspondent, and she knows everything about the royal family. She does that really, really clever thing. So when I ask her a question on air about the royal family, I can see that she is channeling 2% of her knowledge out of her brain and the rest she has to keep to herself for detailing at a future time or maybe never, ever, ever detailing at all

but she does it very well and she's also a superb journalist so we're doing the afternoon show today and the wonderful Rosie Wright joins me to do the afternoon show on Wednesday and Thursday which just means you'll hear a variety of voices in this podcast if you stay with us for the guest. God, it's exhausting, isn't it?

shopping and changing they're all wonderful wonderful people but Jane I do miss you right I'm going to end on OMG the great B&B challenge so can I just recommend this Judith Stafford is liking it a lot and I think I had another one

as well saying that they got on board with it to yes this one comes in from Melanie in Chichester who started the whole thing off when she mentioned escaped to the country and the fact that their houses were just quite off just with him, like, I'm washing up in the sink.

So the great B&B challenge, it's on Channel 4 at the moment, and it's running every day, and we're in finals week, and there have been lots of different couples. We're down to, I think, the last three couples or maybe four couples, and they are competing to actually win their own bed and breakfast to run somewhere in France. But it's just hilarious. I'm just going to read Tune this email, because you are completely on the money. Sir L'Ajean, Judith. OMG, the great B&B challenge is the best.

If this load of numb nuts can run a bed and breakfast, then so could my three little grandchildren and a third of them aren't even on solids. Who makes a packet curry in the midst of luscious, produce-laden French France? Why would you transport light blue, glittery, synthetic flowers to the lush green d'ordaigne? Why does that woman think her husband is flirting with the madame in the boulangerie

when he's clearly more interested in making roses out of kitchen roll and flouncing around doing magic tricks in a bit of a blouse. Why would anyone who can't even work out what cafe au lae means even contemplate running a business there? It's genius, I'm glued to it. The judges are all lovely, well-qualified and sane, despite making questionable decisions. However, it's what's best for telly in it.

Either way, I'm here for it. Bring on the new week's worth of clueless suckers. Judith, you win my email of the week and we're only on Tuesday. I completely and utterly agree. There is a couple who've made it through to the final. I'm disappointed that they're there. One of them hangs around like a ghost's fart,

just wittering at the guests with things like, here are your towels, here's some water. Would you like to see your room? No, I'm quite happy just stand in your hallway for the whole week. More of those will be delightful. We remain Jane and Fee at times.orgia if you'd like to get in touch. Ryan Nika will now welcome you

into the temporary world of the afternoon show to meet and greet Sebastian Folks. Sebastian Folks is one of this country's most acclaimed authors, best known for his sweeping wartime novels, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. He's also written a James Bond book and a Jeeves in Worcester comedy. But now, somewhat reluctantly, he's written about himself. Fires which burn brightly a life in progress

is a new collection of ten essays, charting Sebastian's life experiences. I first asked him why he decided to write a memoir now. I was reluctant because I just always think that somebody writing a memoir sounds rather self-important. And also, most memoirs are just so boring. There's very few I've read which are any good. There's always that terrible sentence

which begins something like my paternal grandfather, on the other hand, and, you know, the book falls from your lifeless fingers at that point. So what I've tried to do is I've put together 10 different essays on things which have meant a lot to me, things I've been passionate about, cared about, lived through, and they're sort of separate, and they're all essays with themes. And what they have in common is they're all, I'm the narrator. in all of them, and they are partly about me.

So it is really a memoir, but it's a memoir without the boring bits. And in terms of sort of timing, I mean, when I was reading the book, and there was a line that absolutely jumped off the page to me in the forward, which was you saying that at some point after the pandemic, you realised that people of a younger generation were struggling to understand what you were saying. It was as if the stars by which it always did now belong to a different sky. What did you mean by that in terms of it being a motivation to write this now? Well, I think two things. One, I think the pandemic was a big deal and the way we lived and changed the way we live.

And there's a slight sort of revisionist thing going on at the moment, which I find quite annoying about people saying, oh, I love lockdown. I had a great time. You know, you're mad to have had a great time, you know, with people dying all around you and ambulances screaming up the road and not able to see anyone. But it did make me think a lot about the, you know, the meanings of friendship. and this book is a lot about friends and friendship as well as just about me. But I think that next year is going to be this big year of reading because no young people seem to read books anymore and the charity that I'm a chair of the Charlotte Aitken Trust,

we're hoping to do something, a big project with schools next year as part of this. But I was, I think in my immediate world, publishing, writing, a lot of people left or were fired or resigned or retired during the pandemic. And it was difficult to pick up again. And when I was talking to sort of younger, newer colleagues, they didn't really seem to have read very much, anything really.

And I've had conversations with people about all sorts of literary things. And there is a sort of fundamental failure to understand even the most elementary things. You know, like what is the difference between a novel and a factual book. Some people of a younger generation seem to think that novel is just another word for book.

I had a long conversation with someone who runs an art gallery who'd very kindly credited a biography I'd written called The Fatal Englishman because one of the sections of that is about a painter called Christopher Wood. And in the catalogue to the gallery, she said, and also Sebastian Fox's novel, The Fatal Englishman.

And so I wrote a very friendly, polite, I'd say, for your information, it's actually, it's a biography, not a novel. And we had a bit of a to and fro. And eventually it became clear to me that this person just didn't understand the difference. You know, I think that most people go through their lives thinking that everything that happens to them is normal. And one of the reasons, one of the ways we have of surviving as a species is to normalize everything. And that's how we get through things. but I think I'd come to realize that my life had been a bit less normal than I'd thought and had now become a bit of a sort of antique, a bit of a curio.

I am someone whose understanding of life is built as much by what I've read as by what I've actually experienced. My understanding of people is based much more on Henry James and Jane Austen than it is on chatting to the neighbour over the fence. There won't be anyone like me again. I do you. Maybe that's a good thing, Roy. No.

I mean, on that point, Sebastian, you are a passionate advocate for reading more, particularly with young people. You've touched on what you're doing with your charity's work. Your big support of the Queen's Reading Room, of course Camilla is a huge advocate for encouraging more people to pick up books, particularly young people. What do you think has been lost by young people not reading enough? I mean, what's at risk if more young people don't turn to books? I think that if you haven't read

you know several hundred books your understanding of what it is to be alive is critically limited and you can see this in the speeches of politicians who haven't read anything and of you know celebrity reality TV show people they really struggle to deal with life except in the most infantile terms and you know you how can you possibly deal with questions of mortality, philosophy, kindness, how to live your life, how to understand other people, how to negotiate, navigate your way in the world if you haven't read Middle March. You mentioned just then that you realised in coming to write this book that perhaps your life hadn't been quite as normal as you had previously thought.

And I want to sort of touch on the issue of mental health, which, you know, you've written about a lot, you write about in this book, you explore in huge detail in human traces. It is a thread that runs through this book. You describe your, what you describe is a minor breakdown at Cambridge. I wanted to start by asking you on that sort of theme. Why is it you think we don't talk enough? Why is there still such stigma around mental health? Well, I think we talk far too much about it, actually.

But I think mental illness actually is, I don't know. When did we stop calling it mental illness and start calling it mental health, by the way? That's a bit of a footnote. I think, no, I think there's the whole thing has gone. completely out of proportion and half the world is signed off sick because they're feeling sad and that's a terrible thing and 21 year olds who are finding it difficult to find a way in the world don't need to have a label slapped on them and to be stuck on benefits forever they need a hand around the shoulder and

they need a sometimes a kick up the backside they need friends they need parents they need help and chat and to try harder some of them of course then there is the matter of serious mental illness which is that's a different matter altogether, and that is a dark and difficult subject, which, as you said, I looked into the beginnings of psychiatry in human traces, and it's not, and there's a book, there's an essay in where my heart used to beat, which is called Sand in the Gears, which looks at the whole issue of why human beings are so mentally frail, why we seem to go wrong so much, and, you know, I go into a lot of detail there, which I can't go into here. But essentially, I think it's to do with the way that we have evolved and why we're like cars, you know, cars, the axles are fine, the camshaft is fine, the pistons work fine, but the new electronic warning systems are truly terrible. I mean, my car bleeps at me all the time telling me this, that and the other, and sometimes it's right and sometimes it's wrong. But this is the latest stuff that's come into your car, and it's rather like that with, with, you know, you know, human beings, legs and arms and stuff, the liver and the lungs seem to work pretty well on

the whole. But, you know, the last thing to come in, human consciousness, that's this thing that differentiates us from all other creatures. That is not really firmly bedded in yet, and it is fragile and it is frail. You write about your breakdown at Cambridge in the 1970s. Can you just talk a little bit about what that was like as a young man when presumably not a lot of people were understanding of what mental illness was in the 1970s and people probably didn't talk about that much. Was that a pretty frightening experience? Yeah, well, as I say in the book, you know, the thing about a lot of illnesses is that you can have quite florid and unpleasant symptoms, but the underlying condition is really not very, it's not very severe. So, I mean,

I was just having some sort of difficulties adjusting to the grown-up. upworld, I suppose. And it doesn't help if you drink a lot of alcohol and take a lot of drugs. So I would specifically say to parents of 19 and 20 year olds, don't let them smoke genetically modified skunk because that is a sure way of screwing up their brains. Yeah, I was sure it was it was difficult, but people go through difficult times and I got over it pretty quickly and I've been, you know, absolutely writer's reign for decades. There's a lot in the book about family and how your relationships with your family,

how family has shaped you. How important has your family been in terms of your writing and what you've come to write about? Completely unimportant, I would say, because I don't really write in an autobiographical way. But I think what my family did for which I am very grateful

was that they were there and I had two parents at home two very nice, loving, kind parents and they gave me stability and they gave me books to read and they cared about education and so on and they were a constant sort of stabilising

kindly influence as parents ought to be but you know all too seldom are and I have an elder brother who was a great play playmate when we were young and a great friend when we were older. I mean, I played tennis with him only two days ago, actually. And so, yes, so they're very important in the sense of background stability and friendship and laughter.

But in terms of what I've actually written in fiction, I mean, that's all from a different place completely. Very interesting sort of descriptions of your time at school, Elstree and then Wellington, which certainly shaped you in many ways. I don't get the sense that you particularly enjoyed either from the essays in the book. Those schools are both still around now. I mean, what's your take on the fact that parents are still sending their children away

to boarding schools? Well, they've changed completely. You know, I was in the 1960s, and, you know, it's a different world. These schools have the same names, but they're completely unrecognizable. You know, Wellington College, when I was there, in the 60s was a very second-rate school,

rather anarchic, very badly run second-rate academically. It is now an absolute beacon of what a private school can be. It's co-ed, it's highest quality academically, it has all sorts of partnerships and outreach. It has schools in China and the Far East. It's a sort of example of how modern education can be. But it's just bad luck that, you know, I was there I was there when it was an absolute pit.

But, and Elsry school, the little school I went to before that, is a marvellous school. I was at a carol service when, with the choir from that school a few days ago. And again, it's co-ed and boarding is entirely optional. The kids don't have to board. They just long to go to board because then they have sort of Saturday night feasts and videos and so on. So it's all changed. But, you know, you can't complain about the time in which you were born.

because basically a lot of what fires which burned brightly is about is my parents generation, that wartime generation, what they put up with, what they went through in order that their children, i.e. people like of my age born in the 50s and 60s, how we could prosper and benefit from what they went through. And by and large, being born in what the so-called baby boom generation has been an absolute blessing. You know, my grandfather fought in the First World War, my father and the second, but my brother and I managed to skip the Third World War because it didn't come. And finally, in this country, in the 80s and 90s, there was actually some money. I mean, not much and not for long, but a little bit before the bankers and the hedge funds had trousers it all

in 2007. But, you know, so my parents never had any money. That generation, they never did. They were taxed 90% as well as carrying all their war wounds. So I can't complain that I was it was unfortunate timing in my school days when the rest of my life has been the most incredibly good fortune in timing. You've sat on government committees about commemorating and remembering what you mentioned the wartime generation went through and war. Do you think there's a risk that younger people, not only through not reading, but just the younger generations have forgotten what that generation endured? No, I don't think so really. I think that the commemoration of the First World War, the centenary, was really, was really

well done, very well handled and I was really pleased to be to play a tiny part in that on the government advisory group, particularly the Battle of the Somme in 2016, the centenary of that for which I wrote the narrative of the service and I wrote a speech that was given by Prince William. It was great and I do think the government got all that right and I think the ceremonies were good and I think there was an enormous amount of research anyway, into how much younger people, schools and universities and so on had increased their understanding of at least what took place in 1914, 18. And I think likewise with D-Day and the Second World War, I think the fact that our children have taught so little history because it was

removed from the core curriculum by Tony Blair, I think, is a disaster. But the little thing that remains on is very much the Second World War and I think maybe Henry the Eighth. Well, I think everything else has gone, hasn't it? But no, I think those memories are being very well looked after at the moment. I mean, War is something that you have written about in several of your books. I have to ask about Birdsong. A book that I first came across at school and studied at school and it has touched so many people, I'm sure so many of our listeners, would have read it. When you have written a book like Bird Song and you have a book like Bird Song in your back catalogue, is it a relief to have something like that that's always there or does it hang over as a slight expectation

people are always expecting you to kind of write something even bigger no i like i like having it there there was a lovely 30th anniversary edition brought out by my publisher which really looked wonderful and i turned around you know reading from it and talking to people i sometimes think it's a bit like a train and um you need a locomotive um as well as new carriages and dining cars and all sorts of fancy bits and pieces but you know you need an engine to do the shunting and the pulling and the pushing and if if birdsong has performed that function in all the books i've written it's the one that people have come back to it's the one that sold the most copies that's completely fine by me you know it's it's it's quite good really i think you know i haven't

read it for a bit but last time i looked at it seemed to seem to be okay seemed to hold up all right it's That's pretty good. Pires, which burned brightly with the book that, you know, the memoir I've just finished, I mean, we've talked a lot about war and madness. And it's quite, it's meant to be funny, Royer. I hope you did have the odd laugh. I laugh in a lot of your books. Don't you worry.

As you get older, one of the things you realize is how life is, you know, is full of terrible disasters and I despair of human nature. But it is basically absurd. It is funny. And one of the ways I've sort of got through my own life is this sort of dichotomy, if you like. It's concentrating very furiously, very seriously and very hard on the work. But treating myself as a bit of a joke, which is I think people who don't realize that they are a bit of a joke are intolerable to be with and probably must be very unhappy as well. On the subject of laughs, if anyone hasn't read Sebastian's book, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, I highly recommend it.

It is one of the funniest books I've ever read. I have to ask you, Sebastian, also about James Bond. Because you wrote, in 2008, you wrote Devil Maker, an incredibly fun. I just loved it. Continuation novel, I think, is described as with the full blessing of Ian Fleming's estate. And I think at the time I'm writing saying it became Penguin's fastest ever fiction hardback novel. I mean, it was great fun. What do you make of the Bond franchise now being taken on by Amazon?

I have no views at all, actually. I don't believe it. Sorry to disappoint you. I have no idea who the new actor will be. And, you know, I'm not that interested, really. I mean, I wish they would do an adaptation of my Bond book. I think Sam Anders was interested in doing it, but it never got going. But there it is.

Double my care. That should be the new basis for the new Bond film. I don't care how much they muck it up. You can have a female James Bond. you can have a 158-year-old James Bond. Oh, you could have a female James Bond. You'd be happy with that. I couldn't care less,

as long as they pay me tons and tons of money to use my book as a basis for it. I couldn't care less. Just finally, Sebastian, now that you have written a memoir of sorts, I know it's a collection of essays, but was it? It is a memoir, Roy.

You know, I've got over myself now. Okay. Did you find it cathartic at all, or therapeutic at all, writing it? No. Did it unlock anything that you did that you sort of didn't know at the time? I think only not what I was writing, but in retrospect, looking back at it, the publication of it, which I was rather anxious about,

because as I say I didn't want to come across as self-important, but I think it's been rather gratifying. The messages I've had, the emails, the letters have been so heartwarming from people of my generation, and indeed from a younger generation being absolutely response has been fantastic so that's good but I had a very interesting little email from a guy called John Mullen

who's a professor of English at University College London said I love the book it's really you in all its quirkishness and I wrote back saying dear John I never really thought of myself as quirky but anyway I shall wear that badge with pride now

yes I think I have seen a sort of aspect of myself, which I hadn't been aware of before. I've always thought of myself as tremendously rational and balanced and even-handed and so on. But maybe I'm quirkier than I thought. But that's been also, that's been fun to find that out. I mean, really good fun. It's been a very positive experience, the whole thing. Good.

And finally, is there a new Sebastian Figgs novel underway or book? Yeah, I finished the final edits yesterday. It's coming out next September. We haven't settled on the title yet, but it's probably going to be called something like Out of Eden or Farewell to Eden. What's about? It's about longing and transcendence and belief and religion and the meaning of life, just a few little tiny little themes I thought, you know,

play around with. It's set in post-war Britain in a girls' boarding school and then goes back to Palestine in the last days of the British. British mandate in 1946, 47. So, and it's about all that. And that was

Ryanika in conversation with Sebastian Fawkes, Fuchs, I've given you all of the options and his latest book is called Fires which burned brightly. A very final email

because it would seem completely and utterly suitable comes in from Amanda, who is currently on an extended break on the beautiful peninsula of the Peloponnese in Greece. although very warm and sunny daytime

night time falls early to pass the time I've started from series one watching Shetland and although riveting I've got one curious observation at the end of the numerous phone calls that the characters make in every episode not one ever signs off with a thanks goodbye, ring you back

or speak later or in fact anything to indicate that the call is ending they just cut the call I've got visions of confused people on the receiving end looking perplexed into their mobiles not realising that the call has ended I've taken to saying bye on the caller's behalf and I shouted it 12 times during last night's episode

once noticed you can't unnotice it thanks for the laughs well Amanda last laugh on you because did you shout goodbye I can't hear you 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.

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